Maglev
The world's first commercial maglev system was a low-speed maglev shuttle that ran between the airport terminal of Birmingham International Airport and the nearby Birmingham International railway station between 1984 and 1995. Its track length was , and trains levitated at an altitude of , levitated by electromagnets, and propelled with linear induction motors. It operated for 11 years and was initially very popular with passengers, but obsolescence problems with the electronic systems made it progressively unreliable as years passed, leading to its closure in 1995. One of the original cars is now on display at Railworld in Peterborough, together with the RTV31 hover train vehicle. Another is on display at the National Railway Museum in York.
Maglev
Maglev systems have been much more expensive to construct than conventional train systems, although the simpler construction of maglev vehicles makes them cheaper to manufacture and maintain. Despite over a century of research and development, maglev transport systems are in operation in just three countries (Japan, South Korea and China). The incremental benefits of maglev technology have often been hard to justify against cost and risk, especially where there is an existing or proposed conventional high speed train line with spare passenger carrying capacity, as in high-speed rail in Europe, the High Speed 2 in the UK and Shinkansen in Japan.