Slashdot Mirror
China Sets Sights On Rail Record
An anonymous reader writes "China is aiming to produce the world's fastest operating conventional train for its new high speed rail link between Shanghai and Beijing, achieving speeds up to 380 km/h and cutting the travel time between the two cities from the current ten hours to under five. The new rail link is scheduled to be completed within four years. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Railways' Deputy Chief Engineer has announced that China will be able to manufacture the new trains within two years."
Wow. Why aren't we in the US trying to do this? We used to be so worried about the Communists beating us. But now it's like we don't even care. Where's the fire?
With 1 billion people running on treadmills, that's enough power to get a train up to speed pretty quickly and keep it there.
In 6-hour shifts, they'll need diapers.
everybody will get to see all those little "made in China" stickers on the bottom...
...achieving speeds up to 380 km/h and cutting the travel time between the two cities from the current ten hours to under five...
I wonder whether officials at United States' AMTRAK are reading this. I saddens me that plans for high speed commuting on AMTRAK's rails was shelved a few years ago. REsult? Top speed on AMTRAK's rails is 180 KM/hr and only on some routes.
These officials (at AMTRAK) are more interested in their allowances and benefits instead of doing what is for the common good. In the meantime, AMTRAK's technology is still stuck in the seventies as the Asians led by the Chinese "overtake" us.
No wonder that we in these United States will cease to be of any consequence on world matters as internet traffic heads to Europe and more relevant innovation comes from Asia. I am really afraid for the generation that will come after ours.
This just makes me wonder where California's planned high-speed rail initiative is actually going. Imagine, 2-1/2 hours from SF to LA, but it seems to be a stuck project!
Wrists killing you? Not in 2 weeks. Learn Dvorak.
its incredible to look at projects like these in comparison to the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars we spend on war instead. the best comparison I can draw is the relatively "small" investment a few billionaires began in revitalizing downtown Los Angeles. I drive down there and in just a few years there are refurbished buildings and the new nokia center just to start. One can actually walk around downtown (at least a section) without seeing old buildings everywhere. if we could have just invested a fraction of what we have spent on this war our country could be competing in projects like these.
It is quite pathetic that the United States is behind nearly every other advanced country in developing advanced public transportation systems. The state of public transportation in many parts of the country is simply awful. While we know we need to conserve and every time we turn the ignition on the car we lurch closer to total economic peak oil disaster and climate chaos, the US is unable to change its wasteful, gas guzzling drive 20 miles to work ways. Instead of doing the environmentally responsible thing to future generations and to our own well being, by developing clean new non fossil fuel sources of energy, and conservation, public transportation, etc, instead we have greedy republicans who want to threaten our coastal ecosystems and oceans with ruin for oil drilling, which will not reduce gas prices at all and which does subject the fragile coastal ecosystems and many endangered species with great harm. Anyone who says that oil drilling offshore is safe or will lower gas prices knows absolutely nothing what they are talking about or are lying. It is an outright lie and there is another sinister evil agenda at work here. Republicans mostly known its a lie but only tow the oil company line so they can get oil company donations for their campaigns, and to make it look like they are doing something when they are doing nothing. Oil drilling does not solve our energy problems and does nothing to lower prices but it distracts people from looking at alternative energy sources and conservation which is what we need to be doing. Offshore oil drilling will actually, since it uses resources and money that could otherwise be used for renewables, could lead to higher gas prices. The oil companies do NOT want lower gas prices because they want to make a profit. Oil companies are the only ones who would benefit from a little bit more profit but the total amount of oil in currently offlimits areas is only the amount we use in 2 years in the US, is insufficient to have any real effect on gas prices. Yet offshore oil drilling will ruin coastal ecosystems and beaches. It has been found that a rig off california has been leaking PCBs into the pacific for years. Every major hurricane can cause an inevitable spill from oil rigs, over 700,000 gallons were spilled from oil rigs after Katrina. Texas beaches are littered with tarballs from oil company spills, trash, barrels and refuse. Loggerhead turtles have been found dead after having eaten tarballs. Very high levels of mercury have been found covering the seafloor off alabama from pollutants released by oil rigs. This has resulting in astronomical levels of mercury in grouper. Whales and dolphins are disoriented and beached by seismic testing for oil exploration. it only takes one spill to completely ruin beaches and the chance of that is only increased by oil drilling. The US has 3% of the worlds oil but uses 25% and that is mostly due to the fact that we have horrible urban planning, instead of placing people near where they work, or encourage them to use bikes, walks or use public transportation. We could save more oil from a few conservation measures than we ever could get from offshore oil drilling. I have used public transportation in a part of the country where it is terribly inefficient. it is almost like you are being punished for using it and trying to help the environment. It is very frustrating to see someone who thinks they are a hot shot drive by in a hummer, like they are trying to keep you from saving the planet and undo any good you are trying to do. We really ought to ban the hummers, require 35 mpg minimum fuelstandards by 2010 and build public transportation, instead of ruin coastal ecosystems and threaten whales and dolphins so a few fat cat oil companies can make a little more profit. It is also very frustrating to see billions invested into massive highway projects instead of more efficient public transportation systems that both use less oil and keep our cities more liveable by reducing exhaust and using less space. We really need to get our act together and start moving to renewables and conserving rather than polluting this planet with toxic oil company wastes and offshore oil platforms spilling heavy metals and carcinogens into the water and beaching whales and dolphins.
The rails lines could be run along current easements.
The only thing holding up rail is the public's attachment to the automobile: status symbol, complete freedom of where to go, perceived fears of others who ride the train, the fact that we're all spread out in suburbs, etc...
Non stop between cities.
If you start adding stops in between the two end points, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference what the top speed is, the average speed will suck badly.
Deleted
> The trains will be powered by the bodies of dead slave laborers ....
USAtoday says:
North America's four major rail networks -- Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific and Canadian National -- all own lines that were built and operated with slave labor.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-railroads.htm
There is already one of these in operation between Beijing and Tianjin, operating at a top-speed of 350 km/h, which is apparently already a record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing-Tianjin_high-speed_rail
The train from Shanghai to the airport (Pudong?) is already faster. It does over 400 KpH.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Between Las Vegas and Disneyland.
It is kinda scary to think that while "Oh_so_EVIL_communist_China" builds an express line between its capitol and its financial center, US is building what is essentially a carnival ride between the Pleasure Island and Sin City.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Speed: There is a very narrow range of trip lengths for which high-speed rail makes sense.
Suppose this train actually achieves the stated 236 miles per hour. Without making any stops at all, you're still looking at about 13 hours to get from New York to San Francisco. With five or six stops (that's not even one per state), it would approach 20 hours. This is a 6-hour flight. Anywhere farther than 600 miles is going to be faster by air.
For trips less than 250 miles, it's just not worth the hassle of getting to a major rail hub, parking your car (or taking transit and transfering), waiting to board the train, arriving at your destination with no ground transport and having to rent a car, etc.. It's easier to just jump in your car and drive there. Cheaper, too.
Those are best-case scenarios. In reality, the Acela takes 8 hours to get from Boston to Washington, DC -- a flight I've made in about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Cost: Anyone with $50 or $100 million can start their own airline, leasing a few planes and plying low-volume routes to make money for expansion.
Good luck getting a high-speed rail built for less than $50 billion. With that kind of money, you could outright buy 40 or 50 brand-new airliners and hire people to fly them. That lets you provide service to a lot more than just two cities.
Capacity: It would take over a decade and untold billions of dollars to build a track. That's ignoring all the right-of-way and environmental headaches. Once built, the track can't exactly be picked up and moved if peoples' travel habits change. Air routes change all the time, based on passenger demand.
Airspace is already there, and it's free. The only real limit on capacity is landing slots, and big airports like LAX can land over a thousand flights a day.
Security: In flight, the only external threat to an airliner would be from ground-to-air missiles. Those aren't exactly easy to come by. You can't make one in your tool shed. Airliners are very delicate, but they're also very hard to reach, six miles above ground and moving along at mach 0.8..
High-speed rails travel a fixed route at predictable times. You could destroy one pretty easily using an IED. Even a small fuel-fertilizer bomb would be sufficient -- moving at hundreds of miles per hour, anything which gets the train slightly off-kilter is going to cause massive casualties. Patrolling thousands and thousands of miles of rail, 24 hours a day, is impractical and expensive.
I'm very glad for China, but at the same time depressed. When I was younger, I used to think of the US as being a place that made THE FUTURE happen. I wanted the Internet come into being and if that wasn't THE FUTURE I didn't know what was. Now it seems feels like the US it focused on stasis. I can only hope now that the Chinese let us have some table scraps from their engineering marvels.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
China already has the world fastest intercity train in use between Beijing and Tianjin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing%E2%80%93Tianjin_Intercity_Rail
However, the trains were fueled by coal/diesel.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
sure, go ahead, buy your cheap goods from a despotic tyranny
oddly enough, you might be helping as affluence may be their undoing
it certain has been ours
574km/h
Look at this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_Ir_n3J5ABA
I read comments like: "...I used to think of the US as being a place that made THE FUTURE happen.." and "Why aren't we in the US trying to do this?".
Whahhh, whah...
Sure, they are actually able to make these things happen because of lower costs of entry (EISes, land use rights, etc), but why complain when, more than likely, you've done nothing to contribute. Have any of you ever participated in your local government-let alone actually ever attended a city council meeting or the like? If you want this s4!t to happen, get involved, find out what it takes, push for changes, VOTE IN THE NON-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, etc. Don't just sound like a bunch of voiceless citizens, make it happen.
We had passenger rail service a lot all over the nation, people abandoned it in droves to ..err...drive. And that's it. People vote for what they want with their wallet. Building a ton more rail lines wouldn't work, people will still drive. What will be happening is just better and more fuel efficient cars will be built for the roads that are already built. And for that matter, a whole heaping bunch of the same folks who want more rail now went way out of their way to encourage rails to trails, ripping out rail lines to put in bike paths. They can't even make up their minds but want everyone else to jump fast and pay for the scheme of the week. So let them ride their bikes now where those ripped out rail lines went.
We have a wonderful highway system that works, and better vehicles will be here shortly, every major manufacturer is on the hybrid or plugin hybrid bandwagon now and pure electrics and good small diesels, etc are "coming soon". Another trillion dollars for more passenger rail lines (figure pulled out of the aether) is spending money unwisely at this point, and we need to conserve *cash* now, the nation is going broke. We don't need anymore massive boondoggles. I'd rather see that trillion (if it was spent) go into something like two-three billion solar panels all over the nation on most of the roofs..just as a for instance. That would do a lot more good. We need more energy, not more ways to use energy. We are already moving fast to being more efficient with our energy uses, people are juiced over better mileage cars and stuff like going to LED lighting and so on, all good stuff.
The US is primarily a car nation, *that isn't going to change*, and people huffing and puffing it is the same as Europe so we can be like Europe isn't going to change that, so they should just give it up on that point, let it go. We have enough rail and trains to move a lot of bulk cargo, it's already a done deal, after that we use trucks, and people want to fly or drive when moving their persons.
The train is an expensive sort of compromise that is neither as fast as flying when you need to save time, nor can it be a substitute for the whole family and their stuff in the car going on vacation, so it won't work. That passenger rail has long ago fallen out of favor *here* for the universal people moving deal, although it is popular elsewhere. Where it is practical for commuting or in the extremely large urban areas, we already have it and it gets used, again, it is a done deal. It is not necessary any place else at this point. It is expensive enough maintaining the roads as it is and there would be no way to pay for establishing thousands of miles of new tracks and trains in addition to the roads, and they *won't* be tearing out roads or abandoning them.
China can do this crap because they make a trillion a year surplus, the US loses that amount, we go into debt that much, that's why china can build expensive toys like a high speed rail link.
"These officials (at AMTRAK) are more interested in their allowances and benefits instead of doing what is for the common good."
Are you nuts? Check out the pay at Amtrak. For Union labor, Amtrak pays the lowest wages in the rail industry. For non-Union (i.e. management, IT, professional), Amtrak's wages are at or below average. Their benefits are average. Find somebody who works at Amtrak who actually knows what's going on. The company is starved for capital and so it forces Amtrak to act in sometimes odd fashion because all projects have to be completed within a year (a bi-product of Federal funding).
Amtrak would dearly love to move us into the 21st century in high-speed style, but given that the federal subsidy is just over $1B per year, that's not even enough money to properly maintain the bridges and tunnels they own. Not to mention that most of Amtrak's network is owned by the freight railroad. I'm guessing china is spending 100 times as much as the U.S. on rail transport.
Instead of throwing stones, find out what's really going on in Washington with Amtrak. Then after you truly understand the facts, then you can go throw stones, or maybe, must maybe, you'll be shocked at how congress has used Amtrak more as a political whipping boy than trying to bring passenger rail into the 21st century.
Seriously. Go look. You have google, you seem very intelligent. You have the desire. Now put that energy to use for something other than complaints.
I would love to know the subsidy (federal, state, local) for the highways.
Jane told the truth. Why mod her -1 Troll? Are you American moderators really that stupid?
Are you foreign posters really that limited in scope? Do you really feel the need to justify everything in military terms? Get a grip. Truth is, if we were on a quest to build an empire and needed lots of guns and tanks and bombs and things, our economy would be booming. Unemployment would be nil. As it happens, we dramatically reduced our force levels since the ending of the Cold War (too far, I'd say.)
America has some serious issues, but economic progress (or otherwise) is dependent upon a myriad of factors having nothing to do with Iraq. I assume that is what Jane Q. is referring, since I'm unaware of any other nations currently being bombed for profit (of course, a good carpet-bombing or two might improve the quality of posts here on Slashdot.)
If we want to start improving our economic outlook there are, at a minimum, going to have to be some serious changes to the patent system and our schools. Proper incentives will have to be made to encourage investment. We'll need real broadband and major telecommunications upgrades. Lots of stuff.
None of which has anything to do with bombing anyone.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
To begin with it is incredible that Alstom is not even mentioned - eventhough they just broke (their own) world-speed record at 574 km/h (less than 1% shy of the fastest Maglev prototype, by-the-way).
It was nearly 20 years ago that a *commercial* TGV reached 515 km/h (granted, it was a shortened). No prototype - that very train is still running today.
France has been running high speed trains for nearly 30 years, holds nearly all speed records, and already has some of them reaching 360 km/h bloody *today*. They hold most of the high-speed train market, conveying higher performance, reliability and lower cost. (This is not marketing, there is a 20 years track record).
Some Chinese officials want to celebrate their own glory, more power to them. But to call for a "record", certainly not. Do they even built their own train?
The good thing is that they show once again that they are smarter than most: they chose conventional trains, not Maglev this time. I just wish they pick the best train too (which clearly is Alstom's AGV, in this case).
My father works for Alstom, who build, amongst other things, the high-speed train TGV. On April 2007, he was directly involved with the tests that set the new 574.8 km/h world speed record for railed vehicles. The Chinese figure of 380 km/h would be a record for operating trains because, commercially, the TGV only travels at up to 320 km/h -- however note that the new Alstom design AGV will operate at a very close speed, 360 km/h in 2010. I wonder why the BBC article fails to mention the TGV, but instead presents the slower german ICE and japanese Shinkansen trains as the 2 currently "fastest" trains.
Anyway my father tells me interesting things about the Chinese. They have bought many different trainsets from Alstom and other competitors: high-speed trains, regional trains, trams, etc. But never in huge quantity. When they talk about a new project, they say they will need 50, 100 trains, but in the end only buy a handful of them. The train industry is well aware that the Chinese are actually buying in small quantities because they reverse-engineer the designs to, in the end, mass-produce them locally using their cheaper workforce. It makes sense after all, it's the quickest way for them to master state-of-the-art technologies, and then build onto them.
There's a big struggle to put the proposition on the ballot, and lots of information in this partisan blog. All I have to say is that, as a Spaniard, I'm amazed at how easily high speed trains are being developed in the country with the highest unemployment rates in the whole EU, compared to the richest state in the most powerful country in the world. Come on, get your act together, California!
To do list for Windows
I disagree, and it is because we are not effectively using a lot better technology that we have developed already.
A ton of this commuting, millions of people, doesn't have to be done if we put in good fiber optic internet more places. That would do more than any amount of better cars or commuter trains. All this commuting to go sit in an office and type at a computer doesn't need all this commuting, it can be done at home. No need to drive or ride some train then.
We need to give up this notion that having huge corporate office towers with giant lit up signs advertising to the space aliens all night long is somehow a wise idea. Those are corporate dick waving towers, that's it for the most part in the internet age. We should be working hard to eliminate the *need* for commuting, not arguing over rail or more roads, we need to eliminate millions more people driving big distances twice a day, or riding some equally expensive and time wasting train, five days a week just to type up stuff and attend meetings and show each other power point presentations.
We have the internet, a 21st century way to move ideas and data, lets use that instead, as much as possible,. way more than we are now, it is a lot cheaper than building roads or rails to move humans when there is no absolute necessity other than past historical inertia.
The record on rail, 574 km/h, belongs to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record#Record_of_2007 . Maglevs go faster but compete in a different category :)
However, the fastest the TGV can go in commercial operation is around 320 km/h, so the Chinese train will top it by some 40 km/h. Kudos to the engineers!
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Yes, I realize to normally increasing speed increases capacity; but, these high speed tickets will sell at a premium. This means that the majority of the people will still be on overcrowded, low speed trains.
This is out of something I just wrote, it describes part of a typical rail trip in China.
When I got to the train station I got a ticket to Xinyang (47 RMB). I wanted a Soft seat (first class), a D-train ticket, or just a plain old seat; but there were no seats to be had.
This constant overcrowding of the trains is an indicator that the demand is way up. It is a natural result of a people becoming more prosperous, they travel more. However, the hardware is lagging in accommodating them. I did read that GE is preparing to deliver the first three of three hundred locomotives, that have been ordered, to China. I can only hope it will help a little.
I ended up in a washroom, a small stall with a sink that is about one meter square, with three other men, two of them were already siting on the sink so I, and the other man, stood. The washroom on the other side of the isle was equally full of women. The isle and the rest of the car was just as crowded. In fact, there was a sense that they were doing me a great favor by allowing me to stand in the washroom where I was not being pressed on all sides.
The trouble with this was that, when we reached Xinyang, the conductor was unable to get to the door. So, I missed my stop. I realized this when the train pulled into Wu Chan, a division of Wu Han. This was a couple hundred kilometers south of where I needed to be (I was traveling from the north).
Is it an application of Ruby on Rails or is it coded in Assembly to be that fast?
You are missing the point. It's not that anyone isn't sure that as far as energy use and carbon emissions goes the train will be better, the point of the environmental impact study is to determine if their are any especially environmentally sensitive areas that should be routed around.
Exactly. Trains in the long run may be more environmentally sensitive than other transit modes, but rail lines to have real environmental effects that need to be considered: noise & vibration, drainage, impervious surfaces (at the stations), wildlife disruption, fire danger from sparks off the rail or electrical components, defoliants used to kill weeds along the ROW, construction disruptions, exhaust soot (for diesel-powered locos), lubricant leakage from the vehicles, grade crossings, toxic soils that may be unearthed for ROW cuts and/or tunnels, and etc.
All of these things can be overcome, but it has to be done right, otherwise you'll wind up getting sued and have to rip up your project and rebuild it again to meet the appropriate standards.
From yourFA
The article provides no evidence or specifics of any Canadian National slave labour lines. It does say,
So maybe CN has since boughts lines that were once built or operated with slaves? If you're going to cast the net that broadly, then there's precious little in America that's not tainted. Slavery wasn't finally abolished until 1865. Debt bondage continued to be a problem right into WWII.
While this sounds like a great idea in practice, the cost of maintaining the overhead wiring, steel rails and rolling stock for such a high-speed train will border on exorbitant.
Remember, above 300 km/h, there are serious engineering issues of physical wear from the contacts of the overhead wiring with the pantographs on the train and the steel wheels and steel rail. Unless the Chinese government spends the type of money needed to properly maintain these equipment, it could end up being a serious maintenance nightmare (I can imagine how much SNCF is spending to maintain the TGV system).
Security theater :
Airlines: Annoying, invasive security theater checks at departure. Severe limitations on allowed carry-on luggage, as to both the size and contents.
Rail: No checks, no limitations.
As an added bonus, you won't have to pick up your luggage separately upon arrival if you travel by train.
</random_european_AC>
Hey China, Europe here! Nice to have you around. We hope you will be enjoying your trains. We originally developed them for our own pleasure, but we don't mind you too much using our ideas. :-)
Waste = Food.
In the US, the FRA (Federal Railway Administration) regulates passenger rail. The FRA rules have made it prohibitively expensive to build high-speed rail. Until regulations change in the US, high-speed rail will either cost a fortune ($40+ billion for the California project), or it will simply not be done at all.
"what would they do"? I'd put them to work hand building levees and planting trees on the edges of deserts, stuff like that. Sorting through mountains of electronic waste for the scrap metals. At minimum wage. With no benefits. And every day I'd warn them that we could import workers who could work twice as hard for half the pay. Over and over on loudspeakers, just an endless loop. At designated 800 calorie gruel ration time periods, say once every ten hours, they could listen to broadcasts of rush limbeau telling them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and realize they are competing globally now so they better work harder if they want to stay competitive. And how they are falling behind with their interest payments for the small square of ground they are allowed to sleep on, so they better figure out where to get the money to pay for that privilege and soon, or they will go to a real debtor's work camp. No "writing down" debt around these parts anymore.
Besides that, maybe they could be used for biofuel?
Well, ya, that's Europe. That's why I made a point of saying I was only speaking of the US. We've already invested gawd knows how much to build a fantastic road system. Flaws and all, you can drive most anyplace and it is already paid off. Building x-thousands of miles of new rail lines here is just not going to happen, especially as they just went way out of their way the past buncha years *tearing rail lines out*. And from what I am reading in the UK press your folks are hurting and this winter is going to be an energy pricing shocker. Your fuel prices are already nutso, way beyond sustainability. You leader goofballs are just as nuts as our fearless leader goofballs. That might have something to do with more passenger rail traffic, you are pricing people out of their cars and soon to be out of winter heating. Good luck with that. Me, I burn firewood cut right off this property now. No more paying through the nose for wallstreet profits fuels.
I made a point to be loud and bitch about that tearing out already established rail lines several times when it was proposed way back (which really annoyed a lot of my enviro friends but they can't think past one step it seems in a lot of cases, much as I like bicycles, established rail lines are more important), but they still got tore out -which shows how much bitching can accomplish, even combined with some practical long range economic outlooks, absolutely nothing, but it is fun to be right later on I guess...say toldyaso. To all those 'tards...toldyaso!)
The US and giant corporation inc., short-sightedly and quite *stupidly* destroyed on purpose a pretty fair and well built railroad service, we had a lot of passenger rail and cargo (when I was a kid I had a job sweeping at a passenger rail station, that is long gone now), now we only have a pittance of passenger and still good cargo for rail. You see, I *was* a rail supporter..back when we still had all the track in place, it used to connect about every little burg out there, sidings galore..now mostly gone.
The people have spoken, we want cars and planes.
And verily shall it be.
And we'll give up planes before we do cars if it gets too expensive. Just the way it is. A few big metro areas have commuter trains and subways, this will have to suffice. We have both some intra city and then a sort of national busline, it works for what it offers. That'll be it.
There's just slap no money for such a huge national new rail project, nor much of a will. You'll find a few people willing to give up their cars for rail, but not too many. It just isn't as flexible as a road system with personal vehicles. Europe may build more trains and stuff, but the US and Japan will be building 50 mpg cars soon for the US market, that is the forward look near as I can see.
The US may be *slow* to change, but once the collective "we" decides to change it goes fast, you should see the sheer number of gashogs around here sitting with for-sale signs in the windows out in front of people's houses. It's freekin medium amazing.
High speed rail outside of a few really niche lines in the US is DOA. We will be buying better mileage cars, going to electric cars, diesels, along those lines. Scooters, gee whizz they are popular now, seeing ten times as many this year as last year zipping around. I mean, geez, even rail cargo is dropping fast as the economy tanks. They are parking-mothballing-thousands of freight cars right now. We are keeping our roads, just gonna change what we drive on them.
This "economy tanking" part is just not sinking in yet to enough people, but it will, give it some more time. There aren't going to be *any* big huge expensive boondoggles soon, you can't do squat when you are bankrupt, and for all practical purposes the US is bankrupt right now, the fed gov is bankrupt, all the states are bankrupt, hardly any pension systems public or private can realistically pay off, that
Don't forget that our freeway system was partly built so that the military could move troops etc rapidly from one part of the country to the other. I bet you that if there were a military reason for having a high speed train network, we'd have one tomorrow. Why do you think NASA is funded? Because we want to do science in space?? Most big projects in this country are done because there is a military advantage in doing it, otherwise it doesn't happen.
Don't point out that the emperor is naked, lest you become a hypocrite!
I think the U.S is stuck in a rut. Competition is a good thing to get us moving again. It certainly did during the cold war. It's also good to see that China now is starting to contribute to advancing the state of the art instead of just catching up with the west. That will benefit all of humanity.
America has some serious issues, but economic progress (or otherwise) is dependent upon a myriad of factors having nothing to do with Iraq.
The economic progress of the United States is severely hampered by the ridiculous amount of debt incurred by running the campaign in Iraq -never mind whether or not you agree with our presence there. This is why we're borrowing a crapload of money from China and playing friendly with them on all sorts of levels whereas several decades back we would've dismissed them as a bunch of communists opposed to our way of life. We're now at another nation's mercy because we escalated a long-standing bad habit -spending money we don't have- to a degree unforeseen all in the name of [insert your affiliation's or neast equivalent's most recent understood justification for an extended military presence in Iraq here]. We'll in this postion for a long time because we'd already been spending more than we could afford for a good long while.
Yes, there are other factors contributing to the current woes of the U.S., but to pretend that there are just loads and loads of them which are not at all affected by the Iraq campaign is strictly delusional.
And the Chinese are going to carry a pile of slave corpses on-board that's going to drive the new train?
Who the hell modded this load of trash "Insightful"?
Between Seattle and Portland, 180 miles apart, there are 4 trains each way each day and the trip is 3 hours 10 minutes to 3 hours 30 minutes. There are six stops during the trip. It can be longer if the drawbridge on the Columbia happens to go up and your train has to wait for it, or if there is some freight rail traffic that impedes the passenger train. In the USA, boat traffic has the right of way over rail and if a cargo ship carrying woodchips or cow dung or whatever wants to go under the bridge when a scheduled passenger train would cross, the bridge opens and the scheduled passenger train must wait. This can take 20 to 30 minutes. One time when this happened the bridge got stuck open and it took nearly an hour to get it closed again.
Between Hakata (Fukuoka) and Hiroshima, Japan, 175 miles apart, and cities of similar size to Seattle and Portland, there nearly 100 high-speed trains going each way every day and the trip takes as little as an hour and five minutes. Depending on the train there can be as little as one stop in between.
The trains provide city center to city center service. In Japan it is feasible to plan business trips between cities this far apart that take place in as little over three hours; a bit over an hour there, an hour meeting, a bit over an hour back. In the US such a trip is impossible. Even if you fly, by the time you drive or take a cab out to the airport, go through security, fly the short distance and then get into town from the airport, you've wasted far more time.
I use this example from time to time as most people who live in the US have no idea how backward the US can be in certain areas.
For example, one can take a 6AM train from Hakata (Fukuoka) and be in Hiroshima at 7:05AM. The earliest train out of Seattle leaves at 7:30 and doesn't arrive until 11AM (if the train is on time, which it usually isn't). The next train out of Seattle for Portland doesn't leave until 11:20AM. Between 6AM and 11:20AM, there are 28 trains leaving Hakata (Fukuoka) for Hiroshima.
Want to meet for a business lunch in Hiroshima? Take the 10:30AM train and you'll be there at 11:36AM, take the 10:39AM train and be there at 11:49AM, or take the 11:00AM train and get there are 12:05PM.
High speed rail makes a world of difference and is so convenient. There are many distances between cities in the US where having such service would radically change how business is done and how people travel.
Alaska Air offers 20 flights between Seattle and Portland. The travel time is 50 minutes, not much better than the train time between Fukuoka and Hiroshima. The difference is that when you step off the train you are downtown. When you get off the plane, you still have a long trip into town. Having fast, dependable train service between cities would make life much easier in the US.
Our current economic situation has EVERYTHING to do with Iraq. Do you even realize how much it is costing us? Do you even know where the money is going?
Heck, that measly 9 Billion in cash that was mysteriously "misplaced" in Iraq last year would sure as hell do this part of my state a lot of good. And that is only a veritable drop in the bucket.
Saying that the Iraq military action is not negatively affecting our economy is simply false. I agree with you about the patent and school systems... but if you want to fix those, right now you would have to talk to the same people who are responsible for Iraq... and the patent situation, and the schools.
Our economy might be "booming" if we concentrated more on our military, but only temporarily, until all the loans came due (loans which are held predominantly by the Chinese, the Saudis, and various others). Spending billions on war is not a sustainable form of "economic development".
Truth be told, if we'd spent as much on, say, solar energy, as we've spent in Iraq in the last 5 years, 100% of the United States' electricity usage could be coming from solar power TODAY. Yes, it's THAT much money.
Ditto for lots of other things.
No, military spending does not prevent us from doing everything we want, but military and "intelligence" spending IS diverting a LOT of money from other things that would dramatically benefit the people of our country, and the health of our economy.
As to arguing that we reduced our spending "too far", I'm not sure how spending as much on our military as the REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED (47% of the world's total military spending in 2003, for instance) isn't somehow excessive, when we only have maybe 5% of the world's population...
You have a very good post, just pointing out that its somewhat easy (not really) to take out a plane.
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That was exactly what the Soviets did: they spent hugely on their military and bankrupted their country.
You are living proof of George Santayana's advice: you have failed to learn from history and therefore are doomed to repeat it.
Me thinks you may have missed the joke just slightly.
I use this example from time to time as most people who live in the US have no idea how backward the US can be in certain areas.
You've got that all wrong! You need to listen to more prop^H^H^H^Hcommercials. Repeat after me:
Cars good! (Nevermind the traffic jams and all the other problems LALALALALA!!)
Planes good! (Only if you're not on THE LIST, citizen!)
Trains bad! Only communists and poor people use trains! You don't want to be a communist or a poor person, do you?!
Ironically enough, a lot of them were Chinese.
We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
I did not RTFA but I have one observation that really needs to be addressed by the United States of America.
The advancement and proliferation of rails tends to be limited to dense nations: Japan, England, must of Europe. The argument has always been that you can't do high speed rails in such a sparse nation as the USA.
But if China can take this on as a national project it will be interesting if the USA will be willing to let China take the initiative to set itself at the top of the high speed rails pyramid. A limited variation of the Space Race? Last I checked, China was pretty big and relatively sparse.
So do we accept the challenge as the super power or acquiesce the challenge to the new kid on the block? Of course, this may mean that we have to divert recovery funds from the automotive industry to the railroads. Might be an interesting debate.
Ah, someone with a clue.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I salute you for your extreme levels of boredom sir!
throw new NoSignatureException();
Europe by far, as a continent goes has the best rail infrastructure I'd say.
Take Spain for example; in a few years time, from Madrid, every single major city will be accessible by train in 2.5 hours or less. Spain's no small country either, with it's fair share of mountains too.
It's not even cheap either. Take a return ticket Madrid -> Barcelona; you're looking at about $300 if you buy it on the day for a standard class seat. Trains leave every hour, it takes 2.5 hours to get one way @ 300Km/hour and shockingly, each one leaves packed.
It to me sounds like Spain is the complete inverse of the US....the roads suck, but the train network is seriously impressive.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Except that the first stage of the Saturn V, the immense F-1, was by far the largest and most difficult part -- and Germans like von Braun were responsible for it.
Unfortunately, that did not take place in 2008 when slavery is illegal. Nice to see you compare some communist bastards with the U.S.
... don't think "taxpayer", think "Halliburton".
I am surprised the railroad industry didn't take advantage of all the funding that came available after 9-11-01. They had the perfect argument to impliment a national high speed rail network. It is much harder to fly a train into a building.
High-speed trains no longer make sense in the United States or Canada because in the last 100 years we've wholesale abandoned the infrastructure that makes them accessible, driven (literally) by the Big 3 automakers and Big Oil, who've had everything to gain from the death of rail transport. -Go digging up the history of the PCC streetcar conspiracies in the 1920s and 30s to see how diesel-powered buses and OWNING YOUR OWN CAR replaced clean, quiet electric trolleys.
In the UK things slid downhill this way for years under the nationalized British Rail, but in most of Western Europe and especially the shining example of train culture, Japan this isn't the case. Unless you're in a very rural area, you're never more than a few miles from the nearest local train station with decent service. And in the case of France or Japan, that leads you (probably within a half-hour's ride) to a high-speed, cross-country link.
That kind of convenience can't be rebuilt in today's economy and society- it has to have been ingrained in the public's interest and concern, and the space for infrastructure grandfathered from 50 to 100 years ago.
http://xkcd.com/282/