World's fastest rail journey starts operation

conworldus · Dec 29, 2009

indianrabbit said:
Awesome feat, I shall say. I hope India learns from it, we need to improve our railways a lot.

India needs a general lift of its transportation system, not just rails. It is very difficult to do projects in India though, because the approval process takes forever. Also many foreign engineers do not want to travel to India for health reasons, and local engineers are just not very qualified sometimes.

satangel · Dec 29, 2009

As I understand, Wuhan-Guanzhou line is just an eye opener and a starter for bigger projects. China is aiming to create a inter-city commuting high speed train grid. That means most trains run like bus, and part of them as normal long distance mass transport.

An example, if a 1000KM line connects, say 8 cities, most of the trains will run point to point with a 30 minutes interval. Only some trains run longer or full length. I think for ordinary commuting trains, the working speed could be lowered to even 250KM, at least for some near cities.

China is building 3 hours city rim. That's to say, building highway and high speed train grid to connect cities, thus any adjacent big city takes less than 3 hours travel. As you may know, many people work in Shanghai but inhabit in near city Suzhou. This is one thing I like very much - people can scatter to small cities or towns instead of rushing into already too big Hellpolises.

I trust all the projects we have seen or known are just the beginning. To get the whole picture, we need wait for many more years. But I know one thing, for every ordinary new rail line, the design sets the working speed for 250km, but leaves potential for 350KM or higher.

Another line can demonstrate our ambition, even though it does not look like a big project. China is building Yichang-Wanzhou railway (to be finished in 2010).

Length: 377.46KM
Tunnels digged: 159
Bridges: 253
Tunnels and bridges take 74% of the full length
Investment: $3.5 billion

This line takes 6 years to build. Ordinarily for a railway this long, China can build it in 3 years. The reason is almost the whole line runs through mountains.

Dont underestimate high speed trains. Some airliners have been stopped under the competition of high speed railways. Most of them have Wuhan as the departure. And many airlines bring down their ticket prices to almost equal to or even lower than trains. For example, as I know, if you book 15 days before, you can fly between Wuhan-Guangzhou with about $20.00. To be exact, RMB140.00. Please remember it's for a 1000KM+ journey. I like this kind of competition.

I still think average price of high speed trains is too high for poor Chinese. I expect it to be lowered.

sarthak · Dec 29, 2009

Seriously , projects like this make me feel how backward we are as compared to china. Its an amazing feat for a country which is still refererred to as " developing"
Even obsolete chinese trains look better compared to some of the trains we have here.
Well done , china. Please pray that we atleast have services like this by the next 2 decades

Communist · Dec 29, 2009

Some more obsolete train models show how the railways have evolved in China:

Latest train model in China:

satangel · Dec 29, 2009

Yes we are developing country. According to some famous Western economists, if China can maintain current development stably, China has chance to catch up with USA in the sense of per capita income 100-150 years later. I think this estimation is objective and reasonable. This can tell us what is difference between "dvlped" and "dvlping".

I think India can benefit a lot from high speed railway grid. Unlike airlines, high speed trains can serve much more people in the long run. And building this grid can directly benefit the people since it need many workers. People who are recruited in this kind of project can get relieved from poverty in short time. All cities and towns connected by the grid will have better chance to get faster development since the investment likes to go into places with good infrastructure.

It's good and more economical choice to countries like USA to emphasize airlines since they have large land but much fewer people. I think Canada and Russia are like USA.

But for countries like China, India, Brazil (if we consider possible population increase in the future), high speed railway grid is much better and economical choice. Big country, huge population. I dont think airlines can serve huge population. Especially infrastructure projects like high speed railways and highways serve as good ways to trigger chained effects to economy like job creation, city and town expansion, better industrial layout etc.

I think India has the ability and financial strength to build high speed railways. I think India has the will and desire to do this. Just as some Indian friends told me, negotiation is difficult, and the decision is too hard to make. If you can solve this, if the will to do this can be consolidated by decision of the government and involvement of the people, India can do as good as or better than China.