Internal Dialogue

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been fascinated by trains. When I’m asked about my boyhood dreams, I never have a good answer – simply because I can’t remember. But if I had to guess, being a train engineer/operator would probably be at the top of the list.

Before I continue I want to say that being fascinated by something does not always mean that it’s automatically a hobby as well. I’m fascinated by certain aspects of rail transport (especially high speed rail and future technologies), but it’s far from being a hobby. I don’t care that much about ‘regular’ trains so to say, nor do I even know too many details about every locomotive/train out there.

Having said that, I do enjoy travelling by train. The Netherlands has one of the busiest rail networks in the world, and it’s the most important form of public transportation we have in our country. Although I said I don’t really consider it a hobby of mine, I do try to keep up with the latest developments in my country, such as orders for new train(sets) and the effort to replace several large train stations. But this is actually a recently acquired interest: long before I was interested in the Dutch rail network, I loved high speed rail.

The fascination probably started when I still was a a child, because when you open my childhood scrapbooks you’ll encounter countless pictures of the French TGV. And obviously I wasn’t just fascinated by it’s beautifully streamlined looks, but also by it’s tremendous speed when compared to regular trains. Honestly, I have no idea why I like high speed trains so much, as in, I have no idea what it is that attracts me. Perhaps it’s a combination of their elegance, the comfort when compared to cars and the general male obsession with speed. And there’s also the possibilities: although over the years the design, safety and fuel efficiency of cars have improved, not much has changed in the last fifty years. And the speed is still the same. Yet trains have evolved tremendously, and there’s so much more to come.

A couple of years ago, my eye caught sight of Maglev: magnetically levitated trains. Everyone probably already knows about these trains, but if you want you can obviously find more information over at Wikipedia. Basically, there are two ‘versions’: the German Transrapid, and the Japanese JR-Maglev. The former is probably the most famous, but the latter is the most technologically advanced.

It’s design is simply gorgeous! In 2003 this trainset achieved a world record speed of 581 km/h. There are a lot of videos out there of this test train in action, but it was hard to find one that specifically showed the world record attempt. I did find this one, which is a news report about the record. And if you like what you see, I recommend you also watch this short video about a public test run. Although from the inside it seems fast, only the shots taken from the outside give you an idea of how fast 500 km/h actually is. It’s more than half the speed of a passenger plane!

Unfortunately, it’ll be a long time before we see these kind of trains in action. So far, China is the only country in the world to have a short maglev line (based on the Transrapid) in operation. There have been many proposals for new maglev lines from all over the world, but it doesn’t look like this technology is really economically feasible – yet.

Until the time that these trains do become a reality, we’ll have to make do with projects like the HSL-Zuid. It might not be magnetically floating at near aircraft speeds, but it sure is cool to finally have our first high speed rail in the Netherlands. And when maglev trains finally do become feasible, I already know what my next dream wil be…