> Someday they’ll probably replace their 19,000 miles (soon 25,000) of high-speed rail with maglevs.

Not necessarily and definitely not soon. Maglev isn't strictly better (unless it's also suitable for cargo trains or China doesn't use their high-speed rail for cargo at all -- not even at night). Replacing high-speed rail by maglev means that you're basically replacing high-speed rail with somewhat higher-speed rail at the cost of (almost[1]) completely new infrastructure. And during the transition, you basically have two independent railway networks. It's like having two railway gauges in a country, but even worse. Every piece of rolling stock can only run on one network. That's inflexible, increasing costs and/or reducing reliability. It also necessitates additional transfers.

[1] You can reuse station and other buildings, maybe platforms too. I can't think of anything else.

Replacing 225 mph trains with 400 mph maglevs should be worth it, especially on long routes like the 800 mile trip between Shanghai and Beijing.

I didn’t say it would be easy or cheap. I’m sure there are lots of details to consider.

China, however, has no problem doing large infrastructure projects.

> Replacing 225 mph trains with 400 mph maglevs should be worth it, especially on long routes like the 800 mile trip between Shanghai and Beijing.

That's 2h vs 3.5h, not taking into account acceleration. Time on a train can be used productively, so it isn't lost. Taking opportunity costs into account, it may or may not be worth it. I'm also not sure if 225 mph is the physical limit of conventional trains.

Also, faster trains don't necessarily make the network faster. Especially when using an integrated time table, you can run trains slower (or let them wait, but that has the same effect and wastes energy) to improve connections, thus reducing waiting times and ultimately getting people faster to their destinations. I don't know how China's railways work in detail though and they may very well optimize for making Shanghai-Beijing fast.

> China, however, has no problem doing large infrastructure projects.

That may change when they have to spend more on maintenance as their infrastructure grows and ages. Also, the question is not whether they can replace their HSR with maglevs -- of course they can -- but whether the party considers it the best use of resources, also compared to other large infrastructure projects.

Its not just about the passenger. There have been historical increases (geometric increases) in the economy each time the speed of commerce improves. Horse (4mph) vs ox(2mph); steamship vs sail; scheduled steamship service vs sail-when-full; fixed-price postage vs line-up-at-the-post-office; transcontinental railway. Heck even FedEx was a game changer.

And its not just passengers, its cargo too. Imagine a delivery service that can offer 5 shipments a day vs 4 because the trains are faster. It has its effect on the bottom line.

In the past, faster transportation also made communication faster. This isn't the case anymore. There are also diminishing returns.

> Imagine a delivery service that can offer 5 shipments a day vs 4 because the trains are faster.

Unfortunately, we are far from the point where we have so few problems left that this is the most effective use of resources.

You sure have lots of excuses. “You only save 1.5 hours”. That’s for 180 million passengers a year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing–Shanghai_high-speed_...

Your tactics worked in the US. China does things a little differently.

China is building 25,000 miles of high-speed rail. They must be reasoning differently? Think they are testing 480 mph maglevs for a reason?

> Your tactics worked in the US.

That's fascinating considering I've never been there and I think railways (including maglevs when it's a better option than conventional rail) should be the primary transportation system for both passengers and cargo.

FWIW, most of my objections don't even apply when building HSR from scratch.

HSR on the coast are dedicated passenger lines