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Unlucky politics

After the Conservative flirtation with mag-lev trains, perhaps we should not be surprised that a crash in Germany has killed at least 15 people.

Their support for Mag-lev, always looked like a gimmick- now it seems positively ill-judged

Comments

Will said…
Much as I hate to undermine a case against the Tories, if we rejected every mode of transport less than 100% safe, we would never leave home.
6:35 pm
Etzel Pangloss said…
That was swift you to condemn the mag-lev. Is it because the tories flirted with the idea, it's very expensive or that you believe the technology is inherently dodgy?
6:55 pm
Anonymous said…
Oh Cicero, if we had your way we'd be back to the chariots... MagLev is the way of the future. Remember how many crashes there were of various other transport advances -- like the airplane? The automobile? And do read the story -- the crash was not caused by a failure in MagLev technology, it was an obstruction on the rails. If anything it's a failure of the sensory aspects. I'd be more worried on the bloody DLR after this.
10:49 pm
Cicero said…
It is expensive and the technology is unproven.

Far rather extend the high speedlines from London to the north and west- lines that can connect with the tunnel and the rest of Europe than waste time an an unproven gimmick.
9:24 am
Bishop Hill said…
The way I read the report, the crash was caused by a collision with a maintenance wagon. Presumably this is nothing to with the propulsion system used, but rather is a signalling problem. Certainly they seem to be saying that the cause was human error rather than a technical fault.

I agree that it's an expensive gimmick though.
1:32 pm
Etzel Pangloss said…
The locomotive was cosidered to be an expensive gimmick by many. What's use a machine that would require the nation to be railed?
2:04 pm
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