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."

Comments

Where's the fire?

[Howitzer86]

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?

Re:Where's the fire?

[FooGoo]

The project would grind to a standstill under the weight of lawsuits be environmentalists, the not in my back yard crowd, and gad flys. If it progressed it would grind to a standstill under the weight of poor project management. If it progressed it would grind to a standstill under the weight of poor engineering decisions. If it progressed it would be plagued with cost over runs. If it was finished it would cost $2,430 dollars a ticket one way and no one would use it.

Re:Where's the fire?

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, the drive to do great things in the USA has been undermined by the mindless cynicism of people like "FooGoo" who see only problems.

Guess what folks, we can (and we should) overcome every engineering, environmental and NIMBY objection if put our minds to it.

I don't care if it is a cliche, but we put a fucking man on the moon almost half a CENTURY ago and have been content to rest on our laurels ever since.

Re:Where's the fire?

[FredMenace]

So how is it that we can manage to build 8-lane highways (complete with cloverleafs and overpasses and feeder roads), but can't manage to build a pair of tracks?

Re:Where's the fire?

[Grishnakh]

I'm betting the Chinese aren't doing an environmental impact study.

And that's why the Chinese are progressing so much faster than us: they don't worry about idiocy like that.

It's not that environmentalism is a bad thing; it isn't. However, only a complete moron would ever question the environmental impact of a train versus highways or airlines. Trains are more efficient than any other form of transportation for moving goods and people between two points. Of course, arguments can be made about transporting things between lots of different points (the argument for trucking vs. railroads), but we're talking about transport between two very large cities here. While planes are certainly faster, trains are cheaper (except in the USA) and far more fuel-efficient, which obviously means it's better for the environment.

There: in 5 minutes, I've done what American government would have spent 6 months and millions of dollars doing a study on. That's part of why we're failing.

As for displacing peoples' homes, we do that here all the time too. Except here, instead of just doing it for government projects (highways, etc.), we do it for private businesses who want some land but don't want to pay market rate for it. This even went to the Supreme Court, and they said it was OK. Tell me again how China is worse for civil rights (or more accurately, property rights).

Re:Amtrak

[ijustam]

...or there's no profit to be made in something thats more expensive and longer than driving?

From Indianapolis to Chicago, it'd cost me anywhere from $10-20 to take the train. I'd also have to be on the train at 5:30 in the morning. The train takes _at least_ 4 hours.

Or I can drive to Chicago, which takes at least an hour less, for only $10 more (185 miles at 25 miles per gallon, at roughly $4/gallon) and I can leave at my leisure.

Amtrak simply does not have the infrastructure for such an endeavor. A good chunk of Amtrak's routes are owned by freight companies; Amtrak simply pays to use them. So unless you're willing to assume that cost as the passenger to lay thousands of miles of private track, that's not going to happen since that cost would probably make ticket prices compete with airline prices, but to what benefit? Flying would still be faster. The only thing you would save is the hassle of airline security (which is a good enough reason for me, to be honest).

US has plans to do something similar...

[denzacar]

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.

Airlines

[Ancil]

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.

Depressing

[Wellington Grey]

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

Re:Why troll?

[ScrewMaster]

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.

Re:I disagree about some things.

[ScrewMaster]

While what you say is true, I would further point out that most people make the mistake of thinking that the "environmentalists" they see on TV and who want constant donations are the real environmentalists.

Real environmentalists work behind the scenes with government and especially industry, helping them find ways to make industrial processes more efficient, less environmentally harmful, and in a surprising number of cases more profitable. Such people may be outsiders who devote their lives to making all of our lives better, they may be in-house scientists and engineers who tirelessly promote a better way to their bosses, they may be enlightened bureaucrats who work to find some balance between environmental concerns, and the needs of We the People.

Those are the people I respect, unfortunately you never see their faces on the tube, so they don't really get credit for their work. I couldn't care less about the media hounds.