Slashdot Mirror
China Going Up and Coming Down
SoCalChris writes "The BBC writes that China has just completed the world's highest railroad, climbing to 16,640 feet (5,072 meters) above sea level. The cars will be sealed to help passengers cope with the pressure changes from the altitude. The line is expected to begin carrying passengers next year." This news comes at the same time that their Chinese taikonauts return from their spaceflight after just 115 hours in orbit.
SoCalChris writes "The BBC writes that China has just completed the world's highest railroad, climbing to 2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*5*13 feet (2*2*2*2*317 meters) above sea level. The cars will be sealed to help passengers cope with the pressure changes from the altitude. The line is expected to begin carrying passengers next year." This news comes at the same time that their Chinese taikonauts return from their spaceflight after just 5*23 hours in orbit.
This just seems unsafe to me. Imagine something goes wrong and the train is stuck up at that altitude. Then what?
I remember riding a train that had colided with a truck a few years back. This wouldn't likely happen at that altitude, but what could happen would be wildlife and environmental blockage.
It seems like a challenge to me.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Well that seals the cultural genocide of the Tibetan people.
:wq
World biggest roller coaster?
-- Por mais que eu ande no vale das trevas e da morte, meu PowerMac G4 Não Travará!!!
I'm glad China's having good progress (in many respects). I do hope their government loosens up (maybe money'll soften them like it did ours) so they allow freedom (since it means more money) to speech and internet and whatnot. Just tell them that!
Now, I really really do hope China doesn't make giant killer robot, and I'll be fine with them for good.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
In case if someone doesn't realize, the lower four pictures are simulated artwork, which is what the blue heading indicates in Chinese. Please don't shout "they're fake."
I once had a signature.
It also comes at the same time that the number of Chinese people living in extreme poverty rose by 800,000 last year.
While we [the /. crowd] bitch and moan about Microsoft and while the great herd worry more about Britney's spawn than credible science, more about the latest American Idol than engineering and while China and India graduate more scientists and engineers than the US...you can expect many, many more reports like this. The 21st century just may be when the Sino-Communist brand of capitalism eclipses lAmerican power and influence.
I actually rode on the Central Rail Line in Peru which was the former highest. Now I am going to have to go to China to ride this thing.
DAMN.
I will say the Peruvian one seems still a bit more challenging - no wussy sealed cars. You get to experience altitude sickness in all its glory.
Are they talking about funicular trolleys or actual heavy rail? Because heavy rail generally sees a 4% grade as a maximum due to, well, physics. Since I'm not aware of any fantastic engineering innovations, this must be some sort of light rail--or at least lighter than standard heavy rail.
Asparagus has many and excellent powers.
with expanded access to new goods and services, educational opportunities, and contact with the outside world
All of the above could have been accomplished without destroying a millenium of scholastic and artistic works. Not to speak of the execution and incarceration of its living representatives.
Real shame that the standard of living in Tibet has risen steadily from the subsistence level ever since the CCP took control, huh?
For the Chinese immigrants. The native population are treated as second class citizens. Hundreds of thousands died of starvation when collectivism was first introduced, and most survivors suffer from various disabilities caused by malnutrition.
:wq
The images on Xinhua are meant to demonstrate the capsule landing. They're not pretending to be actual photos. You should know better than to trust headlines with a question mark at the end of them.
...join the mile high club without ever leaving the ground!
-EL
This type of thing goes on all the time in western media, and there was no attempt to pass off the images as actual photographs. It's just a misconception put forth by xenophobic conspiracy nuts.
The sheer arrogance emitted from some posts are really not worthy of slashdot, and/or its readers/posters.
What China has done, - in terms of the Qinhai-Tibet rail-line, or its spacecraft, - is not better, nor worse, than those from other countries.
Do we see any comments like the
" Some of the images of the spacecraft look fake"
and
"and the ones that don't look fake show damage on the spacecraft"
and
"This just seems unsafe to me. Imagine something goes wrong and the train is stuck up at that altitude?"
and
"Well that seals the cultural genocide of the Tibetan people"
and
"Wow, you are finally almost to the point where the USA's space program was over 40 years ago. That is impressive"
and
"It also comes at the same time that the number of Chinese people living in extreme poverty rose by 800,000 last year"
ad nauseum
if the spacecraft or railway is from the United States of America or Russia ?
This development of sheer arrogance, is not checked, might even venture into the territory of racism.
I'm an /. old-timer, and I'm really sad to see /. goes to the dog because of these type of postings.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I would hardly call Amtrak representative of rail transportation as a whole. Amtrak is a joke, both to Americans and to the rest of the world and, outside of the Northeast Corridor between D.C. and Boston, and maybe somewhere out on the west coast, is useless.
Meanwhile, rail forms the backbone of most developed nations, including France, Germany, and Japan. In case you weren't paying attention, a train also now links England and France via the Channel Tunnel. Bluntly put, America is the exception, not the rule.
"Think about how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that!" - George Carlin.
Real shame that the standard of living in Tibet has risen steadily from the subsistence level ever since the CCP took control, huh?
If I could trust a totalitarian government to do anything other than lie, maybe so. As it is they may as well be claiming that Tibetans are made of cheese for all the validity it has.
Anyway the song that "we're doing it all to raise the natives" has been the standard line of the conqueror all through history, and the natives always get the shaft in the end.
Railroads generally use a whole lot less energy (i.e. fuel) per passenger or unit of cargo than a truck/bus (not to mention a plane). There are economies of scale in running one large engine (or electric motor) relative to lots of smaller ones, and with a metal wheel you don't dissipate energy into the tires. Amtrak's problems come from several sources: (a) they don't own the tracks, but have to lease them from private owners on very poor terms; (b) the management isn't exactly clever; (c) the labor costs are extremely high; (d) they operate under an immense set of regulations. It's nothing fundamental about railroad technology, just that we aren't willing to run one sensibly in the US.
I am really starting to hate the China apologists on /. Way to go! you mention the railroad but you dont mention WHERE the railroad was made. If you read up on it you see that it was made to link China to TIBET where the local population is being wiped out by the chinese communists. Of course they are going to invest in somthing that provides more places for an over crowded china to move people to.
No, I am not a stoned "free tibet hippie", i happen to come from that part of the world.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
If there is any payoff to the destruction of US industrial might by moving it to China, their greater space activity is it. They are to be congratulated for a positive application of their growth and I hope they put the US to shame for the failure of its pioneer heritage. But the railroad, for all of its engineering prowess, is just another nail in the coffin of Tibetan self-determination. There are things more important than economic development.
Seastead this.
Wow.
>You've said that it looks like an "aluminium motor home from..."
Do you know if it works ok for the job it was designed for? How do the looks matter here?
>It looks like it can barely support its own weight. Granted, gravity is very weak in orbit, blah blah blah, but doesn't this thing get strapped to the top of a rocket?
Ignorance is bliss. For things you have no clue about, its best to remain silent or do your own research.
>It's got burn marks all over it
>And no apparent heat shielding
You are speculating. You obvisously have heard the word "heat shielding" and thats about what you know about it.
"Its got burn marks all over it" - must be the funniest sentence
I've heard.
I could continue to post all your trash but I guess we aren;t contributing in a meaningful way on this.
I understand that in the early 1940's Germany had a pretty good rail system and was making remarkable progress with rocketry. Can't wait for the Slashdot retrospective on that.
Oh! Excuse me, have I triggered Godwin's Law?
[Insert pithy quote here]
This is way off-topic, but a little backgroung on the realative merits of different modes of transportation.
In the US and the UK deaths per passenger mile are approximately 1 order of magnitude lower on trains than by trucks/buses.
Trains cost 1 order of magnitude less to operate than an autos. There are numerous reasons why Amtrak is not viable in the US that don't necessarily apply to this case. Amtrak has to compete with the autos whose owners benefit from free roads. In areas with user fess for the roads, trains and other modes of public transportation are viable enterprises. Also, the rail and public transit network is not extensive enough to allow people to opt out of buying a vehicle. In Western Europe, it is possible in most places to have a high standard of living and not own a car. With the exception of NYC, Boston, Chicago, DC, and a few other cities in the US, a car is practically a necessity in the States.
Furthermore, in the case of China which is desperate to secure its necessary energy needs, fuel efficiency is important. Planes get roughly 40 miles per passenger gallon, trains get roughly 80, and cars vary from 15-120 based on the vehicle and number of passengers. So unless everyone travels 4 deep into a Honda CRX, trains aren't so bad when it comes to efficiency.
70% of statistics are made up.
When the conductor opened the pressurized train car door for the first time in Tibet, the pasengers were heard to exclaim, "This place really sucks!" as they blew out the door.
They look fake because the little caption on top, in Chinese, says "Simulated Rendering".
The rest of the images, they must have filmed in the same sound stage that faked the Apollo moon landings.
-=- Terence
I've been to nearly 5900 meters while climbing Kilimanjaro, and I can tell you the air is pretty thin up there. We obviously spent a fair amount of time adjusting, but not the timeframe on Kili is rushed and you definitely feel it. On the final day we climb at a rate of several seconds per step breathing like we were running a marathon. Very exhilarating :)
The article makes it sound like oxygen/pressurized cabin is neccessary at this altitude. It isn't. We spent our final night higher than this altitude and I never even had a headache. I assume the reason why the workers received oxygen was to assist with the heavy labor they had to do.
The pressurized cabin on the train is merely a matter of comfort for most people, although that altitude is high enough to cause problems for some people susceptible to Acute Mountain Sickness or AMS. Since the purpose of the railroad is to reach those high altitudes, I'd assume most people are somewhat accustomed to it.
Here is a picture from the crater rim of Kilimanjaro's larger peak Kibo at sunrise. The smaller peak you see is Mawenzi, and the view is towards Kenya. I would love to visit Tibet some day.
isomerica.net | Foonetic IRC
A friend of mine returned from China and Tibet two years ago and mentioned the train and how many Chinese made no bones about the fact the train would be used to move many Chinese into Tibet to shift the demographics and help dillute/destroy Tibet as an independent culture.
The US rail system is well managed, with one exception: Amtrak. The US railroads have realized that freight does not care too much about how fast it is going, sitting still waiting for another train to pass, and not taking the shortest route point to point.
So the US rails have decided to focus on freight where they hold nearly 2/3rds of all traffic (compare to less than 1/3rd for Europe's rails). That is good management: do what you can do well, and let someone else deal with what you cannot do well. I would argue that Europe's rails are mismanaged, spending all their energy on moving people when it is much easier to move freight.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The second thing to keep in mind is that because the public transport systems within cities are so much better (New York is a bit of an exception, as the subway on Manhattan is very good), a lot of Europeans simply don't own a car even if they can afford it. Therefore, even if the train is a bit dearer in terms of variable cost, the money saved by not owning, garaging and servicing a car more than makes up for it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
And there you go, that's the two major parts of the joke that is N. American railways. The trains can't even keep to the schedule, to the point that you're expecting it to take 20% longer. And secondly the trains are so bloody slow. Eugene to LA is between 800 and 900 miles, which at 60 mph would take 15 hours. You're talking about them averaging 30 mph!!! Most modern countries have their intercity trains running at over 100 mph. The London to Edinburgh trains in the UK top out at 140, and the London to Paris even more on the French side. The UK doesn't have the fastest rail networks either. Your journey by rail should be taking well under 10 hours. At least you will get to enjoy the view, which is very nice in that area.
China's policy over the last few years has been one of population dilution. By trucking in native Chinese, they were diluting native Tibetan population. With this new railroad that process will accelerate dramatically. I spent a month in Lhasa last year and spoke with some of the Tibetans (technically you are supposed to have a Chinese guide present at all times, but since there were no other tourists there .. none .. the guide just took off to a bar), and they were very depressed about the finish of the railroad. Their culture is being coopted by China and western influence.
So very sad.
-coherentlight