自1994年以来，多次专家论证均认为，建轮轨式京沪高速铁路是可行的。1999年有三位院士提出，中国不宜发展轮轨列车，而应大力发展磁悬浮列车。文章介绍了三位院士的基本观点。为什么世界上已有近10个国家和地区已建、在建或计划近期建设轮轨式高速铁路运营线，却至今还没有建设一条磁悬浮的运营线？特别是为什么连有长期试验研究经验的日本、德国国内，对发展磁悬浮系统还有不小的争议呢？笔者以为，要害在于磁浮系统的经济效益太差，技术也不完全成熟，这才是决定的因素；磁浮系统除速度比轮轨式较高之外，无论技术上、经济上，与民航及轮轨式高速铁路相比，几乎没有任何优越之处，因此称之为"技术跨越"难以成立。建议：把磁浮系统应用于高速铁路，只宜做跟踪性、可行性研究，不宜花若干亿去建试验线，关键是要尽快批准轮轨式京沪高速铁路立项上马。

Ever since 1994, the evaluations made by expert have proved that the wheel/rail approach for the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway is feasible. However there were three academicians who proposed in 1999 that China was not suitable to develop wheel/rail type high speed trains and great efforts should be paid to development of maglev trains. Then what are the reasons for almost 10 countries and regions in the world that have constructed or are constructing or are planning to construct this type of high speed railways and none of them have constructed a maglev line in real revenue service so far. And in particular why there still exits a big debate on the development of maglev even in Japan and Germany that have long-term test and research experience. For the latter question, the three academicians have the following explanations： The superiority of maglev system can not be brought into full play due to the fact that the distance from the capitals to major cities is relatively short, the high speed highway network and the wheel/rail type high speed railway network are already available, and they do not feel any urgent needs. The author holds that the crucial point, which is a decisive factor, is that maglev system is rather poor in economic benefits and it is by no means perfect technically. The paper also points out that the maglev system has no superiority over civil aviation and high speed railways in terms of technology and economy except that its speed is higher than wheel/rail type railways. Therefore, the so-called “technical leap-forward”，is hard to find ground. The author proposes that it is better to carry out feasibility study of follow-up nature with regard to the application of maglev system no high speed railways. It is not appropriate to spend several hundred million yuan to build a test section. It is essential to approve the wheel/rail type Beijing - Shanghai High Speed Railway at an early date.