I know very few of you here know little about the Maglev in Japan because news just never gets translated

But the new M10 cartridges for Chuo Shinaknsen got released today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3l7S0FModE

It seems to be a test bed mostly as the interiors aren't fancy and they're going to be testing the Projector system, the new magnets that don't require Helium cooling and the new sharkskin unpainted skin thats supposed to give 1% more performance.

Since I know there very little knowledge about it here some resources they're all in Japanese but translation tools these days are fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/@linear-train - This guy is following the construction of the tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/@-JR/videos - Offical JR channel with some footage of the digging and trains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_B3FYceL6o - Youtuber coments a test ride.

>>2049628 (OP)

>>2049628 (OP)
Maglev is by far the worst meme in transportation. JR Central will probably go bankrupt before this thing gets completed.

>>2049632
Anon it's kind of funny you can say that did you ever look at one of the reports?
https://global.jr-central.co.jp/en/company/ir/annualreport/_pdf/annualreport2024.pdf
They since their beginning they operated on a gigantic 25-50% profit margin.
For 2024 a year where tourism and society returned to normal from Covid
Operating Revenue $9.478 billion
Profit $2.428 billion
And that is with the Chuo Shinaknsen loan!

I honestly don't know what would ever come even close. No other JR Company has this shit of service yet generates this much profit. Everyone else has to scrunge by on Real Estate, Local Lines, Fancy Overpriced Express trains.

They could have done so much to improve local lines, more lines in Nagoya, double tracking Minobu Line, they're only now after 30 years installing Toicas on the Kofu Minobu line part.

Instead of Electrifying lines they built new Disel Hybrid trains the HC85 series.
Their fleet of trains is ancient on their what maybe 12 or 13 conventional lines half of them being electrified. Instead of channeling their profits towards helping the locals in their JR central area they're building the Chuo. Everyone I know on the Minobu line makes fun of it compared to the Chuo line.

>>2049634
>They could have done so much to improve local lines, more lines in Nagoya, double tracking Minobu Line, they're only now after 30 years installing Toicas on the Kofu Minobu line part.
>Instead of Electrifying lines they built new Disel Hybrid trains the HC85 series.
>Their fleet of trains is ancient on their what maybe 12 or 13 conventional lines half of them being electrified. Instead of channeling their profits towards helping the locals in their JR central area they're building the Chuo. Everyone I know on the Minobu line makes fun of it compared to the Chuo line.
Well, that's the natural consequence of privatizing JNR. A for-profit operator will always neglect marginally profitable local lines in favour of big-ticket projects.
What I'm really curious about is how much more expensive tickets for the Chuo Shinkansen will be compared to the Tokaido Shinkansen. That alone will determine whether the project is a success or not.

>>2049637
Tiny. 700 yen more compared to current to Nagoya price and 1000 more for Osaka

>>2049634
yeah and JNR was profitable until the tokaido shinkansen opened, what's your point? taxpayers are still paying off the jnr debt lmao

>>2049645
The Tokaido Shinkansen was profitable, though. It was the Joetsu Shinkansen that sunk JNR. The Tokyo-Osaka corridor is the rail equivalent of a goldmine, demand is just so high that it's nearly impossible to be in the red.

>>2049645
>>2049646
Your both right and wrong.

JNR failed for many reasons most of the them are political. It was overstaffed x3, it had to keep fares low and run unprofitable lines because of local politicians, it had compete with cars and airplanes, all that while existing in the bubble era when land prices were skyhigh, wages were astronomical and people wanted more and more.

If you're talking Shinkansen Strictly Joetsu was done by 1981. Hokuriku is the problem an offshoot of Joetsu that began building and it was incredibly tunnel heavy, then at the same time they had the Kyushu Shinaknen going and Tohoku was begin constructed.

Tohoku was sort of a California HSR type situation where the first part that opened was nowhere to nowhere Saitama to Sendai and then Morioka in 82. You had to board the 新幹線リレー号185系 much like you do now when you ride to Sapporo with the Super Hokutou.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TDmP3jcoYpQ
Then you had the start the Tokyo Northwards section to be used by all of them at the heights of the bubble era.

>>2049645
But my point is very simple Hokkaido Shinaknsen delays to 2038, Chou to Nagoya to 2032, Tsugurga to Kyoto ???, Nagasaki to Hakkata(Fukuoka) ???, Okayama to Shikoku (Takamatsu, Matsuyama, Koichi ) ????, literally no plans by JR West for a Sanin Shinkansen (Northen Sanyo), there no plans by JR Kyushu for a Higashi Kyushu Shinaknsen, the Sapporo–Asahikawa extention of the Hokkaido one is also shelved.

All the companies are fiscally responsible and not chasing dreams. They all delayed or scaled back projects to keep themselves profitable.

But out of all these JR Central is by far the most profitable and most "free riding" one as it controls the most profitable line and does very little for the local lines. This is why Nagoya is sadly mostly boring suburb car city that nobody visits. Yes they have strong private operators like Meitetsu, Kintetsu, Aonami Line but

>>2049652
For a metro city of 10 million people it has 5 metro lines and Kyoto has 2 while Tokyo has 13 lines and 60% of them are through lines to other operators going to Saitama,Kanagawa and Chiba .

>>2049652
looking at the jnr debts and seeing how little the huge capex of the shinkansen and the tokyo commuter network quad tracking/other upgrades contributed to the debt compared to labor and operational costs of rural lines is truly baffling. these are megaprojects that end up forming only like 10% of the debt total. literally how can you manage the rest so poorly. glad they were able to resettle the vast majority of excess employees into other government agencies and large companies to avoid massive layoffs

>>2049653
speaking of metro, do you know what caused the shift from fully tokyo metro or toei owned lines to extensions and new lines each getting a new company owned by almalgamtions of local governments and small stakes from private operators? you know like rinkai, saitama rapid railway, minatomirai, tsukuba express, etc

>>2049657
I mean the country I'm from still operates this way Croatia. Our HŽ is the biggest money hole in the coutnry all while providing one of the lowest fucking rail services in Europe. The only good part it the Zagreb Suburban and even that has too many issues there not even a railway to the airport. It's all LDP and in our case HDZ politics. Center Right European Style politics that wins by appealing to rural voters by giving them free stuff.

>>2049658
Funny you mentioning this in a thread with JNR. Thats exactly the reasons. All of these were JNR projects dreamed up in the 1960s and 1970s as future expansion projects.

I'll probably hit the word limit so a bit of history on each one.

Rinkai : This was supposed to be part of a greater Tokyo JNR circle connecting Tokaido Main Line, Chuo Main Line, Sobu Main Line, Joban Line. Think of this as Yamanote V2 20km away from Yamanote. Called 東京外環状線 Tokyo Sotokanjo Line. The idea was to have a line that could deliver both freight and passengers to the remote places in Tokyo/Saitama/Chiba without any issues.The Rinkai line specifically started as the JR Keiyo Line Freight extension. Used to avoid the busy and expensive Central tokyo it would tunnel to the other side.

As Tokyo grew and grew Freight became a secondary concern and these projects developed into whats today Musashino Line, Keiyo Line. There is still the freight only part running from Tsurumi to Fuchuummachi as part of the Musashino Freight line but whas was supposed to be the Keiyo Freight equivalent got converted into the Rinkai Line because Odaiba in general the whole place became residental and popular.

>>2049658
>saitama rapid railway
Japan has these sort of 5~10 year plans for railways.
This was proposed first in 1972, but Saitama at that time wasn't really all that populated and it wasn't a very cost effective line. So it was scraped.
It was revised in 1985 as projected numbers put Eastern Saitama and Northwest Chiba as big bottleneck with increasingly heavy rushhours. With the situation worsening over time.

This report envisioned several projects. This is whats basically the groundwork for todays Tokyo. Almost all lines proposed were built.

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Joban New Line run by JNR
Unamed Adachi Raiway that became Nippori-Toneri Liner as replacment for incredibly overcrowded buses. It stipulated a "medium capacity system" not full size trains trains.
Saikyo Line Extentions to Takasaki Line
New Subway that would become the Asakusa Line
New Subway that would become the Mita Line
New Subway that would become the Hanzmon LIne
New Subway that would be a loop one, downgraded to Oedo Line
New Subway that would become the Fukutoshin Line
A line conencting Chiba New Town to the Airport became the Hokuso Line
Keikyu Airport Line extention to Haneda

So this document is the origin of all the lines you mentioned.

This document was so compelling and sort of drove public opinion that most local governments tried to get it done at any cost.

In the case of the Oedo line the cost was a massive downgrade of the line in both capacity and size. It's loud small and deep. By far the worst subway in Tokyo. I had to ride it with open windows during covid and my ears will never recover.