CRH (China Railway Highspeed) 中国高速铁路 [Archive] - Page 2

Haoting

August 7th, 2009, 06:24 AM

China's amazing new bullet train
This year Beijing will spend $50 billion on what will soon be the world's biggest high-speed train system. Here's how it works.
By Bill Powell, senior writer
Last Updated: August 6, 2009: 10:06 AM ET

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/galleries/2009/fortune/0908/gallery.china_high_speed_train.fortune/images/launcher.jpg

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2009/08/03/news/international/china_high_speed_bullet_train.fortune/CHI_map.03.jpg

(Fortune Magazine) -- When lunch break comes at the construction site between Shanghai and Suzhou in eastern China, Xi Tong-li and his fellow laborers bolt for some nearby trees and the merciful slivers of shade they provide. It's 95 degrees and humid -- a typically oppressive summer day in southeastern China -- but it's not just mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun.

Xi is among a vast army of workers in China -- according to Beijing's Railroad Ministry, 110,000 were laboring on a single line, the Beijing-Shanghai route, at the beginning of 2009 -- who are building one of the largest infrastructure projects in history: a nationwide high-speed passenger rail network that, once completed, will be the largest, fastest, and most technologically sophisticated in the world.
Creating a rail system in a country of 1.3 billion people guarantees that the scale will be gargantuan. Almost 16,000 miles of new track will have been laid when the build-out is done in 2020. China will consume about 117 million tons of concrete just to construct the buttresses on which the tracks will be carried. The total amount of rolled steel on the Beijing-to-Shanghai line alone would be enough to construct 120 copies of the "Bird's Nest" -- the iconic Olympic stadium in Beijing. The top speed on trains that will run from Beijing to Shanghai will approach 220 miles an hour. Last year passengers in China made 1.4 billion rail journeys, and Chinese railroad officials expect that in a nation whose major cities are already choked with traffic, the figure could easily double over the next decade.

Construction on the vast multibillion-dollar project commenced in 2005 and will run through 2020. This year China will invest $50 billion in its new high-speed passenger rail system, more than double the amount spent in 2008. By the time the project is completed, Beijing will have pumped $300 billion into it. This effort is of more than passing historical interest. It can be seen properly as part and parcel of China's economic rise as a developing nation modernizing at warp speed, catching up with the rich world and in some instances -- like high-speed rail -- leapfrogging it entirely.
But this project symbolizes even more than that. This monumental infrastructure build-out has become the centerpiece of China's effort to navigate the global financial crisis and the ensuing recession.

China's stimulus package
Last November, as the developed world imploded -- taking China's massive export growth and the jobs it had created with it -- Beijing announced a two-year, $585 billion stimulus package -- about 13% of 2008 GDP.

Infrastructure spending was at its core. Beijing would pour even more money into bridges, ports, and railways in the hope that it could stimulate growth and -- critically -- absorb the excess labor that exporters, particularly in the Pearl River Delta, were shedding as their foreign sales shrank more than 20%.

A single province, Guangdong, was thought at the end of 2008 to have more than 20 million unemployed workers, many of whom appeared intent on heading back home to poorer, rural provinces with nothing much to do. Little focuses minds in Beijing more than the prospect of huge numbers of idle young men. It conjures up images of social instability that could conceivably strip the Communist Party of its primary source of legitimacy: economic growth and the improving living standards it has been providing for nearly 30 years. Beijing, in other words, had a lot riding on the bet that a massive boost to infrastructure spending could ameliorate the downturn.

Just over half a year later, the medicine appears to be working (at least so far). Railway worker Xi Tong-li, in fact, is one small example of that. Last fall he was toiling in a factory that made industrial fasteners for export in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province -- a factory that is now closed. When Xi, a native of rural Henan province, lost his job, he called a friend who was working on a spur of the high-speed rail line that will eventually connect Beijing with Shanghai, cutting travel time from around 10 hours today to about four when the line opens in a couple of years. Two months later he was hired at a wage of $250 per month. "I'm happy to have a job so that I can still send money back [to Henan] and help my parents," he says.

It's unclear just how many of those laborers who lost their jobs in the export sector have been absorbed by China's accelerating infrastructure build-out -- the biggest portion of which by far is construction of the high-speed rail network. Unemployment -- estimates range from 10% to 20% -- remains the government's primary economic concern.

As David Li, an economist at Beijing's Tsinghua University, says, there's no doubt that "the acceleration of [the massive railroad build-out] is playing a key role in China's recovery." In mid-July, Beijing announced that second-quarter growth came in at 7.9%, and that the quarter-on-quarter upswing was the fastest the nation had seen since 2003. Economists at Goldman Sachs now believe China will expand at 8.3% this year -- exceeding the 8.1% goal set by Beijing in January, and dismissed then as unrealistic by most private economists.

That the government-led infrastructure spending, as Li says, is driving this growth is beyond dispute. A recent survey by Australia's mining industry shows that China's overall steel production capacity has actually increased by 10% to 12% over a year ago, despite the worst global downturn in decades. But nearly all that production is being used domestically, the survey said.

And across the Chinese landscape, it's pretty easy to see why. Whether in Dalian in the northeast, Wuhan in the west, or Shanghai in the east, one constant is the sight of massive concrete buttresses about 246 feet apart, lined up one after another in rows extending as far as the eye can see. The buttresses support the tracks over which the high-speed trains will run. They weigh 800 tons each and are reinforced by steel cables. There are close to 200,000 of them being built, all across the country.

How China mobilized its vast resources
At a moment when the developed world -- the U.S., Europe, and Japan -- is still stuck in the deepest recession since the early 1980s, China's rebound is startling. And the news comes just as Washington is embroiled in its own debate about whether the U.S. requires -- and can afford -- another round of stimulus, since the first one, earlier this year, has thus far done little to halt the downturn. Tax cuts made up about one-third of the $787 billion package, and only $60 billion of the remaining $500 billion has been spent so far.

Proponents of more stimulus are likely to cite China's example of what a properly designed stimulus program can accomplish. Maybe so. But a closer look at China's high-speed rail program also reveals some risks that should factor into the "Why can't we do that?" debate that's surely coming in Washington.

Xia Guobin, an amiable 51-year-old, is vice president and chief engineer for China Railway Construction Co., the largest of three state-owned companies that are the primary contractors for China's railway build-out. Sitting in the company's Beijing headquarters, I tell him it's likely that U.S. policymakers will look at China and suffer a pronounced case of infrastructure envy. He chuckles and says, "Well, it's not as if we were all standing around here doing nothing when the world financial crisis hit."

He says it jokingly, but it's the first key to understanding why China seems to be getting quick economic traction from its spending. As anyone who lives here knows, the government's massive infrastructure investment has been underway for years. Ports, bridges, airports, highways -- China in three years' time will have more miles of multilane highways than exist in the U.S. The rail program itself began four years ago, and the first spur opened just before the Olympics last year, linking Beijing with the city of Tianjin, 70 miles away -- a ride that now takes just about 30 minutes.

This is the definition, in other words, of "shovel-ready." China, for instance, was able to more than double its rail spending this year because, for the most part, it could simply move up plans that were already in place. That means existing orders for steel and cement and process-control systems and computer chips were all expanded (and given the softness in the export sector, most suppliers have had no trouble meeting the increased demand).

Last year China Railway Construction Co., the nation's largest railroad builder, hired 14,000 new university graduates -- civil and electrical engineers mostly -- from the class of 2008. This year, says Liang Yi, the vice CEO of the CRCC subsidiary working on the Beijing-to-Shanghai high-speed line, the company may hire up to 20,000 new university grads to cope with the company's intensifying workload. But with the private sector cutting way back on hiring -- and university students desperate for work -- taking on that many new engineers and managers hasn't been too difficult.

It's been even less of a problem offering jobs to manual laborers on sites across the country. Liang says his unit alone is absorbing 8,000 more workers this year than it did last. It gives each one five days of basic safety training, which isn't a lot, but in China it's very rare for manual laborers to get any safety training. Says chief engineer Xia: "Yes, we have more pressure on us, but we're not doing anything we weren't doing before. We're just doing more of it."

The other key thing to remember is that China's brand-new high-speed rail network will be the product of the country's economic system. For all the free-market progress China has made in the past 30 years, a heavy "command and control" component still exists. The central government in Beijing holds all the key levers of power. The Railroad Ministry sets the plans, state-owned banks lend the money, and state-owned companies get the projects rolling. In the meantime many private businesses struggle to get bank loans.

Indeed, "command and control" is an especially fitting metaphor for the high-speed railway build-out. Until 1984 the Ministry of Railroads and what are now the construction companies were all part of China's People's Liberation Army. To this day, many of the senior and middle management ranks are made up of former army officers -- conservative executives who are very good at following orders.

The result is that when plans are made, they also get executed. In America, jokes Sean Maloney, the No. 3 executive at Intel, "NIMBY-ism [Not in My Backyard] is still an issue. In China, it's more like IMBY-ism. They plan, they build things, and they move fast."

Occasionally that can stir up trouble. A year and a half ago middle-class residents in a Shanghai neighborhood went public -- a relatively rare event in China -- with a protest against a high-speed rail line being built south to Hangzhou because it was too close to their homes. They created enough of a ruckus that Premier Wen Jiabao himself interceded and forced a change in the line's route.

Working with foreign companies
Still, all things considered, in the midst of the grinding global recession, a little IMBY-ism doesn't seem like such a bad thing to some multinational companies. China's stimulus plan has taken some flak for what some critics perceive to be a "buy China" bias in its spending. But when it comes to the rail program, any number of big foreign players claim to be benefiting directly. Bombardier of Canada got the contract for a signaling system on the network as well as for work on 40 high-speed trains. Altogether, Fortune estimates that foreign companies have won some $10 billion worth of contracts so far, and in a program that extends to 2020, there's more where that came from.

IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) is among the companies aggressively pushing for a share of the historic build-out. It won a contract to provide the software for the high-speed train spur (as well as a local intracity rail system) in Guangdong province. High-speed rail systems are as much about silicon chips and software as about cement and steel. So-called smart train networks -- and the software systems that run them -- can boost on-time performance, speed up maintenance, and improve safety. And Big Blue, for its part, has already decided not only where the future is for this industry but also where the present is.

How so? Consider that the Northeast Corridor, between Boston and Washington, D.C., is served by Amtrak's Acela train, which clips along at a stately average speed of 79 miles an hour. There's a lot of talk now, as part of President Obama's stimulus plan, about upgrading the system and building new, faster lines all across the nation. In his stimulus bill Obama has allocated $8 billion over three years for high-speed rail, and 40 states are now bidding for the funds, with results to be released in September. Among the possibilities, California wants to link San Francisco with L.A. via a high-speed link. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants the private sector to get into the act, proposing a high-speed spur to connect Las Vegas with L.A.

Maybe, after environmental reviews are finished and eminent domain issues settled, those lines will be built. Meanwhile, IBM opened its new global high-speed-rail innovation center last month.

In Beijing.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2009/08/03/news/international/china_high_speed_bullet_train.fortune/CHI_chart.03.jpg

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/03/news/international/china_high_speed_bullet_train.fortune/
Zhang Dan and Josh Glasser contributed to this article

fajarmuhasan

August 7th, 2009, 07:56 AM

I don't understand for the speed. Why the CRH only 150mph in average, it is looks like normal train. In the information before (in this forum) the CRH can >200 mph

nouveau.ukiyo

August 7th, 2009, 08:21 AM

I don't understand for the speed. Why the CRH only 150mph in average, it is looks like normal train. In the information before (in this forum) the CRH can >200 mph

The keyword here is 'average'. >200mph is the 'top speed'. The average speed takes into account the speed of the train throughout it's journey. This includes decelerating and accelerating when stopping at stations and reduced speed within cities, around curves, when entering tunnels, etc. as well as travel at top speed when possible.

For me, average speed is more important. For example, the Shanghai Maglev has a mind-boggling top speed but a lower average speed in comparison. I don't have exact numbers; maybe someone else can give those.

chornedsnorkack

August 7th, 2009, 09:49 AM

Time is money my friend. You can sleep for 8 hours but others can't sleep all day. But I know your point. However, some people just want to do what they want to do and one of that is "not waste time". This is the advantage of a High Speed Rail.

Yes. But if you do not want to sleep then airplane is even faster than high-speed rail.

didu

August 7th, 2009, 12:20 PM

^^ plane is more expensive and less safe, and you have to factor in the time to travel to and from the airport.

z0rg

August 7th, 2009, 01:23 PM

chornedsnorkack

August 7th, 2009, 05:41 PM

^^ Add the time tro travel to and from the plane itself. If your plane takes off at 10:00 you normally should be at the airport 30 mins earlier at least, and the plane probably wont take off till 10:15. Then if your plane lands at 12:00 you wont leave the airport till 12:20 at least.

On the other hand, if your train leaves at 10:00 you can arrive to the station at 9:45. And you'll leave the station just 5 min after arriving to your destination.

In a mid-long term (2020-2030) domestic flights wont make sense once the whole world has a decent high-speed network (say 350-500km/h)

1) When the Transsiberian Railway shall be completed to the decent top speed of 350 km/h and average of, say 300 km/h (infrequent stations in Siberia), it would still take 31 hours Moscow to Vladivostok. 2 nights and the day between. A domestic flight would still cut some time.

2) There are many isles which cannot be reached by rail.

z0rg

August 7th, 2009, 06:32 PM

^^ Obvious exceptions, honey.

BarbaricManchurian

August 9th, 2009, 01:46 AM

I think the Beijing-Shanghai HSL is kind of useless, the train service they have right now is just fine. You leave at night in one city and wake up the next morning in the other. I have taken the train to Beijing many times and think the trip is very convienent and comfortable. a 10 hour trip in the middle of the night where I sleep eight hours. This is also good for travelers because it gives them one less night in the hotel.

With the 5 hour trip, there is not enough time to sleep so you will just have to sit there the entire time. The train will probably not run at night so you will have to waste 5 hours in the middle of the day to travel, rather than sleep through the whole trip feeling rested. Also, if this train is anything like the Tianjin-Beijing train, it will be pretty cramped, instead of the spacious trains they have now. So even though the trip will be half the time, it won't save you any time. If you are really in a hurry to get from Shanghai to Beijing you can always fly.IMO they are building this high speed rail line so they can say that they have the fastest high speed train or whatever. China is not Spain, Japan, Germany, France etc. China is a much bigger country and at the lengths one has to travel in China, High Speed rail doesn't really make sense. This is why HSR has never taken off in large countries like Russia, Canada, USA, or Brazil. HSR is better for medium sized countries such as those in Europe.

I will surely use it to travel from Tianjin to Shanghai, right now it will require a multi-day trip but with the HSR it can be a (very long) day trip. I've never been to Shanghai, so this will give me an experience along with the bonus of travelling on the fastest speed conventional train in the world for long distances. Also keep in mind that China's HSR is faster than most of the other countries listed, so one can go longer distances, so it does make sense in big countries if it's fast enough. For example, a "high-speed" ICE train in Germany from Nuremberg to the Rhine-Ruhr area takes 8 hours, in China, you'll be able to travel from Beijing to Guangzhou in that time. And sorry, but judging from my own experiences, I don't think the Tianjin-Beijing HSR is "cramped", maybe more cramped than other countries but only proportional to the density, not excessively cramped imo.

And I'm sure they'll keep the sleeper, not everyone can afford to pay for the highest level train service so they'll probably still offer ultra-slow antiquated trains, sleeper medium speed, and of course the 5 hour CRH.

chornedsnorkack

August 9th, 2009, 12:15 PM

And I'm sure they'll keep the sleeper, not everyone can afford to pay for the highest level train service so they'll probably still offer ultra-slow antiquated trains, sleeper medium speed, and of course the 5 hour CRH.

It is not only a question of affording.

Ultra-slow could be because it is antiquated and cheap. Or it could be because it is constantly starting and stopping. If you are travelling from Tianjin to Wuxi or Xuzhou or Cangzhou or Qufu, or to countless yet more obscure places that no doubt exist along the route, what would be better - travel by HSR to a big station well past the destination, and then wait for a local train, or travel by a train that with many stop does get where you want?

Also, if you could afford for the 5 hour CRH, it still is waste of time, because 5 hours is not enough for good night´s sleep. Alternatively you could take sleeper medium speed and spend your money on getting a bigger, more comfortable cabin, like deluxe soft sleeper.

And then there could be long-distance sleepers. Like Harbin-Shanghai. Even if it mostly caters for people who set out from Harbin to Shanghai early in the evening and sleep a full night, some people may be willing to stay up and busy into late hours of night, and then get on the train and catch a few hours´ nap to reach Shanghai in the morning... so why not make a brief stop to pick up those in Tianjin?

BarbaricManchurian

August 9th, 2009, 07:30 PM

^^well, of course there are other reasons besides cost :cheers:

big-dog

September 9th, 2009, 08:29 AM

"4 horizontal 4 vertical" HSR (China high speed rail) network built by 2012

Total HSR length 13,000km, including 5000km rail of 250kmph and 8000km of 350kmph

Network covering central and western China, inlcuding Chongqing

7-hour trip expected from Chongqing to Beijing or Shanghai by 2012

Total rail network length reaching 110,000km by 2012

铁道部副总工程师张曙光日前透露，到2012年我国将建成“四纵四横”高速铁路专线网，总里程1.3万公里，其中时速250公里的线路有5000公里，时速350公里的线路有8000公里。中部和西部地区大多数大城市都纳入了这个规划，其中，也包括西部最大城市重庆。

高铁网建成后重庆7小时到京沪

　　时速两三百公里的火车坐起来是什么概念？7小时就可以从重庆到北京、上海！昨日，铁道部副总工程师、客运专线（高速铁路）副总设计师张曙光在科协年会主会场作报告时透露，到2012年，我国将建成“四纵四横”高速铁路专线网，其中，已投入运营的武汉-合肥-南京高速铁路，将从武汉向西延伸到重庆，形成东西走向的沿江大通道。

　　建“四纵四横”高铁网

http://i30.tinypic.com/2cr7exk.jpg

中国高速铁路----四纵四横

　　张曙光介绍，按照我国近期高速铁路规划，到2012年，我国将建成客运专线42条，总里程1.3万公里，其中时速250公里的线路有5000公里，时速350公里的线路有8000公里。

　　全国将形成“四纵四横”铁路快速客运通道，东部、中部和西部地区大多数大城市都纳入了这个规划。其中，也包括西部最大城市重庆。

　　到2012年，全国铁路的里程将达到11万公里以上，繁忙专线实现多轨对接，四通八达。张曙光说，如果说铁路促进了人类的文明与进步，高速铁路则将进一步改变人们的生活方式——长期存在的“一车难求、一票难求”状况将基本消失，重庆人坐火车到北京、上海购物，也将不是什么稀奇事。

　　重庆7小时可到京沪

　　据了解，其中的一条“横线”即沪汉蓉高速铁路，将如一条腰带，自西向东连接成都、重庆、武汉、合肥、南京等大城市，形成东西走向的沿江大通道，并在南京与京沪高速铁路接轨直达上海。目前，武汉-合肥-南京的客运专线已于今年4月开通，时速250公里的动车组，武汉仅需3小时就到达南京，5小时到达上海。

　　同时，该线路将从武汉向重庆延伸。据了解，目前武汉至宜昌段已于去年9月开工，该段为沪汉蓉大通道中最后开工兴建的重要一段，西端将与正在全面施工的宜（昌）万（州）铁路相连，预计2012年可实现全线贯通。

　　届时，重庆到上海坐火车，也只要7个小时；而经武汉到北京，也只需7小时。

　　中国的高速列车，是否还需要进口？张曙光说，我国的高速列车采用了薄壁木筒型铝合金焊接结构，目前已有三家企业全部实现了国产化。这种车型比进口车型更宽敞，也更安静。记者杨娟冉启虎

　　张曙光

　　人物简介》

　　铁道部副总工程师、客运专线（高速铁路）副总设计师、中国铁道科学研究院首席专家

　　人物语录》

　　高速铁路将让“一车难求、一票难求”基本消失。

(重庆晚报)

Andrew

September 10th, 2009, 12:48 AM

An interesting article from the BBC on China's high speed railway plans:

China unveils high-speed railways

By Shirong Chen
BBC News, China analyst

China is investing billions of dollars into its rail network
China has announced plans to build 42 new high-speed railway lines over the next three years.
In a breakthrough, China has developed trains that can run on both high-speed and normal lines, said railway official Zhang Shuguang.
A 500km/h train will be tested by the end of next year, Mr Zhang said.
China will have added 13,000km of high-speed lines by 2012, shortening journey times considerably for the expected seven billion annual passengers.
Journey times from the capital Beijing to most provincial capitals will be as short as seven hours, said Mr Zhang, the Chief Engineer of the Chinese Academy of Railway Sciences.
He revealed the plans at a science and technology conference in the city of Chongqing.

Overcrowding
Four north-south and four east-west links are taking shape across China's vast geography.

Construction on the Beijing-Shanghai line is in its second year. The section from Wuhan in central China to Guangzhou in the south will be completed in December, shortening the journey time to four hours.
Mr Zhang said China's breakthrough in developing trains that can run at high speeds on both normal tracks and specially-laid high-speed lines will greatly enhance the network's efficiency.
Overcrowding is often a problem on Chinese trains, especially during peak periods such as the National Day holidays and the Chinese New Year.
The country is investing heavily to expand its railway system by 2020.
When the high-speed network is completed in 2012, it will be able to carry more than seven billion passengers annually, Mr Zhang said.
By then, the existing system will have been expanded by about 20,000km to more than 110,000km.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8246600.stm

Not a vast amount of information and I think it's mostly stuff we already know. But what is this 500km/h train that is to be tested by the end of next year? Could this be a Chinese model for the high speed maglev line in Shanghai? If so, I have high hopes they they will develop this technology and actually put it to use. The Germans have an amazing product but noone wants to build it.

Scion

September 10th, 2009, 01:16 AM

BarbaricManchurian

September 10th, 2009, 05:40 AM

Any Chinese media reports about this? If true, it is seriously awesome. I still can't get used to how fast 350km/h is, and now they are increasing to 500km/h! Just wow, wow, wow!

big-dog

September 10th, 2009, 07:22 AM

^^ yes it's reported by Chinese media too.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/tech/2009-09/09/content_12019328.htm

Scion

September 10th, 2009, 07:23 AM

China poised to become world's high-speed rail leader

LONDON: China will become a high-speed rail leader in the world after several years of rapid development, Ignacio Barron, the High Speed Director of International Union of Railways (UIC) said on Wednesday.

He told Xinhua at the High-Speed Rail Summit here that he ever took the high-speed rail from Beijing to Tianjin and it was "very fast and very comfortable."

In order to raise capacity, China has to develop high-speed rail network, which is the most effective and environmentally-friendly solution, he said.

As planned, China will build 42 high-speed passenger rail lines with a total length of 13,000 kilometers in the three years to come. Barron admired China's rapid pace in developing the high-speed rail.

As for the technical challenges, he said it is always necessary to cooperate with countries with advanced technologies at the very beginning. But he believed China will develop its own new technology soon.

Barron said in a speech at the summit that there are a lot of advantages to develop high-speed rail. It not only increases capacity, but also provides the most safe and environmental friendly transport means.

..........

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-09/10/content_8676632.htm

Sabanban

September 10th, 2009, 10:17 AM

这个张曙光好像比较喜欢吹牛。

chornedsnorkack

September 10th, 2009, 10:36 AM

Don't think it's maglev. More like 500km/h high speed trains on conventional tracks. Looks they are looking to increase the max speed from 350 to 500 when that high speed network is in full operational.

Not necessarily.

The French hold the train speed record at 574 km/h. They set it during testing LGV Est. What they did was build a special test train with powerful engines and bigger wheels, they changed the rails of 140 km track to increase superelevation in curves, raised the tension and voltage of the catenary wire, all to set a record. After setting the record they parked the test train and restored the tracks to normal service specifications. Now they only travel 320 km/h on the same route.

The Japanese and Germans have done high-speed tests too. Shinkansen achieved 443 km/h, and ICE 406 km/h. They went back to 300 km/h service.

CRH tested Beijing-Tianjin line to 394 km/h, and then went to 350 km/h service. Maybe they will test 500 km/h next year. No record, but faster than Japanese.

Celebriton

September 10th, 2009, 03:30 PM

^^Why French and Japanese reduce the train speed down to 300 km/h? Isn't 500 km/h far better than 300 km/h?

z0rg

September 10th, 2009, 04:33 PM

China has announced plans to build 42 new high-speed railway lines over the next three years.

^^ Any truly new line we didn't know already?

500km/h is awesome. That should be the speed for the gird linking all the main cities. In what lines do they want to set this speed? Hopefully all the lines currently u/c will be easily upgradeable for faster trains either.

BarbaricManchurian

September 10th, 2009, 09:24 PM

500km/h Europe-China in 20 hours! Travel from anywhere to anywhere in China in 10 hours! This opens up even more opportunities than before, this is just mind-blowing.

urbanfan89

September 11th, 2009, 03:45 AM

^^Why French and Japanese reduce the train speed down to 300 km/h? Isn't 500 km/h far better than 300 km/h?

The fact that your car's maximum speed is 180 km/h doesn't mean you should drive at that speed on the empty expressway. :ohno:

Besides, the relationship between velocity and energy needed is squared: you need *twice* the kinetic energy to move at 500 km/h than at 300 km/h. It simply becomes uneconomical to run at such speeds.

nouveau.ukiyo

September 11th, 2009, 06:36 AM

^^To add further add commentary, highers speeds introduce increased wear and tear. Things wear out faster, have to be replaced sooner and therefore cost more money to operate, unless China has some how developed more durable technology then the rest of the world in their infancy of high speed rail development.

I have to remind people that the numbers being quoted here are top speeds, not average speeds. No train will go 500km/h over it's entire journey.

Also, considering China has only recently started high speed rail, it's a little surprising that they are developing their own trains that can run 500km/h within such a short time span...

yaohua2000

September 16th, 2009, 03:27 PM

The fact that your car's maximum speed is 180 km/h doesn't mean you should drive at that speed on the empty expressway. :ohno:

Besides, the relationship between velocity and energy needed is squared: you need *twice* the kinetic energy to move at 500 km/h than at 300 km/h. It simply becomes uneconomical to run at such speeds.

No. Relationship between velocity and drag force is squared. Relationship between velocity and energy needed is cubical. You need 4.6 times of energy to move at 500 km/h than at 300 km/h.

big-dog

September 18th, 2009, 09:28 AM

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx216/davidwei01/20090810_70d77421625b9ffac32cF6a66o.jpg

(hasea.com)

big-dog

September 18th, 2009, 09:32 AM

Beijing West 4th Ring road and CRH, picture taken Aug 12 2009

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx216/davidwei01/20090814_302493c4afcf3e80ae7eqNqnHn.jpg

(hasea.com)

big-dog

September 29th, 2009, 05:44 AM

Crossing Zhejiang Province and Fujian Province, part of Yanhai (along sea shore) HSR
Total length: 580.8km
Speed: 250kmph
Construction: 4 years
Bridge/tunnel: 66% of total length
73 Tunnels with longest Zhongyandang tunnel 7.971km
246 bridges with Ningbo Mega bridge 10.251km long

http://i0.sinaimg.cn/dy/c/p/2009-09-29/U1565P1T1D18749721F21DT20090929075910.jpg

http://i2.sinaimg.cn/dy/c/p/2009-09-29/U1565P1T1D18749721F23DT20090929075910.jpg

http://i2.sinaimg.cn/dy/c/p/2009-09-29/U1565P1T1D18749721F1394DT20090929075910.jpg

http://i3.sinaimg.cn/dy/c/p/2009-09-29/U1565P1T1D18749721F1395DT20090929075910.jpg

(http://news.xinmin.cn/rollnews/2009/09/29/2652366.html)

staff

September 29th, 2009, 08:37 AM

Wow, I've been waiting for this one to open! Will definitely take the train down to Fujian next summer.

chornedsnorkack

September 30th, 2009, 11:11 AM

Crossing Zhejiang Province and Fujian Province, part of Yanhai (along sea shore) HSR
Total length: 580.8km
Speed: 250kmph

What is the trip time, Ningbo-Fuzhou?

And what is the trip time Hangzhou-Fuzhou?

big-dog

October 9th, 2009, 05:50 AM

Highlight:

longest high speed rail: 1068.6km
speed: 350kmph
time; 3 hours (from current 10 hours)
passing 20 cities, 100 million population

http://i3.sinaimg.cn/dy/c/2009-10-09/1255032454_3tVkaR.jpg

(http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-10-09/040618791776.shtml)

fajarmuhasan

October 9th, 2009, 12:12 PM

Highlight:

longest high speed rail: 1068.6km
speed: 350kmph
time; 3 hours (from current 10 hours)
passing 20 cities, 100 million population

Is this nonstop travel or will stop in many station?

big-dog

October 9th, 2009, 05:03 PM

I guess they have different schedules: non-stop and stop-every-station.

chornedsnorkack

October 9th, 2009, 08:24 PM

Shall any high-speed trains travel beyond Wuhan?

big-dog

October 11th, 2009, 11:38 AM

if you look at the map of China, you can see Wuhan's location makes it one of the transportation hubs, the other one is Zhengzhou of Henan Province.

chornedsnorkack

October 11th, 2009, 07:50 PM

if you look at the map of China, you can see Wuhan's location makes it one of the transportation hubs, the other one is Zhengzhou of Henan Province.

Yes, but do they have any trains capable of both high-speed travel and sleeping over the long times spent on low-speed tracks?

Celebriton

October 13th, 2009, 03:30 AM

Crossing Zhejiang Province and Fujian Province, part of Yanhai (along sea shore) HSR
Total length: 580.8km
Speed: 250kmph
Construction: 4 years
Bridge/tunnel: 66% of total length
73 Tunnels with longest Zhongyandang tunnel 7.971km
246 bridges with Ningbo Mega bridge 10.251km long

I think this is the greatest CRH line in China. 73 tunnels and 246 bridges, the geographic location must be has a lot of mountain and rivers. The view from the train must be amazing, this is one of the train that we must ride when visiting China.

big-dog

October 13th, 2009, 05:11 AM

Connecting Chongqing and Guizhou Province

length: 345km
Speed: 250kmph
Investment: 44.92 billion yuan
Reduce travel time from 11 hours to 100 minutes

http://images.cq.house.sina.com.cn/news/2009-04-15/U2842P654T1D32134F11DT20090415085448.jpg

(http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-10-13/103118819201.shtml)

SqueezeDog

October 14th, 2009, 12:13 AM

^^

From 11 hours to 100 minutes!

WOW!

China is the BEST!

big-dog

October 14th, 2009, 04:41 PM

10.3 CRH3 trial run on Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail

max speed: 383kmph
3 hours 5 minutes to run through 1068.6km express rail.

http://i.imagehost.org/0347/111.jpg

Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail to open by year end

Highlight:

longest high speed rail: 1068.6km
speed: 350kmph
time; 3 hours (from current 10 hours)
passing 20 cities, 100 million population

http://i3.sinaimg.cn/dy/c/2009-10-09/1255032454_3tVkaR.jpg

(http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-10-09/040618791776.shtml)

baersworth

October 18th, 2009, 08:08 AM

This is why HSR has never taken off in large countries like Russia, Canada, USA, or Brazil. HSR is better for medium sized countries such as those in Europe.
==============================================================
You travel between cities in Europe, not only cities within one medium/small size country in Europe.

big-dog

October 18th, 2009, 08:49 AM

^^ unless population reaches a high density like China. Trains are better than flights to resolve transportation volume problem.

snapdragon

October 18th, 2009, 10:05 AM

With time as electric grids become more and more efficient the HSR travel will also become much more cheap

big-dog

October 19th, 2009, 10:18 AM

10.18 Fuzhou-Xiamen HSR completes, opening on 11.30.2009

location: Fujian Province
length: 274.9km
speed: 200kmph, max250kmph
travel time: shortened to 1.5 hours
fare: 84-105 yuan ($12-$15)
stations: 14
train scheduling: two (non-stop and stop-all-station)

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx216/davidwei01/20081210064718211.jpg

(http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-10-19/150018860945.shtml)

hanwairen

October 19th, 2009, 09:37 PM

Anybody here experienced the HP train from Shenzhen(Guangzhou) to Nanjing. Is there a round trip back in the same day?. How does it compare to using the airline? I do not have a lot of time since it will be strictly for business.

big-dog

October 27th, 2009, 03:56 PM

The newly opened Ningbo-Taizhou-Fuzhou CRH (Taizhou, Zhejiang province)

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx216/davidwei01/20091008_85c1ec81ed4ba5328c5eeiWC03.jpg

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx216/davidwei01/20091008_80f8820844e4b1d1b5768J44WZ.jpg

Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan CRH

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx216/davidwei01/20091008_8b478eeb9e42551827c4LUobTe.jpg

(hasea.com)

Celebriton

October 27th, 2009, 05:44 PM

Taken from: http://www.newsweek.com/id/219416

The Shrinking of China
By Duncan Hewitt | NEWSWEEK
Published Oct 24, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 2, 2009

For decades, rail travel in China meant an arduous overnighter in a crowded East German–designed train, riding along a rickety old track. Now China is undergoing a rail revolution. Over the next three years, the government will pour some $300 billion into its railways, expanding its network by 20,000 kilometers, including 13,000 kilometers of track designed for high-speed trains capable of traveling up to 350kph. Result: China, a nation long defined by the vastness of its geography, is getting, much, much smaller.

Already, the journey from Beijing to Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, has been slashed from eight hours to three. Shortly before the Olympics last year, the 120km trip from Beijing to Tianjin was cut from almost an hour to just 27 minutes. In the next few years, a train journey from Wuhan to Guangzhou, halfway across the country, will shrink from 10 to three hours. The trip from Shanghai to Beijing, which currently clocks in at 10 grueling hours—and twice that, not so long ago—will be cut to just four, making train travel between China's two most important cities a viable competitor to air for the first time. Similarly, a trip from the capital to the southern manufacturing powerhouse of Guangzhou—more or less the entire length of the nation—will take just eight hours, compared with 20 before and more than a day and a half by bus.

In many ways, China's rail revolution is comparable to the building and opening of America's transcontinental railway in the 19th century or, more recently, to the opening of the U.S. interstate highway system in the 1950s and 1960s. In their own ways, each of those infrastructure projects opened up the United States for development, exploration, and trade. By making travel available to ever-larger numbers of people, they changed not only distances, but individuals' perceptions of their own limitations, shifting "people's mental maps of the land mass in which they lived," says Colin Divall, a professor of railway history at University of York in the U.K.

The advent of high-speed trains is likely to have even greater implications for China, given its larger territory, population, and history of regional unrest. By improving connections, they may help spread economic development more evenly around the country, helping Beijing to bind the nation together and strengthen its hold over the provinces, and decreasing the likelihood that China's internal divisions might one day lead it to fragmenting into "warring states," as some worst-case forecasts have predicted. In particular, the leadership hopes that its call for the nation's talents and industry to "go west" to China's poorer provinces may become easier once western regions become less remote, thanks to rail. Thus the gaps in wealth, status—even dialect—that now divide countryside and city, the more urbanized east and the mostly rural west may be narrowed, advancing Beijing's vision of a more "harmonious society."

Bullet trains are already expanding the definition of a day trip and could help transform isolated backwaters like the inland city of Xian into booming heartland hubs. With traffic already clogging China's expanding network of highways, bullet trains could ease the snarls while opening up travel to the millions of Chinese still unable to afford a car, or a plane ticket. In general, high-speed rail is likely to be just as fast as air travel, at half the price. By shrinking people's sense of the scale of the nation, fast trains may also help stimulate the creativity and new thinking that China needs for the next stage of its economic development. Xie Weida, a professor at the Institute of Railways and Urban Mass Transport at Shanghai's Tongji University, argues that "transport will have a big impact on every aspect of the entire life of our society," stimulating development "not just in the field of economics, but in politics and culture too."

Already, government investment has created something of an economic miniboom. At the railway station in Suzhou—the old Yangtze delta city north of Shanghai famous for its canals and ornamental gardens—teams of construction workers now spend their days suspended precariously from a latticework of girders high above the track. Soon, a brand-new glass-and-steel terminal will rise here, and the crumbling old 1950s station, with its few platforms, will be consigned to history. Guangzhou, Shanghai, and other cities are following suit, building shiny new stations to service the fast new trains. Authorities are so confident about the market that they've invested tens of millions of dollars in localizing production of bullet trains, with 85 percent of the parts for trains in the new Beijing-Shanghai line expected to be manufactured domestically.

Far bigger economic effects are down the line. The train tracks are helping to spur consumer spending, with Beijing residents traveling as far as 120 kilometers to shop in places like Tianjin, where prices are lower. The $8.50 one-way trip takes less than 30 minutes, attracting many middle-class passengers who see the bus—which takes three times as long—as a nonstarter. Beijing's campaign to promote development across regions—like the Yangtse River Delta around Shanghai, or the Pearl River Delta from Guangzhou to Hong Kong—gets a huge boost from the fact that it will soon be possible to traverse these regions in minutes. High-speed rail will cut the trip from Shanghai to Nanjing from what was originally four hours to just 75 minutes. The city of Wenzhou in southeastern Zhejiang—home to many of China's biggest private enterprises, including fashion brands like Meters Bonwe and shoemakers like Aokang—has long been hindered by its relative isolation in a mountainous coastal area. This month it opened high-speed rail tracks connecting it for the first time to Ningbo, a major port, and to the neighboring province of Fujian, an important hub for Taiwanese investment. The link, which will ultimately extend south to Hong Kong, is expected to further stimulate Wenzhou's legendary entrepreneurial spirit, which has seen it move rapidly from small family workshops to major textile and electronics manufacturing, as well as becoming the source of much of the real-estate investment around China.

The high-speed lines will also help eliminate trade bottlenecks by freeing up space on existing tracks. Paul French, head of the Shanghai retail and logistics consultancy Access Asia, says many foreign businesses are frustrated by the lack of space for transporting goods on China's railways, with freight trains monopolized by shipments of coal and grain. "There's too much investment in passenger rail now and not enough in cargo," he says, noting that this forces companies to add to the number of "overloaded trucks plowing along China's death expressways." But the investment in passenger tracks will allow the old lines to be used for cargo, aiding the Chinese economy by allowing for a more efficient freight-train network. Xie says the government also plans to bolster freight rail with a $40 billion investment on new rolling stock by the end of 2010.

That could put Beijing's policy of opening up the west in high gear. Introduced in 2000 with the aim of binding some of China's poorer western regions to the economic growth of the east coast, thus reducing dangerous social and economic imbalances, the initiative has been hampered by slow and expensive transport connections and the unwillingness of qualified talent to work in remote western regions. The fast-train links may help reduce all of these problems. The ancient capital of Xian has struggled to attract cutting-edge industries to its isolated location, 1,200 kilometers and 10 hours by train from Beijing, but soon that ride will fall to just four hours.

China's effort to develop medium-size cities across the country, in order to reduce the pressure of massive internal migration on big coastal cities, will also get a boost. The fast-rail links include rapidly expanding light-rail connections around major cities, encouraging moves from central cities to smaller satellite towns, or even commutes from one city to another. Retired people seeking a better environment are beginning to do the same.

Still, there is also the possibility that the unifying aim of the high-speed-rail project could create unexpected challenges for Beijing. Some of the fast-train routes are so popular that many passengers can be forced to stand throughout their journey. Outrage over this has led some media outlets to demand that the state-controlled railway system be opened to competition. "Only when monopoly is replaced by free competition," said an article in the Chengdu Business Daily, "can we expect real quality train services." What's more, improvements in mobility could begin to undermine the Chinese government's highly restrictive residency regulations, which even today tie people's right to welfare, health care, and education to the place where they were born or have worked during their adult life. Now, according to Mingzheng Shi, head of New York University's teaching center in Shanghai and a specialist in China's urban development, more and more people are moving across old administrative boundaries. "Their concepts of cities and distance are changing," he says. "People from Shanghai see no problem now in living in cities in southern Jiangsu province, where apartments are cheaper, and then taking the fast train to Shanghai in 20 to 40 minutes." Large numbers of urban residents moving away from the cities where their welfare entitlements have traditionally been located may prove too much for the household registration system, and could lead to its "eventual complete collapse," says Shi, removing a vital plank of the state's traditional mechanism of social control.

Over the longer term, easier travel could be the driving force behind a new understanding of what China can one day become. Chinese officials have long argued that the nation's vast area and population make it too unwieldy to be suited to multiparty democracy—and this idea has been deeply lodged in the Chinese psyche for generations. This may have been unsurprising in a country where a couple of decades ago it would often take half a day to get to the next town, and where it could easily take four hours to make a phone call from one city to another. Yet once people begin to sense that their country is getting smaller, those obstacles are likely to seem smaller, too. In fact, the effect of the high-speed trains could be that they do bring China together—just not in the way Beijing might have planned.

Scion

November 8th, 2009, 08:44 AM

CCTV-4 discusses the planning of the Beijing-Taipei High Speed Rail 京台高铁 via an undersea tunnel across the Taiwan Strait.

Part 1
i5-lWqaC3zk

Part 2
OScgG1Cqt5w

z0rg

November 9th, 2009, 01:13 AM

^^ Oh, yeah!!

fajarmuhasan

November 9th, 2009, 06:25 AM

Amazing project, how long the HSR Line between beijing and taipe ?

Pangu

November 9th, 2009, 05:26 PM

Being from Taiwan, I believe the Beijing-Taipei HSR would allow traveling between the strait much more convenient and improve trade and relationship indirectly but I don't know if it will actually be possible within the next 10 years as this link would also require the approval and cooperation of the Taiwan ROC government.

z0rg

November 9th, 2009, 06:14 PM

^^ Do you know if the Ma Ying-jeou administration has any "official" stance towards the cross-strait railway and/or highway project?

Pangu

November 9th, 2009, 09:04 PM

^^ Do you know if the Ma Ying-jeou administration has any "official" stance towards the cross-strait railway and/or highway project?
I don't know for sure.

But just judging from the current situation, it would be a good amount of time before such project could be realized. Even the so-called direct flights between the two sides are still quiet limited and not really "direct" yet.

I personally support this project though as I believe it will improve the cross-strait relationship and also improve the tourism industries of both Mainland & Taiwan.

But of course, I can imagine and understand that at least half of the Taiwanese population would be cautious to say the least of such a project right now. Therefore I don't believe it would happen anytime soon. Maybe in 10-20 years?

chornedsnorkack

November 9th, 2009, 09:14 PM

Is China building any high-speed railway between Guangzhou and Haian?

Celebriton

November 12th, 2009, 06:48 AM

Due to geographic condition. Is possible to build HSR line to Chongqing from Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, etc?

urbanfan89

November 12th, 2009, 08:48 AM

^^ http://bbs.hasea.com/thread-362882-1-3.html

chornedsnorkack

November 12th, 2009, 02:42 PM

^^ http://bbs.hasea.com/thread-362882-1-3.html

This is unpleasantly big and therefore very slow to open, and the accompanying texts are Chinese. What shall the fastest line out of Sichuan be?

Also, I note lack of line to Haian. Why?

UD2

November 12th, 2009, 06:28 PM

Due to geographic condition. Is possible to build HSR line to Chongqing from Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, etc?

short answer is it would be possible if they want to do it.

Taipei Walker

November 21st, 2009, 06:14 PM

construction photos of Beijing Shanghai high speed line, section between Shanghai and Nanjing

new line is being constructed along existing line between Shanghai and Nanjing, pictures from the current high speed train, Oct 21, 2009
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1216/002yo.jpg (http://img504.imageshack.us/i/002yo.jpg/)

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4065/003prt.jpg (http://img145.imageshack.us/i/003prt.jpg/)

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/1817/005b.jpg (http://img684.imageshack.us/i/005b.jpg/)

current train speed on this section was 236km/h, but the speed for most of the way between Shanghai and Nanjing was below 200km/h
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7665/007vv.jpg (http://img101.imageshack.us/i/007vv.jpg/)

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2508/009kd.jpg (http://img9.imageshack.us/i/009kd.jpg/)

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4640/010dbt.jpg (http://img687.imageshack.us/i/010dbt.jpg/)

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5525/023js.jpg (http://img194.imageshack.us/i/023js.jpg/)

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/4003/027ret.jpg (http://img194.imageshack.us/i/027ret.jpg/)

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/5299/032f.jpg (http://img517.imageshack.us/i/032f.jpg/)

Suzhou station
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3171/035ke.jpg (http://img42.imageshack.us/i/035ke.jpg/)

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/4875/036x.jpg (http://img94.imageshack.us/i/036x.jpg/)

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7640/037wt.jpg (http://img522.imageshack.us/i/037wt.jpg/)

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5118/038q.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/i/038q.jpg/)

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/1654/040bb.jpg (http://img42.imageshack.us/i/040bb.jpg/)

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/6043/044bh.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/i/044bh.jpg/)

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/6134/061eg.jpg (http://img684.imageshack.us/i/061eg.jpg/)

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/6857/062p.jpg (http://img337.imageshack.us/i/062p.jpg/)

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5418/063lp.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/i/063lp.jpg/)

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/3804/066w.jpg (http://img509.imageshack.us/i/066w.jpg/)

NCT

November 21st, 2009, 07:23 PM

I guess elevated tracks are necessary for HSR due to the geology of the area?

BarbaricManchurian

November 21st, 2009, 08:55 PM

^^not necessarily, it just creates a more stable surface for the train allowing it to safely do speeds of 350 km/h and higher.

ANR

November 22nd, 2009, 12:24 AM

construction photos of Beijing Shanghai high speed line, section between Shanghai and Nanjing

new line is being constructed along existing line between Shanghai and Nanjing, pictures from the current high speed train, Oct 21, 2009

Thanks for posting these great pictures. One question is whether this construction is for the Beijing-Shanghai HSR or the Shanghai-Nanjing "commuter" HSR. My understanding is that the Shanghai-Nanjing project closely parallels the existing rail line while the Beijing-Shanghai HSR is significantly separated from the existing rail line.

Can anyone clarify?

NCT

November 22nd, 2009, 11:36 AM

^^not necessarily, it just creates a more stable surface for the train allowing it to safely do speeds of 350 km/h and higher.

Then surely building the line on a bank or using other forms of landscaping would be much less visually intrusive? Or is this more expensive?

Nozumi 300

November 22nd, 2009, 09:12 PM

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/11/20/meet-the-train-makers-part-6-china/

THE REAL WORLD
Meet The Train Makers, Part 6: ChinaPosted on Friday November 20th by Yonah Freemark.
This is the 6th installment in our series on high-speed rail manufacturers around the world. Previous stories looked at:

» Bombardier
» Japanese train makers
» Siemens
» Talgo
» and Alstom.
****************

Introduction

More than any other country, China has taken advantage of the recession to pursue a reconstruction of its transportation networks. And with hundreds of billions of dollars slated for construction of new high-speed railways, China’s future increasingly seems to be one that will be defined by its trains.

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Thousands of miles of new tracks will necessitate thousands of vehicles, and indeed, China has already become the world’s largest high-speed train market. So far, the country’s trains have been evolution of foreign designs manufactured by Chinese companies, but fully local products are already emerging. When the nation is able to offer independent technology, it could be a big player on the world stage, but it’s not quite there yet.

History

China’s race to modernize its rail lines began earlier this decade, with the first high-speed intercity operations opening in 2003 between Qinhuangdao and Shenyang, some 250 miles apart. The first trains that operated on the Qinshen passenger railway offered services at up to 125 mph.

That line, however, was just the first among many, and China is rapidly improving its rail offerings. In 2008, in coordination with the Olympics Games, the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway opened, bringing the cities within thirty minutes of one another, down from 70. With new trains capable of 220 mph, that corridor hosts the world’s fastest conventional trains.

Much of the rest of the country’s exhaustive rail network, which will open in stages over the next decade, will have trains that run at similar speeds. The Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway, notably, will shuttle passengers 820 miles between the country’s two biggest cities in just four hours. It will open in 2012.

For decades, the publicly owned Chinese National Railway Locomotive and Rolling Stock company was charged with producing the country’s trains. In 2001, however, the government decided to split the company in two, forming the China South (CSR) and China North (CNR) enterprises, each of which, with about 100,000 employees, would own their own factories and produce distinct trains, though they would cooperate on designs. Though both companies would be government-controlled, they were charged with signing cooperation agreements with foreign manufacturers and constructing new trains for the country’s railways. Together, the two companies dominate China’s rail manufacturing landscape.

The first high-speed train offered on the Chinese market was the China Star (top of page), which was designed entirely by domestic engineers. Introduced in 2002, the train is capable of 170 mph operating speeds (faster than any American train) and has reached 200 mph during testing.

But this local effort was doomed by a country that wanted more from its trains, and only one example was built. Chinese engineers wanted help from foreign companies for their next trains — because they wanted the best technology on domestic soil.

Help they got — from all four major international players, Bombardier, Kawasaki, Siemens, and Alstom. Working in close collaboration with these foreign companies, China was able to develop trains specific to the domestic market that replicate those offered elsewhere.

Bombardier formed an alliance with Sifang, a subsidiary of CSR, to produce the CRH 1 (above), which can operate at speeds of up to 155 mph. Sifang also cooperated with Kawasaki to import Shinkansen technologies for the CRH 2, which is similar to the E2 Shinkansen that is no longer in production on the Japanese market.

Meanwhile, CNR invested in technology from Siemens and Alstom. The CRH 3 (above), which is the country’s fastest train, is a derivative of the Siemens Velaro vehicle also used in Germany, Spain, and Russia. It is now produced in a plant owned by CNR subsidiary Tangshan Railway Vehicle. The CRH 5 (below), meanwhile, is closely related to Alstom’s Pendolino and it is produced in CNR’s Changchun plant.

The first examples of each of the four trains was produced in the exporting manufacturer’s respective home country. Thereafter, using agreements called “technology transfers,” the two Chinese rail manufacturers gained the right to reproduce the product exactly as designed in local manufacturing plants. In many ways, this process is no different than that required for many American transit vehicle acquisitions, in which a majority of parts must be made in the United States to meet federal guidelines. Yet China’s willingness to demand that foreign manufacturers abandon their patented technology to Chinese industrial concerns is taking the situation a full step further.

Today

In 2004, Siemens offered its trains to Chinese buyers, but its bid was refused until the German company opened up to a higher degree of technological transfer; with a huge market available, Siemens was content to take a recent order of CRH 3 trains (below) with only 18% of the content actually made by Siemens.

Bombardier, which claims it has developed the world’s fastest train in the 236 mph Zefiro, has agreed to a similar lessening of its share. Though it received a contract for 80 examples of the train, the Canadian company will get less than 50% of total proceeds, with the rest going to CSR’s Sifang unit. Both Bombardier and Siemens evidently see these deals as the price of doing business in the world’s soon-to-be-biggest economy.

But Alstom has proven less happy about the deal, intentionally denying China access to its newest AGV train technologies and instead offering it only less advanced Pendolino trainsets. The CEO of the French company, Philippe Mellier, said of China, “They will use them, adapt them, aggregate them to [form] a Chinese technology based on foreign technology being leased by them.” He cites his own experience working with South Koreans on a similar technology transfer deal ten years back, arguing that the South Koreans have “developed” their own technology based directly on Alstom’s ingenuity. In other words, it’s something close to legalized stealing.

In the short term, though, Western countries are likely to benefit from the large number of contracts being signed in Beijing. But in the longer term, Chinese companies like CNR or CSR, strengthened by a huge domestic market, could prove formidable competitors to the likes of Alstom and Siemens.

The two corporations are already selling local and commuter trains to operators in countries as far removed as Australia, Namibia, and Mongolia; why are indigenously produced high-speed offerings any more difficult to imagine? After years of working directly with Western companies and understanding their advanced rolling stock from front to back, it seems likely that China will be competing with them sometime soon.

BarbaricManchurian

November 22nd, 2009, 09:58 PM

Then surely building the line on a bank or using other forms of landscaping would be much less visually intrusive? Or is this more expensive?

It would be less stable; China's high-speed rail network is very similar to Japan's, which is all elevated or tunnel except in low-speed sections

foxmulder

November 25th, 2009, 05:13 AM

Thanks a lot Taipei Walker. Great post...

And elevated railway is great for high speed solution because it is more stable, it is safer since it eliminates all sorts of crossings and it "uses" less land thanks to smaller foot print. It might be a little more expensive but is definitely way to go for high speed trains.

Taipei Walker

December 5th, 2009, 12:25 PM

Xiamen Shenzhen HSR construction, taken on Oct. 28, section between Shenzhen and Shantou

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7204/008sg.jpg (http://img403.imageshack.us/i/008sg.jpg/)

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1818/010iz.jpg (http://img4.imageshack.us/i/010iz.jpg/)

http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/994/011pl.jpg (http://img264.imageshack.us/i/011pl.jpg/)

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5802/012dl.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/i/012dl.jpg/)

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/3825/015s.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/i/015s.jpg/)

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/3443/016aq.jpg (http://img30.imageshack.us/i/016aq.jpg/)

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/8562/017tp.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/i/017tp.jpg/)

http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/1240/020xl.jpg (http://img264.imageshack.us/i/020xl.jpg/)

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/1935/034td.jpg (http://img689.imageshack.us/i/034td.jpg/)

Nozumi 300

December 6th, 2009, 04:44 AM

Thanks for the photos. Does anyone know what the status or have updates on the Ziferos? I'm so excited for the Zefiro 380 debut :)

Celebriton

December 6th, 2009, 12:11 PM

^^I heard it still underproduction.

The first train is scheduled for delivery in 2012 with final deliveries expected in 2014.

ilovecz

December 7th, 2009, 11:15 PM

No other form of landscaping can magically avoid crossing roads. Elevated track is surely more expensive but is a lot more effective. It is worth it.

Then surely building the line on a bank or using other forms of landscaping would be much less visually intrusive? Or is this more expensive?

chornedsnorkack

December 8th, 2009, 10:05 AM

No other form of landscaping can magically avoid crossing roads. Elevated track is surely more expensive but is a lot more effective. It is worth it.

But putting those roads on viaducts or in tunnels only when they happen may be cheaper than putting the whole railway on a viaduct just in case there are roads.

leo_sh

December 9th, 2009, 12:32 AM

But putting those roads on viaducts or in tunnels only when they happen may be cheaper than putting the whole railway on a viaduct just in case there are roads.

In China you never know and will never know when and where a new town will break out of the ground and new roads are needed.

On the other hand, viaduct is much more easy and less expensive to adjust and maintain in case of the ground sinking than earthen bank.

Andrew

December 10th, 2009, 09:12 PM

snow is red

December 10th, 2009, 09:31 PM

^^ You know I believe the BBC is quite objective when it comes to China's issue, its subjectivity is nowhere near the level of other news I read. I generally never agree that BBC is extremely biased, I can't say the same for CNN and I am not really interested in the American media anyway.

Oops sorry for the off topic post. I keep quiet for now :).

snow is red

December 11th, 2009, 07:13 PM

There's a good video from the BBC about the Wuhan - Guangzhou line. A BBC story with only good things to say about China, no criticism at all! Quite unusual, but nice to see once in a while:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8406910.stm?ls

Hey I just have a question here please. What type of trains are running on this line ? Bombardier ? Siemens or ?? And are they locally manufactured ?

Many thanks.

snow is red

December 11th, 2009, 09:07 PM

nvm I think I found the answer anyway .

Trains used: CRH3/ICE3(Built by China North Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corporation, licensed from SEIMENS).

snow is red

December 11th, 2009, 09:09 PM

Btw I found this video of China Star on youtube

UT_iOqa5g-Q&feature=related

lkx314

December 12th, 2009, 12:16 AM

"ICE3" "licensed from SEIMENS."

oh god.... why can't domestic companies just design their own trains???

Pansori

December 12th, 2009, 01:09 AM

oh god.... why can't domestic companies just design their own trains???

They tried but failed.

snow is red

December 12th, 2009, 01:34 AM

oh god.... why can't domestic companies just design their own trains???

China Star, from what we all understand, is an entirely Chinese train from design to technology but somehow they dropped it in the end. The video of China Star is posted above.

lkx314

December 12th, 2009, 01:45 AM

China Star, from what we all understand, is an entirely Chinese train from design to technology but somehow they dropped it in the end. The video of China Star is posted above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Star
"Push-pull train"
They could just of used it and develop newer versions that wouldn't need to be push pull. It seems like domestic technology is being neglected.

snow is red

December 12th, 2009, 01:53 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Star
"Push-pull train"
This might be a reason but i'm really suspicious . I mean they could still develop newer versions that doesn't need to be a push-pull.

Maybe some train experts can clarify this. Ye I want to know this too, if the indigenous train's test speed can hit 320 kph then why not try to develop from there further to tackle the drawbacks ?

NCT

December 12th, 2009, 05:20 PM

But putting those roads on viaducts or in tunnels only when they happen may be cheaper than putting the whole railway on a viaduct just in case there are roads.

Exactly. Especially if partially raised (on a bank) or sunken (in a ditch), roads would be able to cross the line easily without massive ramps. This would avoid large areas under the road bridge being left unacessible.

As for leo's comment - what's happened to planning? I thought the authoritative system is meant to be good at that?

Nozumi 300

December 12th, 2009, 09:29 PM

nvm I think I found the answer anyway .

Trains used: CRH3/ICE3(Built by China North Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corporation, licensed from SEIMENS).

I believe that there will also be some CRH2 used on this line, after all MOR just recently signed a huge deal with Kawasaki.

BarbaricManchurian

December 12th, 2009, 09:30 PM

It's not just in case if there will be roads in the future, its for greater stability and the ability to run the trains at higher speeds than in other places, as stated repeatedly before.

NCT

December 13th, 2009, 12:17 AM

It's not just in case if there will be roads in the future, its for greater stability and the ability to run the trains at higher speeds than in other places, as stated repeatedly before.

I understand that. It's just there's little concrete evidence (no pun intended) that less visually intrusive methods cannot achieve the same result in a manner that does not cost more. The fact that people seem to dismiss the need for considering visual impacts is a little disconcerting IMHO.

lkx314

December 13th, 2009, 11:27 PM

Are there any info on revenues, debts and expenses on the CRH??

foxmulder

December 14th, 2009, 05:03 AM

"visually intrusive"????

I find these elevated trucks ecstatically very pleasing. Looks very modern. It is the best solution for high speed trains as I wrote before. You can go 500km/h knowing 100% there will be nothing on your way. Least amount of footprint etc. I cannot see anything negative for this type of construction.

Nozumi 300

December 17th, 2009, 05:03 PM

Does anyone have any updates on the Guangzhou Shibi station?

Mika Montwald

December 25th, 2009, 01:24 PM

Maybe some train experts can clarify this. Ye I want to know this too, if the indigenous train's test speed can hit 320 kph then why not try to develop from there further to tackle the drawbacks ?

Sorry, non technical answer.

My theory is that Western nations (mainly USA and West European) has always been blaming China (PRC) for the Trade Imbalance. :bash:

We all know that the so-called Trade Imbalance claimed by the American and West European nations
can easily be equalize if the American and West European nations are allowing themselves to sell the Hi-Tech products that PRC wants to buy.

But no-way-Jose, the American and West European nations and the majority (upward 80%) of their citizens
have always harbored a deep seated desire to keep China backward, inferior, and rotten for as long as possible.

Thus, these American and West European nations are always blocking the sale of Hi-Tech products,
especially if those Technology can be applied toward military usage.
Let's contrast the "Blocking of Hi-Tech sale to China" with the malicious intention of American and West European nations
in choking and forcing China (via WTO) to "cheaply sell the Rare-Earth metals" to American and West European nations. :ohno:

Btw, these American and West European nations knows that widespread mining of "Rare-Earth metals" is very destructive toward the PRC natural environment.

Back to topic … …

We all know that China has frequently been acting meek and submissive in their response
toward the American and West European pressure for the sake of peaceful long-term development.

:nuts: ( … Eyes Rolling ... ) You know the drill that American and West European are always just and right in their actions and demands.
It is the PRC Central government that is the dark devil, undemocratic and so on, … ... ( … Rolling Eyes ... ) :nuts:

We all know that many, many Chinese citizens in general (especially those 40 years old and up) are bending over backward in their admirations toward all things American and European.
Unfortunately, the decision-makers on these government ministry and departments are the same Chinese citizens (40 years old and up) mentioned above.

:master: Sarcasm: Alright then Master, if you do not want to sell the Hi-Tech products that we want to buy,
--- what if we buy your Hi-Speed Train technology instead, which you all know scientifically can not be converted into military usage.

Thus, China is sacrificing the development of their own indigenous "China Star Train Technology" by parking it on the shelf,
and instead buys the Hi-Speed Train technology from the European nations in order to equalize the Trade Imbalance.

Mika Montwald

December 27th, 2009, 05:35 PM

CRH @ Guangzhou North Train Station ( Guangzhou, Huadu )
1st Operation Date: 2009 - DEC - 26

Route: Guangzhou --- Wuhan
Distance between End Stations: 1068.6 KM

Speed: 350 KM/H ( adjusted downward when passing many City Center )
Total Travel Time: 3 Hr 58 Min
Huoche.com.cn Schedule: http://search.huoche.com.cn/chaxun/result.asp?txtchufa=%B9%E3%D6%DD%B1%B1&txtdaoda=%CE%E4%BA%BA

Minimum Departure Interval Between Train Sets: 3 Min :applause:

It is quite mind boggling just to imagine that you are riding a 350 KM/H CRH train,
and only 3 minutes right behind you is another set of CRH trains that is thundering along at 350 KM/H.

350 KM/Hour = 5.8333 KM/Minute

Train Ticket Code: "G"
1st Class Ticket Price: 1-Way = 749 RMB
2nd Class Ticket Price: 1-Way = 469 RMB

According to many top Germans Hi-Speed Train Engineers who test the CRH ( GZ --- WH ),
at this moment China Hi-Speed Train Track construction technology is Numero Uno on this Earth.

The latest China Hi-Speed Train Tracks between ( Beijing --- Tianjin ) and ( Guangzhou --- Wuhan ),
plus those under construction should be able to handle constant sustained train Speed of 550 KM/H in the near future.

The CRH windows Glass are all specially designed to slow down the panoramic outside view.
Thus, the CRH passengers watching the outside view will feel that the train is not moving that fast.

Guangzhou North Train Station ( Guangzhou, Huadu )
Picture 1:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/4218374887_5bedc0127b_o.jpg

Guangzhou North Train Station ( Guangzhou, Huadu )
Picture 2:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2676/4218420235_78932f34a8_b.jpg

Guangzhou North Train Station ( Guangzhou, Huadu )
Picture 3:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4037/4219270526_b78b941307_b.jpg

HKG

December 27th, 2009, 09:13 PM

Wuhan to Guangzhou CRH on Dec 2009

QUy5Zuk383c

lkx314

December 27th, 2009, 09:37 PM

Are there going to be stations near the towns they are passing through???

HKG

December 27th, 2009, 09:51 PM

WuHan -GuangZhou high speed rail map

Wiki .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan%E2%80%93Guangzhou_High-Speed_Railway

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s57/world-2/China_Railway_High-Speed_-2.jpg

thescene

December 28th, 2009, 02:47 AM

How much is a One way ticket from Guangzhou to Wuhan?

Taipei Walker

December 28th, 2009, 11:26 PM

^^
1st Class Ticket Price: 1-Way = 749 RMB
2nd Class Ticket Price: 1-Way = 469 RMB

Can anyone clarify the distance between Wuhan and Guangzhou North and Guangzhou South (Shibi?) stations? According to Wikipedia it is 922km and 968km, not 1069km.

thescene

December 29th, 2009, 03:09 AM

^ ^ May I ask what is the difference between 1st and 2nd class?

typhoon_wolf

December 29th, 2009, 06:06 PM

^ ^ May I ask what is the difference between 1st and 2nd class?
1st class has 4 seat(2+2) in each row. The row to row distance is larger.
2nd class has 5 seat(2+3) in each row. The row to row distance is smaller.

Pansori

December 30th, 2009, 01:22 AM

big-dog

December 30th, 2009, 12:33 PM

1st class has 4 seat(2+2) in each row. The row to row distance is larger.
2nd class has 5 seat(2+3) in each row. The row to row distance is smaller.

I had thought first class is sleeper first class 软卧, otherwise there should be such a big price difference (469 vs 749)

I took a CRH train last month from Shanghai to Tianjin (1300km). The sleeper 1st class costs RMB650 and the non-sleepers cost only RMB360.

SilentStrike

December 31st, 2009, 12:58 AM

yeah but because no one is crazy enough to buy the first class ticket, it will be a lot less busy and more quiet there. Perhaps so empty that you can lie accross the entire seat row.

If you have importnat work to do in the train, you'll enjoy a 4 hour ride of quiet and peace.

Pansori

January 1st, 2010, 07:06 AM

Here is a cool commercial video of Siemens Velaro train technology where among other versions we can see the CRH3

H1fXackoa5g

Personally I find Velaro trains the most beautiful of all. Design sophistication that is unmatched by anything else.

riles28

January 6th, 2010, 04:08 PM

This train series is also part of early type of high speed train in china before the japan and german technology was entered.

http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv349/rodriguez428/CHANGBAISHAN.jpg

SimFox

January 6th, 2010, 08:08 PM

I wonder if there are any interior photos of the CRH3 (especially first-class seating)? I wonder how different it is from the ICE3 trains in Germany (apart from the differences in width and second-class seating configuration).

Well not a very good one, but here it is:

http://s59.radikal.ru/i164/0911/50/84f40948c65c.jpg

First Class from the Tianjin - Beijing train, although scenery behind the window makes you sometime wonder:

http://i003.radikal.ru/0911/e8/67d64de67dd1.jpg

that said first Class isn't the the First class anymore. It has been re-Labeled as Business class. Velaro CN has one higher class - DeLuxe Class:

http://i038.radikal.ru/0911/4d/f3ffd1e4862f.jpg

Unfortunately those tickets aren't on sale (at least at the moment on Tianjing-Beijing line). Stewardess girl on the train tried to blah, blah something about those being for stuff... But those are according to ChinaRail the DeLuxe class...

and one more (of a more general variety):

http://i023.radikal.ru/0911/6b/daa7941e132f.jpg

SimFox

January 6th, 2010, 10:33 PM

Pansori

January 6th, 2010, 10:37 PM

Thank you, SimFox, those are terrific shots. I love the fact that it's possible to see the driver's cab through the transparent wall in CRH3, this is just so cool!

Btw, as far as I understand, "business class" is the same as standard class. This term is not used in trains in Europe (2nd class term is used) but in US it means the same what 2nd class means in Europe (i.e. only the 1st class is better). It may get a little confusing.

Do you have any more photos? Perhaps some more with the stewardesses? Were they all pretty? :naughty:

SimFox

January 8th, 2010, 03:28 AM

Yep they tend to be of a really model caliber, and always perfectly dressed and trained.
But unfortunately I can't find more shots of them although I'm sure I did make some...

As far as classes go ChinaRail had changed 1st class into Business on BJ-TJ line after introduction of Velaro CN in order to be able to have better still class - those few sits right behind the driver in configuration 2+1. Yet they wanted to keep 2nd class (2+3) what it was, so that why what used to be 1st class (2+2) is now business class.

Most tickets nowadays sold by the machines that are found in the stations. The problem is that you can't choose the exact sits, so at every departure you can see mass place exchanges - people trying to get seats next to their companions. People are pretty cool about it and you can always can get sit you want.

Bandit

January 8th, 2010, 06:36 AM

And here some more...

2nd class in CRH3 on BJ-TJ line (velaroCN):

http://i079.radikal.ru/1001/0d/9c176f887ba3.jpg

2nd class in CRH2c BJ-TJ line (Kawasaki 350km/h variant)

http://i075.radikal.ru/1001/a2/95de283fe2cc.jpg

http://s59.radikal.ru/i164/1001/22/456d4a5a04a4.jpg

http://s42.radikal.ru/i098/1001/b4/60989acf2d14.jpg

1st class in CRH1 Hangzhou-Shanghai line (Bombardier Regina)

http://i081.radikal.ru/1001/c3/b534edb6cfaa.jpg

http://s05.radikal.ru/i178/1001/cb/eb37eb57bd9e.jpg

So these people are the super-rich of China? So these are the only people who can afford to ride China's expensive high speed rail that will collapse the economy according to the West's latest doom and gloom predictions?

zergcerebrates

January 8th, 2010, 07:05 AM

^ The west has been predicting China's collapse since 10yrs ago, simply wet dreams. These are ordinary middle class people. Super rich people will usually ride in their luxury cars or their own jet. China's middle class is estimated to be around 250 million people thats almost the entire population of USA and more than the entire population of Japan. Despite the global recession, China's millionare increased and now ranks 4th in the world while billionares rank 2nd after USA. The poverty level has also been reduced significantly and China's economy is still rising and theres no end in sight. China collapse? Right, keep dreaming.

maldini

January 8th, 2010, 09:52 AM

The pundits said the same thing about Chinese subways. When China started to build more subways, they claimed the people cannot afford the subway ticket prices. Now if you go to Beijing and Shanghai, the subways are crowded. The pundits are embarrassed again.

The same with highways as well. They claimed China has too many highways. But now China is the largest car market in the world.

chornedsnorkack

January 8th, 2010, 12:26 PM

^ The west has been predicting China's collapse since 10yrs ago, simply wet dreams. These are ordinary middle class people. Super rich people will usually ride in their luxury cars or their own jet.

A super rich person may not be busy driving a Hongqi HQE, that is what a chauffeur is for, but even the back seat of a luxury car is under 120 km/h on an expressway, and will get stuck in a traffic jam or poor weather like other cars. Well, a SUV may move better in snow and trudge slowly through where an ordinary sedan is altogether stuck, but at the same time a CRH speeds past at 350 km/h with second and deluxe class passengers inside.

Regarding own jets, I gather this is difficult in China. Rather restricted airspace, and flight plans must be filed long ahead.

How many private jets are owned and operated in mainland China? Excluding corporate jets and VIP charter operations?

snapdragon

January 16th, 2010, 07:20 AM

China to build Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway

www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-16 09:38:54 Print

XI'AN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A high-speed railway linking Xi'an with Chengdu has won approval from the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic planning agency, the China Railway First Survey and Design Institute said Friday.

The railway has a designed speed of over 250km/h. It will help to cut the travel time between the two major cities in western China to less than three hours from current 13 hours, the designer said.

It includes a 519-km section between Xi'an, home to the terracotta warriors in Shaanxi Province, and Jiangyou in Sichuan Province, and another 130-km section linking Jiangyou with Chengdu,the Sichuan provincial capital.

Construction on the Xi'an-Jiangyou line will start this year, the institute said, without giving a timetable. The Jiangyou-Chengdu line has been under construction for over a year.

The Xi'an-Chengdu railway, which costs about 68.8 billion yuan (10 billion U.S. dollars), is the first rail route to run through the Qinling Mountains, and is scheduled to be completed in 2014, the designer said. It will have 135 km traversing the Qinling Mountains area, including 127 km tunnels.

chornedsnorkack

January 16th, 2010, 08:48 PM

The Xi'an-Chengdu railway, which costs about 68.8 billion yuan (10 billion U.S. dollars), is the first rail route to run through the Qinling Mountains, and is scheduled to be completed in 2014, the designer said. It will have 135 km traversing the Qinling Mountains area, including 127 km tunnels.

What shall be the other rail routes out of Sichuan? Chonqing-Wuhan? Guizhou? Yunnan?

urbanfan89

January 16th, 2010, 10:31 PM

A high speed rail line from Chengdu to Lanzhou is to open by 2015, and a second line into Tibet is under planning. Earliest groundbreaking for the latter is in 2011, and it will be an even greater challenge than the Qinghai - Tibet line given the even more rugged topography.

big-dog

January 29th, 2010, 10:12 AM

Jan 28

Highlights on yesterday's trial run:

West China: Zhengzhou-Xi'an
Length: 505km
Max speed: 352kmph
Time: 1 hr 48 mins (reduced from 6+ hrs)
Cost: US$5.2 bln
Construction: 4 years
Official Opening: early Feb

1st high-speed railway in W. China ends trial operation

2010-01-28

http://henan.sinaimg.cn/2010/0129/201012974525.jpg

XI'AN: The first high-speed passenger railway in western China, which links Xi'an with Zhengzhou, finished trial operation Thursday, the designer said.

The trial train finished the 505-km journey in 1 hour and 48 minutes at a speed of up to 352 km/h, said Bai Cuncang, the railway's chief engineer.

The line will help shorten the travel time between the two major cities to less than two hours from current six hours, according to the China Railway First Survey and Design Institute.

Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, is home to the terracotta warriors. Zhengzhou is the capial of central Henan province.

The line, part of a major east-west railway artery between Xuzhou and Lanzhou, cost about 35.3 billion yuan (5.2 billion U.S. dollars). It includes a 79.7-km Weihe river bridge, the longest among existing bridges nationwide.

The timetable of formal operation is yet to be decided, Bai said.

(Xinhua)

Photos from forumers on 1st day trial run

http://bbs.cnwest.com/att/attachments/month_1001/20100128_6d7006f4064171d7a64allnP8d3nzpLC.jpg

http://bbs.cnwest.com/att/attachments/month_1001/20100128_0d710923b8b97aff5557ADoooH1MLGEc.jpg

mike_feng90

January 29th, 2010, 06:23 PM

Does anyone have the exact list on the 42 lines of highspeed railways China is gonna build?

teddybear

January 30th, 2010, 06:34 AM

^Why they built the rail so high above a plain land?

BarbaricManchurian

January 30th, 2010, 06:43 PM

stability, and also because there cannot be a high slope with high speed railways, so when the railway comes out of a tunnel, sometimes there's a high bridge also.

This is an example:

http://i812.photobucket.com/albums/zz46/HunanChina/2-1.jpg

foxmulder

January 31st, 2010, 04:21 AM

That's a beautiful scene

big-dog

January 31st, 2010, 04:51 PM

^^ Here's another good pic of the Zhengzhou-Xi'an CRH.

http://i812.photobucket.com/albums/zz46/HunanChina/8-2.jpg

David Fairthorne

February 1st, 2010, 09:03 PM

Does anyone know if the new station at Shibi (Guangzhou South) has been opened yet? I read somewhere that it was to open January 30, 2010, and that it will be the biggest train station in Asia.

BarbaricManchurian

February 1st, 2010, 09:45 PM

^^yes

alec74

February 1st, 2010, 09:50 PM

Does anyone know if the new station at Shibi (Guangzhou South) has been opened yet? I read somewhere that it was to open January 30, 2010, and that it will be the biggest train station in Asia.

Yes, it has opened as scheduled...here some pics:

http://www.gz2010.cn/10/0201/10/5UEBJTFG0078008O.html

jxclay

February 2nd, 2010, 06:59 AM

^Why they built the rail so high above a plain land?

可能是因为那样占用的土地会比较少。

NCT

February 2nd, 2010, 10:26 PM

可能是因为那样占用的土地会比较少。

Also because of the terrain. One minute you are 500 feet above ground the next minute you are in a tunnel.

foxmulder

February 3rd, 2010, 12:58 AM

^^ Here's another good pic of the Zhengzhou-Xi'an CRH.

http://i812.photobucket.com/albums/zz46/HunanChina/8-2.jpg

this is a great place to take photos :)

:okay:

big-dog

February 6th, 2010, 09:45 AM

An interesting map though I don't think the Taiwan route can be finished anytime soon.

http://i50.tinypic.com/fk1iqh.jpg

http://i50.tinypic.com/fk1iqh.jpg

Red Line - 300-350km/h
Orange (yellow) Line - 250-300km/h
Green Line - 160-200km/h

About half of the high speed rails will be in service in the end of 2011.

fajarmuhasan

February 8th, 2010, 04:16 AM

An interesting map though I don't think the Taiwan route can be finished anytime soon.

Did you mean the taiwan route will be connected to mainland and how to connect?

big-dog

February 8th, 2010, 09:20 AM

^^ it's been proposed for quite a while, solutions include connection through bridge and tunnels. But it won't be materialized anytime soon due to political reasons.

chornedsnorkack

February 8th, 2010, 10:49 AM

lkx314

February 9th, 2010, 05:37 AM

SimFox

February 9th, 2010, 01:58 PM

This map does not show foreign railways.

The new high-speed railways stop well short of the borders of Vietnam and Russia. But 350 km/h railway goes all the way to the border of North Korea.

Are the Chinese building a high-speed line in North Korea to Pyongyang?
:lol:

but talking seriously there are numerous project of rebuilding North Korean railways. RZD - Russian Railways are pacing around them like a wolf around herd of sheep for number of years with Putin trying to push it through every time he gets chance. The first/immediate goal here is of course not North Korea itself, but rather South one. Creating land transport corridor to China, Russia and farther Europe.
But in a longer perspective I think in both countries (China and Russia) there is understanding that changes will come to the North of Korean Peninsula, that regime as is today on the death bed. And in not too distant future real reforms will start there, reforms that will most probably follow traditional "Confucian" model (same as development of off Pax Sinica countries from kora to Singapore). At this case unique location of North Korea may be very important.

urbanfan89

February 12th, 2010, 03:04 AM

This map does not show foreign railways.

The new high-speed railways stop well short of the borders of Vietnam and Russia. But 350 km/h railway goes all the way to the border of North Korea.

Are the Chinese building a high-speed line in North Korea to Pyongyang?

Actually I've seen maps indicating that a high speed railway from Nanning to Pingxiang (on the Vietnam border) is in the cards. Perhaps Hanoi will get high speed rail to China before it gets it to Saigon/HCMC. A line to Mudanjiang is being planned, which conceivably could be extended to Haishenwei Vladivostok. A line to Jiamusi is being prepared, which could conceivably be extended to Boli Khabarovsk.

Last November Russian and Chinese officials signed an MOU for China to provide technology to build a high speed rail line between the two Russian cities: http://www.whoiswhopublishing.com/en/t11/375.html

chornedsnorkack

February 12th, 2010, 06:32 PM

A line to Jiamusi is being prepared, which could conceivably be extended to Boli Khabarovsk.

When shall it be completed? It is not on the map for 2015.

sasalove

February 24th, 2010, 03:54 PM

廣州南站高鐵首發 First Day of Guangzhou South Railway Station [HD]
-EvUdMuCTsg
cTjUu04ou8M

hkhui

March 2nd, 2010, 11:24 PM

I have a question, sometimes I see two high speed trains connected front-to-front, do they travel like that? What is the reason behind this?

snapdragon

March 3rd, 2010, 01:52 AM

Hmm more power

drunkenmunkey888

March 3rd, 2010, 05:41 AM

I have a question, sometimes I see two high speed trains connected front-to-front, do they travel like that? What is the reason behind this?

Probably because they needed a makeshift 16 car train to accommodate higher than expected demand but didn't have any on hand so they improvised by connecting two 8 car trains

gonard

March 3rd, 2010, 06:39 AM

I have travelled on CRH trains a lot and almost everytime it's 2, 8 car trains connected. I'm sure they have a logical reason behind it.

NCT

March 3rd, 2010, 10:48 PM

It's common practice I thinks - two connected 8-car sets. Some French TGVs run like that too - I think it just gives some flexibility in terms of train-sizes.

Scion

March 8th, 2010, 05:42 AM

China plans Asia-Europe rail network

China is negotiating to extend its high-speed railway network to up to 17 countries, a mainland rail expert who has taken part in every major express line project said yesterday....

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=3890b823f5937210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=&s=News

hkhui

March 8th, 2010, 12:08 PM

Here is the rest of the above post, for those who have not the subscription:

China plans Asia-Europe rail network
High-speed routes to tap resources
Stephen Chen in Beijing
Mar 08, 2010

China is negotiating to extend its high-speed railway network to up to 17 countries, a mainland rail expert who has taken part in every major express line project said yesterday.
Wang Mengshu, professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said most of these countries were in southeast and central Asia. Most are inadequately developed but rich in mineral and energy resources, and the talks involve a trade of resources for technology.

Wang said China had proposed three high-speed railway projects to these countries, with negotiations already at the technical stage. One possible network involves Southeast Asia, connecting Kunming , Yunnan, with Singapore, with service through Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia, though the exact routing is unclear.

Another network would start from Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It would go through Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and then possibly extend to Germany.

The third network would originate in Heilongjiang in the northeast and go north, cross Russia and aim for Western Europe.

These lines would be built using China's high-speed railway standard. The maximum speed would be 350 kilometres per hour, with the most economical operating speed 200km/h.

China had promised to provide the technology, equipment and high-speed trains, Wang said, adding that Beijing would even cover the construction cost for countries willing to give it natural resources.

For instance, Myanmar has agreed to offer its rich reserves of lithium, a metal with wide industrial applications, in exchange for financial backing on high-speed railway construction.

Central Asian and Eastern European countries, already pumping natural gas to China via pipelines, would receive substantial financial support. Iran, Pakistan and India are also in negotiations with China to build high-speed rail lines, he said.

China and Russia had already agreed to build a high-speed line across Siberia, he added.

However, there were some technical issues to be overcome, Wang said. For example, trains in Kyrgyzstan run on a narrower gauge than those in China.

China wants the high-speed trains through these countries to run on the same gauge as on the mainland. It has convinced Vietnam to abandon its domestic standard for the Chinese one, but some countries have not yet agreed.

Such issues have slowed negotiations, meaning some of the rail lines - even if agreements are reached - could be finished as late at 2025, Wang said.

"China's overseas high-speed rail projects serve two purposes. First, we need to develop the western regions. Secondly, we need natural resources," he said. "We foresee that in the coming decades, hundreds of millions of people will migrate to the western regions, where land is empty and resources are untapped.

"With the fast, convenient transport of high-speed trains, people will set up mines, factories and business centres in the west. They will trade with Central Asian and Eastern European countries.

"Meanwhile, resources from those countries will stream into China to sustain development. I call it high-speed rail diplomacy."

This is very interesting, we should make a dedicated thread about this when more information arrives.

What does Heilongjiang have that Russia and Europe wants? And what does Russia or Europe have that China wants? (except from lumber)

hkhui

March 8th, 2010, 12:14 PM

This article is from FT.
China drives ahead with Asian rail link
By Elaine Moore in Phnom Penh
Published: March 7 2010 18:36 | Last updated: March 7 2010 18:36
Plans for a long-discussed rail network to link China to six south-east Asian countries are advancing as critical gaps are filled in Cambodia.

An antiquated line to Vietnam built by the French a century ago is at present China’s only rail link to the region, but officials began plotting the new network in 1995 to extend the French connection through various national lines all the way to Singapore, the southern tip of mainland south-east Asia.
The network is expected to strengthen economic ties by reducing transport costs and making travel more convenient. A new trade agreement came into effect in January slashing tariffs on most goods exported between China and members of the Association of South East Asian Nations.

The Asian Development Bank recently agreed to extend a second $42m loan for the $141m reconstruction of Cambodia’s rail network. Australia and Malaysia have also advanced funding.

Cambodia’s rail network c ollapsed over decades of war, neglect and vandalism. Phnom Penh, the capital, lacks a functioning train station. In the north-west, locals ride along the tracks on bamboo platforms balanced on wheels.

More than 650km of track is to be renovated, including a 48km section running west to Thailand that will then connect Cambodia onward to Malaysia and Singapore.

The first segment of renovated track, between Phnom Penh and Touk Meas on the coast near Vietnam, is to open to freight trains late this year.

The other segments are to be finished by 2013.

The national network will be operated by Toll Holdings, an Australian company, and Royal Group, a local company.

Cambodia’s roads often become waterlogged and impassable during the rainy season, so Senaka Fernando, the chairman of the British Business Association of Cambodia, welcomed the railway project’s potential to improve transport.

The next project will be to fill the gap between the Cambodia-Singapore and Vietnam-China lines. Preliminary estimates put the cost at $600m-$700m (€440m-€514m, £396m-£462m).

chornedsnorkack

March 8th, 2010, 02:17 PM

Here is the rest of the above post, for those who have not the subscription:

Thanks!

Wang said China had proposed three high-speed railway projects to these countries, with negotiations already at the technical stage. One possible network involves Southeast Asia, connecting Kunming , Yunnan, with Singapore, with service through Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia, though the exact routing is unclear.

Another network would start from Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It would go through Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and then possibly extend to Germany.

The third network would originate in Heilongjiang in the northeast and go north, cross Russia and aim for Western Europe.

Connecting with Korea is notably missing from the list.

However, there were some technical issues to be overcome, Wang said. For example, trains in Kyrgyzstan run on a narrower gauge than those in China.

Manifestly false!

Trains in Kyrgyzstan, the rest of central Asia and Russia run on broader gauge than China. Actually the 1520 mm network of Russia and neighbours is considerably bigger than the 1435 mm network of China and Korea combined.

They wouldn´t regauge. And Russia is building their own 1520 mm HSR. As is Finland.

In any case, long range high speed passenger trains are a relatively small, dedicated rolling stock - sleeper cars separate from short-distance commuter high-speed and slow-speed trains.

hkhui

March 8th, 2010, 04:10 PM

China and Russia had already agreed to build a high-speed line across Siberia, he added.
Will this be according to Chinese or Russian standards? Let's hope for Chinese. I'd like to see the Chinese gauge all the way to Europe, since Europe also uses the same gauge.

Imagine taking a train in Berlin and arrive in Shanghai roughly two days later (10,000 km / 200 km/h), the idea is tempting for adventurous people I must say!

chornedsnorkack

March 8th, 2010, 05:02 PM

Will this be according to Chinese or Russian standards? Let's hope for Chinese. I'd like to see the Chinese gauge all the way to Europe, since Europe also uses the same gauge.

Imagine taking a train in Berlin and arrive in Shanghai roughly two days later (10,000 km / 200 km/h), the idea is tempting for adventurous people I must say!

But the railway would be little use for Russians.

Building a train capable of rolling 48 hours at 200 km/h without more than a few minutes station shops is something which would not be done to each commuter train or goods car. If they do that, they can also build the train with variable gauge axles.

hkhui

March 9th, 2010, 11:06 AM

Cheaper fares on fast trains to come
Rail planner defends investment of trillions
Stephen Chen
Mar 09, 2010

Another set of high-speed trains will eventually be introduced on the mainland that will run more slowly and offer lower fares, according to a top rail expert.
Wang Mengshu , a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that when the network became more extensive and the operation more mature, trains running at a more economical speed of 200km/h would be launched with considerably lower fares. Government officials higher than those at the Ministry of Railways would determine the date, he said.

"Rich people, those who need to travel at 350km/h or faster, can buy the higher-priced tickets; poor people or those who prefer the lower speed can buy the cheaper ones," Wang said on Sunday. "Both are safe and fast. It will be totally fair."

He was responding to criticism of the system's expensive fares and poor return on investment.

For example, the high-speed trains between Wuhan in Hubei and Guangzhou currently run at 350km/h, with a one-way ticket costing 500 yuan (HK$568). Although a ticket to travel more than 1,000 kilometres costs far more in Europe and Japan, many mainland residents, especially migrant workers, would find 500 yuan expensive.

"That's just the beginning. That will be changed," said Wang, a key drafter of the mainland's ambitious programme to build 18,000 kilometres of high-speed railways with trillions of yuan in investment by 2020.

In 1998, when he first proposed the high-speed railway system to the National People's Congress, delegates were more interested in building expressways and maglev lines.

But they were forced to reset their goals, he said. Building a mid-sized expressway uses about three times more land. Also, more cars on the road would not only emit more pollutants but also drag the mainland into a greater reliance on imported oil.

Maglev trains are also expensive: The 30.5-kilometre line in Shanghai that runs between the city and Pudong airport cost nearly 10 billion yuan to build.

Given these factors, high-speed railways began to make more sense.

"High-speed trains are powered by electricity. The engines are quiet and cool. Their energy efficiency is as high as 80 per cent ... So high-speed trains are more efficient than traditional trains. They will also be cheaper to run," Wang said.

Critics say China will not reclaim its investment because the demand for the high-speed rail service is inadequate. But Wang said government leaders have concerns that make the system valuable in other than monetary terms.

"One reason is jobs," he said. "Construction of high-speed rail lines can provide six million jobs. To boost employment, we have stopped importing heavy machinery from Western countries. We are using some labour-intensive but highly effective engineering methods that can reduce costs and ensure construction quality at the same time.

"Another is national security. Several lines are going to Xinjiang . One is going to Tibet from Yunnan . We can mobilise soldiers to these unstable regions rapidly, if need be, on high-speed trains.

"Some critics say we should build [high-speed trains] only when our cities develop to a very high level. That's short-sighted," he said. "We have to build basic infrastructure before our economy takes the next leap. It will not only make development faster and easier but less costly."

Wang said the mainland would soon launch several huge high-speed rail projects, with the largest one linking nearly all the coastal cities from Dalian in the northeast to Hainan in the south. These projects are expected to be completed between 2020 and 2025.

A part of that line is the link that connects Beijing with Wuhan, which is expected to begin service next year, according to the Beijing Times.

The investment in high-speed railways from 2008 was abnormally high, Wang conceded, and much of the investment was financed by loans from state-owned banks. Xinhua reported that the total investment in the next six years would reach 3.7 trillion yuan, and the Ministry of Railways' total debt would exceed 3 trillion yuan by 2020.

There is also a workforce issue. The ministry's half-million engineers and construction workers could not meet the deadline by themselves, so China State Construction Engineering Corp and Sinohydro Corp were summoned to help.

It is a lot of investment, and that means lots of work. "When the financial crisis is over," Wang said, "I think the investment will stabilise at 200 billion yuan a year."
From scmp.com

chornedsnorkack

March 9th, 2010, 07:26 PM

when the network became more extensive and the operation more mature, trains running at a more economical speed of 200km/h would be launched with considerably lower fares. Government officials higher than those at the Ministry of Railways would determine the date, he said.

"Rich people, those who need to travel at 350km/h or faster, can buy the higher-priced tickets; poor people or those who prefer the lower speed can buy the cheaper ones," Wang said on Sunday. "Both are safe and fast. It will be totally fair."

He was responding to criticism of the system's expensive fares and poor return on investment.

For example, the high-speed trains between Wuhan in Hubei and Guangzhou currently run at 350km/h, with a one-way ticket costing 500 yuan (HK$568). Although a ticket to travel more than 1,000 kilometres costs far more in Europe and Japan, many mainland residents, especially migrant workers, would find 500 yuan expensive.

Another issue is a shortage of stations. The high speed express trains make few stops, so they serve only few big cities.

Japanese have Kodama trains on their Shinkansen, which make frequent stops, but let express trains pass.

hkhui

March 10th, 2010, 01:04 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7397846/Kings-Cross-to-Beijing-in-two-days-on-new-high-speed-rail-network.html

King's Cross to Beijing in two days on new high-speed rail network
Passengers will be able to travel by train from King's Cross to Beijing in just two days on trains that travel almost as fast as aeroplanes under ambitious new plans from the Chinese.

By Malcolm Moore, in Shanghai
Published: 10:00PM GMT 08 Mar 2010

China is in negotiations to build a high-speed rail network to India and Europe with trains that capable of running at over 200mph within the next ten years Photo: MARTIN POPE
China is in negotiations to build a high-speed rail network to India and Europe with trains that capable of running at over 200mph within the next ten years.
The network would eventually carry passengers from London to Beijing and then to Singapore. It would also run to India and Pakistan, according to Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a senior consultant on China's domestic high-speed rail project.

A second project would see trains heading north through Russia to Germany and into the European railway system, and a third line will extend south to connect Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.
Passengers could board a train in London and step off in Beijing, 5,070 miles away as the crow flies, in just two days. They could go on to Singapore, 6,750 miles away, within three days.
"We are aiming for the trains to run almost as fast as aeroplanes," said Mr Wang. "The best case scenario is that the three networks will be completed in a decade," he added.
Mr Wang said that China was already in negotiations with 17 countries over the rail lines, which will draw together and open up the whole of Central, East and South East Asia. Mr Wang said the network would also allow China to transport valuable cargoes of raw materials more efficiently.
"It was not China that pushed the idea to start with," said Mr Wang. "It was the other countries that came to us, especially India. These countries cannot fully implement the construction of a high-speed rail network and they hoped to draw on our experience and technology," he said.
China is in the middle of a £480 billion domestic railway expansion project that aims to build nearly 19,000 miles of new railways in the next five years, connecting up all of its major cities with high-speed lines.
The world's fastest train, the Harmony Express which has a top speed of nearly 250mph, was unveiled at the end of last year, between the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou. Wholly Chinese-built, but using technology from Siemens and Kawasaki, the Harmony Express can cover 660 miles, the equivalent of a journey from London to Edinburgh and back, in just three hours.
Mr Wang said the route of the three lines had yet to be decided, but that construction for the South East Asian line had already begun in the southern province of Yunnan and that Burma was about to begin building its link. China has offered to bankroll the Burmese line in exchange for the country's rich reserves of lithium, a metal widely used in batteries.
Currently, the only rail line that links China to South East Asia is an antiquated track built by the French in Vietnam a century ago. The Asian Development Bank has recently agreed a second £27 million loan as part of the £93 reconstruction of Cambodia's network, which should finish by 2013. The cost of the lines from Cambodia to Singapore and then from Vietnam to China could be roughly £400 million.
"We have also already carried out the prospecting and survey work for the European network, and Central and Eastern European countries are keen for us to start," Mr Wang said. "The Northern network will be the third one to start, although China and Russia have already agreed on a high-speed line across Siberia, where one million Chinese already live."
One stumbling block is China's desire for the high-speed tracks to run on the same gauge as China's domestic network. Vietnam has agreed to change its standard gauge, but other countries are still in negotiations.
"From our point of view, the biggest issue is money," said Mr Wang.
"We will use government money and bank loans, but the railways may also raise financing from the private sector and also from the host countries. We would actually prefer the other countries to pay in natural resources rather than make their own capital investment."
As for passengers, Mr Wang predicted that in a decade's time, visa restrictions on travel through Asia "will be further lifted".

This article is different from the one in scmp.com. Here, it says 200mph, while scmp says 200kph. It also says that the projects started as India requested for help in railways.

chornedsnorkack

March 10th, 2010, 10:44 AM

This article is different from the one in scmp.com. Here, it says 200mph, while scmp says 200kph. It also says that the projects started as India requested for help in railways.

Different contexts.

Trains running 200 kph are needed to provide cheaper tickets and more stops in China.

Railways fit for 200 kph but unfit for 200 mph are much cheaper to build than railways fit for 200 mph, especially at long distances. However, at long distances railways fit for 200 kph are less useful than railways fit for 200 mph... maybe.

leo_sh

March 10th, 2010, 02:01 PM

Different contexts.

Trains running 200 kph are needed to provide cheaper tickets and more stops in China.

Railways fit for 200 kph but unfit for 200 mph are much cheaper to build than railways fit for 200 mph, especially at long distances. However, at long distances railways fit for 200 kph are less useful than railways fit for 200 mph... maybe.

I doubt that it is more likely a typo. There is no context that is talking about the trains that stop every station.

chornedsnorkack

March 10th, 2010, 02:35 PM

I doubt that it is more likely a typo. There is no context that is talking about the trains that stop every station.

True, this is my idea. But 200 kph is talked about at length with other reasons:

Wang Mengshu , a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that when the network became more extensive and the operation more mature, trains running at a more economical speed of 200km/h would be launched with considerably lower fares. Government officials higher than those at the Ministry of Railways would determine the date, he said.

"Rich people, those who need to travel at 350km/h or faster, can buy the higher-priced tickets; poor people or those who prefer the lower speed can buy the cheaper ones," Wang said on Sunday. "Both are safe and fast. It will be totally fair."

vincent

March 11th, 2010, 07:11 AM

^Why they built the rail so high above a plain land?

One major reasons is allowing the train to gradually slope up toward the mountain tunnels. The tunnel cannot be so close to the sea level that it would span the entire base of the mountain (imagine a cross-section of a mountain with a tunnel going across horizontally), it would make the tunnel extremely long, and thus very costly. And obviously that the tunnel cannot be so close to the peak of the mountain that it requires very high bridges to lead the train to the tunnel. So the mountain tunnels are usually located slightly below the middle point of the mountain (in terms of height), and that require some medium height bridge to lead the train into the tunnel. (that's what you are seeing in the pictures). The trains are designed to go up a slope only in certain slope rate at max, so the bridges that connects to the tunnels could be quite long in some cases.

hkhui

March 11th, 2010, 11:37 PM

I wonder how the railway from HK/Shenzhen-Shanghai will be. I think that the Wikipedia lacks details, does anybody know?

How long time will it take from HK-Shanghai?

BarbaricManchurian

March 12th, 2010, 07:36 PM

8 hours, it will be along the coast passing through Fuzhou, Wenzhou, and Ningbo and 250 km/h

chornedsnorkack

March 12th, 2010, 10:23 PM

8 hours, it will be along the coast passing through Fuzhou, Wenzhou, and Ningbo and 250 km/h

How long does it right now take Shanghai-Fuzhou?

ANR

March 13th, 2010, 07:11 PM

How long does it right now take Shanghai-Fuzhou?

per http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/

D3105 Shanghai South to Fuzhou Lv 07:25 Ar 13:53 6h28m
D3107 Shanghai South to Fuzhou Lv 10:50 Ar 16:29 5h39m
D3101 Shanghai South to Fuzhou Lv 14:25 Ar 20:36 6h11m
D3103 Shanghai South to Fuzhou Lv 16:35 Ar 22:46 6h11m

This is a good web site to determine Chinese rail schedules in English.

skyridgeline

March 14th, 2010, 05:53 AM

chornedsnorkack

March 14th, 2010, 11:59 AM

D3107 Shanghai South to Fuzhou Lv 10:50 Ar 16:29 5h39m

So shall trains travel Fuzhou-Shenzhen in 2:20?

lkx314

March 15th, 2010, 12:27 AM

Maglev extension given green light (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201003/20100314/article_431107.htm)
By Zha Minjie | 2010-3-14

"The line will start construction this year, Xinhua news agency reported."

Waste of money, they could built more high speed rails with 60% of the speed of maglev and 1/3 the cost of maglev. Plus the maglev hasn't been a money maker since it was opened.

BarbaricManchurian

March 15th, 2010, 01:38 AM

yeah but who wants 60% of the speed

foxmulder

March 15th, 2010, 01:42 AM

Waiting to see construction pictures because similar news surfaced before.

If it is true, great news.

chornedsnorkack

March 15th, 2010, 11:21 AM

Waste of money, they could built more high speed rails with 60% of the speed of maglev and 1/3 the cost of maglev. Plus the maglev hasn't been a money maker since it was opened.

Getting to nowhere in suburbs in 7 1/2 minutes is not much metter than getting there in 12 1/2 minutes.

But if you are getting somewhere with good connection to Hangzhou transport networks in 30 minutes, this would be better than 50 minutes.

NCT

March 15th, 2010, 12:40 PM

I actually think Maglev is suitable for China, which is probably the only country with sufficient size and population to warrant such an ultra-high-speed network to properly compete with long-haul internal flights. Normal HSR is great for Guangzhou - Wuhan for example, but Maglev would be so much more competitive for journeys like Guangzhou - Beijing.

lkx314

March 16th, 2010, 02:01 AM

yeah but who wants 60% of the speed

And who wants more white elephants??

"I actually think Maglev is suitable for China, which is probably the only country with sufficient size and population to warrant such an ultra-high-speed network to properly compete with long-haul internal flights. Normal HSR is great for Guangzhou - Wuhan for example, but Maglev would be so much more competitive for journeys like Guangzhou - Beijing."

If you can make sure maglev can be a money maker, something thats lacking since it was built in shanghai.

"The second is the even more controversial plan to build a 35 billion yuan (US$4.58 billion), 175-kilometer high-speed magnetic-levitation (maglev) train route linking Shanghai to Hangzhou, the scenic capital city of neighboring Zhejiang province. "
"It is expensive - 50 yuan (US$5.40) for a one-way ticket) - which also deters potential passengers. As a result, the trains are 80% empty, making the service commercially non-viable.
"
"Getting to nowhere in suburbs in 7 1/2 minutes is not much metter than getting there in 12 1/2 minutes."
Did you count the cost of construction?? which is higher then HSR??

"Shanghai in recent years has spent billions of yuan on expensive "image projects" such as the Shanghai Maglev and a Formula One auto-racing track. These and the ill-fated Shanghai Star and Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev rail projects, being criticized for their expense and dubious commercial value, now appear to have become political liabilities for Chen Liangyu in particular and for the Shanghai clique in general. "
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IF13Cb03.html

Celebriton

March 16th, 2010, 03:26 AM

Fast train to open a year ahead of schedule
By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-15 07:19

Beijing: The highly anticipated Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway will begin operation next year, and is expected to cut travel time to four hours, railway officials said.

The high-speed railway between China's two most important metropolises was scheduled to open in 2012 but will now open one year ahead of time, said Zheng Jian, chief planner with the Ministry of Railways.

Wang Zhiguo, vice-minister of railways, said that it would be a four-hour journey from Beijing to Shanghai, and only three hours from Beijing to Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province.

At present, it takes about 10 hours to travel from Beijing to Shanghai and Nanjing by train.

A new-generation bullet train that will travel up to 380 kilometers per hour (kph) is now under development for the high-speed rail link.

It will be rigorously tested this year, and engineers want the train to run at a top speed of 420 kph to guarantee a safe operational speed of 380 kph, Huang Qiang, chief researcher with the China Academy of Railway Sciences told the Beijing News.

Vice-Minister Wang Zhiguo said it was expected that high-speed trains would one day take passengers from Beijing to most capital cities within eight hours, except for Haikou, Urumqi, Lhasa and Taipei.

It is expected that an 110,000-km railway network will be completed by 2012, including 13,000 km of high-speed rail, he said.

China already has 6,552 km of rail track in operation - the longest amount of high-speed rail track in the world.

The ministry wants to export China's high-speed railway technology to North America, Europe and Latin America.

Wang said State-owned Chinese companies are already building high-speed lines in Turkey and Venezuela.

Many countries, including the United States, Russia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, have also expressed interest.

"China is willing to share its mature and advanced technology with other countries to promote development of the world's high-speed railways," he said.

The ministry has signed cooperation memos with California in the United States, as well as Russia and Brazil.

"We are organizing relevant companies to participate in bidding for US high-speed railways and prepare for bidding on a line in Brazil linking Rio de Janeiro with Sao Paulo," the vice-minister said.

The ministry introduced high-speed train technologies from France, Germany and Japan, while at the same time made its own innovations. It now owns 940 patents concerning high-speed railways, the ministry's chief engineer He Huawu said.

At present, at least 10,000 km of high-speed rail line is under construction in China. About 3,676 km of new track for running trains at speeds up to 350 kph have already been laid and put into operation. Another 2,876 km of old tracks have been upgraded to run trains of 200 to 250 kph.

Ultimately, China plans to construct a 120,000-km railway network, including 50,000-km of high-speed rail track, by 2020.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/15/content_9588140.htm

foxmulder

March 16th, 2010, 08:49 AM

Is there any updated maps for high speed network including new lines like Urumqi.

Scion

March 18th, 2010, 11:31 AM

Possible routes on the proposed Beijing - Berlin high speed line.

http://s388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/daquanqm/hsrchinaeurope.jpg

chornedsnorkack

March 18th, 2010, 11:42 AM

Note the absence of a route through Harbin and Manchouli.

It is considerably more circuitous and longer than the routes through Mongolia or Kazakhstan. Either way, one state between Russia and China needs to be involved.

foxmulder

March 20th, 2010, 07:32 PM

Well not necessarily. China and Russia borders between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. If they prefer they can bypass them. But I dont think China wants to bypass them.

chornedsnorkack

March 20th, 2010, 08:19 PM

Well not necessarily. China and Russia borders between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. If they prefer they can bypass them. But I dont think China wants to bypass them.

One reason is that this stretch of border is in a rather mountainous terrain of Altai Mountains.

lkx314

March 20th, 2010, 10:56 PM

Whos building this POS, just china or both??

LIU KA CHUN

April 6th, 2010, 11:14 AM

wow!!

hkhui

April 6th, 2010, 12:30 PM

China on track to be world’s biggest network
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
Published: April 5 2010 20:14 | Last updated: April 5 2010 20:14

http://media.ft.com/cms/80acbea4-413e-11df-adec-00144feabdc0.jpg
The Harmony Express is causing serious concern to China’s domestic airline carriers

As the Harmony Express pulls into the grimy railway station in China’s ancient capital of Xi’an, an army of blue-uniformed attendants busily begin polishing its gleaming, sleek exterior.

This is the face of modern rail in China and the latest addition to a burgeoning high-speed network that will be the biggest in the world within five years, according to the government’s blueprint.

The expansion plans are staggering: 30,000km of new track to be laid by the middle of the decade at a cost of as much as Rmb4,000bn ($586bn). The results are so impressive that the airline sector is looking on with trepidation.

China’s state-controlled carriers are emerging from years of losses and have refocused on the booming domestic travel market, but they are are faced with a potentially crippling threat from another arm of the state – the railway sector, led by the Ministry of Railways.

Liu Shaoyong, chairman of China Eastern Airlines, estimates that with high-speed lines under construction throughout China’s most populous and economically developed regions, as much as 60 per cent of the domestic commercial aviation market will be affected to some degree.

“[The high-speed rail network] will have a serious impact on the aviation market and will place direct and enduring pressure on the development of China’s airline companies,” Mr Liu says.

The effect has already been felt on the newly-opened route between Xi’an and Zhengzhou, 505km away in neighbouring Henan Province.

Joy Airlines, a subsidiary of China Eastern, and Kunpeng Airlines, a subsidiary of Air China, both previously offered regular flights but cancelled all services between the two cities within weeks of the maiden Harmony Express journey in February.

“The airlines have all cancelled their flights to and from Zhengzhou because there aren’t enough customers since the high-speed rail line opened,” says an official airline ticket vendor in Xi’an airport.

A trip on the Harmony Express (all of the country’s new 350km/h high-speed trains are part of the harmonious network) between Zhengzhou and Xi’an makes it clear why China’s airline bosses are so worried.

China’s railway stations are old and dirty and attract an array of thieves, pickpockets and scam artists but they are usually in the centre of town instead of far beyond the outskirts of a city where China’s cavernous airports are invariably built.

In the case of Xi’an and Zhengzhou and most other major cities in China, travellers who arrive at the airport must either wait for erratic bus services or stand in line for a taxi to drive more than one hour into town on a newly-built toll road.

Flights in China are almost always delayed and passengers must arrive early so that they can pass through rigorous security checks.

Once on the aircraft, the service is perfunctory, the toilets often filthy and the food barely edible.

In contrast, China’s shiny new high-speed trains are clean, fast, smooth and almost always on time. There are no excess baggage fees for heavy luggage, security checks are perfunctory and passengers can use their mobile phones.

Probably most concerning for airlines is that train tickets are significantly cheaper than airline tickets, especially when the additional costs of taxis and toll road fees are taken into account.

As the high-speed rail network grows, analysts expect airlines to pull off routes of 500km or less, while up to 40 per cent of air passengers travelling between 500km and 800km will switch to rail. This mirrors a similar trend in Europe over the past two decades as high-speed rail networks have expanded.

The potential impact on the Chinese airlines also raises questions about the viability of dozens of new airports under construction across the country.

As part of Beijing’s Rmb4,000bn economic stimulus package to battle the global economic crisis last year, China built and upgraded 22 airports. This year the government has budgeted at least Rmb90bn to expand and build a further 25 airports this year.

Plans to build another 60 airports over the next decade are partly a response to official predictions of passenger volume growth that starts to look wildly optimistic when the rise of high-speed rail is taken into account.

In 2009, about 230m people caught flights within China but the country’s civil aviation authority predicts that number will rise to 700m passengers by 2020 and double again to 1.4bn people by 2030.

But a significant proportion of those passengers could soon be catching the Harmony Express instead and wondering why they should ever put up with the inconvenience of flying in China again.

Japanese rail chief hits at Beijing
By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo
Published: April 5 2010 20:02 | Last updated: April 6 2010 01:09
The chairman of Central Japan Railway, operator of Japan’s busiest bullet train link, has denounced China’s high-speed rail industry for “stealing” foreign technology and compromising safety.

Central Japan Railway, or JR Central, runs the Shinkansen high-speed link between Tokyo and the western city of Osaka, and is competing with China’s state railways for overseas business.

“The difference between China and Japan is that in Japan, if one passenger is injured or killed, the cost is prohibitively high,” Yoshiyuki Kasai told the Financial Times.

“It’s very serious. But China is a country where 10,000 passengers could die every year and no one would make a fuss.”

The competition between the companies is most intense in the US, where the Obama administration has earmarked $8bn for high-speed rail as part of its stimulus effort.

JR Central is targeting projects in Florida and Texas, as well as a proposed link between Los Angeles and Las Vegas that has drawn a Chinese bid.

JR Central designs and runs its own trains, though construction is contracted to engineering companies such as Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

Mr Kasai’s wariness of China’s rail industry is shared by other foreign executives.

Alstom of France has complained that Chinese companies are competing for export contracts using foreign technology.

Alstom and other manufacturers, such as Siemens of Germany, have piled into a domestic Chinese market where railway-related spending is expected to average $50bn a year between 2009 and 2013.

Foreign manufacturers must operate through local joint ventures, allowing, in some cases, their Chinese partners to absorb their technology.

Last month, Siemens dropped a bid to supply trains and equipment for the $7bn Mecca-to-Medina high-speed railway project in Saudi Arabia, instead joining a Chinese consortium bidding for the work.

Mr Kasai has not allowed JR Central to bid on contracts in China for fear its technology will be taken, though other Japanese rail groups have done business in the country.

Many trains on China’s Wuhan-Guangzhou and Beijing-Tianjin routes are based on models operated by East Japan Railway and built by Kawasaki.

Trains on those routes travel at up to 350kph, more than 25 per cent faster than Shinkansen trains in Japan, and have had no serious accidents.

But Mr Kasai said that the Chinese were driving the trains at much closer to their maximum safe speeds.

“I don’t think they are paying the same attention to safety that we are.

“Pushing it that close to the limit is something we would absolutely never do.”

Some news on Chinese railways from ft.com. Be sure to follow the Chinese Railways thread on the "Infrastructure forum" at another part of this forum!

hkhui

April 6th, 2010, 11:09 PM

Check out this great interactive graphics to see the map of present and future railway network in China! (http://media.ft.com/cms/889e646c-01a9-11de-8199-000077b07658.swf)

Last updated 16 March

uwhuskies

April 7th, 2010, 11:18 AM

Some news on Chinese railways from ft.com. Be sure to follow the Chinese Railways thread on the "Infrastructure forum" at another part of this forum!

Referring to the 2 posts prior....

Akin to interviewing the Fox regarding safety and security of the hen house. This report is so blatantly biased its ridiculous. Reporters should find INDEPENDENT safety experts in the field of high speed rail.

Interviewing executives at JR or Alstom is akin to asking Apple executives what they think of Microsoft Windows 7. Total rubbish.

alec74

April 7th, 2010, 06:49 PM

China’s railway stations are old and dirty and attract an array of thieves, pickpockets and scam artists but they are usually in the centre of town instead of far beyond the outskirts of a city where China’s cavernous airports are invariably built.

In the case of Xi’an and Zhengzhou and most other major cities in China, travellers who arrive at the airport must either wait for erratic bus services or stand in line for a taxi to drive more than one hour into town on a newly-built toll road.

Flights in China are almost always delayed and passengers must arrive early so that they can pass through rigorous security checks.

Once on the aircraft, the service is perfunctory, the toilets often filthy and the food barely edible.

Ehmm....where does this guy think airports are usually built in the rest of the world, in the center of cites?? (the closer to the city they are, the more dangerous it is to take off and land there) And what the hell does "cavernous" mean??
I've got my share of flights inside China, and I've never noticed those "almost always" delays..many of the flights I've boarded took off on time.
I don't know where this guy has been, but (even if I can't deny that in some places buses for the airports can be "erratic") the ones I've taken mostly were well organized and travelled on schedule. As for taxis..is it not the same almost wherever? (at least prices are not as high as in many other countries. And as for having to arrive early in order to pass the secutiry checks...is it like that all over the world?? Controls in chinese airports are hardly slow, at least in my experience.
I also wonder what kind of aircraft this guy took (or didn't took..which is more possible)..but the ones I took had normal toilets (as those of any other airline) and the food was not better nor worse than the average airplane meal..

If this is not "bias" and "disinformation", I don't what is....

chornedsnorkack

April 8th, 2010, 09:31 AM

Ehmm....where does this guy think airports are usually built in the rest of the world, in the center of cites?? (the closer to the city they are, the more dangerous it is to take off and land there)
Far away as well.

As for taxis..is it not the same almost wherever?
Indeed.

And as for having to arrive early in order to pass the secutiry checks...is it like that all over the world??

Indeed.

But the advantages of high speed railway also exist all over the world. Look at Japan and Shinkansen, France and TGV, Spain and AVE. Everywhere that high speed rails get built, people prefer them to domestic flights.

Same in China. Hope they keep building, and watch out to keep the rails convenient to use.

alec74

April 8th, 2010, 05:24 PM

Far away as well.

Indeed.

Indeed.

But the advantages of high speed railway also exist all over the world. Look at Japan and Shinkansen, France and TGV, Spain and AVE. Everywhere that high speed rails get built, people prefer them to domestic flights.

Same in China. Hope they keep building, and watch out to keep the rails convenient to use.

Exactly..the advantages are true. I was only criticizing the need to exaggerate and lie to prove one point which, as u say, is almost self evident...High speed rail on medium distance is sometime preferable to flight...

hanwairen

April 13th, 2010, 06:41 PM

China's rail goals raise regional doubts
By Roman Muzalevsky

Beijing's plan to build a high-speed railway network across Asia and Europe through Central Asia is its key project for the continent. A reflection of the rise of China on the global stage, the proposed network will connect 17 countries and comprises three major routes linking Kunming in China with Singapore via South Asia; Urumqi in northwest China and Germany through Central Asia; and Heilongjiang in northeast China with southeastern Europe via Russia.

The implications of such undertakings are more than substantial for Eurasia. From expanded trade and economic development, to inter-regional and global integration on Beijing's terms, the revival of the old Silk Road by the "middle kingdom" entails far-reaching and controversial geopolitical ramifications, particularly for Central Asia.

For a part of its history, this region has been "landlocked" economically, politically, and geographically. In some measure, this was the case after the decline of the Silk Road trade in the 16th century and during the 70 years of the Soviet era. However, as Central Asia increasingly becomes the focal point of inter-state cooperation and competition over strategic locations and energy resources, it will face enhanced prospects of connectivity with the outside world, despite daunting security challenges. China's rise, and the high-speed railway network, therefore presents Central Asia with an opportunity as well as a geopolitical reality.

On March 11, a spokesman in China's Ministry of Railways confirmed that the network would consist of northern, southern, and western routes. This would make a two-day trip from Beijing to London possible by 2025. The western route of the network will connect Xinjiang with Germany, through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. The entire project is a part of China's Pan-Asian railway plan attempting to link 28 states with 81,000 kilometers of railroads.

China's high-speed railways are already the world's longest and fastest, with speeds of up to 350 km per hour. As Beijing Jiaotong University's Professor Wang Mengshu stated, China is "aiming for the trains to run almost as fast as airplanes." Cheap construction costs and technological expertise might enable China to outperform Japan, Germany, and France. Reportedly, other countries, particularly India, have reached out to China to construct railway networks, with Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Poland already considering China for their railway plans. Central Asia and China, too, have an interest in such cooperation, but not without reservations.

Commanding considerable energy resources, Central Asia is also a trade conduit, the potential of which has not been fully utilized due to intra-regional, political, and infrastructure hurdles. Additionally, the region borders China's Xinjiang region, which trades with about 150 countries but exhibits separatist trends. China thus views the railway network as a tool to link Asian and European markets, tap into and ensure efficient delivery of Central Asian energy resources, develop its western regions, and advance regional security and its global role.

Central Asia will also benefit, and countries such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have already reached related agreements with China. Tajikistan now seeks a US$13 million loan from the OPEC (Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries) Fund for International Development to build a Kuliab-Kalai Khum road connecting it with Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and China, while Kyrgyzstan relies on China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway links to develop its southern areas. China also plans to build 12 highways linking the region with Xinjiang.

China's railway plans are sure to elevate the region's importance as an East-West connector, facilitate its integration into the global economy, and enhance its trade with China, which soon may become the world's largest economic power. China is already investing heavily in regional trade, energy, and transportation projects that will only expand with the construction of the railway system.

Regional trade through Xinjiang reached $18.4 billion in 2007, up more than 60% up on 2006, and reaching $25 billion in 2008 - only $2 billion short of the Russian level for the same year. The pipeline between China and Turkmenistan, however, now leaves Russia with only 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually (as opposed to a planned 80 bcm). China's 21% stake in Kazakhstan's oil production has further surpassed Russia's by 2.5 times.

Nonetheless, China faces other regional transport plans, such as the Russian Trans-Siberian railroad, European TRACEA and road projects funded by Japan, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Yet, these projects lack similar proportions or financial resources.

This is not to say that China does not face challenges. High-speed lines are three times more expensive than regular ones, involve track gauges standardization, and could leave China with a $616 billion debt by 2020, despite its "technology for resources" railway construction scheme. There are also doubts about the cost-effectiveness of the railway project. Moreover, China's accelerating economic engagement might scare Central Asian regimes, which are sensitive to economic and political challenges, both external and internal.

It is too early to argue whether Chinese railway networks, and related Eurasian integration, will promote much-needed economic or, more contentiously, political liberalization across Central Asia. However, it is clear that its burgeoning economic presence will entail political and military engagement by Beijing to protect its expanding regional and continental interests.

China's growing influence in light of the region's imperial history is thus viewed with serious caution in Central Asian capitals, as well as by Moscow and Washington, which have already seen a relative decline in their regional influence. The task, and indeed the dilemma, of the Central Asian states is to benefit from China's regional involvement and proposed railway networks, but also to escape the potential pitfalls of changing geopolitical realities.

Roman Muzalevsky is an international affairs and security analyst on the Caucasus and Central Asia. He is also program manager at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.