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A new magnetic levitation vacuum train developed in China has set a speed record for its type, reaching 623 km/h. The tests were held on a two-kilometer section of low-vacuum pipe - the longest in existence - in Shanxi province. Its pressure ranges from 0,3 to 0,001 bar, while normal atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 1 bar. This was reported by “MIR 24” with reference to New Atlas.
Plans for the future are ambitious. The second stage of the project involves expanding the route 30 times - up to 60 km. This will allow the train to accelerate to 1000 km/h, which is faster than the speed of an airliner. In theory, traveling from Beijing to Datong (346 km) will take just 30 minutes instead of 4,5 hours.
However, independent experts doubt the economic feasibility of such projects. The cost of building networks of vacuum trains is enormous, and the technology itself requires the construction of hundreds or even thousands of kilometers of perfectly sealed pipes with constantly running vacuum pumps.