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China Relaunches World's Fastest Train (fortune.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet dept.

China has decided to relaunch the world's fastest train service following a fatal crash in 2011, where the high speed train service reduced its upper limit from its then-record holding 350 km/h (217 miles/hour) to 250-300 km/h (155-186 miles/hour). Fortune reports: Government-controlled website Thepaper.cn reported that seven pairs of bullet trains will be operating under the name "Fuxing," meaning rejuvenation, according to the South China Morning Post. The trains will once again run at 350 km/h, with a maximum speed of 400 km/h (248 mph). It is reported that the train service will boast a monitoring system that will automatically slow the trains in case of emergency. The Beijing-Shanghai line will begin operating on 21 September and will shorten the nearly 820 mile journey by an hour, to four hours thirty minutes. Nearly 600 million people use this route each year, providing a reported $1 billion in profits . Other routes include Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, which will begin operation today.

13 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Not very reassuring... by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is reported that the train service will boast a monitoring system that will automatically slow the trains in case of emergency.

    Most trains will tend to slow down in the case of an emergency. The question is how quickly they slow down and what they hit whilst doing so.

    1. Re:Not very reassuring... by bluegutang · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't matter. 1.44 billion people took Chinese high speed rail in 2016, perhaps 10 billion total in the history of Chinese HSR. In all this time, there has been one crash causing 40 deaths. Had all these people driven cars instead, the number of crash deaths would have been many times higher.

    2. Re:Not very reassuring... by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 2

      While the Chinese are moving at > 200mph, the US' flagship service, the Acela Express, toddles along at around 80mph average, although some runs like Boston are more like 60mph, a figure first reached by a steam locomotive in 1848.

  2. ..not the fastest train... by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just the fastest train service ...

    Passenger trains have gone faster (one offs), manned trains have gone much faster (632 mph), Unmanned trains have gone ridiculously fast (6,416 mph)

    --
    Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    1. Re:..not the fastest train... by 91degrees · · Score: 2

      Aren't those just rockets on guidance tracks though? I mean, it's cool, but not much use for public transport.

  3. china builds infrastructure, usa continues wars by sittingnut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    whether this train will live up to its clams over the long run may be in doubt, but china is at least trying to build something, that at very least claims to benefit its citizens.
    at the same time usa is wasting lot more money and lives continuing unwinnable wars, causing huge destructions and deaths, creating ever more terrorists, directly in contradiction to wishes of american voters, who wanted less foreign entanglements and interventions, and wanted domestic development "first".

    1. Re:china builds infrastructure, usa continues wars by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree that the US has been going in the wrong direction for some time but I do not envy the Chinese. There is a lot of people suffering there and it's not just because of their totalitarian government, they have giant looming issues that are one disruption from crumbling their empire.

      Right now China is economically dependant on the rest of the world using them as a manufacturing hub while keeping money from leaving their country by devaluing their currency and levying huge import taxes. This has multiple issue:

      * It's paradoxical because as it lifts the Chinese people up, they want better conditions which is actually causing jobs to go elsewhere and making manufacturers more reliant on automation. Either way, the result is that it's bad for the Chinese economy.
      * China has strict environmental standards but only use it to prevent foreign companies from doing business there. If the EU or US actually insist on compliance, it will cause production to be less cost effective and again cause economic issues.
      * There has been a housing bubble in China but the problem is that nobody can afford to live their. The result is entire cities that are sparsely populated. When this comes crashing down, it will be absolutely devastating for China.
      * Their stock market is currently being propped up by their government.
      * The pollution in cities is absurdly high and is causing lung cancer in a lot of people. An increased percentage of the population dying isn't good in the long run because people may leave the cities out of fear or cause civil unrest but this is an outlying issue.

      China isn't even a great place to be right now (Beijing has what they call "the poverty belt" that surrounds it) and while they do their best to present a good image, they are one bad issue away from economic collapse. A "trade war" with China would destabilize their country in a big way.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:china builds infrastructure, usa continues wars by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 2

      I can't mod up Gravis Zero because this excellent post is already rated at 5 points, but I totally agree with it. I've spent a little time in China this decade and had a couple of girlfriends who were from there and I can tell you that there are plenty of people who would love to leave it and move to America with all of America's "problems". Some people do care a lot about political freedom and safety issues. Can you imagine going to the grocery store in the USA, Canada, the EU, Japan, Australia, etc. and wondering if the powdered milk you want to buy is going to kill you if you drink it? That's a real fear in China. Just a few years ago Hong Kong had such a run on powdered milk that the local government had to actually put limits on how much non-residents could buy while traveling there.

      One of my girlfriends lived in Shanghai and she was absolutely terrified of the high speed trains and flat out refused to ride on any of them. She told me that she felt that they were unsafe and she wasn't going to get herself killed in an accident on one of them. I can also tell you that her parents lived in a typical apartment that they got back in the 1970s after getting married and the value of it now was just insanely expensive compared to what it cost when they moved in. They could never afford to leave it. Shanghai may have among the worst property values in China but to a certain extent all Chinese property values are like those in California, the UK, Tokyo and Hong Kong - far higher than makes any sense and so high that many people who get mortgages will never be able to pay them off. Any place in China that is a city and not a village is like that. And Gravis correctly mentions the ghost cities that nobody or almost nobody lives in that apparently were built just to give workers something to do. They've even got some malls in some places that are empty and have never had stores in them or were built to hold 50 or more stores and maybe have 1 or 2 in the whole place.

      The stock market, which Gravis mentioned, does seem to be on shaky ground. I can tell you that the average Chinese person is a very unsophisticated investor. I live in the USA and sure, lots of people here don't know much about the stock market and may even admit so, but in China there seems to be a general consensus that you can't lose - ever - if you buy stocks. On some level they have to know that some stocks certainly lose money, but there still remains this idea that the stock market will only go up forever for all stocks in China and if you don't invest in it, you are wasting your chance to make big money.

  4. Re:Length inaccuracies by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > It will be bailed out by the government. Hey it is owned by the government !

    Just like roads. They are economically unsustainable also. They make zero profit. That's why any country with roads is in a worse state economically than countries without roads.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  5. 350 km/h? by stereoroid · · Score: 2

    That's Fuxing quick!

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    (this is not a .sig)
  6. It's a miracle by Katatsumuri · · Score: 2

    I would count the Chinese huge high speed rail network as one of the modern seven wonders. And they seem to enjoy great economical benefits from it. It is funny how in the game of Civilization, everyone knows to prioritize the roads, but in the real world most countries cannot pull off such huge infrastructure projects with reasonable speed, or at all.

    I hope China does manage to take their rail network global, as planned.

  7. Re:Not the fastest in China even by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I took that maglev back to the airport a few months ago when I left Shanghai.
    Very interesting to ride on it, had a kind of theme park feel to the experience,
    which struck me as part of the problem with it... If you are staying in a Hotel
    any downtown (which is what most people would choose to do) it is completely
    useless. You have to take a long taxi ride to get the station, and the train goes
    along a track that seems to just run along the side of the highway. But you'd
    have to get out of the taxi, get your luggage, go up to the station, buy a ticket,
    wait for the train. And then a few minutes later you are indeed doing 430km/h.
    For a short period anyway. And the train really shakes around a lot, which
    concerned me a bit. The Japan bullet train is smooth as silk in comparison.
    Something isnt quite right there. But the bigger issue is that if I'd just stayed
    in the taxi I think I'd have got to the airport at about the same time. I'm afraid
    it's just a white elephant, an ego trip for the city of Shanghai. Just extending
    the subway out there would have made a heck of a lot more sense and been
    far more useful. But I guess it doesnt do 430km/h..!

  8. Re:Length inaccuracies by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

    The USA has many, many roads, and I would say that we are doing better economically than most countries, by a long shot.

    Did you feel a faint whooshing noise overhead?

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.