Maglev History
The maglev train was first conceived in 1905 by Robert Goddard in a college freshman engineering class paper. Soon thereafter work advancing the concept was done by Emile Bachelet a French engineer who patented a levitation railcar in 1912.
In 1930, the concept was advanced by German Hermann Kemper patents. In 1966, in the USA, James Powell and Gordon Danby proposed the first practical system for magnetically levitated transport, using superconducting magnets.
The Japanese started their research on maglev transportation in the beginning of the 1970s. After many years of experiments the Japanese constructed their first test line, 7 km in 1975, and finished it in 1977. The Japanese prototype of maglev train used repulsive forces to levitate the train, known as electrodynamic suspension, EDS.
The Germans also started research on maglev train in early 1970s. It took them ten years to complete the construction of the first track model. In 1993 the longest nonstop test running was 1.674 km. That same year the speed record was 450 km/h. In China, 2003, they finished a 30 km long German variant of maglev train in Shanghai, that propels by attractive forces, electromagnetic suspension, EMS . This is the first commercial magnetic levitation train in the world. This project cost over 1 billion dollars.
One of the world's first operating systems, the Shanghai TransRapid LSM System has proven to have the highest reliability factor of all existing LIM-based rail systems running at 99.1% and is the most reliable public transportation system in the world.
In the mid-1990’s General atomics Corporation developed a permanent magnet maglev system. The root of the system design stems from General Atomics' work for the military on the Electro-Magnetic Launching System (EMALS). EMALS will be part of the newest aircraft carriers, where a 78,000 lbs. fighter jet will be launched, accelerating from 0 to 200 mph in under two seconds.