ISTR that the ultra fast maglevs and hover-guideway thingies running at
400km/h, and indeed over 500km/h use conductor rails to supply the juice.
Check if there's any overhead on the Chinese maglev.

I'd suggest that we'd be in strife somewhere above 600km/h for side contact
or bottom contact conductor rail supply - much higher than for catenary
strung overhead contact wire.

DW

"Boltar" wrote in message
m...
: (Nathan Whitington) wrote in message
om...
: However collecting the juice at high speeds is a problem....
:
: WHy should it be? Whats the difference between a contact pushing onto a
wire
: above a train and pushing onto a rail to the side of it? Todays 3rd rail
may
: have problems at high speed but it was designed 100 years ago , I really
can't
: see this being a major problem if a completely new 3rd rail system was
devised.
:
: B2003