DN Opinion. Completely unrealistic to build motorways in Sweden

the DN published on 5 February a letter to the editor, where the author claimed that the motorways would be the most effective and cheapest solution for the new railroad lines that are planned.

There is a belief in quite wide circles to magnetbanor and motorways could be created at low costs. Motorways are said to be able to run in the 500-600 km / h in regular operation.

the Motorways can be fascinating, but unfortunately is not realistic. Development and experimentation with motorways has been going on for over 50 years, but the systems have not yet reached the level of maturity that they have gained any significant commercial successor.

there was far past plans to build a magnetbana between Hamburg and Berlin. This project went bankrupt when it became too expensive, and uncertain. Later sketched it on more modest projects, including the in Munich to the airport. It was also too expensive, so although the project fell.

The German system has been built in Shanghai with a 30.5 km long path from a halvcentralt location out to one of the airports. It was inaugurated in 2004. The system is capable of running 430 km an hour, but today the greater part of the time lowered the speed to 300 kilometres per hour for reasons of cost.

magnetic rod in Shanghai was conceived as a full-scale test before the big järnvägsinvesteringar that China planned. After the experience in Shanghai, it was decided to proceed with conventional trains and railways. Nothing has emerged to change that decision.

slightly different technical systems (Super-Conducting Maglev) as it plans to build on the 44-mile long stretch of the Tokyo‒Nagoya‒Osaka. The project is costed at approximately 750 billion in today's money.

If you count on the cost to the 77 miles of new Swedish main lines (Stockholm‒Gothenburg/Malmö), there would be about 1,300 billion sek. With a more normal proportion of tunnels in Sweden, you could end up at around 1.000 billion.

There is no exact figure, but indicates vartåt it is leaning. Here at home, we are discussing about our new railroad lines shall be allowed to cost 200 billion.

the cost is that you must install the powerful electromagnets to drive the train. In addition, the further magnet system, both to keep the train in place laterally and to lift the train above the track.

These advanced systems should be installed and maintained in the entire length. It also requires comprehensive protection of the strong magnetic fields. In China, which tried the German technology, has declined to build on this, among other things, due to the strong magnetic fields in the surrounding area.

A claim in populärdebatten is that the maintenance costs are low, because ”there won't be any wear and tear” in the magnetic field. The latter is certainly true, but the maintenance costs of the German system lies elsewhere, namely in the track, as it requires a superspår with very tight geometric tolerances.

too shaky. The technology requires that there is no suspension between the magnets and the resandeutrymmen.

Conventional modern trains and railways are very energy efficient and has been shown to have a very high level of security. This also applies to speeds of around 300 kilometres an hour.

Claims about the magnettågens low costs for construction and maintenance lack of intelligence. They are also untested on a larger scale.

the Motorways is with the current known technology is completely unrealistic for Sweden. With conventional train speeds of 250-350 kilomteer in the hour, we will far. It is also the case for modern trains out there in the world today.