No, it really isn’t. TSB has actual advantages. In a sense it’s roughly Transrapid technology scaled down to ~150km/h, city and regional operation. IIRC they said the tech scales to max. 200km/h.
One advantage is how cheap elevated ways are with the thing: Ordinary train wheels are point loads which need quite sturdy reinforcement to properly distribute the forces. Of course that won’t matter if you build the thing on the ground or dig tunnels.
Also Berlin’s old maglev was quite successful (given the circumstances) and beloved. The reason it didn’t survive is because it was made redundant when east and west subway infrastructure was connected up again after reunification, the track was simply in the wrong place.
Another only apparent Gadgetbahn is Wuppertal’s hanging monorail: It makes perfect sense in Wuppertal – and probably also only there. It’s a very narrow valley and over long stretches the only sensible place to build rail public transit was over the river.
No, it really isn’t. TSB has actual advantages. In a sense it’s roughly Transrapid technology scaled down to ~150km/h, city and regional operation. IIRC they said the tech scales to max. 200km/h.
One advantage is how cheap elevated ways are with the thing: Ordinary train wheels are point loads which need quite sturdy reinforcement to properly distribute the forces. Of course that won’t matter if you build the thing on the ground or dig tunnels.
Also Berlin’s old maglev was quite successful (given the circumstances) and beloved. The reason it didn’t survive is because it was made redundant when east and west subway infrastructure was connected up again after reunification, the track was simply in the wrong place.
Another only apparent Gadgetbahn is Wuppertal’s hanging monorail: It makes perfect sense in Wuppertal – and probably also only there. It’s a very narrow valley and over long stretches the only sensible place to build rail public transit was over the river.
Thanks for your nuanced contrapoints in this thread. I cannot judge wether it’s true, but I appreciate a different perspective.