TheCable

Japan has broken its own record in producing the world’s fastest train, capable of travelling from Lagos to Abuja within 1 hour and 14 minutes at a speed of 603 kilometres per hour, or from Lagos to Ibadan within an unbelievable 12 minutes

The Maglev train, which is being tested by the central Japan railway company at Yamanashi, West Tokyo, is made from superconducting technology.

According to Aljazeera, officials are confident that the result of decades of research and development of the technology will shape a new generation of trains.

“This train is set up the same way we will use it commercially,” said Yasukazu Endo from Central Japan Railway.

“We have seen the comfort of passengers at this high speed has improved. I think such test results should lead to a stable commercial use in the future.”

The train’s magnetic levitation (maglev) technology is based on physics’ laws of magnetic fields – how opposite magnetic poles attract and like poles repel each other.

By chilling down powerful electromagnets, engineers are able to lift the train about 10 centimetres off the ground.

Then another set of electromagnets is used to push it along; because it is riding on a cushion of air, there is little friction, making it a smooth ride and potentially very fast.

In April 2014, Shinzo Abe, Japanese prime minister, took a ride on the maglev train with Caroline Kennedy, the United States (US) Ambassador to Japan, with hopes to export the technology to the US.

The aim is to create a high-speed line between Washington and New York, with more overseas customers to recover some of its research and development costs.

The train beat the 590km-per-hour speed record it had set a week earlier.

At 746 kilometres from Lagos to Abuja, the train, if activated in Nigeria can move from one of the cities to the other in 74 minutes and Lagos to Ibadan in about 12 minutes at top speed.