Category: News || By Staff and Wire Reports

The city-based company designing a magnetic-levitation train system between Pittsburgh International Airport and Westmoreland County has received its biggest federal grant ever, officials announced Friday.

The $28 million in funding to Maglev Inc. comes from the Federal Railroad Administration's Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act --- or "SAFETEA" --- program.

It will allow Maglev Inc. to complete several "pre-engineering" studies, conduct an independent cost-anaylsis, update its financial plan and complete other work, said a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, Democrat of Pennsylvania.

The funding, however, does not include the actual construction of any magnetic-levitation infrastructure, trains or tracks.

A 2003 estimate put the cost of a Pittsburgh-area maglev system at $3.7 billion.

Based in the RIDC industrial park on the former U.S. Steel National Works site, Maglev Inc. is a partnership between Michael Baker Corp., Bombardier, Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne Light, U.S. Steel, the United Steelworkers union, Severstal North America, and the Pittsburgh Building and Construction Trades Council.

Local state Reps. Marc Gergely and Bill Kortz praised the grant, which will be administered by the state Department of Transportation.

"This is an outstanding development for the future of the maglev train system and for the economy of McKeesport and Allegheny County," Gergely, a White Oak Democrat, said in a prepared statement. "The $28 million in funding greatly increases the potential that high-speed rail will be coming to western Pennsylvania, generating thousands of jobs, improving our transportation system and providing a faster and cleaner way to travel."

First proposed almost 20 years ago, the Pennsylvania High-Speed Maglev Project envisions a 54-mile-long route built in three sections connecting western Allegheny County with Greensburg, via downtown Pittsburgh.

In a prepared statement, Specter said the system --- if built --- would be a "tremendous economic boon" to the region, creating "thousands of new jobs" in steelmaking and construction while reducing highway congestion and improving Pennsylvania's air quality.

Besides providing transportation, planners expect a Pittsburgh-area system to serve as a demonstration lab to prove that maglev can successfully provide short trips between urban and suburban areas.

If built, maglev's proponents say the Pennsylvania line could then be extended to Philadelphia, with stops in Johnstown, Altoona, State College, Harrisburg and Lancaster.

The grant represents more than half of the $45 million allocated last year by the U.S. Congress to study maglev systems east of the Mississippi River, officials said.

Unlike conventional railroads, magnetic-levitation trains don't use wheels riding on tracks. Instead, they "float" on an air cushion created by electromagnets, propelling them almost silently. Pollution is largely confined to the power plants generating the electricity for the magnets.

However, after more than 40 years of development, only one commercial maglev system has been opened to the public.

That 19-mile system in Shanghai, China, cost $1.3 billion and runs empty most of the time; a planned system in Munich, Germany, was scrapped last year.

In 2008, the two German companies that developed the Shanghai system closed the offices of their maglev partnership, citing a "reduction in sales and planning activities."

Gergely cautioned that maglev is a long away from completion. "It will require the continued cooperation of state government, as well as additional funding," he said.