For wheel/rail manufacturers and companies, the unavoidable wear and tear involved in a wheel/rail system is a very interesting effect from an entrepreneurial viewpoint: it’s an effect that guarantees consistent high turnover, or sales. Infrastructure elements and vehicles must be kept in running order with replacement parts and intensive maintenance, so the higher the driving speed, the higher the abrasion from wheel-rail contact – and also the higher the profits.
It is a truism that vehicle manufacturers achieve higher profits in the rapid-transit sector from maintenance than from the sale of vehicles.
Perhaps they are not very comfortable with formidable enemy is arriving to urban transport market, the magnetic levitation.