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China's High-Speed Trains Coming Off the Rails
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that China's expanding network of ultramodern high-speed trains is coming under growing scrutiny over costs and because of concerns that builders ignored safety standards in the quest to build faster trains in record time as new leadership at the Railways Ministry announced that to enhance safety, the top speed of all trains was being decreased from about 218 mph to 186. Without elaborating, the ministry called the safety situation 'severe' and said it was launching safety checks along the entire network of tracks. Meanwhile China's Finance Ministry announced that the Railways Ministry continues to lose money as the ministry's debt stands at $276 billion, almost all borrowed from Chinese banks. 'In China, we will have a debt crisis — a high-speed rail debt crisis,' says Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and longtime critic of high-speed rail who worries that the cost of the project might have created a hidden debt bomb that threatens China's banking system. 'I think it is more serious than your subprime mortgage crisis. You can always leave a house or use it. The rail system is there. It's a burden. You must operate the rail system, and when you operate it, the cost is very high.'"
No, you actually do not HAVE to operate the expensive rail system you built, if you cannot afford to.
The world is full of rusting hulks of things people once thought they had to have, like wind turbines in Hawaii and California... monuments to people who once thought they had to have something, that it turned out they could do without after all.
Would dropping some of the train lines hurt China economically? Without doubt, but then so does spending far more than you take in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh really? You mean there are existing safety standards for new technology?
And here I thought it was just the engineer's conservative estimates...
Well since the train designs are stolen^H^H^H similar to the Japanese and German high speed trains, there must be relevent safety standards.
Oh really? You mean there are existing safety standards for new technology? And here I thought it was just the engineer's conservative estimates...
What new technology? High speed rail is over a hundred years old. The billion passenger mark was hit in the 1970s. I think there is sufficient track record to establish standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail
Houses on the other hand you can simply stop building so many and the ones you have go up in value eventually.
There are lots of examples of houses being built and after being abandoned, never being bought and eventually fall into ruin. Detroit has a ton of examples of properties where this is true. Anything you let lie fallow falls apart eventually.. a rail system seems much the same to me, if you stop running it you can either maintain the rails hoping they will have future value, or just totally abandon the system and let it fall into ruin.
I agree though it's a worse position they are in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Melamine in baby formula and animal feed to spike low protein counts (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1856168,00.html)
Coal mine accidents in disproportionate amounts when you compare China's coal production to that of other countries (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-11/13/content_391242.htm)
Melted down anything remotely resembling metal in the late 50s (The Great Leap Forward) to try to match the United Kingdom in steel production - an arbitrary goal set by Mao Zedong - naturally, the product was useless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_furnace)
China has come a long way since the end of Republican Era but has also consistently cut corners whenever possible. This isn't an issue of sour grapes, simply one of history.
It looks like China is heading for an enormous debt crisis. Add the creation of ghost cities as covered earlier this month and it looks pretty scary! It'll make US's debt crunch look like a drop in a bucket.
Unfortunately, that apparently isn't the only bubble in China:
How Big Is the Chinese Property Bubble?
China's credit bubble on borrowed time as inflation bites
China: the coming costs of a superbubble
It seems likely that the world has a few more financial tremors coming.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Straw man argument.
No one really believes we won't run out. Some of us just don't care much. When commodities run out, they subsidize their replacements via outrageous cost. Besides, the momentum is unstoppable, anyway. Usually, we learn not to tilt at windmills.
What you're really calling for is to artificially decrease demand for oil, which isn't going to happen in a sane world. Any attempt to do so will simply create a gray or black market in oil to those who refuse to cooperate with the regimen. Those who produce will be all too willing to sell, and those who consume will be all too willing to continue, while paying lip service to the goal. It likely would even increase demand for oil until it is all gone. Then the solution summarized in the previous paragraph will happen in any event.
About the only way to subvert the whole process before oil runs out would be to create a renewable organic fuel with limited negatives vis a vis fossilized plant matter. Something that burns in current engines with limited modification. Arrange for it to be cheaper than extraction of said fossilized plant matter. That would work, but it's a tall order. However, if one wanted to 'save the earth' to the extent that CO2 is a danger, that seems to be the most promising path.
As for why organic - the economic dislocation of changing every ICE in the world over to something else would eliminate any cost advantage in the fuel in any reasonable time frame. That's why hydrogen always sounded like a nonstarter to me. It depended on too many immature or nonexistent technologies to prosper.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
There exist not only standards, but also products you can compare your solution against. For example, the Shinkansen has a safety record that is hard to believe -- no dead, only a few hurt, and only one derailment during a rather strong earthquake. There is a reason it has taken all countries with successful high-speed train networks years and huge investment to get where there are. Engineering isn't simple, and problems aren't readily solved by party directives.
I, for one, have made the point about safety biting the Chinese fast train in the ass just after they start the service many times. I think it is a very good thing that they are reacting the good way -- by slowing the rail, and looking into the trouble, instead of, you know, just running the trains at full speed and collecting the bodies.
Yeah, China is about due. Japan and the USA (along with Greece, Ireland, Spain, and others) ignored basic economic principles and are paying the price. (I'm NOT talking about the Tsunami tragedy in Japan, but the stagnation of the economy.) "Stimulus" money has to come from the places where it's produced, and is a by-product of productivity. If you loan money to people or projects, those recipients need to have the means to pay it back. Governments do not produce anything, so they must get their money from those who are productive. To "stimulate" the economy, they are taking it from productive projects (Exports), skimming expenses off the top and then sending it back as "stimulus" funds. The other alternative is to create money out of thin air, which causes inflation. Either way, the so-called "stimulus" loses its effectiveness the more often it is used. Japan's last big stimulus attempts created almost no movement in their economy; not even short-term.
China's rail problem is not the cause of the bank problems: The cause is that banks were forced to loan money to unsound projects at unrealistic rates. China has huge amounts of "Sovereign Wealth" due to their absolute and competitive advantages over their Western customers, but they have no place to put it, internal to China. Distributing it to unsound projects wastes resources and unbalances the internal economy. Some infrastructure development could bolster the economy (like toll roads in the USA). However, the implication derived from the banker's statements is that the "tolls" from operating the railway are not sufficient to service the debts. Banks don't get their money back and the government gets to subsidize a losing project. (Sound familiar?)
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Well, that would depend. A maglev train that didn't fly off the rails would be kinda useless.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yeeeees, but you've got to be careful with that. You will get EXACTLY what you actually ask for, no more and no less, which is almost never what you really meant or want.
If you reward students for high grades in exams, you'll get just that. High grades. Not understanding of the subject, just high grades. If you reward bankers for making profits, you'll get just that. High profits. Not financial stability, just high profits.
The problem with incentives is that exceedingly few people are capable of setting them correctly. And not a single one of them will use "incentivize" as a word.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The US is almost entirely a heavy rail system, made for freight. It is an extremely efficient way of moving lots of cargo, costs 0.5-1% of what it does by truck energy wise. It is also heavily used. It isn't like only a little stuff goes by rail, tons does. In Flagstaff, AZ which is bisected by a major east-west rail line you have a large train go through about once every 15-20 minutes, 24 hours a day.
You'll notice that there are not catastrophes involving trains all the time. Accidents happen, but they are not that common. The rules for what works with a train weighing thousands of tons and traveling at 20-70mph depending on the area are different than one weighing on a couple hundred and traveling at 100+mph.
The US system is not designed for high speed passenger transit, but it works great for moving freight.
More so, you should be sighing at the fact that if China goes through a significant recession, they will likely bring every other country down with them, with differing levels of effect. Though, countries like Australia, will be hit extremely hard.
The funniest thing about this post...
'I think it is more serious than your subprime mortgage crisis. You can always leave a house or use it. The rail system is there. It's a burden. You must operate the rail system, and when you operate it, the cost is very high.'
It may be more serious than the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, but what about China's own housing crisis, which is like the U.S. but way more extreme as it's pushed through by their Government.
Also, your rant is the least insightful post I've seen. "Inflationary capitalistic expansion", done by a communist country? An obscure reference to Reganomics in a country where it doesn't apply in the slightest?
The up and coming haven't learnt? I think they have, if China hadn't made in roads towards providing their citizens with freer markets, China would have gone the way of Russia, quite some time ago.
All those marketers, all those hedge-fund managers, all those financial instruments, the money printing, the interest rate hikes, the depletion of old-guard natural energy resources, the cost-cutting, the parasitic leeches of banks and speculative investment..they will kill the host before they kill themselves.
Okay, now you're just listing random things which people infer bad things about. More so, you're listing contradictory "bad ideas".
"the money printing" is the OPPOSITE of "the interest rate hikes" which is counteracted by "all those financial instruments" but increases "speculative investment" .
"All those marketers, all those hedge-fund managers" okay, you need to say something more than this?
I don't even know what the fuck "the parasitic leeches of banks" is referring to.
I immediately thought you were an arts student, because this is the most retarded, least well thought out shit I've read in a long time. But then I notice that your writing is exceptionally bad, and it's hard to understand what you're actually trying to say. So, I'm guessing you're NOT an arts student then.
Save us some time, and please stick to... whatever you specialize in.
Sincerely,
Society
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Look at Chinese cars. Very much clones of Honda and other Japanese brands yet youtube is replete with them failing European crash tests, some spectacularly. Very much a product of a society where all the appearances are there but the substance is not. Why? Most likely because for the most part there is little chance the blame will land on those who are mostly responsible.
Poor steel quality, copying only to the point of necessity, and an uninspired workforce, will all catch up to China soon.
Like North Korea, the real money and quality is only ensured when it comes to the military.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.