Claim: China’s ultra high-speed maglev train is “coming soon” to Pakistan and will reduce the travelling time between Islamabad and Karachi to 1.5 hours.
Fact: There are no reports in any reputable media outlet about the maglev being launched in Pakistan. The T-Flight train is still in the development and testing phase and has not been rolled out even in China.
On 13 August 2024, Instagram account @divamagazinepakistan posted (archive) a visual comprising three images — of a bullet train, the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, and I. I. Chundrigar Road in Karachi — alongside the text, “Train Travel from Karachi to Islamabad in Just 1.5 Hours? China’s Ultra-High-Speed Train Coming Soon!”
The caption accompanying the post reads, “#DivaReports: Get ready to zoom into the future! China’s ultra-high-speed maglev train project achieves a major breakthrough, successfully testing its 1,000 km/h speed in a low-vacuum environment. This game-changing technology could soon connect Karachi to Islamabad in no time!”
Part of this caption is true as multiple reputable news outlets reported on the successful test of China’s T-Flight train in August.
However, the text in the visual and the latter part of the caption imply that the ultra high-speed (UHS) maglev — short for magnetic levitation — transportation system would soon be installed in Pakistan to connect the country’s capital to its counterpart in the Sindh province, Karachi, and reduce the travelling time between the two cities.
According to a 13 April 2022 article on SciTechDaily about “How Maglev Works”, the idea of the transport system came to James Powell, who, along with Gordon Danby of Brookhaven, got it patented in the late 1960s. His son, Jesse, described the train as “a box with magnets on the four corners”.
“The magnets employed are superconducting, which means that when they are cooled to less than 450 degrees Fahrenheit below zero (-268 degrees Celsius), they can generate magnetic fields up to 10 times stronger than ordinary electromagnets, enough to suspend and propel a train,” the publication wrote.
An 11 April 2024 report by ABC News explained that the maglev trains operate “above the ground using magnetic-levitation technology”, which means they use the magnets’ push and pull forces. The transport system is basically “suspended, using three types of magnets, in a low-vacuum pipeline to ‘fly’”.
“This means the maglev train is much lighter, as it doesn’t need wheels and brakes and other heavy bits of engineered steel to keep it safely on a railway,” it stated. Moreover, the transport system does not need drivers either.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check did not find any reports published by reputable local media outlets or around the world announcing that the transportation system will be installed in Pakistan.
We did, however, come across social media posts that explained how long it would take for a person to travel between Islamabad and Karachi in a hypothetical scenario if the trains were installed in the country.
Moreover, Soch Fact Check found that multiple outlets reported on the successful test of China’s T-Flight train in August 2024.
According to Xinhua’s article from 5 August 2024, the test of the “superconducting maglev vehicle [took place] in a 2-km-long pipeline with a low-vacuum environment” in China’s Shanxi province. The train was “jointly developed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited [CASIC] and Shanxi”.
“Construction of the UHS maglev transportation system started in Yanggao County in April 2022. It integrates aerospace technology with ground railway transportation technology, aiming to achieve a train speed at 1,000 km per hour,” the publication said, adding that “in the future”, it could possibly be used to transport people between the Republic’s major cities, “allowing for a journey from Beijing to Shanghai in about an hour and a half”.
Newsweek reported on 7 August 2024 that the T-Flight maglev “would more than double the top speed of the current operational fastest train in the world, [which is] China’s Shanghai Maglev, which can travel at 286 mph [miles per hour]”.
The project aims “to integrate space technology with ground transportation to create a train that can travel faster than most commercial airplanes”, it wrote, adding that in 2021, the country “unveiled a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) maglev train in Chengdu that could reach 385 mph”.
According to the International Railway Journal, in the next stage, the trial would likely test the maglev’s full speed, “which will require a test track of at least 60km in length”.
Back in February 2024, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) had reported (archive) “a significant breakthrough” as the CASIC project managed to achieve “stable levitation while travelling in a low-vacuum tube” in a test at that time, going beyond the 623 km/h speed.
In April 2023, China Global Television Network (CGTN) reported that the country had built a superconducting maglev test line in Datong City in Shanxi. It quoted the CASIC’s project member Li Ping as saying that the test “preliminarily verified the scientific rationality of the overall design”. High-speed bullet trains in the Republic operate at a maximum of 350 km/h at present, the publication said.
The maglev trains are still in the development and testing phase and have not rolled out even in China. Neither the international publications mentioned above, nor any reputable Pakistani media outlet, has reported that the new potential transport system will be installed in the country.
Virality
The post by @divamagazinepakistan has gained over 47,500 likes, as of writing time.
Soch Fact Check found that multiple social media posts had false or misleading captions; these can be found here, here, and here.
Visuals with false information can be found here and here. The claim was also shared here on Facebook.
We also came across a YouTube video that carries the false claim in its title and thumbnail.
Conclusion: The T-Flight train is still in the development and testing phase; it has not yet been rolled out in China for commercial purposes. Moreover, there are no reports by any reputable media outlet about the maglev being launched in Pakistan.
Background image in cover photo: Mathew Schwartz
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