Elephant on rails...

[naveen mishra]

 

[INDIC]

Heard from where? For your information, I'd ridden the HSR with plenty of 'normal' Chinese.

Some lines are profitable some are not but we are surely getting along quite well. We can afford it!

Only Beijing-Shanghai line is making profit, rest is making staggering losses.
@by78 Read this news.

China's high-speed rail network reports staggering losses

 

[by78]

Some lines are profitable some are not but we are surely getting along quite well. We can afford it!

I don't understand this failed neo-liberal fetish with making a profit even from common goods and services. For the record, most Japanese Shinkansen lines and most French HSR lines LOSE money. HSR service is a 'public good', a form of 'subsidized' transportation whose benefits are impossible to calculate because it's not possible to quantify the economic impact/opportunity gains of a faster mode of transport.

Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.

 

[by78]

Good try, my friend. That is a photo of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandse_Spoorwegen

 

[INDIC]

HSR are profitableate some routes and loosing money at some. But becoming the way fo life for people.

The normal trains in China are at par if not betterthan India. But the HSRs are a different league, well designed, clean, well lit and punctual.

The train plateforms definetly looks cleaner than one in India due to the fact the pessangers are not allowed to be at plateform like in India, the food and beverages at not sold at plateforms. I thhink is the good thing to do. Overall cleanliness is better but in patches!

In short China has learned from West and adapted the better approach and SOPs to maintain it's Railways and we are still an old school.

I agree with you but HSR is a substitute to airtravel, not the normal train traveling. HSR stations are built at par with airports. The Chinese HSR system is mainly built to achieve high GDP growth target, otherwise it is making staggering losses apart from Beijing-Shanghai line.

China's high-speed rail network reports staggering losses

 

[sms]

Train Stations in India are as diverse as India itself. We must take pride in them and do better up keeping. So save our heritage!!

 

[by78]

I agree with you but HSR is a substitute to airtravel, not the normal train traveling. HSR stations are built at par with airports. The Chinese HSR system is mainly built to achieve high GDP growth target, otherwise it is making staggering losses apart from Beijing-Shanghai line.

China's high-speed rail network reports staggering losses

I'm sorry, but that's absolutely nonsense. HSR competes with air travel up to a certain radius before it loses competitiveness. For long haul, air is the only way to go, based on time factor alone.

By the way, only a neo-liberal aspiring to bean-counting economics would insist on turning a profit on public transport. Public transport has always been subsidized as a public 'good'. How prevalent is this mentality of yours? I wonder if it has anything to do with India's slow progress at building 'public' infrastructure.

US expressways don't turn a profit either. We all have to pay for it via a gasoline 'tax'.

You seriously need to read up on HSR before making comments here.

 

[INDIC]

I'm sorry, but that's absolutely nonsense. HSR competes with air travel up to a certain radius before it loses competitiveness. For long haul, air is the only way to go, based on time factor alone.

By the way, only a neo-liberal aspiring to bean-counting economics would insist on turning a profit on public transport. Public transport has always been subsidized as a public 'good'. How prevalent is this mentality of yours? I wonder if it has anything to do with India's slow progress at building 'public' infrastructure.

US expressways don't turn a profit either. We all have to pay for it via a gasoline 'tax'.

You seriously need to read up on HSR before making comments here.

Infrastructure is the sector which gives China a high hope to achieve 7-8% GDP growth even during economic crisis across the world, making profit is never the motive of building such rail networks or ghost cities, China still have per capita income comparable to some African countries. You will see countries having much higher income compared to China has are not building such a huge network of HSR because in capitalistic economy an infrastructure project need to recover the investment cost in short term.

 

[by78]

Bhopal Station

 

[shuttler]

Only Beijing-Shanghai line is making profit, rest is making staggering losses.
@by78 Read this news.

China's high-speed rail network reports staggering losses

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

China High Speed Rail Sufficiently Profitable for the New Expansions


China High Speed Rail Sufficiently Profitable for the New Expansions

Passenger ticket revenues have so far matched expenses — including debt payments — for the busy Beijing-Tianjin, Shanghai-Nanjing, Beijing-Shanghai and Shanghai-Hangzhou lines, a source at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) told Caixin.

The financial health of the Beijing-Shanghai line exceeded expectations during its first operating year, which ended in June.

The Beijing-Shanghai line moved 52.6 million passengers between the two cities during a recent 12-month period. Ticket sales on the line brought in 1.86 billion yuan ($293.4 million) in July 2011, Caixin learned from other sources, and about 7 billion yuan (US:USDCNY) between June 2011 and January.

This and other noteworthy financial data reflects the popularity of fast-rail tripping in relatively wealthy eastern China, where some people now choose bullet trains over airliners and business travelers abound.

Passenger cars on bullet trains in other parts of the country, such those traveling the Zhengzhou-Xi’an line, are emptier and apparently underperforming financially. Some may be losing significant sums of money.

Only about a dozen trains a day travel the Zhengzhou-Xi’an high-speed railway, for example, compared to 65 fast trains a day running between Beijing and Shanghai. A lighter schedule on a given line means less revenue for servicing debt.

But the rail system overall seems to be recovering from a July 23, 2011, collision of two bullet trains near Wenzhou that killed 40.

A ministry subsidiary operating as the builder-owner of the Beijing-Shanghai railroad system — the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co. Ltd. — lost 800 million yuan during the first three months of bullet train runs before its financial picture improved, a source said. The loss was based on 3.5 billion yuan in revenues against 4.3 billion yuan in expenditures.

The company borrowed from banks for about half of the nearly 221 billion yuan spent to build the railroad. Lenders agreed to charge no interest for the first five years of each 20-year loan, a source said, saving the company about 5 billion yuan.

“If revenues on the Beijing-Shanghai line in the first year can reach 14 billion yuan,” said a source close to the rail ministry, “and passenger flow can maintain stable growth for the next few years, it can theoretically make a profit.”

Indeed, officials are betting on decent profits in the future based on a forecast that passenger ridership will increase an average 10% annually.

Even healthier than the Beijing-Shanghai line is the fast train system linking Shanghai and Nanjing. The builder-owner Shanghai-Nanjing Inter-city Railways Co. Ltd., which launched its first train in July 2010, posted a 380 million yuan net profit on revenues of 3.57 billion yuan last year.

the Zhengzhou-Xi’an line, which also opened in 2010, has been struggling due to relatively low demand. “Because the local economies are less developed” in these inland cities “few passengers went to Zhengzhou from Xi’an,” a source said, without elaborating.

Business may pick up after 2015, however, after the line is connected to what’s now an unfinished high-speed railway between Zhengzhou and the Jiangsu Province city of Xuzhou. The new tracks are to link with the Beijing-Shanghai line and steer more passengers onto trains to and from Xi’an.

It’s likely that the generally positive results for the fledgling fast-train network helped convince central government officials to step up project investments in recent months.

After getting a green light from the government’s chief economic planners at NDRC, the rail ministry said July 30 it would spend 470 billion yuan this year on high-speed railways. That represented a 14% increase in spending from a previous budget plan.

Caixin learned that a dozen new projects, some of which tied to high-speed lines, were to be added to the ministry’s to-do list this year. Last year, work began on 70 new rail projects including the Tianjin-Baoding line in Hebei Province.

 

[by78]

Infrastructure is the sector which gives China a high hope to achieve 7-8% GDP growth even during economic crisis across the world, making profit is never the motive of building such rail networks or ghost cities, China still have per capita income comparable to some African countries. You will see countries having much higher income compared to China has are not building such a huge network of HSR because in capitalistic economy an infrastructure project need to recover the investment cost in short term.

Of course, that must be what your accountant told you about economic development: India should only build infrastructure in line with her per capita income.

But there is a catch: you can't grow your economy and per capita income unless you build far better infrastructure.

Therein lies India's present problems.

Stew over that.

 

[shuttler]

Infrastructure is the sector which gives China a high hope to achieve 7-8% GDP growth even during economic crisis across the world, making profit is never the motive of building such rail networks or ghost cities, China still have per capita income comparable to some African countries. You will see countries having much higher income compared to China has are not building such a huge network of HSR because in capitalistic economy an infrastructure project need to recover the investment cost in short term.

dont be soured!
all countries invest in infrastructures as a positive way for growth if they are capable
China is no exception
we are ahead and we are building it far far ahead of backward india.
Our people can have more choices and a lot more comfort in travelling
Other developed countries are having their preference and limitations!

He is alone on his open business - unaccompanied this time around

 

[naveen mishra]

 

[by78]

Interesting looking bridge!

When was it built?

 

[INDIC]

dont be soured!
we are ahead and we are building it far far ahead of backward india.
Our people can have more choices and a lot more comfort in travelling
Other developed countries are having their preference and limitations!

Can you tell me about the daily ridership of your HSR system. You are building infrastructure but I want to know how many people are actually using it.