Similar poles of two magnets repel each other; opposite poles attract each other. Every magnet has a north pole and a south pole. “A Maglev train car is just a box with magnets on the four corners,” says Jesse Powell, the son of the Maglev inventor, who now works with his father.
Maglev trains are "driven" by the powered guideway. A brief review of magnets will help explain how maglev (magnetic levitation) trains work. By 2035, a trip from Toronto to Vancouver will take 3 hours. The engine for maglev trains is rather inconspicuous. Maglev (derived from magnetic levitation) is a system of train transportation that uses two sets of magnets, one set to repel and push the train up off the track, and another set to move the elevated train ahead, taking advantage of the lack of friction.Along certain "medium-range" routes (usually 320 to 640 km [200 to 400 mi]), maglev can compete favorably with high-speed rail and airplanes.

Any two trains traveling the same route cannot catch up and crash into one another because they're all being powered to move at the same speed. They are much faster than regular trains. Like ordinary magnets, these magnets repel one another when matching poles face each other. Magnetic levitation is a technology that uses magnetic fields to make the train move.

The big difference between a maglev train and a conventional train is that maglev trains do not have an engine — at least not the kind of engine used to pull typical train cars along steel tracks.
In Maglev, superconducting magnets suspend a train car above a U-shaped concrete guideway. These principles govern the levitation of maglev … Maglev trains are a very fast type of train.

These fields lift the train a small distance above the tracks and moves the train.