IN THE next few weeks another maglev train is due to arrive at the Transrapid test site in the Emsland in north Germany. The latest in a long line of vehicles intended to prove that magnetic levitation for high speed service is commercially viable, TR08 is a three-car unit built by Adtranz at Kassel. Precisely what it will achieve is open to question, as plans for a 292 km Hamburg to Berlin maglev are still, despite countless official go-aheads, up in the air.
German Railway, the designated operator of Hamburg - Berlin maglev services, announced at its July 7 board meeting that it can ’at least cover its costs’, despite a revision of traffic forecasts from 13 million trips a year to just 6·3 million. But DB took care to reiterate that it could not accept a higher financial commitment or further risk, and pointed out that the government’s promise to spend DM6·1bn on the guideway still leaves between DM2bn and DM3bn to find. Given that neither government nor industry wants to spend more, there is only one logical thing left to do. But on past performance fudge and fiddle always needs less courage than scrap and forget.
