Magnetic Trains in O.C.’s Future?

* Re “County Hears New Rail Pitch,” July 25:

The prospect of the Orange County Transportation Authority and Southern California taking the lead in developing the world’s first commercially viable high-speed maglev transportation system is exciting both for the benefits it would bring to our beleaguered transportation system and, if developed and built here, for the economic benefits such an emerging cutting-edge industry would bring to our region.

Contrary to the conventional thinking that maglev trains are most suitable for long distances, a new approach, dubbed Inductrack, recently developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, holds the promise that most if not all new trains built a decade or so from now will be maglev types.

Although demonstration maglevs have been built in Japan and Germany, and despite the tremendous benefits of the technology, no full-scale, commercially operating maglev system has been constructed. The reason is that past technological approaches based on superconducting or powered electromagnetics are too expensive, too complex or too unstable.

The Lawrence Livermore approach, on the other hand, uses permanent room-temperature magnets, similar to the permanent magnets used in electric motors that currently power hundreds of millions of our computer disk drives, office machines and production machines every day.

Unlike its Japanese and German competitors, the Inductrack requires no power to produce its magnetic field because it uses permanent magnets resulting in a much lower construction cost. It also results in significantly lower energy usage and maintenance costs than those of a conventional railway. Developing this technology and its other potential applications here in Southern California and deploying a regional transportation system based on it offers many benefits to Southern California and, indeed, our country. It merits serious study and funding.

THOMAS C. KAPORCH

San Juan Capistrano