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China Debuts the World's Fastest Train
An anonymous reader writes "China unveiled their new high speed train that clocks in at an average of 217 mph. China's new rail service travels through 20 cities along its route, connecting central China and less developed regions to the larger and more industrial Pearl River Delhi. Seimens, Bombardier and Alstom worked together to design and build this feat of modern transportation, which topped out at a whopping 245mph (394km/h) during trial runs earlier in December."
let's glorify them!
Sorry using metric system over here... Damn Americans...
Delhi is in India.
Siemens, not Seimens...
I mean, we could something that connect the high traffic areas in the East Coast and California. This has 2 benefits. Reducing pollution from all the cars that it takes out of the roads and lesser dependence on the airlines that seem to have become so unreliable. Atleast we wont have so many baggage payments to make.
The french managed 357mph (yes three hundred) with a lightly modified TGV in 2007 (google it).
Finally, some relief to all the congestion! Why, just look at the clogged city streets in those photographs! Not to mention the thriving metropolis that the train services! Obviously the Chinese people desperately needed this triumph of technology to help relieve the many burdens of their successful and thriving economy.
Almost as much as they need food and clothing!
It seems to me that when China has some of the best developed infrastructure in the world, it really can't be considered a developing country any more. It is developed. Sure, maybe not all areas of China are fully developed, but you could state the same thing about any country, including the US.
Averaging 217 mph over a distance of 663 miles, supposedly connecting 20 cities... according to TFA, a trip of under three hours...
Just how much time are they allowing for deceleration and acceleration between stops? Or is it pretty much end-to-end with multiple stops near the origin and destination?
Anyway, there's little doubt in my mind that this is overkill, more a demonstration of technical capability and will to spend than anything else. But damn, I'd like to have a network of these in the US to replace our aging and slow rail passenger rail system. At the very least, they are much more energy efficient than air travel.
One picky point with TFA... it suggests that the fast travel times of a high-speed rail network would not come with the security overhead of air travel. I'm not so sure about that.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
There is some difference between setting a speed record once and running a regular train service which is actually used by people on a daily basis.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
It's not hard, just expensive. Unlike the Chinese we actually have to pay market rates to compensate people for the right of way for the rails. Seizing private property and forcing the owners to accept a pittance in return just won't work in the U.S.
Like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_the_United_States#Current_federal_efforts
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The problem is getting land rights from every county boundary. California proposed a high-speed shuttle train from San Francisco to Los Angeles via Sacremento that would take less than 90 minutes. The mayors of all three cities were extremely happy about this. Unfortunately, the mayors of all the cities in between also wanted a stop at their city. For every city that had a stop, that would add another 5 minutes to the train journey, and at least 20 other cities were wanting stations in their towns.
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No way, not possible. First of all you'll have the NIMBY's out protesting with their M4A1's threatening to secede due to the huge power grab by the state for land rights or whatever and that it "looks ugly." Then you'll have the Corporate Overlords from automotive/airliners bemoaning about their guaranteed right of increased profit margins. Thirdly you'll have the politicos saying that the terrorists could use it to travel around the country with greater ease and/or make it a terrorist target. Last but not least you'll have some religious bureaucrats saying how this is a plot against God and is un-American or some shit, probably Pat Buchanan will be against it because it could be used by gay/black/female persons. This will be modded flamebait but is absolutely true in every aspect I am afraid.
How "hard" is it is mainly a matter of spending money and ramming through the environmental permits, eminent domain seizures, and other such hurdles. China spent $20 billion on this, probably more like $30 billion at purchasing-power parity, and they also have a much larger supply of cheap labor (even cheap semi-skilled labor), and when the central government wants something done, bureaucratic hassles magically disappear.
Although they did also put it mainly on flat land. Some of our most promising city pairs with high traffic and strong local support for such a project are unfortunately in or separated by mountainous areas: LA-SF, Seattle-Portland, Atlanta-DC, etc.
We do have flat areas, like Chicago-Detroit and Chicago-StLouis, but they don't have quite that volume of travel, and no strong push.
Texas is occasionally actually seen as the best bet, with Dallas-Houston-Austin-San Antonio all fairly close (distances where rail is competitive over air) and separated by fairly flat land. However, Southwest has spent a lot of lobbying effort killing any attempts to put something like that in, since they do a lot of short-hop business out of their original Dallas hub.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I first thought "Oh, come on. I am european too but it isn't that difficult to use google calculator for instant answer: http://www.google.com/search?q=217+miles+to+kilometres. You are just being rediculous now."
Then I looked at TFA (sorry, guys). It actually has the next paragraph:
Averaging 217 mph (350 km/h), the new train is faster than a speeding bullet train, and will link Wuhan in central China to Guangzhou in the south, covering a total distance of 663 miles (1,068 km). The new rail service will cut the travel time between the cities from over 6 hours down to 2 hours and 45 minutes
As it was already mentioned in TFA, the submitter could have just... not decided to leave it out. Hell, he could have just used that paragraph.
[citation needed] Doesn't ring true. Sacramento is North-East of San Francisco, you don't get to L.A. from San Francisco by going to Sacramento first... look at a map. I could see a north-south route parallel to I5 that split about where I580 splits with some trains going to San Francisco and others going to Sacramento (and further north, to Redding, perhaps?)
Here's a better version of the story. This is a big deal. They're running 56 trains a day on that route. They're also the longest high speed trains running. So this is a high-volume people mover. Plans call for another 11,000 Km of high speed rail by 2012. That's only two years away.
Some of this is a consequence of the financial troubles and low interest rates in the US. The government of China had been putting excess cash into U.S. Treasury bills, but about a year ago they stopped buying more US debt and started spending on infrastructure and resources. China has been buying up mines and farms around the world to secure supplies of raw materials and food, while beefing up their infrastructure at home.
Oh, I get it... It's funny because...hmm, wait. No - I don't get it. I think I see why you think this is hilarious, but you're just a moron.
Very easy, as long as it is not in my back yard!
Seizing private property and forcing the owners to accept a pittance in return just won't work in the U.S.
I wish you were correct, but since Kelo v. New London, I have to disagree.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
the northeast already has a nice rail system called LIRR/Metro-North and NJ Transit. It brings millions of people to work every day. too bad it's fairly expensive and very full at the moment. they are in the process of digging new tunnels to expand the number of trains they are able to run.
as for long distance rail, Amtrak is already unreliable. there is no reason to think that a new high speed train will be reliable and there is no benefit over flying. airports already have the infrastructure like rent a cars and public transportation that will have to be duplicated at a new high speed rail station.
for the speed it sounds nice, but that is not the entire way. i've traveled on the Eurostar in Italy and it took something like 20 minutes to slow down and speed up when entering and leaving big stations like Venezia, Roma and Fiorenze.
i also know someone that used to take the Acela from NYC to Boston for work years ago and it took like 3 hours each way. The Delta Shuttle was 1 hour. 90 minutes if you count getting to the airport early. back when we bought a competitor we used to fly to Boston in the morning and come back for dinner. if we took the train it would mean extra expenses in staying at a hotel
And every time I read that troll, I keep hoping that they're not kidding and he actually is dead. I mean, how many hacky horror novels can a schmuck from Maine turn out before the rest of us stop caring?
Japanese Maglev went to 581 km/h 361 mph.
The US and the whole western world have almost completely outsourced their whole production and with it, the technology, to China. When I visited the various Smithsonian museums, just for shits and giggles I asked at the souvenir shops if they had a single item that wasn't made in China. I repeated this little game in various museums. Try as they may, the shopkeepers weren't able to find a single fucking item that wasn't Made in China. Not one. This just to illustrate you the magnitude of production in China, and the magnitude of how much the west has given up. The Chinese aren't idiots; they learn and are about to surpass the west in many technological areas.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
These aren't the people who built the railroads, Dude.
Chinaman is NOT the preferred nomenclature.
Yes, it's not SF to LA via Sacramento. It's two branches from Fresno to SF and Sacramento. You can see the proposed map here.
Amtrak has the problem that it leases the use of many of the rails it uses. As a result, passenger trains have to yield to the trains of the owners of the rail - usually slow, long freight trains. Even worse, the freight trains aren't a fixed schedule, so Amtrak can't schedule around the delays.
One fix would be to install new (standard speed0 rails alongside the existing ones. It would be fairly cheap (as compared to high speed rail) and would allow Amtrak to travel at high speeds for more of their routes.
Of course, even better would be a nationwide network of high speed rail, but I don't believe that there's enough pressure from airline-fed-up consumers and environmentalists yet to encourage the politicians to do anything.
Kelo v. New London was about the government being able to use eminent domain to free up propety for commercial development. As far as I've seen it had nothing to do with the amount of compensation given to people for their property, and in Kelo v. New London the plaintiffs were given market value for their property.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
New London did have to pay market rates for the homes. it's just that the original ED took place before the big housing bubble run up in prices of 2004-2007
The problem is getting land rights from every county boundary. California proposed a high-speed shuttle train from San Francisco to Los Angeles via Sacremento that would take less than 90 minutes. The mayors of all three cities were extremely happy about this. Unfortunately, the mayors of all the cities in between also wanted a stop at their city. For every city that had a stop, that would add another 5 minutes to the train journey, and at least 20 other cities were wanting stations in their towns.
Japanese rail handles this by having several tiers of trains. Some trains run much faster, and have less stops, and the stations and schedules are designed so that the "faster" trains pass the more frequently stopping ones. As long as the schedules are perfect and the stations have passing lanes you could easily have a route that only stops in 2 cities running side-by-side with a route that stops at every one.
Considering a conventional train has now got with 4mph of that record its not so impressive given that maglevs only have air resistance to worry about, not rolling resistance.
as for long distance rail, Amtrak is already unreliable. there is no reason to think that a new high speed train will be reliable and there is no benefit over flying.
I think there is some reason to think high-speed rail would be more reliable. One of Amtrak's major problems right now is that they don't own the rails they use, they share them with freight companies. A new high-speed rail line, however, would be built specifically for passenger service and would not have this problem.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
If trains can travel that fast safely. Then it seems we could cut down air traffic considerably. NYC to Atalanta is only about 800 miles, if I could get there by train in four hours, a airplane would offer no time advantage.
If the difference in fuel efficiency is considerable, then maybe the US should consider building something like that?
Once again proved that our natives are more superior than yours. Time to wipe out the white-man based Euro-centric NWO.
New Economic Perspectives
Unfortunately (literally), there's an extreme over representation of afro-americans committing crimes.
Another first For American Can do - Oh wait ....
US astronauts walk on moon
uh, 40 years ago
This train can go from Wuhan to Guangzhou faster than the Chinese government can block this po.... [no signal]
Jason-Palmer.com
It worked with the Native Americans.
What color are they?
So what happens when a train going 245mph encounters a penny on the track?
airports already have the infrastructure like rent a cars and public transportation that will have to be duplicated at a new high speed rail station.
Do you have any idea where Grand Central Station in NYC or Union Station in CHC are located? Beyond obviously, they are in NYC, and CHC, I mean? Obviously the last mile would have to be at the sedate 60 MPH the trains currently cruise at, but thats only one minute...
Another form of infrastructure is best demonstrated by Amtrak MKA station, aka MARS, which is on the airport grounds...
I've been to all three stations... the idea that there is a lack of station transportation infrastructure is laughable.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Amtrak has the problem that it leases the use of many of the rails it uses.
He was talking about New York to Boston, all of which is owned outright by Amtrak. The Acela, however, barely runs at 80 mph on average, partially because of old infrastructure, and partially because of federal regulations requiring dedicated rails for high-speed trains.
Essentially either Amtrak would have to build new sets of rails between Boston and DC (which would require more bridges, and more right-of-way), or the FRA would have to loosen its regulations (good luck).
pittance in return just won't work in the U.S.
You're right, that's why generally they are offered fair market value, or something that's at least reasonable, and not a pittance. Please note I did not phrase things in absolutes.
The problem is getting land rights from every county boundary.
And that's why eminent domain exists.
If you look at China's achievements, they are mainly construction achievements. They build massive skyscrapers (Shanghai for example, already has a 100 story building, and is in the middle of constructing a 128 story one). Any Chinese citizen living in a major city in China will brag about their city's skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, subways, railways, etc. And, having visited a lot of those cities, I will admit they are really impressive.
./. wouldn't do.
The primary reason for this though, is that China is taking the massive amount of money flowing into the country and they're choosing to spend it on improving the economy through public works projects. Building skyscrapers, subways, etc. require lots of unskilled manpower, something that China has in abundance. Any problem, like digging a hole, laying pipe, or other manual labor tasks, that can be accomplished in greater scale by simply throwing raw manpower at it.... well, China is unsurpassed in its ability to throw raw manpower at something.
Why can infrastructure like this not be built in the U.S.? Because we don't have 300 million unskilled laborers who will work their ass off for a few bucks a day. We don't have a government that has the authority to just displace hundreds of people in order to build a subway station without going through a lot of red tape. In order to keep up with China in this area, we'd have to give up a lot of the values we treasure for the sake of progress, which is something most of us here on
You can like or hate the policies in China all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that their massive overpopulation of unskilled labor is getting employed and their infrastructure is developing extremely fast.
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
For a technology story some people seems to have a reflexive holier than thou attitude about the achievements of others (I'm afraid I have to call out the jealous small penis wannabes where I see them).
Back to technology.
One would think bullet trains might have advantages in terms of cost, safety, and possibly even time (for distances up to about 2,000 km) over air travel.
It really might be the better way.
I have a comparable sentiments about it being near impossible to implement in a country like the USA though. ...).
Objectively, the USA currently is not capable of much that anyone would consider to be "cool" anymore (if any of the following American institutions is not a joke please correct: debt, law & justice/crime, moral rectitude, *add your own*,
in Kelo v. New London the plaintiffs were given market value for their property.
No, they weren't. They were given an amount that the government claimed was the market value of their property. The actual market value of any property is impossible to determine in the absence of free exchange.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The high speed brakes are under development :)
The reason is because China has MORE trade barriers than back in 1995, AND have their money tied to the dollar. Per the agreement with Clinton to get Permanent MFN AND to get into WTO, they were to drop their trade barriers to reasonable levels (something like 5% tariffs) and was to free their money. Instead, they declared that it was in a basket to be managed against multiple moneys. Right now, the Yuan/RMB trades at 7 to a dollar. A number of economists have said that if China frees their money, then the Yuan/RMB will trade at 2 to 1 or possibly even 1 to 1. That means that goods coming from CHina are currently 1/3 to 1/7 of the real price. In fact, if you check the news, you will see that China is fighting against doing what they are LEGALLY required to do. HOPEFULLY, WTO gets into this and says enough is enough. But the west needs to do the right thing and say enough.
To make matters worse, China has a MAJOR bubble forming. One that will make America's real estate bubble look positively MINOR. It will even make Japan's real estate bubble look minor (which was bigger than America's, but their economy was small enough and float freely that they did not take out the global economy). If it goes AND they keep their money tied to the dollar, it will bring us ALL LOWER THAN 1930's depression.
So, while the companies, esp. American companies, deserve their fair share of blame for this, the majority lies with China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't know for the rest, but on french TGVs a stop is 3mn max, not 10. And yes it works, I checked it again some weeks ago. Doors are large, and local controllers (that stay in the station) are very active just before and during stops.
Herve S.
Let's subsidize rail transport at the same rate we subsidize road and air transport, and then we can compare reliability figures.
NJ is probably a poor example, since we have the highest road density in the country, but we spend BILLIONS annually on road transport, and less than 1% of that on rail transport (though the building of the new tunnel across the Hudson will bridge some of the funding gap, pardon the pun).
And as for rental cars, public transportation at airports... that is easily solvable. You can run light rail from the high-speed rail stations to the airports (which would make a lot of sense anyway, to connect all your transport systems). You can even place your high-speed rail station adjacent to your airports.
Poor example. The Acela is not a high-speed train (maybe in comparison to regular commuter rail service -- but nothing like what is possible if we were willing to build the infrastructure -- a real high-speed train from NY to Boston would be about 60 minutes tops). And NY-to-Boston is not a 90-min trip time via plane (how long to get to the airport instead of getting to Penn Station via mass transit? Do you still plan on arriving only 30 mins before departure time? Good luck in today's airports... 30 mins is almost never enough time when flying out of any of NYC's three major airports.
I don't know why you use old examples for flight times, and examples of existing rail (instead of the high-speed rail being discussed) to make your anecdotal analysis. But I think your blanket negativity on rail transport needs a good looking-over... you might be surprised.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It should obviously be Pearl River Delta... But TFA had it wrong too, not just the submitter. Also, article has "Seimens" when there should be "Siemens"...
TFA also claims that it averages 217 mph (350 km/h) but claims that the total distance of 663 miles will only take 2h45min, which would average 241 mph...
--Greg
Mountainous areas between Seattle and Portland? Have you actually driven that section of I5? Flat, boring and mostly straight.
How "hard" is it is mainly a matter of spending money and ramming through the environmental permits, eminent domain seizures, and other such hurdles.
Or they could use the existing railroad rights of way, or even interstate highway rights of way.
We do have flat areas, like Chicago-Detroit and Chicago-StLouis, but they don't have quite that volume of travel, and no strong push.
They're working on a Chicago-St Louis "high speed" rail right now. Springfield's city government wants it to go down the 10th street railroad corridor, the railroads want it to go through the 3rd street railroad corridor, blemishing a tourist city and blocking local businesses off from streets.
It looks like the railroads are going to have their way. I wish they'd nationalize the railroads! And our "high speed" rail service won't be nearly as fast as Europe's high speed rail.
Free Martian Whores!
Suppose the train goes from city C to metropolis M. We want to also serve D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and L. No problem, we just run 9 trains and ensure that stopped trains aren't sitting on the main track.
The first train of the day serves C, D, M.
The second train of the day serves C, E, M.
The third train of the day serves C, F, M. ...and so on.
In the case of analyzing a market, market value is indeed the average (or median, or whatever statistical tool you want to use) of the prices recently paid for houses in the area.
However, in the case of an individual, market price is what he/she is willing to pay/be paid for the house. No more, no less. Forcing people to accept an arbitrary price for their house is identical to being evicted. Yes, they could buy a similar house in the area. But that doesn't count moving expenses, disruption of their lives; not to mention symbolic, aesthetic and emotional value that isn't being factored in.
I understand that really wasn't the focus of your nitpick, but I find this argument disturbing nonetheless. We already have few free markets as it is. But if people are forced to give up their homes for a price that doesn't match their value for the house (and yes, priceless is a value), we might as well just rename ourselves to the Communist States of America. Because at that point, nothing is safe from being taken.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
In this (Kelo) discussion, I do think it is notable that what you value you place on your baseball card collection, Van Gogh painting, grandfather's back-40, or anything else you own actually is the market value. You may never find someone else willing to buy at that price, but that's the "problem" of you, the seller.
Well, at least until someone else wants it at a different (lower) price and uses the law to force you to accept it. I understand the argumentation of "greater good", etc, but even those legitimate corner cases (no one was starving in New London, right?) are predicated upon the view one (axiomatically) takes of the value of the individual vs the collective.
So long as that's acknowledged, this discussion can move forward with this as a footnote. The reason to bring it up is that most supporting Kelo (not necessarily the parent poster) will be very inconsistent in their individual/collective weighting.
To wit, the (il)logic is the same when it comes to the person. Those supporting Kelo already grant a subjective limit for "property rights." Given that, when do "human rights" (of which property used to be one, yes?) go, too, for the greater good? While this is (rightly) rejected out-of-hand as unthinkable, the logic still leads there and no clear, compelling exception has been made for what that went on there.
All that said, I've not read the court docs. If the "agile riposte" is that Kelo signed a contract and then wanted to back out when potential rewards changed, then the New London would have the right to press things through. In that case, though, it seems eminent domain wouldn't have come into play, yes?
And it surprises people they can build a train this quickly, all the parts were made in China so it is not like they had to wait weeks for certain parts to be shipped over to their country. Plus anyone who delays the project quickly became an involuntary organ donor.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Before we start lauding the Chinese for bringing this technological marvel to the world and criticizing the "west" for falling behind, perhaps we should be mindful of the fact that the only reason this is possible is because the Chinese government can walk up to your house, tell you it's no longer yours, and you have no recourse. No concern for the environmental impact, human impact, long term impact, etc. The Soviet Union's great technological leaps looked mind blowing at the time as well, and look where they are today.
The fastest train is the Shanghai Train. It has an average speed of 245.5 km/h. However, that is due to the fact that the line is only 30 km. As such, it hits the normal cruise speed of 431 km/h and then starts slowing down.
OTH, this actual EU train, has a top speed of 394 km/h, and normally cruises much slower.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The last I heard there hasn't been any meaningful eminent domain reforms so that probably isn't the case. It probably has more to do with NIMBY, antiquated railway regulation, deteriorating rail infrastructure, negative public perception of rail transport, etc.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Then your problem is with eminent domain in general, not with Kelo v. New London. People were compensated in Kelo the same way that they were before it. You may disagree with that, but your beef with that case in particular is misplaced.
The most likely prospect for a bullet train in the United States is the vaunted California high speed rail project. And even that is going to be a tough row to hoe.
Federal rail regulations being what they are, the only prospect for high speed rail is if the entire system is grade separated - that is, there are no at-grade crossings. Existing rights-of-way can be used, but every where out in the middle of Modesto or Coalinga where a gravel road crosses the tracks the road will either need to be cut or a bridge or tunnel built. Next, the route between Bakersfield and Los Angeles, as well as the route between Modesto and San Jose will need to be redone, because existing ROWs are not flat or straight enough for high speeds. Even existing ROWs elsewhere, such as the Caltrain ROW up the San Francisco Peninsula, may be inadequate. Caltrain runs enough trains up and down that the extra headway for high speed trains may make it necessary to quad-track that entire route - which may mean bulldozing houses and/or businesses along the line in some spots.
All of that is bad enough, but before you can even begin thinking about turning over dirt, you need not only to write EIRs, but then have them stand up to Luddite court challenges. And then, whatever land you wind up using for the new ROW needs to be acquired - meaning that whoever owns it now needs to be paid fair market value for it (see also, 5th amendment). The Chinese government has a big advantage here - If anyone actually asks about the environmental impact of a train route, they get reeducated.
All of this is mainly because we want high speed rail to go between places where there is demand. If you read TFA, this line is being constructed at least partially to create demand - that is, they are taking trips to nowhere in order for nowhere to wind up being a desirable destination. It's a bit like the transcontinental railroad was in the middle of the 19th century here. Nobody really wanted to go to any of the whistle stops between Sacramento and Chicago, but since the train went there, communities sprung up. But when the railroad was built, there was nothing there. Nowadays, building high speed rail from San Francisco to San Diego is a gigantic pain in the ass because the destinations are already filled in.
over representation of afro-americans in the us prison system. At some point you have to accept that it is systematic oppression.
While that likely is a factor, and a much higher factor the farther back in time you look, factually we know it doesn't account for the whole picture. Any economically disadvantaged segment is going to suffer higher crime rates. This has even been re-affirmed following various disaster forced relocations. Higher crime rates directly translates into larger numbers in jail. I'm unaware of any study (not specifically looked either) which suggests otherwise.
In other words, if blacks did not make up the majority of the US prison system, it would hint something is amiss because that would be contrary to the human condition.
As for general oppression, I suggest you go listen to some kids speak in inner city public schools. In many of these cases, the most significant disadvantage these kids have are themselves. In addition to ensuring they'll never be able to succeed because of inability to effectively communicate, ignorance is often held in high regard. And in these cases, the only oppression is that which is enforced by peers of their own community. In other words, smart people are purposely shunned and/or punished.
Its really not as cut and dry as you seem to imply. At some point in time, many of these people are going to have to stop blaming other races for all their misfortune and work together (meaning everyone, not just blacks) to succeed.
Hell, I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with non-American blacks who very much look down on black Americans for being the largest factor in their own woe. In all the conversations I've had, none of them wanted anything to do with American blacks. And despite English not being their native language, almost all of them could speak English better than many of those inner city school children I previously referred you to; despite having heavy accents.
...European and North American companies debut the worlds fastest train in China.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Swap is difficult. It's daft to build a rail line on a swamp. It'll sink into the swap.
Urban is difficult. It's full of historical landmarks and buried pipes.
Mountains? Make a hole. Normally the rock in nice and solid. Mostly you can avoid taking ownership of the surface land, and anyway it's probably public already because people prefer to build condos and mcmansions on the most productive farmland.
There's really only one exception to the rule. Mountains are not easy if they already have natural holes, specifically vertical ones filled with liquid magma. Of course no decent engineer would pass up the opportunity to get a front page article in a civil engineering magazine, so mere lava need not be a show-stopper.
"Then it seems we could cut down air traffic considerably. NYC to Atalanta is only about 800 miles, if I could get there by train in four hours, a airplane would offer no time advantage.
If the difference in fuel efficiency is considerable, then maybe the US should consider building something like that?"
That is an interesting question, that I will have to go research.
I need to try to find credible numbers on the relative total-system energy required of hauling people via each method, and for hauling a ton of freight via each method.
I even wonder what the total cost of each system, say over 20yrs, would be.
(Share if you have already found such answers.)
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
have fewer stops
TFTYF.
Unless you are Stephen King, probably a lot more than you will write.
The problem with Kelo was that private property was taken for the benefit of developers. The decision flew in the face of the takings clause of the 5th amendment.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
From the FT article posted elsewhere in this discussion:
So you're argument may not really hold water. I think the big reason for this not happening in the US, is capital costs, the lobbying efforts of airline and other affected industries and NIMBY mentality.
Very easy, as long as it is not in my back yard!
We routed it through your front yard. At that point it's elevated 9 feet, leaving a 6-foot gap underneath so you can get your car into the garage.
That's what real estate appraisers are for.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Right.... tell all the people near the airport that.
Or the people near the mall that was built 3 years ago.
I suggest you actually learn a bit about how often that actually happens in the USA.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is sick little fucks like you that cause so many issues. American companies causing all the issues, huh? Here is a clue for you:
What countries's companies are allow to deal with the like of Iraq's Saddam Hussein? Germany, France (their gov. QUIETLY overlooked the dealings) and China (openly dealing with him).
What country just QUIETLY shut down one of the major plants in Zimbabwe? Nestle. From Switzerland.
What countries have major dealing in Somalia? France, Germany, Russia, and China.
What countries have major dealings in Burma? France, Germany, Russia, China, and North Korea.
What countries have major dealings in North Korea? China, France, and Germany.
What countries have major dealings with Iran? China, Russia, France, and Germany.
Now, what country does NOT have ANY major dealings with these criminal nations? America. There are a few companies still in involved with Iran, but only on very small scale.
Right now, America has a FAR FAR better record of avoiding terrorists and rogue nations since 1976 than does EU. Prior to '76, yeah, we messed with these nations. JUST LIKE EU.
But starting with Jimmy Carter, we cleaned up our mess.
Now, if you want to talk about CHina, China DOES export more to the USA than it does to any other nation. OTH, more than half of America's export to China is natural resources including coal and oil. That is stupid, but it is not a crime.
If you want to fucking grip about a nation, at least have your GD facts right.
Actually, if we had to pay market rates then we'd probably have a half dozen different HSR companies in competition. Generally when there is some sort of project like this stake holders jack prices up trying to cash in on the government money or big corporate money.
We also tend to spend billions of dollars on ecological and various other surveys long before shovels ever touch the dirt. Now a very large portion of that money goes to lobbies and waxing other sticky knobs "in the system." It generally radically inflates the overall costs though in all but the very largest metropolitan areas it costs mass transit out of ever being practical. Never mind the fact that there are political factions that are simply against such ideas for political reasons, completely ignoring any practicality or long term environmental issues.
Currently the vast majority of freight is moved by trucks to the mount and central time zones, the land there is relatively cheap and trains could do it hundreds of times more efficiently over the longer hauls.
In China the idea of "market value" for a bit of property is different than what you'd find elsewhere. In China people are not allowed to own many properties and resell them over and over again contributing to speculative expectations that any bit of land should be worth millions. Ultimately, this means that salaries can grow in a very different way than they would if the increase in property costs (which isn't measured by the inflation rate) influenced every single business venture in the country. Today, if a westerner wanted to live a low cost & low income life they couldn't. In China, it's possible to be a worker in a widget factory and not be homeless. Want to bring back small industry to the West? try socialized housing first.
There is already an express train from Chicago to Detroit. It's just not a high speed train but standard light rail on a heavy rail run.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm confused why you think we need one in the US. If you want to ride one, simply go to China.
No, amtrak has a problem that their rates make air travel look cheaper.
Amtrak from Kalamazoo, MI to Washington DC $890.00 round trip. I can get a flight from the nearest metro airport to DC for 1/2 that and take 2 days less to get there.
Amtrak is a joke. pay extra for slower travel and disgusting accommodations.. the last Amtrak I rode on was dirty gross..
Amtrak needs to cut their prices by 2/3 to even attract customers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
airports already have the infrastructure like rent a cars and public transportation that will have to be duplicated at a new high speed rail station.
The train station also needs a runway so that I can transfer from train to airplane. Hey, wait...
The damn obvious thing is to give the airport some extra gates dedicated to train service. People could walk between train and airplane without passing through security and without messing with checked baggage.
Code sharing is important too. I should be able to book a trip through any airline and get offered routes that involve a train. I should be getting frequent flyer miles when I do that.
Not completely true. The maglev that runs from Pudong airport to Shanghai varies greatly in speed based on the weather. I've seen it run at 230 km/h one day and 470 km/h the next.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
China Launches the Fastest Train on Earth
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December 27, 2009 (LPAC))—Regular, scheduled train service began on the high-speed rail line between central China's Wuhan and the southern coast city of Guangzhou (formerly, the British Canton). The 665-mile journey, which used to take 10.5 hours, was complete in under three. The train's average speed was 217 miles a hour, reaching at one point a speed of 244.9 mph. For comparison, the average speed for high-speed trains in Japan is 151 mph and in France, 172 mph.
This line, which was started in 2005, is only part of a massive upgrading of China's rail network. In September, officials said they planned to build 42 high-speed lines by 2012 with a total length of 8,075 miles as part of efforts to spur economic growth. When completed the high-speed rail lines will service areas including about 90% of China's population. This is part of an ambitious rail development program aimed at increasing the national network from the current 53,000 miles to 75,000, making it the most extensive rail system outside the United States.
The program of rail development had been already planned and approved by the time the world economic crisis hit in 2008. China's great stimulus program has been used only to increase the pace of the project.
China's justification for network is based on sound principles of physical economy, Xinhua reports. The high-speed trains do not only shorten the distances between cities, but also change the speed of China's economic growth, said Wang Xiaoguang, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance. China, a nation with vast geography and worried about the wide income gap between its highly developed coastal areas and the lagging interior, is looking to railways to help spread the wealth, he said. China has launched the strategy of developing the west and invigorating the central region for about 10 years, thus reducing social and economic imbalances. But the initiative has been hampered by slow and expensive transportation for passengers and cargo. However, "things will change in the future as fast-train lines may help reduce these problems," Wang said. A high-speed rail line linking Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province and Xi'an, the ancient capital in the northwest, will be opened soon.
Besides opening China's central and western regions for intensive development, the high-speed rail will allow the country to deal with a uniquely Chinese problem. "In the traffic peak periods such as the Spring Festival when the Chinese go home for family get-togethers, the railway bureaus have to suspend freight transportation to guarantee smooth passenger flow," according to Wang. "The bottleneck is expected to be eliminated. As high-speed passenger trains are easing the traffic pressure, the railways will focus more on cargo transportation."
In addition, one of the goals of rail development is to eliminate the need for short-haul air travel and cargo, which in any case is severely constrained as to the overall volume of people and cargo.
And, of course, one of the very objectives of China's overall development is to eliminate the very phenomenon of migrant workers by locating useful, advanced work in the interior.
That's nothing, I have the engineering know-how to accelerate any train you give me to about 9,000 feet per second, if I can find a high enough cliff.
BULLSHIT. Other western countries who have long had a greater environmental conscience that America have
high-speed rail as well and have had it for decades. China simply has the newest and they got it done quickly - an advantage
of their government, their hard-earned economic prowess and their large labor force.
But, the US ( and Canada) has had DECADES, dating back to when they were the cat's ass of civilization, to get better
rail transport in place and it's never lead anywhere. The decision has always come down to more transport by gascan
whether on 4 wheels or by 4 engines.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I work with a Chinese factory that is a leader in its niche.
We are seeing unusual trends in our primary raw material that makes up 50-80% of the manufacturing cost. Normally it is more expensive than on the worldwide market because of the high import tariffs in China intended to protect the local producers. However, since last summer the cost of the raw material has been less than the worldwide market. Demand in our niche has been constant for us since it's a staple product for many third-world and developing countries, and to a certain extent, first-world nations. The web page I use to check the prices, which I have been doing every day for the last four years, also shows prices on other raw materials and I have observed the trend to be the same. IMHO, this evidence is in contrast to any reports I've read about a bubble in China - the bubble is in the rest of the world. I think what is more likely to happen is China and OPEC will decide to start trading in some other currency, and the Chinese will instantly become more wealthy, and the U.S. more poor.
China's largest trade 'partner' is the EU, and the U.S. makes up less than 18% of its export business. China can manufacture most of everything it consumes, so increasing prices for the U.S. does not directly equate to increasing prices for the Chinese, and the reduction in trade with the U.S. would hurt the U.S. more than it would hurt China.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
when gas prices go to $8, $10 gallon in a decade or so
right now the world economy is anemic, but when it recovers again, it will not be merely the west guzzling hydrocarbons anymore, but india and china as well. additionally, new petro deposits just keep getting deeper and harder to refine. gas prices are on a permanent uptick
you just wish we all had the foresight to see this coming up front, rather than waiting for the inevitable suffering that will be the only thing that will prod the usa into reviving its moribund rail
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
when gas prices go to $8, $10 gallon in a decade or so
... the marketplace will respond. At those sorts of prices, all of the alternatives, like solar, that are impractical today will be cheap by comparison. I don't think high speed rail will necessarily have anything to do with it, however.
Without grade separation, a train at 70 MPH hits a schoolbus. Boom, kids die, news at 11. That train is NOT stopping; it's already way way too fast. Trains don't stop like sports cars. Trains take miles to stop.
At 200 MPH? Dead is dead. 200 MPH isn't going to start nuclear fusion.
The only real difference is the position of the sensors that cause the road to be blocked off. If you want fast and slow trains on the same line, you'll want speed-aware sensors to avoid needless delay.
Grade separation is of course safer at all speeds, and it eliminates the problem of the road being stopped from time to time. You'll especially want it if you run trains frequently, no matter if they are fast or slow.
Um... Isn't that roughly how the USA came to be ? I seem to recall seeing some documentary about previous inhabitants on TV, once.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
I'd imagine such an awesome network of high speed trains would be invaluable for transporting goods during war time.
AFAIK they got a transrapid in China which is quite faster than this, from http://transrapid.com/ : "With an operating speed of 430 km/h, it travels on a 30-kilometer-long double-track guideway, connecting Long Yang Road Station in Shanghai to Pudong International Airport. The journey time is just under eight minutes. Three Transrapid vehicles, each with five sections, make up the maglev fleet. Until the end of 2008 over 17 million passengers have glided to the airport." The 430 km/h is not even near Transrapids max. speed (usually estimated to about 700 km/h).
Reduce the turns below the 300m radius and some of us would pay extra. You need full banking, good seats, and smooth track. Anything below 6 G is good.
Someone in my family works for Siemens as a senior member of the China High-Speed Rail project (not to be confused with the China Maglev project, for which Siemens is also a partner). We've talked about it quite often - and fairly extensively yesterday. Here are a few details:
The technologies of all four major high-speed rail system in the world - Germany's ICE, Japan's Sinkansen, France's TGV and Canada's Bombardier (in order of overall technological advancement) - have come together in China, though rather reluctantly. When the Chinese started the project years ago, they did something very clever: Instead of picking one of the four systems (which is what people normally do), they gave all four a pilot contract each. The one showing the best result in its pilot would then be chosen as the main partner, they said, making all four competing like crazy - routinely investing more resources than they've originally planed. The Chinese are not concerned about significant waste due to incompatibility between the pilot products, since all four are building to the specs written by the Chinese.
Now, years later, the Canadians and the French are practically washed out, even though some of their technologies have contributed to the new Chinese system. The Germans and the Japanese remain - as initially expected - the main competitors - or, reluctant partners for the Chinese. The vast majority of heavy lifting on the technological front is done by the Germans (which was also expected, since even the Japanese system was originally based on German designs), but the Japanese have the advantage that their pilot has started earlier (the Chinese intentionally delayed the German pilot in order to ransom a below-value price).
The record speed, for example, was achieved using two joined trains - of four sections each - built by Siemens in Germany and put together in China. Those are the only two German trains current available for this route. All the other trains are Japanese, and they're what people see on most new footages. But the top speed the Japanese trains (on the same route) can reach are significantly lower - about 350 km/h, or >10% less than the German record. Plus, while the German rains got to 395 km/h in standard configuration - with two tracking (active) and two tracked (passive) sections in each train - the Japanese had to cheat - using three tracking and only one tracked section in each train - in order to reach their 350 km/h.
As someone has mentioned above, there exist a TGV speed record that's much higher still, but that's a record nobody in the industry takes seriously, because it was achieved with a totally crazy, not nearly practical configuration of train sections. It's a fake number, period.
The bottom line is, for the original cost of one project, China has managed to get more than twice the amount worth of know-how (all legally via proper technology transfer contracts), and is now itself among the leading players of the industry. For the upcoming US high-speed rail system, the Chinese has offered a bid with a price tag 1/3 lower than anybody else...
You're argument is valid but has nothing to do with Kelo v. NL. You are arguing against eminent domain in general.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I pretty sure not only Siemens, Bombardier and Alstom worked together to design this train, but Chinese engineers had a stake in this project. If it is so then this train is not safe :)
portable gps systems
Yes, expensive, just like all the highways that require just as much compensation. The problem is that there isn't enough political will, and this goes for many other countries as well including my own.
The decision flew in the face of the takings clause of the 5th amendment.
Not only that, it flew in the face of the purpose of government in the first place, which is to secure our life, liberty, and property. By acting as the agent of the thieves, the local government in New London violated the homeowner's rights, and by permitting them to do it, the Supreme Court of the United States added one example to their list of failures to uphold their duty.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Although they did also put it mainly on flat land.
Someone should tell the Japanese and the Europeans that they should have built their high-speed rail only where they have flat land. They'd be even faster!
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Not even close. Most current US "high-speed" rail projects are focusing on getting the rail up to the standards for regular intercity rail in the reset of the industrialized parts of the world (around 170-200 kph) after decades of neglect. The only exception that has any chance whatsoever to come to fruition is the California high-speed rail project, and that has been in the works for quite a while before that plan.
Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing, you have to be able to walk before you can run.
Its not just the Chinese, the Party of NO is taking foreign money to work closely with those special interests across a broad array of fronts to eliminate any chance that the US will be able to keep up technologically. Its a testament to the Chinese that they have figured out who in our system is corrupt enough to stymie significant technological progress in the US anymore. Republicans and the Chinese will assure that the future belongs to China.
all these are great ideas, but you are forgetting the Taxi cab unions and parking lot operators will never allow this:
"You can run light rail from the high-speed rail stations to the airports"
In Southern California the rail lines (subway/trolley/passenger trains) were designed to stop at the airports, LAX and Lindberg Field. The taxi cab and parking special interests put a stop to that and forced the drop off point to be at least a few miles from the terminal so people would be forced to buy a cab, shuttle, and pay for parking at the airport. Have to protect those jobs you know.
Instead what the public winds up with is an inadequate infrastructure less people use. I hope there are protections for the public against these interest groups for the high speed project.... well until the entire fund for high speed rail is raided for the general fund through some legislative procedure.
Southern California should design a system like BART up in San Francisco, it is a excellent, highly utilized, and a crown jewel of the city.
The Party of NO is dead set against mass transit as it could cut into sale and import of oil upon which their campaign financing is dependent and is actually in place to prevent.
Want technological progress in the future? Move to Asia or Europe.
I hope your idea of putting high speed by airports never comes to pass. In my view, there are three reasons rail is competitive in Europe but not the US: closer cities (on average), downtown stations vs outside city airports, and separate tracks from freight. You would give up one of these advantages by locating them by the airport. I agree that having a connector would be worthwhile, but you'd want these coming into union station, etc where you have good public transit hubs. For cities lacking such a station, it would be worth building such as part of any urban renewal program.
An "advantage" of their government? Advantage? LOL. I've never heard totalitarianism described that way before. By this description, the U.S. was wrong to abandon slavery in the 19th century. All it did was throw away a large, obedient workforce.
You forget that rail drove American expansion across North America and built the economic engine that saved the world from the Nazis and the Japanese in the middle of the 20th century. Why was the transcontinental railroad built? Because it was profitable. No one currently has a financial incentive to build high speed rail in the U.S. because there aren't enough paying customers to make it profitable. I'm pretty sure the Obama administration is very willing to build high speed rail to every state in the union, but the republicans would jump up screaming BIG GOVERNMENT and the plan would go nowhere. If the government can't build it and private industry is not willing to invest in it, who's going to pay for it?
China can get away with this because 1.) they don't have laws/regulations in place that protect the environment, 2.) they don't have to deal with private property, 3.) they've got money to burn, and 4.) they have a political structure that won't get in the way. China is not a democracy, and it's not especially capitalist though it looks like it is through the eyes of someone who doesn't really understand capitalism or democracy. A totalitarian regime can do whatever it wants and spin the result however it wants. It's the responsibility of those of us in the outside world who can see those "accomplishments" for what they are to call it like it is.
How many habitats were destroyed / communities displaced / people driven from ancestral homes / workers' lives lost to build this high speed railway? We'll never know. Because that's how totalitarianism works. As an aside, the transcontinental railroad did the same thing. It was built on the back of chinese laborers and destroyed countless native american civilizations. One can only imagine the impact this has had inside China.
Something else in terms of perspective. Yeah France can build high speed rail. That, in the U.S., is about the equivalent of building high speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It's all in one state handled by one state government and can be routed through land that would make private property/environmental issues far less of a concern. To build something like that across STATES in the U.S. would be the equivalent of trying to build rail across COUNTRIES in Europe. Try to extend that rail from Paris to Moscow and see how quickly that gets done. When you compare the U.S. to another European country, remember that you're talking about a country that spans an entire CONTINENT. More legal issues, far more expensive, and far more time required to do that. If we were doing this on a state level, of course it could be done ten times faster. France can do it, and so can California. Could the EU?
Or Semens? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Typical of corporations, they forgot these promises once they got out from under, and I've heard managers from most major US railroads laughing about stinging and delaying Amtrak trains. Part of this is agreements with shippers like UPS, where each minute late costs lots of money in refunds, and part of this is that they seem to keep only the most incompetent people, since most US Corps are rife with nepotism and fear of competence.
So building parallel tracks ought to be sponsored in part by the freight railroads, who have been making profits all through the recession we've been having, and have been upgrading their own rails in anticipation of the recession's end. They ran passenger trains when they were the only game in town and could charge what they liked, then when there was competition they cried their way out of continuing the very public service they advertised only years earlier.
Also, how about trucks really paying for the damage they do to highways instead of being subsidised. I heard from a state DOT official that trucks do 55,000 times as much damage as a car in passing over a given square foot of test pavement.
The Japanese superconducting maglev trains which are currently under development hold the manned record for such trains of 580km/hr and they regularly achieve over 500km/hr, the target for production trains during tests. More impressively the test route (which is longer than the Shangai airport maglev link) is double-tracked and they have run a pair of trains past each other at a closing speed of over 1000km/hr.
Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.
I see how this works: it's too hard to do what's right, so let's not bother to try. And: they were doing it anyway, so why should we have to give up cheap goods?
Nice hand wave. Tip of the hat sir.
Problem is that China's human rights record is not fixable by boycotting their manufactured goods. Seriously. I'd love you to walk me through your logic of how you think that a boycott of Chinese goods would in any way shape or form convince one of the worlds economic and nuclear powers to behave how you think they ought to. Such a boycott hasn't even worked with Cuba, so I can't conceive of why you think it would work with China.
Let's say that the US says we're going to boycott all Chinese made goods tomorrow. What would immediately happen is that the entire world would immediately go into a deep recession, the US included. The Chinese economy would experience massive disruptions. There would likely be civil unrest and there definitely would be deep, deep anger towards the US. Prices for goods across the board in the US would skyrocket and there would be shortages of many, many goods. Families in the US, China and elsewhere would have trouble putting food on the table and if you think our economy is in bad shape now, think Great Depression. (and no I'm not exaggerating)
What you don't get is that the Chinese government would not be persuaded by your boycott of anything other than that the US government is a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites. Look at our own civil rights record in the US - slavery, native american relations, Guantanamo Bay, Japanese internment during WWII, Jim Crow laws, etc. The US is hardly a bastion of civil rights purity so why should the Chinese listen to us when we threaten them with economic warfare?
I hear the Right of Way complaint every time rail projects come up. I don't think its a big problem, just people aren't serious about rail. We have thousands of miles of interstate highway in this country. Most of those highways have a big strip of median in between the two directions. Most of those highways go somewhere interesting (eventually), otherwise they wouldn't have been built/maintained. The right of way is there, waiting. Nobody needs to be moved at great expense, the noise argument is minimized (since highways are already noisy), and the land is currently unused. Chicago has figured this out. Lots of highways in the Chicago area have a pair of tracks in the median. I'm not saying their train system is great, just that they have solved the right of way / NIMBY problem. That's the first hurdle for rail, the others are not insignificant, but can be solved also.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
An "advantage" of their government? Advantage? LOL. I've never heard totalitarianism described that way before. By this description, the U.S. was wrong to abandon slavery in the 19th century. All it did was throw away a large, obedient workforce.
You forget that rail drove American expansion across North America and built the economic engine that saved the world from the Nazis and the Japanese in the middle of the 20th century. Why was the transcontinental railroad built? Because it was profitable. No one currently has a financial incentive to build high speed rail in the U.S. because there aren't enough paying customers to make it profitable. I'm pretty sure the Obama administration is very willing to build high speed rail to every state in the union, but the republicans would jump up screaming BIG GOVERNMENT and the plan would go nowhere. If the government can't build it and private industry is not willing to invest in it, who's going to pay for it?
China can get away with this because 1.) they don't have laws/regulations in place that protect the environment, 2.) they don't have to deal with private property, 3.) they've got money to burn, and 4.) they have a political structure that won't get in the way. China is not a democracy, and it's not especially capitalist though it looks like it is through the eyes of someone who doesn't really understand capitalism or democracy. A totalitarian regime can do whatever it wants and spin the result however it wants. It's the responsibility of those of us in the outside world who can see those "accomplishments" for what they are to call it like it is.
How many habitats were destroyed / communities displaced / people driven from ancestral homes / workers' lives lost to build this high speed railway? We'll never know. Because that's how totalitarianism works. As an aside, the transcontinental railroad did the same thing. It was built on the back of chinese laborers and destroyed countless native american civilizations. One can only imagine the impact this has had inside China.
Something else in terms of perspective. Yeah France can build high speed rail. That, in the U.S., is about the equivalent of building high speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It's all in one state handled by one state government and can be routed through land that would make private property/environmental issues far less of a concern. To build something like that across STATES in the U.S. would be the equivalent of trying to build rail across COUNTRIES in Europe. Try to extend that rail from Paris to Moscow and see how quickly that gets done. When you compare the U.S. to another European country, remember that you're talking about a country that spans an entire CONTINENT. More legal issues, far more expensive, and far more time required to do that. If we were doing this on a state level, of course it could be done ten times faster. France can do it, and so can California. Could the EU?
What about the Chinese maglev train that cruises at some 430 km/h ?
You definitely don't want grade crossings (or level crossings, or whatever you want to call them): then you get crashes like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufton_Nervet_rail_crash and hair-raisingly near misses like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nggx7yklaA.
As I understand it, it's not permitted to build new road/rail level crossings in the UK (and probably the rest of the EU, too) because they are simply too dangerous.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
I mean, we could something that connect the high traffic areas in the East Coast and California.,
The driving distance betwen New York and San Francisco is about 2900 miles.
Call it a minimum of 12 hours by rail at 245 mph.
The "high traffic" routes in the U.S. run North-South. Atlantic Coast. Central. [Chicago - New Orleans] Pacific Coast.
The profitable East-West high speed continental rail route that makes economic and geographical sense is not easy to map.
If we were doing this on a state level, of course it could be done ten times faster. France can do it, and so can California. Could the EU?
Its been done. I've taken trains from The Netherlands to Austria and London to Paris.
Have gnu, will travel.
Some Chinese people have used the most violent action to express their anger: burn themselves, but the government just ignored these people. And the train is just useless for most of the Chinese people as the ticket is way too expensive. China = poor people + a rich government.
Profitable depends on how you do the accounting.
From my perspective, a lot of how "profit" is calculated leaves a lot out of the equation.
Your Congress does a lot of screaming - so do babies but no matter how much they bitch and moan, they have to learn to get off the tit and grow the fuck up.
I think you're undermining your own point by bringing slavery and Chinese labourers into the arugment - wasn't America a democracy during those times? What that implies is that a democracy isn't any good at getting shit done.
Also, China's "money to burn" didn't fall from the sky; we, in the Western nations, PAID them to help us fuck ourselves over while letting them get away with gaming the trade balance and currency in their favour.
And, your post makes it clear that Totalitarianism does get stuff done - but there is a point that's missing. China is more than just totalitarian; it's oppressive. A benevolent regime could dramatically change a nation in a short time; unfortunately, it does seem that power invariably corrupts.
And why does a rail system have to be built all at once across the US? It just needs a few players to get the ball rolling; you got the Interstate Highway system built, didn't you?
How long did that take? Hell, you've got Amtrak - start by upgrading the most heavily traveled routes.
Look every approach to a big problem has drawbacks but at some point, someone has to put spades in the ground and get the ball rolling.
Also, improved infrastructure has a way of creating unforeseen opportunities. Look at the Internet? I doubt even visionaries like Cerf, Negroponte or Berners-Lee foresaw the Web as it is today and the initial implementations were flawed but someone got the ball rolling and made what we have today possible.
A country of your size, with the kinds of resources and an adequate but not overburdened population shouldn't have anything to fear but somehow, somewhen the American mindset got locked into a narrow channel and it's led to a decline and it doesn't seem like enough people are willing to change soon enough to avert a catastrophe on several fronts.
Recall that one of the definitions of madness is repeating the same actions and expecting a different result.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
It looks like the train is based on the ICE train in Germany (at least from the pictures). However, there is only one 350 km/h capable track in Germany (between Cologne and Frankfurt). It is nice to see that similar technology is used in other countries and the developers of ICE- and TGV-trains are working together. However, it is not very energy efficient to run trains on these speeds. And the attrition of wheels and tracks increase drastically.
And the article has one error the fastest train is the TGV-Atlantique with a top speed of 515,3 km/h. Even though that speed is not achieved in normal operations, as this is not really econimical to run trains that fast in Europe with stops every 50-100 km. The standard speed of the TGV on some of its tracks is 380 km/h on others it is even slower.
In China people are not allowed to own many properties and resell them over and over again contributing to speculative expectations that any bit of land should be worth millions.
Do you know anything about China -- or its real estate market?
All the amendment really has to say is this;
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation
Public use [or purpose, if you like] is not defined or limited in the Constitution itself.
There is no obvious barrier to the use of eminent domain to clear title to land that is needed for a development of a bridge, a tunnel, or a town -
useful public works that may be privately owned or managed.
True, but the original statement is still true. The process by which the government in China does not justly provide reimbursement to private property owners would not fly in the US.
I don't know if we're talking about the same thing, but if that's the study that was quoted in the WSJ, it was definitely lacking. It was comparing the environmental cost of building rail tracks plus fuel consumption of the trains, but only the fuel consumption of the planes but not the environmental cost of building the airports -- and those things take up a LOT of space, esp. if you take into account the amount of real estate that gets depreciated because of the noise.
In any case, you can power trains by nuclear power, but also wind mills or solar -- can't do that with planes. Also trains can do regenerative breaking, and inject back power when decelerating.
bogies on each side of every wagon, instead of having just one in between two wagons like on the TGV?
Looking at a derailed TGV vs a derailed ICE makes me wonder about that 350 km/h figure.
in 2007, for the record.
The top commercial speed is 320 km/h, not 380.
320 km/h on east line (between Paris and Strasbourg) and southernmost part of the network. It requires special overhead lines with higher mechanical tension. Also the line is more thoroughly fenced in those parts.
the fact that there is a court case means the previous statement is correct: it wouldn't work in the US. You want to run a seperate court case for every .75 acres between NYC and Atlanta to build this thing??
"While increased development isn’t quite our taste, we certainly support low carbon transportation like rail service, " so they support increased poverty, starvation, and death rates?
The blog below explains it all. While we freely elect lawyers, engineers make it to the top in the Chinese system.
http://www.hojohnlee.com/weblog/archives/2005/06/08/china-is-run-by-engineers/
While the blog is about 4 years old, the names have probably changed, but not the backgrounds and education.
Its about time that we introduced diversity into the political arena in the west.
Daily fluctuations between admiring technology and loathing it
Plus there are all of those worthless Jews in Israel that we keep shoveling money at, oh, and the worthless Egyptians who we give money to so they won't kill the worthless Jews. Then there's all of the money we spend defending the worthless Japanese and South Koreans against China, and the money we spend on NATO, a complete waste since the Soviet Union collapsed and the current Russian army can't even manage to invade and subdue Chechnya or Georgia. Oh, and all of the billions we spent invading Iraq because dumbfucks like Dick Cheney thought that Osama Bin Laden was BFF with Saddam Hussein, and the billions we're going to spend in Afghanistan so that President Obama can cover his ass and look tough. Yeah, if we stopped pissing our money away defending a bunch of useless countries who do nothing for us and building high-tech weapons systems that never come in on time or budget and don't work when they finally do come in we'd probably be able to reduce our deficit and build some bitchin new high speed rail projects. Who am I kidding though, that will never happen.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
... the marketplace will respond. At those sorts of prices, all of the alternatives, like solar, that are impractical today will be cheap by comparison. I don't think high speed rail will necessarily have anything to do with it, however.
That, is a guarantee.
The big question is, however, "how fast will the price spike and stay elevated?".
If gas prices rise at a rate of say 5-15% per year, things probably won't be too bad and the economic shocks will be minimal. But if it spikes too quickly, people won't have time to react and switch to better alternatives. People will have to cut back in other areas very suddenly, which tends to cause things like recessions and other social problems.
We're running at around $3/gal here in the NYC area. If I was planning out for the next 5-10 years, in a situation where fuel cost is a primary issue (such as evaluating a new vehicle), I'd plan in the $5-$6 per gallon range to be safe. But even then, the price of a more fuel efficient car may be too expensive to compete with a gas guzzler that can be had for 1/2 the cost.
(You can see the same thing when evaluating an office full of 17" CRTs that use about 90W. At current electricity prices of $0.18/kWh, the replacement monitors would have to cost less then $100 to have less then a 4 year payback. Yes it would be better for the environment and the monthly electrical bill to cut that by 3/5, but the near-term outlay of cash has too long of a payback period.)
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
....Yes, expensive, just like all the highways...
Except that the highways in the US are public and the railroads are private. Because a government, any government, has the power to tax, it has in effect almost infinitely deep pockets. In most places of the world, the railroads are also are or were until recently owned by the various governments and were and in some cases still are subsidized by forcibly collected tax dollars. All railroads are at a big disadvantage in the United States, because they have to pay for the maintenance of all their tracks and pay property taxes on every square inch of their rights-of-way. They can also be made to pay huge sums for legal liability cases. These are some of the things that conspire against the kind of trains that other countries such as China have.
All theory is gray
Or even decent (160-200 kph) intercity rail outside of the northeast corridor, where, incidentally, the tracks are owned by Amtrak. ;)
I had no idea about the property tax situation, if that is true, US railroads have to be the largest taxed continuous "property" in the world.
but we spend BILLIONS annually on road transport, and less than 1% of that on rail transport
Yeah, but can I park one in my garage.
And the place condemned? It was the 3rd floor of a 4 story building. Another family on the 4th floor, another family on the 2nd floor, a communal (yes communal) kitchen on the first, shower and bathrooms down the street. Had cold running water, and a single drain. About 600 square feet, total...
Yeah, damn that government for offering a pittance in return for that property!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
If you interpret the clause in that manner, there's essentially no reason for it to even be there...
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Whilst not a hippy, I do vote Green, recycle and have completely given up on plastic bags (reduce, reuse and recycle is not difficult to do people). Air travel is the lowest polluting mass transit options over long distances. From Perth to Adelaide a 150 person plane like an A320, B737 or Embreer E-jet will produce fewer pollutants then a train carrying the same number. This is due to the fact that a plane will take 3 hours where as a train will take 55 hours and per pax jet engines are more efficient. High speed trains may level this out a bit but they are only good for short haul trips like between Melbourne and Sydney.
Boeing and Airbus are in a fuel consumption arms race for the last decade (at least), each side is touting the lowest per pax per mile fuel consumption. Of all factors in a new airliner, it's fuel consumption that airlines look at first.
Now as for this TSA madness, we don't have this here and have a hard time seeing how you cant control your government, after all they are working for you aren't they. In Australia they've just installed an automatic gateway at passport control (international) for Australian passport holders with the new chip, this helps streamline the process for returning citizens/permanent residents (so now I can spend even longer waiting for the baggage handlers to get the arse into gear). Security going in hasn't increased beyond the old prudent measures of X-ray and metal detector except for that ridiculous 100ml rule which gets bent fairly regularly. One thing that speeds up security is moving it from before the departure lounge to the gate, but this is a recent development and most airports in the western world were designed 30 or 40 years ago.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Having high speed rail opens up many business and personal opportunities. It really changes how people think of distance. Take Fukuoka-Hiroshima Japan and Portland, OR-Seattle, WA. The cities are approximately the same sizes and distances apart, 175 miles to 180 miles. Between Fukuoka and Hiroshima there are 150 high speed trains running every day and the trip takes 70 minutes. You can also drive or fly between the two cities. Between Portland-Seattle it is impossible to get so quickly from city center to city center. Even flying will take two hours by the time you take in the time it takes to get to and from the airports, go through security, etc. And you certainly don't have 150 opportunities a day to make such a quick trip. The trains in Japan run with a precision which is unimaginable in the US. If trains arrive/leave even one or two minutes earlier or later on certain days, those minutes are noted in time schedules. If they can do it in Japan it could be done in the US. Maybe if we didn't spend $600,000,000,000 a year on a military empire and concentrated on developing the country we'd have the funds to develop the infrastructure other countries enjoy.
First point, the Soviet Union's advances weren't that great, at their height they were equal to the west and this didn't last long at all. The reason the Soviets equalled the west in tech is because they stole most of it from the west, the Stalinist purges killed most scientists back in the 30's and almost all the rest fled. What the Stalinist regime created was a massive intelligence network so inserting spies into the west presented them with little difficulty. This is how the Soviet's got the bomb, they simply took the research they needed from Los Alamos. By the time the 1960's rolled around the west had tightened up our internal security.
Secondly the Soviet economy collapsed because after the end of the second world war, Stalin decided that all possible production will go into the military not civilian infrastructure. The west did the opposite, despite the amount spent on the military the US and western allies sunk millions into rebuilding civilian infrastructure, industry, transportation and so on. In the 1950's the Soviet Union had the biggest military but fast forward 40 years the west enjoyed economic stability that was built on roads, ports and power lines made in the 50's and 60's whilst the Soviet Union had bread lines.
China is a different kettle of fish to the old Soviet Union.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
China on Friday raised retail prices of electricity by an average of 0.025 yuan (0.31 of a US cent) per kilowatt-hour (kwh) for the first time since May 2005. Yes, it is 3 years old. Their prices have not gone up that much.
.07/kw-h. On the east coast, they pay .15/kw-h. Their are few lower price states than Colorado. Washington is one of them at .03 kw-h. They are 100x what China costs. Why? for a number of reasons.
1) China has ZIP pollution control. They will not buy them from anybody in the west. They want us to give it to them.
2) currently, they derive about 90-95% of their energy from Coal and Natural Gas. That will change, but that is their current matrix.
3) 3-1 or 7-1 money exchange.
None of this includes the subsidized energy that China gives to many of their companies.
They are paying $.0031 / kw-h. Here in Colorado, we pay about
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is why you need to ask the electric companies to build solar panels over top of their power lines and give them a big% of the power that they create.The extra power will be used to power the high speed trains with green energy. Its a nice investment since you could make a lot of money on cheap transportation.
While your at it, can you provide the price of electricity in the U.S. 3 years ago? Prices have risen everywhere on energy, including in China. Even China Daily reported 8.5% annual inflation rates.
China has a very high tax rate that everyone pays to reduce the prices of things like electricity, or the raw materials that supply the electric plants. This only on the surface has the appearance of reducing the costs, but instead just redistributes the costs and really ends up being a wash.
The theory that there is no pollution regulation or controls in China is totally wrong. Half of our manufacturing costs, outside of raw materials, is pollution control. We have a full water treatment plant and huge activated charcoal air cleaners that maintain a vacuum on the whole factory. The workers are given fresh clothes every morning, go through an elaborately designed shower facility after every shift and their blood is tested weekly. Certainly there are other factories that are not nearly as good as the one I work with, but they are being forced out of business by the Chinese government, which is sincerely trying to reduce the pollution in the country, although not all provinces are yet embracing the policy, most are and the rest will be.
It should be considered still that cost is also an absolute measure. The actual difference in cost on a per piece basis of something manufactured using electricity purchased for .0031/kw-h or .15/kw-h is negligible when considering the difference in cost between an employee that costs $1/hr and an employee that costs $30/hr, so with 1,000 workers that's a rate of $1,000/hr instead of $30,000/hr or $10,000/shift instead of $300,000/shift. This is what makes the difference between making things here and making things there. In the lead-acid battery industry, nobody makes automotive batteries for less than the U.S. manufacturers. The reason is that they are vertically integrated, meaning they supply their own refined lead, and their manufacturing lines are nearly completely mechanized. They receive virtually no subsidies and yet they supply the lion's share of of the 65,000,000 automotive batteries sold in the U.S. every year, and they manufacture a product that is very messy to make.
The issue is labor costs, pure and simple. Until we rectify that situation the U.S. will continue to see manufacturing move abroad. China is only one country. There are many, many others chomping at the bit to have the same growth that China has received. It's a classic game of whack-a-mole.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
ScuttleMonkey is incapable of writing a coherent post. Incompetence has no place on slashdot so please fire him.
I should have been a bit more nuanced in my argument. I'm not against eminent domain in all cases. There are definitely some situations where it is the proper approach.
However, in Kelo, the idea was abused and became nothing but "people with money can use the government to force others to give them more money". I expect to find that behavior in China, but not in the US. I was shocked that there wasn't more of an upheaval about this.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Seizing private property and forcing the owners to accept a pittance in return just won't work in the U.S.
It wouldn't work in China, either. Fortunately, China doesn't recognize land as private property to begin with, and thus has no need to seize.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
No no, they mean the Pearl River Deli. It's on the East Side
Not being from NYC I can't rightly tell what part of NY this is meant to be called, but there is a town called "Perl River", and yes, the have Deli's
Pearl River Deli
Anyone ever eaten at one of these???
If TFA doesn't tell us which Pearl River Deli it goes to, how can we decide whether to take the train? What if it takes you to Nauraushaun Country Deli when you wanted to go to Luigi O'Grady's?! (which is a confusing name to begin with...how do you know whether to expect an Italian-style or an Irish-style sandwich?)
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
One could think that there were some scientists born after the thirties and Stalin was dead by 1953, but no, that can't be possible.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Not to forget that a lot of existing U.S. passenger rail infrastructure that would be easy (in relative terms, due to existing grades/straightness and rail easements) to upgrade happens to be shared use with freight. And freight rail is happy as long as it can move massive loads efficiently at speeds competive with commercial trucking, thus they typically go 50-60 MPH. And because those rail companies seem more than content and profitable competing with ground freight rather than air, sinking any money into infrastructure costs is something they don't care for. Factor in the fact that any major railway upgrades needed for high speed passenger service would be disruptive to freight schedules, and it becomes yet another reason for it not happening. Also even if the rails are upgraded such that passenger trains can go significantly faster than 70 MPH, they would have even worse scheduling conflict with the freight engines. So it would likely require more switching infrastructure, control systems, and doubling of available tracks on a given route, which makes things more expensive yet.
The thing is, existing engines could almost go twice as fast - making them "high speed". Historically some long route U.S. passenger rail averaged above 100MPH (ie: Zephyr) until the track quality declined and it became unsafe to do so. The problem with high speed rail in the U.S. is not of knowhow or an inability to build the trains, but simply the unwillingness to put any money into infrastructure required. (And the same unwillingness to spend on infrastructure also explains why we have stupidly slow speed limits instead of autobahn-like no limits, even though there's miles and miles of open and straight of interstate highway with jack shit in the way of traffic. The roads aren't built or maintained good enough for it, and hitting a rut or pothole at 100+ MPH isn't exactly a good thing.)
Your, not you're. You first sentence doesn't make sense.
Jonathanjk.com
The TGV line between Paris and Marseille is about 700km long and occupies a 40m wide strip, fences included. That's 28 million square meters, or 2800 hectares. The Roissy airport occupies 3200 hectares, and that's just one end of the trip!
Where do you get those figures from? It's about $110 each way if you book a little in advance (I was looking at mid-January), or $200 each way for tomorrow. It takes 22 hours, which is awful (three times as long as it takes to drive).
The plane seems to be about $400 each way (mid Jan) or $800 (Wednesday).
(I've never bought a plane or train ticket within the USA, so I might be missing something obvious.)
The level of development here is amazing. I arrived in Shanghai yesterday and was shocked to ride the Maglev into town at a cruising speed of just over 400 km/h (about 260 mph). The ride was smooth as silk and extremely quiet. I think that if most Americans (and maybe Europeans) knew exactly how advanced China has become, they would be shocked and maybe even a little worried about their own places in the world. China is a giant steamroller, and it's going to roll right over the United States in the next 50 years.
If you interpret the clause in that manner, there's essentially no reason for it to even be there...
Yes, there is one reason... to be interpreted that way. It could also been written: "or shall private property be taken for public purpose, without just compensation"
But really, having a public, nonprofit or private management is not centrally relevant. What is more relevant is that it is done for the public interest.
It also has something to do with the competence of the freight railroads. Last March, I rode Amtrak's Crescent from NYC to Atlanta, a 17-hour trip conducted mostly over Norfolk Southern trackage once leaving the Northeast Corridor. We arrived in Atlanta on time, much to my surprise (we did have to wait for at least one freight traveling in the opposite direction in the dead of night). On the return trip the Crescent, already 12 hours into it's trip from New Orleans, not only arrived in Atlanta on time, but arrived and left Washington DC on time, and arrived in NYC ahead of schedule. The NS portion of this route is identified as a future high-speed line. I quite frankly can't see how they'd do it--watching the line from the last car on the return trip through Virginia, you would not believe how much the line twists, turns, rises and dips over a fairly large chunk of the route.
I've taken a number of trips NYC-Pittsburgh via Amtrak's Pennsylvanian (a 9-hour trip), also using NS tracks after leaving Amtrak-owned lines. Most of these were on-time. In one trip, the conductor specifically credited NS dispatchers with getting us out of Harrisburg, PA ahead of two waiting freight trains, and another year, we arrived on-time in Pittsburgh after tailgating a high-priority UPS freight for several miles. We were switched onto the adjacent track against traffic, and arrived in Pittsburgh literally racing alongside the freight we were behind only minutes before. This line (Harrisburg-Pittsburgh) is also identified as a future high-speed route. Frankly, the mountainous regions are something to behold when you remember that for the most part, the tracks go up and over them rather than through. Approaching Horseshoe Curve, you'll notice a road high up the mountainside on the opposite side of the valley. Then you notice that it's not a road, but it's the railroad you're traveling on. Then you remember that mile-long freight trains run on this line too. It's enough to give one pause.
The biggest delay I've had on these trips was about 45 minutes on one Pittsburgh-NYC trip, when our locomotive died pulling out of Philadelphia, PA on the way to NYC. No spare locomotives were available there, and we were transferred to the next arriving Corridor train from DC.
---PCJ
That's what real estate appraisers are for.
Have you ever had an appraisal done? When I refinanced my house the broker hired an appraiser. They then proceeded to tell the appraiser the value my house needed to be appraised at so that I would have enough equity for them to process the loan. Oddly enough, the appraisal came back at EXACTLY that amount, no more, no less.
While I appreciated the opportunity to re-fi at a lower rate/shorter term and roll the thousands of dollars in closing costs into the loan, this is the kind of thing that got us into this foreclosure crisis.
And when I bought my house it appraised at the seller's asking price.
Another day, another update to a Google android app.
Sorry but this is a bunch of crap.. Ive seen this over and over here. How the hell do you think we built the interstate highway system. Emminent Domain! No reason why it cant and wont be done again for the states. The only thing that will stop this project is greedy lobbyists, corrupt politicans, and people who care more about lining their pockets than actually improving the infrastructure of this country. Which is just about everyone in power.
...if that is true...
It is true that all land in the US that is not owned by a nonprofit or by some branch of government is subject to tax. For most local jurisdictions such property tax is a major source of income.
All theory is gray
Get a life.
Because nobody corrects each other in real life either right? Moron.
Jonathanjk.com
Assuming a person was 10 in 1930, not quite a scientist. What are the odds of this person becoming a scientist in a completely controlled state where intellectualism is frowned upon. Lets also assume that this person survived WWII, which was incredibly destructive to Russia and Russia's population. What are the odds. Most of the post war Soviet scientists were the same as our post war scientists, German imports except that the west got the better scientists and had a little local talent to back it up.
Stalin wrote the policies in 1946, not even Nikita Khrushchev could overturn them when he was premier, it was treason to question Stalin's decisions even a decade after his death. It wasn't until the 80's when Russia stopped being afraid of Stalin but by then it was too late.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The odds were huge because the party wanted to produce scientists "on the conveyor belt". Not being drafted as long as you are at the university can be quite a motivation. Also it is quite wrong to say that Stalin killed the scientists. He just imprisoned them and they continued to work in prison. There were almost no German scientists imports in the Soviet Union, all the scientists were in the USA. USSR got the engineers instead.
And you are wrong about the second one, Khrushchev fully de-Stalinized the Soviet Union by 1961.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Have you ever had an appraisal done?
Better. I was an appraiser in the early to mid 1990's.
proceeded to tell the appraiser the value my house needed to be
There are a lot of rubber-stamp appraisers out there. OTOH, the appraiser needs to know the loan-to-value ratio. If the value looks like it is coming in low, the appraiser tries to give the loan originator a heads-up. Also, appraisal is as much art as it is science. There is a certain legitimate amount of discretion (about 5%) in writing the appraisal and arriving at a value, especially in an area where properties are not homogeneous
this is the kind of thing that got us into this foreclosure crisis
Meh. I wouldn't be so quick to blame the appraisers, even the bad ones. The appraiser's job is to determine what a given property would sell for given the current and recent market, which means that he/she is trying to predict the future based on the past. Anyone who has read a prospectus should recognize the phrase "past performance is no guarantee of future returns", which is apropos here as well. Done properly, even the best appraisal is nothing more than a point-in-time snapshot of a constantly moving target. If the market has soared, the appraiser has to appraise accordingly.
Prices rise because that's what people are willing to spend, which is what appraisers are trying to estimate. I remember seeing a property that sold for $390k that was only worth $370k by my appraisal and I know my number was dead on, based on the recent (at the time) local market. The low appraisal didn't kill the sale because the borrower was putting a lot of money down. Guess what? That sale helped benchmark the next appraisal values in that neighborhood.
I'm not defending the poor practices of those appraisers who take shortcuts or just try to hit a number, but it's unfair to blame the barometer for the storm. I have a whole big rant about how artificially low interest rates created artificially high real estate prices by boosting buying power and shifting the demand curve, but don't really feel like digging it out.
If you want to find a good appraiser, look for one that does work for relocation companies. They actually get graded on accuracy by the companies they do work for. They aren't given a number to start with. If they come in to high, the relocation company loses money when it goes to sell the property. If they come in to low, the relocation company loses the deal, because the homeowner isn't willing to sell.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
In the case of analyzing a market, market value is indeed the average (or median, or whatever statistical tool you want to use) of the prices recently paid for houses in the area.
Nope. The market value of any good, is the price at which a buyer and seller agree to the transaction. In the absence of voluntary price discovery, you don't have a market transaction at all, you have state plunder.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."