High tech

The Shanghai maglev上海磁浮

The only commercial high-speed magnetic-levitation line in the world, running from Longyang Road station to Pudong International Airport. It covers thirty kilometres in about seven and a half minutes and touches 430 km/h on daytime runs — there is a digital readout in the carriage, and the whole cabin leans as it corners. It has never been extended and probably never will be, which has made it a slightly melancholy monument to a road not taken as well as a genuinely thrilling ride. If you are flying out of Pudong it costs very little to take it instead of a taxi.