Japan Firm Considers Building Test Train for Free : Transportation: The demonstration magnetic-levitation line would move commuters between Chatsworth and Warner Center.

To show that high-speed commuter trains propelled by exotic magnetic-levitation technology can work in Los Angeles, a Japanese firm is considering construction of a demonstration line in the San Fernando Valley costing up to $120 million.

The four-mile line between Chatsworth and the Warner Center commercial complex in Woodland Hills would be the first in the nation to be used by mag-lev trains, which float above tracks on electromagnetic “cushions.”

HSST Corp., a Tokyo-based research firm, has been discussing with Los Angeles city and county transportation officials the possibility of the firm building the Valley line for free, a company spokesman said Thursday. However, local taxpayers would pay most of the $27-million cost of acquiring a 2.9-mile railroad right of way for the project, city and county officials said.

HSST is part of a consortium of firms expected to bid on a proposed $3-billion mag-lev system between Los Angeles International Airport and Palmdale, and a successful demonstration line could bolster the group’s chances of winning the contract.

To date, no magnetic-levitation trains have been put into passenger service anywhere, but test tracks have been built in Japan and Germany. The wheel-less mag-lev trains can reach speeds of 120 m.p.h., backers say, but the Valley cars would average only about 70 m.p.h., an HSST spokesman said.

State and city officials praised the HSST concept, saying it could make Los Angeles a national showcase for high-tech transit and help create a commuter system encircling the Valley.

“If we can get this . . . advanced technology on the street in the San Fernando Valley as a demonstration project, that puts us way ahead of everyone else in the country in showing what mag-lev can do,” said state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee.

“One of my goals is making Los Angeles the showcase of transportation’s future, and this is part of making that happen.”

The mag-lev line would connect with a commuter rail station in Chatsworth, allowing north Valley residents to travel to Warner Center without driving on congested Topanga Canyon Boulevard, said Nikolas Patsaouras, an RTD director and vice chairman of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. The Chatsworth stop is part of a proposed cross-Valley commuter rail line.

Patsaouras said the mag-lev line also could be extended south from Warner Center to the Ventura Freeway, hooking up with a proposed elevated rail line to Universal City, where it could connect with the Metro Rail subway from downtown.

But the demonstration project hinges on negotiations over purchasing the right of way from Southern Pacific Transportation Co., HSST spokesman Norm Emerson said.

In a recent letter to city officials, Southern Pacific said it agreed in May to sell the 100-foot-wide strip of land to the city and the county Transportation Commission for $27.4 million.

The commission and city were each to pay half, but the deal had to be restructured after city officials said they could afford to put up only $5.5 million due to budget constraints, said the letter, signed by Southern Pacific Vice President S. David Steel.

Southern Pacific officials subsequently proposed that Warner Center property owners put up $6.7 million to finance part of the purchase, Steel said. Under that proposal, the county’s share would be $13.7 million and the city’s $7 million.

Steel said Warner Center developers wanted assurances that their investment would be counted as part of the traffic mitigation measures being imposed by the city as a condition for expanding the commercial complex.

He also warned that if government officials cannot agree on a new financing scheme within 60 days, the railroad plans to sell off part of the right of way to adjacent landowners and develop the rest.

Patsaouras scoffed at that, saying the railroad could not “give it away” in the present poor market for real estate and that they were just posturing during a business negotiation.

He said a committee of the county Transportation Commission plans to review the demonstration line idea next month and later make a recommendation to the full commission.