Practical Verification of Superconducting Feeder Cable on Commercial Rail Lines

In this paper, we report that the commercial operation on passengers has begun using superconducting cable for railway. Superconducting materials are expected to have a wide range of applications, including zero-resistance power transmission and magnetic field applications. By making superconducting materials into cables for railway power transmission lines, it is possible to improve regeneration efficiency, reduce power loss, and equalize the load between substations. With the aim of applying superconducting feeder cables to railways, we have so far conducted prototype superconducting cables, cooling tests, and conducting tests. It has been also introduced a superconducting feeding system to commercial lines and successfully conducted train running tests without passengers. Since then, we have been acquiring data under various conditions in the commercial line. Now that it has been obtained technical confirmation, we have been able to obtain government approval to conduct commercial operation on passengers using superconducting cables. And, it has been developed a new 4-cylinder cryocooler to enable commercial operation using a superconducting feeding system. This time, it has been begun the world's first operation using superconducting cables for railway on commercial lines.