For years, the Federal government has been looking for ways to create high-speed travel throughout the U.S., but one private investor group is tired of the wait and is taking matters into their own hands.
One plan involves a 300-mile-per-hour train floating on magnets from downtown Washington D.C. to Manhattan. Three times as fast as Amtrak's quickest train, this would leave a travel time of about one hour. Wayne Rogers, head of Northeast Maglev, the group behind the project., claims "it [the train] changes real estate prices, how people live, where they work. It really changes the world."
Like something out of a science fiction film, the train would use a Japanese technology called magnetic levitation. This involves an electrically charged magnet that would suspend the train midair inside a U-shaped guide rail built on either side of the track.
Because a project of this size could cost up to $100 billion, the group is aiming to start small, with a rail from Baltimore to downtown D.C. within the next 10 years. $40 million has already been spent on engineering, and the group has begun applying for permits from the state of Maryland to build.
