Birmingham had the world's first commercial maglev railway, opened in 1984.
The Birmingham Maglev was a low-speed automated shuttle linking Birmingham Airport with Birmingham International railway station. It officially opened on 16 August 1984 and carried paying passengers along an elevated guideway about 600 metres long.
The vehicles levitated approximately 15 millimetres above the guideway using electromagnets and were propelled by linear induction motors. The system was designed for short-distance airport transport rather than high-speed intercity travel, reaching roughly 42 kilometres per hour.
The shuttle operated until 1995, when ageing electronic equipment and reliability problems led to its closure. It is sometimes confused with later and faster systems, especially Shanghai's high-speed maglev, but Shanghai opened much later. Birmingham's achievement concerns the first commercial passenger maglev system, not the first experimental magnetic-levitation vehicle or the fastest maglev train.