A train is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives, though some are self-propelled, such as multiple units or railcars. Passengers and cargo are carried in railroad cars, also known as wagons or carriages. Trains are designed to a certain gauge, or distance between rails. Most trains operate on steel tracks with steel wheels, the low friction of which makes them more efficient than other forms of transport.
A linear motor is an electric motor that has had its stator and rotor "unrolled", thus, instead of producing a torque (rotation), it produces a linear force along its length. However, linear motors are not necessarily straight. Characteristically, a linear motor's active section has ends, whereas more conventional motors are arranged as a continuous loop.
On 3 June 1998, an ICE 1 train on the Hannover-Hamburg railway near Eschede in Lower Saxony, Germany derailed and crashed into an overpass that crossed the railroad, which then collapsed onto the train. 101 people were killed and at least 88 were injured, making it the second-deadliest railway disaster in German history after the 1939 Genthin rail disaster, and the world's worst ever high-speed rail disaster.
Landkreis Emsland is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany named after the river Ems. It is bounded by the districts of Leer, Cloppenburg and Osnabrück, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the district of Bentheim in Lower Saxony, and the Netherlands.
Transrapid is a German-developed high-speed monorail train using magnetic levitation. Planning for the system started in the late 1960s, with a test facility in Emsland, Germany inaugurated in 1983. In 1991, technical readiness for application was approved by the Deutsche Bundesbahn in cooperation with renowned universities.
Maglev is a system of rail transport whose rolling stock is levitated by electromagnets rather than rolled on wheels, eliminating rolling resistance.
The M-Bahn or Magnetbahn was an elevated Maglev train line operating in Berlin, Germany, experimentally from 1984 and in passenger operation from 1989 to 1991. The line was 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) in length, and featured three stations, two of which were newly constructed. Presumed to be the future of rail transit in Berlin, the line was built to fill a gap in the West Berlin public transport network created by the construction of the Berlin Wall. It was rendered redundant by the reunification of Berlin and was closed to enable reconstruction of the U2 line. It was Europe's only operational maglev line to this date.
The Shanghai maglev train (SMT) or Shanghai Transrapid is a magnetic levitation train (maglev) line that operates in Shanghai, China. The line uses the German Transrapid technology. The Shanghai maglev is the world's first commercial high-speed maglev and has a maximum cruising speed of 300 km/h (186 mph). Prior to May 2021 the cruising speed was 431 km/h (268 mph), at the time this made it the fastest train service in commercial operation.
UK Ultraspeed was a proposed high-speed magnetic-levitation train line between London and Glasgow, linking 16 stations including Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle and six airports. It was rejected in 2007 by the UK government, in favour of conventional high-speed rail. The company behind the proposal ceased efforts to promote it in early 2013.
Construction of the first high-speed rail in Germany began shortly after that of the French LGVs. However, legal battles caused significant delays, so that the German Intercity-Express (ICE) trains were deployed ten years after the TGV network was established. Germany has around 1,658 kilometers of high speed lines.
The Emsland Transrapid Test Facility is a defunct testing site for Transrapid maglev trains in Emsland in the west of Lower Saxony, Germany.
Lähden is a municipality in the Emsland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany.
Lathen is a municipality in the Emsland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the location of the Emsland Transrapid Test facility, a testing site for Transrapid maglev trains.
Lathen is a railway station located in Lathen, Lower Saxony, Germany. The station lies on the Emsland Railway and the train services are operated by WestfalenBahn. Lathen is also the location of the Transrapid Maglev train track.
Krauss-Maffei's Transurban was a 12-passenger automated guideway transit (AGT) mass transit system based on a maglev guideway. Development started in 1970 as one of the many AGT and PRT projects that followed in the wake of the HUD reports of 1968. Its selection as the basis of the GO-Urban system in Toronto in 1973 made it well known in the industry; it would have been the basis of the first large-area AGT mass transit network in the world. Technical problems cropped up during the construction of the test track, and the sudden removal of funding by the West German government led to the project's cancellation in late 1974. The Ontario government completed development and installation of a non-maglev version, today known as the Bombardier Advanced Rapid Transit.
The Incheon Airport Maglev was a maglev line in South Korea that opened on 3 February 2016 and closed on 1 September 2023. It was the world's second commercially operating unmanned urban maglev line after Japan's Linimo. The trains were lighter, cutting construction costs in half. The majority of construction was completed by November 2012.
The CRRC 600 is a high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train under development in China, using German Transrapid technology under license from Thysenkrupp. The first trainset was unveiled in July 2021 at the CRRC Qingdao Sifang factory in Qingdao. The train is planned to reach 600km/h, which would make it one of the fastest trains in the world.
