The joint venture in China is developing a facility to produce up to 100km/year of MagPipe. The pipe maglev coal transportation system is trying to get all costs over 40% lower than truck transportation.
Magplane Proposed Transportation for Passengers

The vehicles are supported resiliently on a magnetic cushion, and are free to roll ten degrees in either direction from the bank angle of the magway. This enables them to negotiate horizontal curves of 2 km radius at 360 km/h with airplane comfort. Coordinated self-banking also permits vehicles to negotiate vertical curves typical of highway alignments without passenger discomfort by a "chandelle" type of maneuver in which negative vertical gee-forces are canceled by horizontal curvature. The maximum size vehicle weighs 45 tonnes gross, and carries 175 passengers, three and two abreast. Minimum headway at 500 km/h is 20 seconds, which permits a maximum single vehicle operation capacity of 25,000 seats/hour in each direction, as compared to about 10,000 for light rail and about 3,000 for a highway lane. With headways of 60 seconds in keeping with current state-of-the-art automatic controllers, three coupled intercity vehicles would be used to achieve the 25,000 seats/hour intercity capacity.

Levitation forces, guidance forces, and righting moments are exerted by currents induced in the magway surface by the motion of the vehicle magnets. Propulsion forces are produced by AC current in the guideway propulsion windings which generate a traveling wave. The vehicle rides this wave like a surfboard. Wayside power conditioning units spaced at 2 km intervals, synchronize the traveling wave with the vehicle, and generate active damping forces on the basis of position and acceleration information transmitted from vehicle sensors. Vehicles can leave and re-enter the magway at full speed to stop at off-line magports. The Magplane system thus achieves continuous traffic flow similar to highways, rather than the batch flow process of railroads with on-line stations.

Once the test track has been validated, the project is expected to expand to a 32km-long coal transportation line in Inner Mongolia, with Harbin providing the linear motor drive systems.

The second maglev system is being developed by a joint venture between US-based Magplane Technology, and Chinese partners. This will use a tubular maglev system called MagPipes to move coal from Mongolian mines. A 32-acre (12.9ha) facility (shown above) is being built at Baotou in Inner Mongolia, which will be able to build up 200km of MagPipes a year. Production of components has been sub-contracted to Chinese suppliers.

Magplane Magpipes

　 Electromagnetic drives for pipeline systems are intended to replace pneumatic capsules. Pneumatic capsule pipelines have a long history, and there are several large scale systems in current use. Conventional pneumatic systems use external blowers to move the column of air together with the capsules in the pipe. Full-diameter valves are used to control the injection, removal and subsequent return of capsules. Various practical limits constrain the throughput of these systems and limit their cost effectiveness.

RMI's [Rocky Mountain Institute - energy efficiency evangilists] 2008 peer-reviewed analysis, based on tested science, found a combination of improved aerodynamics, low rolling resisitance tires, and more efficient engines could more than double the ton-mileage of the average class 8 truck from 130 ton-mile per gallon to 275 ton-mile/gallon.

This is mostly theoretical improvements which have not been implemented even in a real life test trial.

Air 82 cents per ton mile
Truck 26 cents per ton mile
Rail 2.9 cents per ton mile
Barge 0.72 cents per ton mile (2001)
Pipeline 1.49 cents per ton mile (2001)

Magnetic pipelines on a large scale seem to approach the cost of shipping oil via pipeline.

The efficiency of rail transportation varies considerably depending on the commodity and the level of service provided; at one extreme, unit trains designed to carry only coal typically require less than 900 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo (155 ton-miles per gallon), while at the other extreme high-speed short trailer-on-flat-car (TOFC) trains use about 2,000 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo (68 ton-miles per gallon).
Intercity trucks require on average about 3,400 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo (41 ton-miles per gallon), twice the rail average and 1.7 times that for rail TOFC. It is not surprising that trucks require more energy since they provide a generally higher level of service than rail.

An even higher level of service, and hence greater energy need, is characteristic of air freight. In planes devoted to air freight, over 28,000 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo may be required (5 ton-miles per gallon), although freight carried in the belly of a passenger plane may require only 3,900 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo (35 ton-miles per gallon).