Snow? No Problem for Maglev Trains

While masses of trains are canceled or delayed, airports have to suspend operations and cars sit in traffic jams on snowy roads, snow is no problem for maglev trains such as the Transrapid and TSB.

In general, snowfall poses no major risk to the operation of maglev trains, since they have no wheels. Maglev vehicles are lifted magnetically and float above the guideway.

While snowfall on conventional railways impairs wheel-rail adhesion, lengthens braking distances and causes signal and switch failures, maglev trains with their automated, digital operations control simply glide over the snow.

The Transrapid has a running gear that wraps around its guideway. The vehicle is lifted by electromagnets, which raise it by 10 mm. But on top of the guideway, the gap between the guideway girder and the Transrapid vehicle is 15 cm. If snowfall on a Transrapid line should ever be extremely heavy – we are talking several tens of centimeters – snowplow vehicles are used. This is exactly why the Transrapid Test Facility Emsland has a snowplow, which would have easily cleared even very large amounts of snow.

The Transport System Bögl (TSB) has a guideway that wraps around the vehicle’s running gear. As part of its design, it is therefore inherently protected against snow. The official TSB brochure states: “A major advantage of maglev technology, besides nearly silent propulsion, is reliability regardless of the weather. The running gear is protected inside the guideway, so snow and ice cause no disruption, for example. These characteristics make the TSB the superior solution for the future expansion and new construction of local transport infrastructure, especially in densely populated urban regions and their outskirts.”