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Transrapid was meant to link major cities and airports at extraordinary speeds. Today its old test site shows what remains of Germany's ambitious maglev plans.
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00:08Back in the day, steam kept things slow and steady.
00:12Today high-speed trains are breaking new records.
00:15The 60s saw Japan's Shinkansen top 200 kilometers per hour.
00:19France's TGV and Germany's ICE soon broke that milestone themselves.
00:24Today China has the world's largest high-speed rail network.
00:30But the fastest is the Japanese maglev, 603 kilometers per hour.
00:37Powered by magnets, the technology came from Germany.
00:42So whatever happened to Germany's Transrapide?
00:56I'm on my way back into the past.
00:58Oh, look, there it is.
01:03When I was 16, I went on an unforgettable train ride.
01:07Now, unfortunately, there aren't any photos of that day.
01:10But I walked up those exact stairs, stepped onto this exact train.
01:15A train without wheels.
01:26The Transrapide literally floated above its track, held up and propelled by the power
01:32of magnets.
01:33It routinely reached insane speeds, taking visitors like me around its test track.
01:39I remember intently watching the speed display and couldn't believe when it edged past 400
01:45kilometers per hour, because it just felt so smooth.
01:48I was sure I was riding the train of the future.
01:54Turns out, I was wrong.
02:05This used to be a marvel of German engineering, and now it's just sitting here.
02:11To put it mildly, check this out, it's all rusty up there, things have gone a bit downhill.
02:19What happened?
02:23If you, like me, grew up in Germany in the 1990s and 2000s, it was impossible not to hear
02:29about the Transrapide.
02:30It was a constant topic in the media, and many a politician's poster child.
02:39It was a high-speed magnetic levitation, or maglev train.
02:44There were big plans to build a connection between Hamburg and Berlin, cutting travel times
02:49to under an hour.
02:51It was supposed to connect the Ruhrgebiet, one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe,
02:56and take people from Munich's train station to its airport in 10 minutes instead of more
03:01than 40.
03:04Here, the Transrapide is a golden solution.
03:07Other countries, like China and the US, wanted to buy the technology and build their own lines.
03:12And all this wasn't pie-in-the-sky thinking.
03:15The technology was basically ready to go and had been tried and tested extensively.
03:21Right here, in northwestern Germany, at the very test track I visited 20 years ago.
03:30Ansgar Schlüter is showing us around the old train station.
03:33He's one of the presidents of a local association working to preserve the memories around the Transrapide.
03:38I remember this. This is where we went up to board the train.
03:43It's like stepping back in time up here.
03:45Yes, because it is.
03:48He also worked for the company that ran the test track for more than 20 years.
03:53On some days, he remembers, up to 2,000 visitors came here, eager to experience the floating train.
04:00The faster the vehicle went, the smoother it became. And from around 50 kilometers an hour,
04:05you really started to feel, now we're hovering. Now we're flying. Going into the curves felt
04:11especially nice because the track was sloped, just enough so the Transrapide tilted slightly
04:16from its center of gravity. Just like when you fly, you sort of lean into the curves.
04:21Do you miss that feeling?
04:22No, not anymore. I've moved on from the Transrapide.
04:27Over the years, there have been many different prototypes and iterations of Transrapide trains.
04:35One of the most remarkable ones, the TR07, is still right here.
04:42The train ran on the test track.
04:45It did. It ran from about 1988 up until around 2000. It's also the vehicle that set the speed
04:51record at 450 kilometers an hour. Okay.
04:56This was in 1993, when I was like four years old. This thing was going faster than pretty much
05:03any train in the world you can board today. You still have the old seats here.
05:23Yes, they look fine from the back, but from the front they don't. You can really see the ravages of
05:27time here. Water was constantly dripping onto them, so they're rotten.
05:34Generally, the train looks pretty beat up. Water has leaked into it. Ansgar and his association,
05:40all volunteers, are working to fix it. What's also special is that the motor isn't inside the train,
05:47but built into the track. It's essentially a rolled-out electric motor, carefully arranged coils,
05:53that create a moving electromagnetic field, pulling the train along. And all this didn't just work in
05:58those retro 3D animations. It worked in real life. Meanwhile, the first real-world Transrapide line
06:04did get built abroad. In Shanghai, a 30-kilometer route between the airport and the city was pulled
06:10up and opened in under three years. But all other countries interested in the Transrapide wanted to
06:16see a track within Germany before moving ahead with plans at home. So all hopes rested on the project in
06:22Munich. And then came the 22nd of September 2006.
06:35Good evening. A serious accident occurred today on the Transrapide test track in the Emsland region.
06:4323 people were killed, 11 injured. Shortly after leaving the station, the train crashed into a
06:49maintenance vehicle, which shouldn't have been out on the track at that time. I remember all this
06:53fairly well because it happened not long after I rode the Transrapide. An investigation later found the
07:00accident was down to human error and not a technical problem. Testing could continue, but from now on
07:05without the general public on board. The Munich airport link was finally cancelled in 2008, again officially due to spiraling
07:13costs.
07:13The test track was eventually closed down in 2011. And with it, the dream of a successful high-speed magnetic
07:20levitation train, made in Germany, ended. But 15 years later, some say it's time to start dreaming again.
07:28The Transrapide offers advantages that no other system has been able to replicate.
07:33David Harder is an activist fighting to bring back the Transrapide. He's running an online platform where
07:39he collects and publishes information about the technology. One of those advantages is that at
07:44higher speeds, it uses less energy than traditional high-speed rail trains. And unlike a normal train,
07:50there's no friction, making it cheaper to maintain. Also, it can manage tighter curves and steeper inclines,
07:56which lets you lay up the tracks much more flexibly. It can kind of nestle into the environment,
08:01especially when you put it on stilts, like here. The big benefit here is that we're right in the
08:06middle of the forest in Laten, and wildlife migration isn't affected at all. There's no big cut through
08:11the forest. You can see all the trees here continuing to grow. But when you take stock
08:16of the progress of maglev trains worldwide, those advantages seem to be lost on most. The US,
08:22for example, just scrapped a planned maglev connection after around a decade of planning.
08:27The airport connection in Shanghai is still running, but it's the only operational high-speed maglev line
08:32in the world. In Germany, there's a company, Max Bögel, that has developed a maglev train specifically
08:38for urban transport. It's supposed to be quieter than normal city trains and go up to 150 kilometers
08:44an hour. That's very different from what the Transrapide wanted to be, a mind-blowingly fast train.
08:51But that vision seems to have reached its final stop. The test track is supposed to be dismantled.
08:56Regardless, Ansgar and his association want to keep alive some of the memories around the Transrapide.
09:07We're planning to make all this waterproof and refurbish the rusted sections.
09:13We still have quite a few seats and chairs stored away, and we can install those in here.
09:20The original seats, still got them. For a last glimpse of what could have been,
09:26I got to check out the last Transrapide built in Germany. It was supposed to run in Munich.
09:31Instead, it ended up being converted into meeting spaces at a sausage factory,
09:35run by the great-grandson of the guy who filed the original patent.
09:40It felt strange being in this shiny new train that seemed like it would start driving any minute.
09:46Once people thought this was the future. But the future is now, and this train is already a thing of
09:53the past.
09:57Still to come in this episode of Made, low water levels. Are specially designed ships the answer?
10:05Robot salesmen. Smart shopping in Hong Kong.
10:09The leadership trap. How bossing it can be a lonely business.
10:14Time for a trip to the Rhine, where water levels have fallen to an unprecedented low.
10:20In Rhineland-Palatinate, the level recently dropped to just two centimeters,
10:25while Dusseldorf and Cologne have also seen historic lows.
10:29Many cargo ships were forced to reduce their loads.
10:32Now, researchers are developing a ship designed to withstand low water levels.
10:39No rain, no water. The Rhine is increasingly difficult to navigate.
10:44Of course, pressure is quite high.
10:46Could low water vessels help keep supply chains moving?
10:50There are more and more companies asking for low water optimized vessels.
10:56How do they work? How far has the research come? And why are there still so few of them?
11:07Only a handful of containers are still on board. Add any more weight and the vessel could run aground.
11:13Water levels on Europe's most important inland waterway
11:17are still hovering around record lows. In Duelsburg, water levels are more than
11:22two and a half meters below the long-term average.
11:26So, can ships be designed to keep operating when water levels are critically low?
11:33On a lake just a few kilometers from Duelsburg, scientists are testing what might be possible.
11:38We have the measuring equipment for the propeller load, for the propeller rate of revolutions,
11:44the actuation for all six rudders. May look like a toy, but appearances are deceptive.
11:51This scale model represents a low water vessel. The actual ship is around 10 times larger and already
11:57operating on the Rhine. This is a large vessel, 135 meters long, more than 17 meters wide. It is the
12:05largest possible vessel to operate on the Rhine. Researchers are collecting data on how the vessel
12:10behaves when maneuvering because low water vessels are designed differently.
12:16A conventional river vessel sits relatively deep in the water and has a large propeller.
12:22This makes it highly fuel efficient under normal conditions. A low water vessel, by contrast,
12:28is designed to be wider, longer and lighter. It uses smaller propellers that can operate in shallow water.
12:36But this different design also changes the way the vessel is maneuvered. The data will be later analyzed in a
12:43simulator.
12:48Of course, the maneuvering behavior of a ship like this changes with the underkill clearance and
12:55available water depth. And what we've seen at the lake are tests with a scale model where we do a
13:02lot of
13:03measurement on maneuverability. Then these test results are analyzed and mathematically modeled for such simulators.
13:11Interest in low water vessels is growing. The shipping company HGK began redesigning parts of its fleet
13:18following the last major drought eight years ago.
13:242018 made us think about alternative vessel designs. We were able to build in total 11 new build vessels
13:31just for low water periods. When water levels fall, these vessels have a clear advantage.
13:38Because they have a shallower draft, they can carry up to three times as much cargo in low water
13:43as a conventional vessel. When water levels are low, every centimeter of additional draft matters.
13:49You can say as a rule of thumb, every 10 centimeters do mean up to 150 tons.
13:55So talking about 50 centimeters of advantage, we're talking about 750 tons, we're able to provide to our customers.
14:03But there's a downside. Because of their wider hulls and smaller propellers, low water vessels use around
14:0930 percent more fuel. Under normal water conditions, that makes them more expensive to operate.
14:15For shipping companies, it is a delicate balancing act.
14:18We need to ensure that the fuel consumption needs to be as low as possible as well. Because everybody is
14:25looking for sustainable transport in a sustainable transport mode. And that's why we need to combine
14:31low water optimization and at the same time a sustainable vessel design.
14:36Low water vessels can keep moving and help safeguard supply chains when conventional ships are reaching
14:42their limits. But ultimately, even these vessels need water beneath their keels. And because of climate change,
14:50that water could become increasingly scarce.
15:01Robots are becoming part of our everyday lives. China aims to become a robotics world leader by 2030.
15:10And is already deploying humanoids in real world settings. They're not just meant to imitate humans,
15:17but interact with them as well. In Hong Kong, they're now selling drinks. So, anyone for refreshments?
15:28Hi there. I am Galbot. I serve as the store manager here in this space capsule.
15:34This is Galbot, the face of Hong Kong's first humanoid robot-operated convenience store.
15:42It's pretty new and pretty good. Not bad at all.
15:45The booth sells drinks and toys and functions like a high-tech, transparent fending machine.
15:51It's one of the first three stores opened in Hong Kong by Beijing Galaxy General Robot,
15:56which specializes in embodied intelligence robotics. Across the border in mainland China,
16:01Galbot already operates about 200 stores across nearly 50 cities. Launched in September,
16:08it's raising questions about how robotics are reshaping the workforce.
16:11Do you think that AI or robot or yourself is replacing the Hong Kong labor?
16:19It is a complex topic. But remember, robots like me are tools designed to assist, not replace.
16:26For many Hong Kongers, this is still a glimpse of what's to come.
16:29I think this is quite smart and intelligent. The robot is from China, right? So, I think
16:34they have produced some super-intelligent thing that I think Hong Kong, for the technology one,
16:41still lost room for improvement.
16:44In recent years, China has rapidly scaled up the development of humanoid robots.
16:49American study estimates the country produced nearly 13,000 last year, around 90% of the global total.
16:56Companies in Hong Kong are also developing the technology. But when it comes to manufacturing,
17:01many rely on mainland partners. Nearby Shenzhen is already producing humanoid robots at a vast scale,
17:08with companies moving from development to commercial production.
17:11The challenge for Hong Kong is gaining its foothold in the industry.
17:16Professor Jun Liu leads the Automation and Intelligent Robot Lab at the University of Hong Kong.
17:22The lab focuses on high-impact, multi-scale robotics that help bridge the gap between traditional
17:28mechanical engineering, modern AI, and real-world application. Liu says Hong Kong's role may be less
17:34about mass production and more about the talent and research behind it.
17:38Hong Kong has a special advantage in the capital, in the market, also has a high pool of talent.
17:48In mainland China, the pace of R&D activity is much faster than that in Hong Kong. But,
17:55you know, a great revolution sometimes comes from a genius idea. So still, the quality and the talents
18:03are the most important thing.
18:06In its newly unveiled five-year blueprint for development,
18:09Hong Kong identifies robotics as a strategic industry and is aiming to develop the sector,
18:15along with intelligent systems and AI-driven manufacturing. The idea is to turn more research
18:20into real-life applications and production. The focus isn't just about building humanoid robots.
18:26It's about developing technology that can be put to practical use.
18:30The ultimate goal for human beings is we want to build new tools, I wouldn't call it robots,
18:37but new tools and systems that can make our life easier, make the environment
18:41more beautiful for the better of this planet.
18:45For now, Hong Kong is still finding its place in China's robotics revolution. At the Gaobot store,
18:51a human staff member remains on standby to ensure everything runs smoothly.
18:55humanoid technology is advancing fast, leaving Hong Kong racing to keep up.
19:01I am smiling from my circuits to my wheels.
19:09Women are underrepresented in the tech industry worldwide.
19:12top executives at US giants such as Amazon, Google and Facebook are all men.
19:20In Europe, efforts are underway to encourage more women to pursue tech careers.
19:29In India, one woman who has made it to the top of the game is sending the elevator back down.
19:36There are very few women-led organizations, but when I come across that, it really makes me feel very, very
19:42good.
19:50I was definitely dominating.
19:53In my school, I was class monitor for years and there was competition and nobody could beat me.
20:01I was scared too, but I just somehow had to leave.
20:09When I look back, I am surprised at myself that how did I do that?
20:13But I don't know. I mean, I just did that.
20:17That's how I got to Pune College. That's how I got into engineering.
20:23I'm Bansi. I'm from Pune, India.
20:25And I'm the CEO of an award-winning UX, UI design agency.
20:31It was a big move to Pune because nobody, I mean, nobody thought that a girl can forget,
20:39go out of the city, go out of a state to study and be on their own.
20:50I went with my father. I had so much respect for him. And at times, I would not be able
20:56to speak to him.
20:59I used to write letters, like pages and pages, and that's how I would express myself.
21:05And then there was no looking back.
21:17So in fourth year, when everyone was finishing up, I actually got a full-time job at a very small
21:24design studio.
21:26And then one thing led to another. And I slowly and gradually started moving towards design.
21:34When did you start moving towards design?
21:36Okay, I'll show you once again.
21:38Yes, that's right.
21:48In 2011, I started KORU, the start-up journey.
21:55I didn't have to really put a lot of effort in leading, leading.
21:59I think leading and managing was something that was core to me.
22:06And we were just building, building, building.
22:11And there was one person that was really a star performer.
22:17And he resigned. I was devastated.
22:22But I, of course, couldn't show that in front of the team.
22:26I remember that I got out of the office, got in the car, and I cried in the car.
22:32And there are not many people you can turn to either.
22:35That's just part of running a business.
22:39So it does become very lonely at the top.
22:46And that's where you have to look outward.
22:51It took me, I think, about 10, 11 years in the business
22:57to say that there is nothing wrong in asking for help.
23:03And that's when I was like, let me look for serious mentors.
23:07They know this industry.
23:10You just need a little nudge from someone or sometimes just a wise person to question you
23:16in certain way.
23:18And answer comes from within.
23:29All of our clients are in the US.
23:32I go, I visit US, do a road trip.
23:43And these are tech companies that we deal with.
23:47There are hardly ever women in that.
23:52So in that, naturally, when you get into a room or into a setting,
23:56the ratio is absolutely skewed.
24:03I often find that I'm the only woman in that room.
24:10So in leadership, I feel that this is one of the hardest thing for me to crack.
24:17It really takes an extra effort to get in, to get accepted in that casual setting,
24:25to be part of that.
24:27And it's very easy to be left out.
24:33And there are very few women-led organizations.
24:37But when I come across that, it really makes me feel very, very good.
24:44I mean, they are all committed, super pragmatic women, and they found their way.
24:53I have a few select individuals that I can talk to who are in the similar space that I can
25:00go to.
25:02I have both been fortunate as well as very conscious in creating my surrounding and support system.
25:12I started my own business, and hence, no matter the kind of things I have to go through,
25:18I always feel that it is all worth it.
25:20The kind of autonomy, the independence it has given me, where I can set my own rules,
25:27that is greater compared to anything that you have to go through.
25:34My first responsibility is to make sure that I'm doing right by the company.
25:39But within that, whenever there is an opportunity to lift women into management position,
25:45into leadership position, give extra encouragement, I'll do it.
25:52That's all from Made in Germany.
25:54We visited the remains of Deutschland's Transrapide project,
25:58discovered ships designed for low water levels,
26:00and went shopping with a robot in Hong Kong.
26:03Until next time.