Speaker 0:  today, we're diving into a breakthrough that makes our current high speed trains look like they're standing still. we are looking at mach one travel on the ground, and it turns out china is using literal ray gun technology to make it happen. if you've ever wanted to cross a continent in time, in the time it takes to watch a movie, you need to hear this. maglev technology ditches wheels for powerful magnets, allowing trains to float and eliminate all friction. china has just tested a system that can launch a one ton vehicle to 700 kilometers per hour in just two seconds. this isn't just a faster train. it's a fundamental shift in how we move people and cargo across the planet. what do you think about this, john?

Speaker 1:  i love this. this is cool. so though for those of you that don't know, there are already maglab trains out there, mostly in asia. and for those of you that don't know, it's magnetic levitation. so, the train and the tracks don't touch. and the way it works is they use powerful magnetic fields, and it lifts the vehicle above a guideway. and so that's where that's how it eliminates contact with the track. so it removes rolling resistance and the fraction or the friction between the wheels and rails, are also removed. so it allows much higher speed with increased efficient energy efficiency. so, researchers at, the national university of defense technology, they've demonstrated a superconducting maglev vehicle vehicle that accelerated from zero to 700 kilometers per hour or for those in the us, 435 miles per hour in only two seconds on a short test track. and so, on top of that, what we're talking about today is, they've, so what we're talking about, china has this, sledge. they call it the electromagnetic sledge system, and it's accelerated heavy objects beyond mach one. and mach one is the speed of sound. and so they've done this using purely electromagnetic forces, which is super cool. i think so i'm on the fence about this. i love this technology. i don't know if there's other technology out there, but this is cool. what are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 0:  well, it's a cool idea. and they have them in japan and china, but why don't they have them in north america? like, as far as i know, we don't have any, high speed trains in north america.

Speaker 1:  no. not no maglev trains. no.

Speaker 0:  and, you know, 500 mile trip like san francisco to la or toronto to montreal could take, under an hour, using this. but, like, i don't think it's, unless we build the trains inside, we're not gonna be seeing this anytime soon in canada. but i could see this happening in the warmer states. like, you know, our temperature and our snow and our ice stop the trains, have to be heated. they have to be cleared all the time. can you imagine if it's maglab and they physically weren't coming in contact with the thing? what would happen if the snow piled up? and so they have to figure some stuff out for our canada temperature. if you look outside, we've got how many feet of snow right now? yeah. so there would be no high speed trains running this week, based on that snow pile up here. but there's no reason why other people can't be doing it. and, you know, i'm not sure how i feel about zero to 700 kilometers an hour in two seconds. but, you know, cargo moving that fast, like, this kind of thing can really be a game changer in the industry. and, you know, china's rolled this out across the country so they can move freight. they can move people at incredible speeds yeah. that we just can't at this stage. and i and, again, i'm not sure what the cost of that is. like, moving at speeds of our train that are 80 or a 100 miles an hour or kilometers an hour versus, the 500, kilometers an hour from a train cost point of view. but it seems like we should be moving that direction for a higher speed because this technology is really cool. it seems it's cheaper. since there's nothing touching the crack, it's, the track, it's quieter. there's no clack or vibration, so it doesn't have the noise pollution in their communities. so i'd like to see this. you know, the long game is mach one, twelve hundred and twenty five kilometers per hour is still in the experimental research phase. they say it's about ten years away. but right now, you can ride the shanghai imaglev, and it hits over 431 kilometers an hour.

Speaker 1:  yeah. so there is a high speed rail network that they're proposing in canada from toronto to quebec city, by alto. that'll only reach speeds of 300 kilometers per hour. so, this is way less than that. i think so i can't remember the technology that, with the vacuum technology train that, elon musk like, but i don't know how this compares to that. i know, obviously, there's a lot more infrastructure needed for elon musk's, technology versus maglev. but, again, the magnets, to create those electromagnetic fields probably cost a lot. i think it was, like, a million dollars per kilometer. no. something more ridiculous than that. but, it'd be nice if they could solve the problem of climate to get it here, so that we can have a solution here in canada for sure. because we've got yeah. long distances to go.

Speaker 0:  yeah. i'm curious to see what this proposal is like, but i immediately think if it's toronto, quebec city, then there's no way it's going through because why the heck would we spend billions of dollars between toronto and quebec city? yeah. like, what is that a major transit route of some sort? is it, you know, a, part of a stop and then it'll be

Speaker 1:  sorry. the two ends are toronto and quebec city, but it'll go through montreal.

Speaker 0:  there you go. i was gonna say, like, there's i quebec city montreal is the place to be in toronto, and the traffic between them makes sense. but if you add another yeah.

Speaker 1:  yeah. apparently, the route sense. apparently, the route is toronto, peterborough, ottawa, montreal, trois riviere, laval, and quebec city.

Speaker 0:  so while superconducting magnets provide, levitation, electromagnetic propulsion moves the vehicle forward. the technology uses linear motors, either linear induction motors or linear linear synchronous motors embedded in the track to accelerate the vehicles along the guideway. so linear motors generate strong, rapid magnetic fields that push, and pull the vehicle forward without physical contact. so they'd have to re all the track. they'd have to acclimatize it. they'd have to do it. when they say high speed, we'll dig into what that means, between toronto. i don't know if it's maglev or not. but it sounds like in canada, we would need it to be environmentally protected. the tracks could not be exposed to the snow and the ice and the sleet. it would have to be enclosed somehow. i would assume that, because everything else we have so far just doesn't work. and, our trains right now are physically connected to the can you imagine what that would be like if it wasn't? so we'd have to see what that goes. that's why i say weather is an issue. but, military electromagnetic catapults on aircraft carriers, you know, with the mail the rail guns, which i'm not sure, have been very successful for the army, but they're apparently devastating. so the electromagnetic rail launcher systems take, electromagnetic propulsion to the extreme levels. the systems use railgun like electromagnetic setups for very powerful linear motors to achieve rapid acceleration. so it's like your train is on a railgun, and it gets shot out. yeah. anyway, yeah, i'm excited. i'd love to see the future of this because anything that can cut down our travel time that makes the world smaller, that makes our life better, we have trains going around all the time. if we could quiet it, move the stuff faster, we'd see the trains less. we'd hear them less. we'd be able to move stuff faster and cheaper. so i'm definitely interested. so would you step on to a train that basically is a horizontal rocket or is a thousand kilometers per hour a bit too fast for your comfort? let us know in the comments. if you take the maglev or stick to skis or whatever reason now, we'll watch the story as, the test tracks get longer and the speeds get higher, and we'll let you know what's going on with the high speed rail between montreal, toronto, and quebec.