No decision yet on Beijing-Shanghai maglev use
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-04 09:58

The central government made no formal decision on the use of magnetic levitation technology for a high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai, the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po reported.

The Chinese-language newspaper quoted an official from China's Ministry of Railways as saying: 'The project has not been formally set up by the government.'

Earlier media reports said China is unlikely to adopt the magnetic levitation technology for the link between the country's two largest cities, as the investment will be too large and the technical requirements too high, citing Xu Kuangdi, president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Xu, also a former mayor of Shanghai, was reported as saying that although a short magnetic levitation line has been running smoothly in Shanghai, its success is unlikely to be replicated over the longer distance of the Beijing-Shanghai route, due to technical difficulties posed by the terrain along the route.

Shanghai currently operates the world's first commercial maglev, a 1.5 bln usd line built by Transrapid, a consortium of engineering groups Siemens AG, ThyssenKrupp and the German government.

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