500 kph high-speed trains

I have been following these guys for a while. They are called UK Ultraspeed and are a lobby group trying to convince the government that rather than spending vast amounts of money on conventional high speed rail which, because of their designs and limits, provide moderate benefits at best, for the same money you can install a very high speed system capable of running trains at 500 kph which is around 310mph.
Essentially we are talking about magnetically levitated trains running on specially built concrete guideways. They have superior acceleration, braking, quality of ride and safety compared to standard trains and of course extremely high top speed.
What I am particularly impressed by is that Ultraspeed are not simply pitching high-technology which is expensive but worth it, they are instead saying that not only are you getting better equipment for the same money but that there are major economic advantages to cities outside of London, something that sadly is not currently true. For instance, the standard high speed rail systems have separate east and west coast systems because of the pennine mountains, which cause either expensive tunnelling operations or would require gradients that are quite simply not possible on standard rails. If you want to travel from Manchester to Newcastle, you either have to get a slow train across to Leeds and then up to Newcastle or go up to Glasgow and back across Scotland. Any new lines are not going to be able to use the existing tunnels and will not spend the 100s of millions to bore new ones. Ultraspeed on the other hand can support steep gradients because of the magnetic drive system so that a new line could indeed cross the Pennines without tunnels. Imagine Liverpool to Manchester in 20 minutes, Manchester to Newcastle in 30 minutes and Newcastle to Glasgow via Edinbugh in 40 minutes. Imagine what that would do to encourage investment in these areas with a massive workforce and little employment.
The only objections can be that the guideways are elevated and not attractive. The system requires less land to be bought, has been tried and tested elsewhere, requires less trains, less staff, less control equipment and ties the country together in a single high-speed line for the SAME money as other proposals. The idea that standard systems can re-use existing rails is a red herring. There is simply not the capacity for any additional trains to use most parts of the current system and the delays and problems you encounter are frequently due to level crossings, freight trains and local trains, things that do not exist on the transrapid system. There really is no reason to go backwards with conventional rail any more.