One of Germany's showcase pieces of high technology, the high-speed magnetic levitation train "Transrapid," has divided opinion over the years like few other engineering developments.
The train's backers speak of its high speeds in excess of 400kph, as well as a combination of form, function and technology which promises to usher in a new era in transportation.
The Transrapid consortium calls the maglev (magnetic levitation) train the first innovation in railroad engineering since the advent of conventional railroads.
Instead of wheels and rails, the Transrapid, with its "synchronous longstator linear motor", hovers and is propelled forward by powerful electromagnetic forces along a specially-built guideway.
But the maglev's opponents say that the technology, while impressive at first glance, actually dates back to a German patent in 1934. It is one which wastes too much energy, they say, is too loud for the surrounding environment, and is superfluous anyway in view of the ongoing development of conventional high-speed railroads.
Who needs it, the sceptics ask, noting that other countries such as Japan have also developed maglev technology but have yet to put it into commercial use.
In Germany, the debate has been going on since 1984, ever since the first Transrapid prototype began racing around its circular test track in Emsland.
The Transrapid partner companies Siemens and ThyssenKrupp argue that this is a case where the state must shoulder more of the financial burden in the interest of securing jobs and of giving a boost to German-made high technology.
Without a commercial project at home, they argued, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to sell it abroad.
For nearly decade, the public sector and private firms in the Transrapid consortium battled over the costs of a project to link Berlin with the northern port city of Hamburg 250km away.
Initially projected at some DM3.6 billion (US$1.8 billion) in 1992, as the years went by the cost calculations for the Berlin-Hamburg route kept getting more expensive.
By the time the project was finally scuttled, in February 2000, the cost estimates had gone beyond eight billion marks -- well above the 6.1 billion mark economic feasibility limit set by the state.
Now pending in Germany are plans for the "Metrorapid," a Transrapid link between the cities of Dortmund and Duesseldorf, about 60km apart. Again, financing is the main problem.
Amid the domestic squabbling, the Transrapid company reached a deal in early last year with Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development for a 30km link between Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road Station in downtown Shanghai.
In breathtaking speed, the Shanghai Transrapid rail was built under the direction of project director Wu Xiangming. So the honors for the first-ever commercial Transrapid project will go to China, when on Dec. 31, the Shanghai Transrapid takes off on its inaugural "VIP Run" with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (
The Shanghai Transrapid has already gone 443kph in test runs.
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