Shanghai’s Incredible Maglev Train

While planning for our 2010 trip to China I had read about this incredible Maglev train that was recently built in Shanghai. Maglev is derived from “magnetic levitation” and means the train uses the power of magnetic levitation that allows trains to move at incredible speeds. There are only a handful of these types of trains in the world (most are on test tracks) and even fewer that are actually being used in a mass transit system. I have mentioned before that Shanghai is an incredibly futuristic city so it seems fitting that they would have a train like this. Because we love to travel by train so much we both were quite excited for the experience to travel on a Maglev train. However, we had to wait until the last day of the trip to do this as the trains only route heads out to Shanghais airport. We started by catching the wonderfully efficient subway system out to the “downtown” area of the city which is called Pudong. From there we purchased our tickets and waited patiently for our train to arrive. As our train pulled into the station we couldn’t believe how quite it was. We entered the train and were surrounded by Chinese businessmen heading off to their meetings. We took our seats and just stared out the window as the train took off. The ride was incredibly smooth and insanely fast. There is a speedometer in every car and we just sat their watching it until it eventually reached 431 kmh which equals 267 MPH!!! The scenery goes by so quickly at this speed that it was almost impossible to see or get a picture of the landscape. The journey only lasted 7 minutes and we couldn’t believe that it had taken us 18 miles! That is roughly the equivalent of going from Provo UT to Lehi UT in 7 minutes. Although the ride was very smooth it did shake a little when it would take a turn at top speed. This was a little nerve racking as the thought of crashing at 267 MPH, with Jude in Lindsay's belly, was terrifying! We both stepped off the train and couldn’t believe what we had just experienced. It was truly the quickest ride to the airport ever and the fastest train we will probably ever ride.