The Central Japan Railway Co., developer of the maglev high-speed train line in Japan, proposed a partnership with city and regional leaders at the Enterprise Center’s quarterly board meeting Thursday.
Chattanooga’s Joe Ferguson, a proponent of a high-speed rail link serving Chattanooga, Atlanta and Nashville, said that JR Central is the safest and best performing high-speed rail operator in the world, and a good partner for Chattanooga.
“They’re on top of the heap when it comes to high-speed rail,” Mr. Ferguson said.
The presentation by JR Central came on the heels of a statement by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood that “America is going to get in the high-speed intercity rail business … and I hope that includes, for my money, from Atlanta Hartsfield (airport) to Chicago through Chattanooga, Nashville and beyond.”
Mr. LaHood recently traveled to Japan to test the experimental MLX01 maglev, which has a top speed of 361 miles per hour, but is still in the experimental stage and costs much more to build than the still-fast N700-I train, which runs at about 205 miles per hour and is widely used in Japan.