I was back in Shanghai last week and had a few hours to kill at the airport, so tried out their MagLev (Magnetic Levitation) High Speed Train which runs between Pudong International airport and the city centre.

Entering the station you have your bags screened, similar to when you check in for a flight. Passengers are not allowed onto the platform until the train has arrived and has came to a complete stop. Even then there are barriers all the way along the platform edges, with openings only where the train doors are. It wasn't clear if this was "normal" for trains in China or if this was a special arrangement just because this train was a MagLev.

Inside the train has two classes of travel. This is the "VIP" class car.

The train pulled away cleanly and was quickly out of the station. This was the view looking back to the airport terminal

From there on out things got quite interesting. The acceleration is brisk but not uncomfortable. I got the feeling the thing could have accelerated a lot faster, but you don't want people getting hurled around I guess. You become very aware that the speed is just building and building, with no let up in the acceleration at all.

Below is a video I took that covers leaving Pudong station to reaching full speed. At around 00:55 on the video you see us going round the first curve. Notice the very steep banking on the track. At around 01:35 there is a terrifying surprise for you. Then towards the end of the video you get a shot of the speedometer inside the train.

(Click the video to start it :: Mouse over to see video controls)

So 431kmh, which is about 270mph.

This makes it the fastest paying passenger carrying train in the world today. The latest version of Japans famed "bullet" train can only manage a measly 186mph.

Although the French TGV train holds the official rail train world speed record at 574kmh, the runs it made to capture the record were (obviously) not done with any passengers onboard.

There is an artificial limit being applied when the MagLev reaches 431kmh. It's pretty clear it would go A LOT faster, but probably on safety and reliability grounds it's pegged to 431kmh. (Also at that speed we were rapidly running out of room on the short 30km track)

After what seems like only a minute or two, you arrive at the downtown terminus

Once in the station the train is unloaded, then reloaded with a new set of fearless passengers ready for the return journey. There is one piece of maintenance which must be done between each high speed run, and that is to wash the millions of bugs off the nose. (That's what the washer woman and the long pole are for in the picture below!)

The driver swaps ends and we're ready for the return rollercoaster. Not a great picture (camera phone) but note the interesting humble domestic extension cord lying on the floor in the drivers cab. Lets hope the juice needed to move the train isn't going through that.

So in less than thirty minutes I had made the round trip which had taken me ninety minutes one way in a taxi. Quite a saving.

It's a seriously impressive piece of engineering which so far only the Chinese have been gutsy enough to actually put into service. Let's hope we see more longer and faster MagLevs in future.