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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."
Delhi is in India.
Siemens, not Seimens...
The french managed 357mph (yes three hundred) with a lightly modified TGV in 2007 (google it).
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
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.
Well, if you want someone to blame, blame US corporations for sending jobs to China and the US government for allowing trillions of dollars of trade deficit with China, that enables their government to be the economic powerhouse it is. The biggest abusers of human rights in the world is not China--it is the multinational corporations, many of them headquartered in the US, that exploits people in developing countries for cheap labor and props up dictatorial regimes so long as they make it easy and profitable for them to do business. And if you want to find out how these corporations got so powerful, all you need to do is go look to the Americans whose insatiable desire for cheap mass-produced goods has fed their gluttony with their hard-earned dollars.
You want this high-speed rail technology in the US? Stop running up all that credit card debt. Stop turning over your livelihood and savings to buy your own little slice of the American McDream(tm).
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
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.
Stop turning over your livelihood and savings to buy your own little slice of the American McDream(tm).
You're very proud of that little bon mot, aren't you?
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 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.
Not just the US, mind you, but the entire western world that is more than eager to offload manufacturing to China. We're all guilty of turning two blind eyes to save a buck, but I guess as long as we occasionally get to protest China's abuses in a public forum or some magazine opinion piece, all's well.
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
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?
No, it's saying that if you stop shopping at Wal-Mart, you'll stop buying stuff made in China, and so stop financing their human-rights abuses.
Wwhich is wrong twice:
1. China was committing human rights abuses long before prosperity, even before Mao. Cutting off the money will NOT make things better.
2. You cannot avoid buying stuff made in China, unless you pay very close attention to what you buy and where. And even then, you will be buying some stuff made in China, and made with stuff gotten from China.
We need to lose the 'don't buy Chinese stuff' mentality, and stop discouraging industries from making stuff here in the U.S.
We could be buying stuff made in Japan and South Korea, and Taiwan, but even those industries are beholden to China too often.
This will take decades to fix.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I know..I give up..why bother
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
Let's just admit it.
China has got our economy by the balls and we can't do much without getting neutered.
That's a crock. Those nations are "criminal" nations because we do not do business with them. It's intellectually easy to paint those nations as criminals and enemies, when we have contributed to their situation. You think they'd view America as an enemy if we weren't busy fucking around with their governments over the past 50-60+ years?
If you want to gripe about a nation, at least have your GD definitions right. What you consider a "criminal" nation is not fact, it is your opinion (that lacks substantiation). What laws are those nations violating that make them criminals? What crime have they committed and been convicted of? By many countries' standards, the US is a "criminal" nation... hell, we imprison far more of our citizens than anyone else, for something that is not a crime in some countries.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
After a brief googling I couldn't find a decent study comparing the likes of human rights (or at least press freedom), and GDP (or at least economic freedom).
Anecdotally (from just browsing the individual indexes) however there appears to be a strong correlation - with various exceptions, some of which can be accounted for by e.g. natural resources. There are plenty studies showing strong correlation between economic freedom and GDP (even between US states), but that's not much of a substitute for human rights and freedoms.
Of course, correlation is not causation, although intuitively it makes a lot of sense - wealthier people seem to consider themselves more important, demand more power, education, have better communications...
My assumption is that the better a country's economy, the better the human rights. Anyone have a good study?
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.
I'm not saying 'give up'. Far from it. Do something productive:
- Re-establish onshore manufacturing. As in stop penalizing offshoring with tax, immigration, and other policies.
- Educate ourselves. A local newspaper ad claims that in Arizona, if you eat at a chain restaraunt, $17 of every $100 of your bill stays in the local economy, while if you eat at a locally-owned restaraunt, $47 of every $100 stays. I dunno or care about the exact numbers. Buying goods made in foreign countries can't be as productive or profitable to our economy as buying them made here. And yet, I wonder how that works with automobiles....
- Change the attitude. Maybe we can't make crap in the U.S. that is competitively priced with foreign crap. Ok, at least lets focus on the right products. Perhaps flat-panel displays, consumer electronics, and clothing?
- Also, understand the reality (point 2 revisited). Why do Nike etc. assemble sneakers in Vietnam? Besides cheap labor, they avoid problems with regulatory agencies regarding working conditions such as hours, lighting, pollution. Just the adhesives used are often either banned or conditions controlled so that it is much cheaper to manufacture overseas and avoid the protections. How can we convince Vietnam to raise their standards so that we can effectively take back that business? Not likely. So perhaps we need to work with manufacturers to create products and processes that are economically viable in the U.S. Or deal with it and see if a sneaker maker exists in the U.S. And one does. New Balance.
It is hard to find stuff NOT made in China. I hate buying shoes, because no matter the brand, they all seem to be made in China. I treasure the shirts I have made in India, Bangladesh, even Brunei, though of course some of these countries are not models of freedom and tolerance. But lately, anything but China has been my goal. It's been a while since I coudl find any made in the U.S., even Brazil or Puerto Rico, where the plants in my former home state went to. It ain't easy.
But give up? Nope.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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...
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."
Plus anyone who delays the project quickly became an involuntary organ donor.
That's the kicker, isn't it? Over here in the Netherlands, we have finally come to a decision, I think, perhaps, to go ahead and extend the A4 around Delft to connect to the A20 at Rotterdam. This concerns building a few miles of road for which the grade already has been laid (if you check Google maps). This is a decision that has taken 40 years, and I really wish I was kidding... Most infrastructure projects are decided upon a lot quicker but most will still take years, and when construction finally gets underway, it will be put on hold again for any crappy rare-ass beetle that turns up at the site. (Of course if the construction guys find the beetle first, it means the immediate extinction of said beetle). Somehow I suspect you don't get a lot of that in China
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
That doesn't really count: (a) Transrapid is a German company, and (b) these are maglev trains. These require specialised (and very expensive) rails, and "normal" wheel-on-rail rolling stock can't use maglev rails.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Of course, correlation is not causation, although intuitively it makes a lot of sense - wealthier people seem to consider themselves more important, demand more power, education, have better communications
It could be argued the other way around - free people are more productive (e.g. consider the productivity of slaves vs hired workers), and therefore more freedom leads to better economy.
Which one it is in reality is very much unclear. For all we know, it could be that both modern democracy (including the concept of inherent human rights), and the economic prosperity of the First World both stem from something more fundamental in its culture, and hence the correlation, while not exactly coincidental, doesn't imply any direct relationship here. Or it could be just a historical accident (someone had to be the first one to get lucky, and Europeans just did, and then used the advantage thus gained to pwn everyone else).
It's also worth noting that some authoritarian societies not rooted in Western culture seem to do rather well in terms of economics (e.g. Singapore).
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.
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.