# CHINA | Railways



## hkskyline

* Shanghai mulling subway fare increase to reduce overcrowding*
May 31, 2005 

AP - Subways in China's largest city are so jam-packed that officials have proposed boosting fares to help reduce crowding, setting off an outcry among residents who rely on the train lines to get to work.

Similar to Tokyo, subway employees now have to shove passengers in to get the doors closed. The most crowded line carries about 42 percent more passengers than it is designed to handle, and overall the system of two underground and one light-rail routes is running at 25 percent above capacity, the state-run newspaper Shanghai Daily reported Tuesday.

The city is holding public hearings on a plan that would raise fares to as much as 6 yuan (73 U.S. cents; 58 euro cents) from the current 4 yuan (50 U.S. cents; 40 euro cents). But consumer groups and residents are opposed, arguing that higher commuting costs would hurt middle-income families living in distant suburban areas.

Shanghai, a city of more than 20 million, now has only 82 kilometers (50 miles) of subway lines. By 2010, the number of lines is expected to rise from three to 11, and the total length of subway routes to 400 kilometers (250 miles).

But in the meantime, commuting options for the millions of city dwellers who have been forced by urban renewal projects to move to distant suburbs are limited. Buses, which cost as little as 1 yuan (12 U.S. cents; 9 euro cents) are also crammed full - and often stuck in massive traffic jams.

About one in four residents bicycle to work, but cycling from newly built suburbs 15 kilometers (9 miles) or more outside town is not a practical option.


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## hkskyline

*China's Rail Freight And Passenger Volume Hits Record in May*

BEIJING, June 8 Asia Pulse - Chinese railways carried 92.947 million passengers in May, 4.423 million more than in the same period of last year, including 30.792 million passengers by through trains, up 2.898 million year on year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Railways.

The daily loading capacity averaged 104,364 wagons and daily unloading capacity averaged 108,171 wagons, 5,206 and 5,751, respectively, more than in the same time of last year. The amount of freight dispatched reached 194.343 million tons, up 11.895 million tons over the same time of 2004.

The total amount of coal carried reached 89.521 million tons in the month of May, rising 6.08 million tons; that of petroleum was 10.671 million tons, growing 372,000 tons; that of cereals was 9.163 million tons, up 1.112 million tons; that of fertilizers and pesticides, 6.044 million tons, increasing by 1.301 million tons.


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## hkskyline

*China begins construction of 1.5 billion dollar northern railway *

BEIJING, June 12 (AFP) - Construction on a 1.5 billion dollar railway line between northern China's leading coal-producing Shanxi region and neighboring Hebei province began this weekend and is expected to alleviate transport bottlenecks in the area, state press said Sunday.

The 190 kilometer (114 mile) line between the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang and Shanxi's capital of Taiyuan is expected to be mainly used for passenger traffic and will be completed by 2008, Xinhua news agency said.

Completion of the railway will allow existing transport lines between the two regions to concentrate on moving coal out of the region, the report said.

China is facing serious energy shortages this year, with bottlenecks in coal transport partially responsible for electricity blackouts nationwide.

Construction of the railway will include the building of 94 bridges and 32 tunnels, including a 28 kilometer long tunnel, which will be China's longest railway tunnel upon completion, it said.

Train speeds on the new line are expected to reach 200 kilometers per hour, with the trip between the two cities expected to only take one hour, it said.

China is expected to build nine new railway passenger lines this year as part of a plan to construct some 120,000 kilometers of passenger lines by 2020, the report said.


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## hkskyline

*China paves way for first foreign-owned rail track *
By MURE DICKIE
15 June 2005
Financial Times

China's eastern province of Shandong has called for overseas investment in up to six new local railway lines, opening the way for what analysts say would be the first wholly foreign-owned track to be laid since the 1949 communist revolution.

The Shandong lines are among several railway projects around China opened to foreign investors in recent months. In February, the central government backed overseas involvement in strategic sectors of the economy ranging from aviation to oil.

Foreign railway ownership has been a sensitive issue in China since colonial powers outraged many by building lines deep into the interior during the 19th century decline of the Qing dynasty.

Now Beijing sees foreign investment as an important way of accelerating construction of the nearly 30,000km of track China plans to build before 2020.

But the enthusiasm of international investors for what is one of the world's biggest railway construction booms may be undermined by a lack of regulatory clarity and vulnerability to bureaucratic whim.

Wen Lei, a railway expert at Beijing Normal University's school of management, said: "There are no legal guarantees and the Railway Ministry stresses centralised control, which makes things very uncertain for foreign investment."

It remains unclear under what rules Shandong is allowing complete foreign ownership of at least three of its six planned lines, which are expected to cost a total of over Rmb5bn (Dollars 600m, Euros 498m, Pounds 332m).

Provincial and railway system officials this week cited a number of sometimes contradictory regulations, including an order issued by Beijing's top economic planners late last year that said total ownership would be possible after December 2007.

Other Chinese provinces have in recent months offered foreign investors minority roles in railway construction projects, including a line between the capital Beijing and Shijiazhuang in neighbouring Hebei province and between southern Guangzhou and eastern Wuhan.

Railway officials in the central province of Henan say a US-invested Hong Kong company has agreed to take a 30 per cent stake in a Rmb2.5bn line to neighbouring Anhui. The joint venture was established in February, but no money has yet been put into the project.

Attempts in earlier years to attract foreign investment for Chinese railways foundered. Offshore investors in a line from the eastern city of Wenzhou pulled out after interference from railway authorities.

Endemic corruption in the railway system remains another potential obstacle. This week Caijing Magazine, one of China's most respected business publications, reported that more than Rmb6bn had been illegally misappropriated by staff of western China's Lanzhou Railway Bureau.


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## hkskyline

*Social capital sought for Wuhan-Guangzhou express railway *
22 June 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

WUHAN, June 22 (CEIS) – Social capital from at home and abroad will be sought for the construction of an express railway from Wuhan, capital city of Central China’s Hubei Province, to Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province in South China. 

This is the first time for China to open a trunkline railway to social investment. 

The railway with a total length of 989 km will require a total investment of 116.6 billion yuan, of which 24 billion yuan will be raised from social investors. Construction of the railway will start on June 23 and be completed by the end of 2010. 

China Railway Construction and Investment Company will be the controlling shareholder representing the Ministry of Finance, taking a 51% stake in the project. The three provinces of Guangdong, Hunan and Hubei will also hold interests by contributing the fees for land requisition. The rest totaling 24 billion yuan will be raised from domestic and overseas investors. 

The Wuhan-Guangzhou express railway is a section of the planned Beijing-Guangzhou express railway. The Beijing-Wuhan section is now also under preparation. The whole railway will have a speed allowance of 200 km per hour. It will take only four hours from Wuhan to Guangzhou by train, seven hours less than the current voyage. 

According to China’s railway network development plan, China will need 2 trillion yuan for railway construction in the coming 15 years, or an average of 130 billion yuan annually. The country’s annual investment in railways is now only about 50 billion yuan.


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## hkskyline

*Global warming poses threat to Tibet rail link*
Reuters
June 24, 2005

Rising temperatures on the "roof the world'' threaten China's controversial railway link across the snow-covered Tibetan plateau, the China Daily said Thursday.

The pan-Himalayan rail project, which began in 1958, eight years after mainland troops invaded Tibet, is expected to be finished by the end of this year.

"By 2050, safe operation of the Qinghai-Tibet railway will be affected if temperatures keep rising steadily as observed over past decades,'' Luo Yong, deputy director of the National Climate Center, was quoted as saying.

Winter and summer temperatures on the Tibetan plateau could jump as much as 3.4 degrees Celsius by 2050, causing normally frozen ground under the rail line to melt, the China Daily said. Many climatologists consider the plateau a "magnifier'' of global climate change and an indicator of warming trends across East Asia, it said.

The railway will span 2,040 kilometers from Xining in Qinghai province, to the capital of Tibet, Lhasa.

China says the rail link will promote development and help raise living standards in the impoverished region, while Tibet activists say it will speed up the pace of Chinese migration to the area and dilute Tibetan culture.

Luo issued his warning at a symposium on climate change in Beijing, which has been simmering under temperatures as high as 40C in a heat wave that has struck northern China.


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## hkskyline

*China starts new round of railway construction in Yangtze River Delta *
23 June 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, June 23 (CEIS) – A 50-billion-yuan new round of railway construction has started in the Yangtze River Delta. 

At present, more than ten projects are going on simultaneously. 

They include two state first class double-track railways, allowing a train to travel at a maximum speed of 200km/hr. The two railways will shorten the distance from Hefei (Anhui) to Nanjing from the original 312km to 166km and the distance from Hefei to Wuhan from the original 565km to 351km. When put into service, it would take only three hours to travel from Shanghai to Hefei, four hours less than at present, and only about five hours to travel from Shanghai to Wuhan. 

The construction of the Shanghai South railway station with a floor space of 600,000 square meters will be completed toward the end of this year. The Shanghai-Hangzhou electrified railway will be the first of its kind in the Yangtze River Delta. Running 202 km, the line connects the Beijing-Shanghai line in the north, the Hangzhou- Zhuzhou and other railways in the south, carrying one third of the passengers and a quarter of cargo in the Yangtze River Delta.


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## hkskyline

*Guangzhou-Zhuhai rail link to boost regions west of Delta *
Alice Yan 
28 June 2005
South China Morning Post

A new multibillion-yuan railway system is to be built between Guangzhou and Zhuhai in the latest attempt to improve the economies of regions located west of the Pearl River Delta. 

Construction of the 114km project, which will cost 19.5 billion yuan, will start next month and be completed in 2008, according to details of the programme reported yesterday by Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily. 

The project will include the building of tracks, 30 bridges and three tunnels for both express and regular train services. 

Trains would run every two minutes between 6am and midnight, the paper reported. 

There will also be branch lines to Zhongshan and Jiangmen . 

Trains on the slower line will stop at 14 stations between the New Guangzhou Railway Station in Panyu district and Zhuhai station. This trip will cost 40 yuan and take 86 minutes. 

The project is a joint investment between the Ministry of Railways and the Guangdong Railway Group Company. 

Guan Zhisheng , from the economics department of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, said the rail link would strengthen infrastructure connections between the two cities, as well as with neighbouring cities. 

In particular, it will link the two cities with the proposed Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge, which would help ease heavy traffic between Hong Kong and other cities in Guangdong. 

The 28km cross-delta link, estimated to cost US$3.8 billion, could be opened by 2010 and would make Zhuhai and Macau a 30-minute drive from Hong Kong. 

"The traffic between Hong Kong and Guangdong via Shenzhen is crowded and has almost hit saturation levels," Professor Guan said. "Therefore, the new railway would make travel easier." 

Work started on the 13 billion yuan New Guangzhou Railway Station last December. 

The building of the station forms part of a blueprint for Guangzhou aimed at improving transport links between the city and other hubs, according to Professor Guan.


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## Jaroslaw

-So in five years it will be possible to get from HK to Shanghai in ten hours! 

:runaway:


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## hkskyline

*China signs 20-year pact for Bombardier trains
High-speed rail order may reach 400 units *
BERTRAND MAROTTE 
28 June 2005
The Globe and Mail

MONTREAL -- Bombardier Inc. is cementing its presence in the booming Chinese market with an exclusive 20-year agreement to supply high-speed trains to its Ministry of Railways. 

Montreal-based Bombardier said yesterday that the deal will provide the company with a significant long-term opportunity in China as the country moves to upgrade 2,000 kilometres of track and expand its capacity for passenger and cargo rail transport. 

No value was put on the agreement and no actual orders were announced yesterday. 

The accord also calls for the creation of a high-speed train maintenance centre in Guangzhou by 2007. Bombardier will design the centre and provide the equipment, while the China Ministry of Railways will supply the land and the building. The centre will have a capacity of 250 train sets. 

Bombardier will also supply spare parts, maintenance management services, technical support and staff training. 

Bombardier chairman and chief executive officer Laurent Beaudoin and Bombardier Transportation president André Navarri signed the agreement with China Ministry of Railways vice-minister Hu Yadong in a ceremony yesterday in Beijing. 

One analyst played down the announcement. 

“Bombardier has been expanding its presence in China, but there's nothing concrete out of this signing ceremony,” said Cameron Doerksen of Versant Partners Inc. in Montreal. 

So far, Bombardier has won orders for 40 high-speed trains in China, a country whose fast-growing economy is a crucial one for Bombardier's long-term growth. 

China had previously said it wanted 200 new high-speed trains, but changed that forecast to 400 last fall. 

The initial order for 20 eight-car trains able to reach speeds of 200 kilometres an hour was worth $424-million (U.S.) to Bombardier and its Chinese joint venture partner. Bombardier's share is valued at about $263-million. 

Bombardier also recently won an $89-million contract to build an automated train system at the new terminal of Beijing's international airport, part of the city's infrastructure expansion for the 2008 Olympic Games. 

“This agreement is another testimony of Bombardier's long-standing commitment to the Chinese market,” Mr. Navarri said in a statement yesterday. 

“Our aim has always been to be a full-fledged partner and contributor to the development of the railway network in China. We want to support this development not only in supplying products, but also in providing value-added services and know-how that will ensure long-term efficiency and success to the operator.” 

Bombardier Transportation spokeswoman Hélène Gagnon said the company is already recognized in China as the only manufacturer of rolling stock that participates in joint ventures with Chinese partners. 

This latest agreement makes Bombardier the only foreign rolling-stock supplier to enter into an exclusive long-term agreement, she added. 

“This positions us as a preferred supplier,” she said. 

Bombardier shares fell 2 cents (Canadian) or 0.74 per cent to $2.69 on the Toronto Stock Exchange yesterday.


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## hkskyline

*Railway investment group inaugurated in S. China city*
29 June 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

GUANGZHOU, June 29 (CEIS) -- The Guangdong Railway Construction Investment Group has gone into business on June 29 in this capital of south China's Guangdong province, which plans to develop 2,164 km of railways and inter-city rail systems in 15 years. 

According to the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Guangdong Province, the group has a total investment of 120 billion yuan (14.45 billion US dollars) and is the largest railway investment company in mainland China. 

The group is the first wholly-owned company set up by the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Guangdong Province since it was established. It is an attempt to make the state assets profitable, the commission source said. 

In collection of funds for railway construction, the Guangdong provincial government will put 31.8 billion yuan (3.83 billion US dollars) into the group. And other funds totaling 90 billion yuan (10. 84 billion US dollars) will be collected through bank loans, bond issuance, fund rising through BOT projects and sales of property rights, the commission said. 

In accordance with the summary of stepping up railway development in Guangdong signed between the Ministry of Railway and the Guangdong provincial government, the province will build nine railways and urban rail systems by 2020.


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## hkskyline

*Completion of Qinghai-Tibet Railway in sight *
4 July 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

LHASA, July 4 (CEIS) -- More than 1,000 kilometers of tracks have been laid on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's most elevated railroad, and the track laying work is expected to complete within this year, the headquarters of the railway construction said.

The railway from Gelmud in Qinghai Province to Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, runs 1,142 kilometers on the Qinghai- Tibet Plateau, dubbed "roof of the world".

Construction workers are now busy laying tracks at two critical sections of the longest plateau railroad in the world, the headquarters said on July 2.

A team is now heading for a location of 5,072 meters in elevation on the Tanggula Mountain, the highest point of the railway.

Another team is laying tracks in the area between Yangbajain and Lhasa, where a long and extremely slopy section that streches about 40 kilometers poses a challenge to the construction workers, the headquarters said.

But the headquarters said it had made detailed plans to deal with all possible problems that might emerge in the course of construction.

The construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway started in late June, 2001, and it is scheduled to start trial operation in the second half of 2006.


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## hkskyline

*China begins construction of 12.3 billion yuan Beijing-Tianjin rail link *

BEIJING, July 5 (AFP) - China has begun construction of a 12.3 billion yuan (1.48 billion dollar) rail link between Beijing and the northern city of Tianjin aimed at boosting the regional economy, state press said Tuesday. 

The 115 kilometre (69 mile) high-speed line, which is due to be completed before June 2008 in time for the Olympic Games, will half the travel time between the two cities to 30 minutes, the China Daily said. 

The project, backed by the Ministry of Railways and the Beijing and Tianjin local governments, is aimed at helping economic development in the region, it said. 

The project is one of a number of high-speed railways that are expected to be built throughout China as the nation upgrades its railway system. 

Construction on a 1.5 billion dollar railway line between the leading coal-producing Shanxi region and neighboring Hebei province began in early June and is expected to alleviate transport bottlenecks in the area. 

The 190 kilometre (114 mile) line between the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang and Shanxi's capital of Taiyuan is expected to be mainly used for passenger traffic and will also be completed by 2008, Xinhua news agency said. 

China is expected to build nine new railway passenger lines this year as part of a plan to construct some 120,000 kilometres of lines by 2020, it said. 

Meanwhile, the construction of a 22 kilometre (14 mile) subway line has begun in the northeastern city of Shenyang, which is expected to cost the provincial capital of Liaoning some 9.48 billion yuan (1.14 billion dollars). 

"The project will not only ease urban transport congestion but also play a positive role in renovating the old industrial base," Zhao Jincheng, a leading city politician told Xinhua.


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## hkskyline

*China's Railway Passenger Transport Volume Edges Down in June*

BEIJING, July 11 Asia Pulse - China's passenger transport volume by railway reached 86.49 million person times (or 2.883 million person times daily) in June, 0.3 per cent less than in the same period last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Railways.

Statistics also showed that railway freight transport volume totaled 219.19 million tons in June, up 6.7 per cent over the corresponding period in 2004 while freight turnover in the month hit 167.039 billion ton-kilometers, up 5.4 per cent on-year.

The railway sector loaded 104,354 trains in June, up 3.9 per cent on-year.

In June, the coal transport volume by railway totaled 106.36 million tons, up 10.9 per cent year-on-year; that of grain, 9.48 million tons, up 13.8 per cent; that of oil, 12.53 million tons, up 9.7 per cent; that of chemical fertilizer and pesticide, 5.66 million tons, up 10.2 per cent.


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## hkskyline

*Guangdong to Construct Nine Railways by 2020 *

GUANGZHOU, July 12 Asia Pulse - South China's Guangdong Province will invest 120 billion yuan (US$14.4 billion) to construct nine railways and inter-city railroads with a total length of 2,164 kilometers by 2020, according to the Guangdong Provincial Railway Construction Investment Group Co., Ltd.

The new railways include the Wuhan-Guangzhou special passenger railway, the Guangzhou-Zhuhai railroad, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen railroad, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong special passenger railway, the Xiamen-Shenzhen railroad (Guangdong section) and the Guangzhou-Maoming double-track railway.

They are scheduled for completion by 2020.

After the completion, the rail length of the province will reach about 4,000 kilometers.

(XIC)


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## hkskyline

*China promotes financing system reform for railway sector *
14 July 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

DALIAN, July 14 (CEIS) – Under the train of thought of “ government leading, diversification of investment and operation by market principle”, China will energetically promote reform of the investment and financing system of railway sector, said Zhang Jianping, vice director of the Planning Department of the Ministry of Railway.

An important measure of the reform is to strengthen cooperation with local governments in railway construction, said Zhang.

It is learned that since 2004, the Ministry of Railway (MOR) has signed strategic cooperation agreements with 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on speeding up construction of railway. In September 2004, MOR signed an agreement with Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces to jointly construct Harbin-Dalian special passenger railway line. In May this year, it signed agreement with Liaoning Provincial Government on speeding up construction of railways within the province. MOR is now negotiating with Jilin Provincial Government on railway construction within the province.

Meanwhile, China will actively introduce capital from enterprises and the society, and invite bids for such efficient projects as special passenger railway lines, coal transport railways and container hubs.

According to Zhang, MOR has already reached agreements on some projects with some State-owned and private enterprises, to launch joint-stock railway companies.

MOR is studying related policies for allocation of transportation capacity, transport fee and taxation, aiming to protect the rights and interests of and create a better investment environment for investors.

As one of the several large monopolized sectors in China, railway reform has always been a hot topic among all circles both at home and abroad. Competent department is probing to establish a multi-channel financing system for railway construction. In April 2002, for the first time in China, the Yantai-Dalian railway ferry project was opened to foreign investors, a key step for China towards the reform.


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## hkskyline

*China plans to construct 1,300 km of urban rail by 2010 *
21 July 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

CHONGQING, July 21 (CEIS) – According to the urban rail traffic plans of 15 Chinese cities, by 2010, China will newly construct 1,300 km of urban rail, with total investment involved estimated to reach 500 billion yuan. 

China is entering the development stage of urbanization and mechanization, with urban population and urban traffic volume increasing rapidly. Pure ground roads can hardly meet the traffic demand in most cities. Urban rail, with such advantages as large transportation volume, high efficiency and low pollution, has become the first choice for many large cities to resolve their traffic problem, said Wang Tiehong, chief engineer of the Ministry of Construction. 

Up to present, 18 urban rails with combined length reaching 425 km are in operation in 10 Chinese cities. Urban rail projects are being carried out in 7 cities, with total length exceeding 400 km. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are constructing urban rail at a speed of 40 km a year.


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## hkskyline

*China allows private, foreign capital in railway sector to fund expansion *

BEIJING, July 25 (AFP) - China has opened the doors for foreign and private capital to enter its railway industry to help fund its much-awaited network expansion, state media reported Monday, citing the Ministry of Railways. 

"Foreign and private companies are now allowed, through cash investment or technical cooperation, to take part in the construction, operation, maintenance and improvement of China's railways," Xinhua news agency quoted the ministry as saying. 

The report did not detail any shareholding or investment limits. 

Foreign and private companies can choose either solely or jointly to invest in the design and manufacture of railway equipment including trains, bridges, and communication and safety equipment, Xinhua added. 

"The move is in accordance with China's pledges made upon entering the World Trade Organization," Xinhua said. 

The ministry is trying to attract capital to meet the two trillion yuan (247 billion dollars) needed for a plan to extend the country's railway system from the existing 74,000 kilometres (46,000 miles) to 100,000 kilometres (62,000 miles) by 2020. 

Zhang Jianping, vice director of the railway ministry's planning department, told the China Daily earlier that the ministry also planned to invite bids for projects on passenger lines and container stations which are profitable. 

To raise capital, Zhang said his ministry was also working on reorganizing some state-owned railway companies to list them on the stock market. 

Experts cautioned that policies were still not in place to boost investor confidence that they will earn a profit. 

For instance, the existing rail charge system allows no price fluctuation in line with market changes. 

The country is largely dependent on railways for passenger and coal transport but the system has not been able to meet the rising demand brought about by rapid economic growth.


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## hkskyline

*China opens four key railway fields to non-state-owned capitals *
28 July 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, July 28 (CEIS) – Domestic non-state-owned capitals are allowed to participate in all the four key fields of China’s railway sector that are open to foreign investment, according to the Advices on Implementation of Encouraging, Supporting and Guiding Non-state- owned Economy to Participate in Railway Construction and Operations issued by the Ministry of Railway recently. 

According to a principle of equal footing and fair treatment, the restrictive terms will be softened properly for non-state-owned capital to enter the four key railway fields including railway construction, transportation, operation and manufacturing of transportation equipment. 

Individual and foreign investors may set up railway passenger transport joint ventures in the future. Railway sector, which has been monopolized for tens of years, will enter the market in deed. 

Specifically, the four key railway fields are: 

-- Railway construction: Non-state-owned capitals are encouraged to participate in the construction and renovation of trunk line railway, feeder railway, local railway and related bridge, tunnel and ferry facilities, in the form of joint stock company, project financing, non-equity joint venture and joint operation. 

-- Railway transportation: Non-state-owned capitals are allowed to participate in the railway cargo and passenger transportation in the form of equity or non-equity joint venture, joint operation, and join stock company; when conditions are satisfied, non-state-owned capitals are allowed to set up holding company or solely-invested railway cargo transportation company, and establish passenger transportation joint venture which shall be controlled by state-owned capital. In addition, non-state-owned enterprises are allowed to operate the luggage van of passenger train, special luggage train and special postal luggage train in the form of charter. 

-- Manufacturing of railway transportation equipment. Non-state- owned capitals are encouraged to participate in the designing and manufacturing of railway locomotive and main parts, designing and manufacturing of railway line and bridge equipment, development of high-speed railway technology and manufacturing of related equipment, manufacturing of telecom signal and transportation security monitoring equipment, and manufacturing of electric railway equipment and apparatus. Their participation in the manufacturing of railway transportation equipment may take the form of equity or non-equity joint venture, solely-invested company, joint operation, with no limit on the proportion of holding shares. 

-- Diversified operation of railway. Non-state-owned capitals including private capital are encouraged to join in the railway supplementary business, participating in the reorganization and restructuring of diversified operation business, and they are also allowed to set up holding company or solely-invested company.


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## hkskyline

*Bombardier gets $382M train order from Chinese railway *
Bloomberg News 
27 August 2005

Bombardier Inc., the world's biggest maker of railway equipment, won a 2.58-billion yuan ($382-million) contract for electric trains from Guangshen Railway Co., a railway operator in southern China. Guangshen Railway's board approved an agreement to buy 20 trains from Bombardier and a Chinese venture, the Shenzhen-based company said in a statement yesterday. The trains will be delivered by the end of 2007, it said. Guangshen Railway said it will use the trains for services between Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and also to Hong Kong. The company's shares rose as much as 1% to in Hong Kong. The stock has fallen 20% this year. Shares in Montreal-based Bombardier were unchanged at $3.10 yesterday in Toronto.


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## hkskyline

*Tibet Railway Nears Finish *
By Hu Xiao 
31 August 2005
China Daily

LHASA: After four years of construction, much of it in extremely rugged terrain, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project will be ready for testing in less than a year. 

Workmen are currently completing Lhasa Railway Station, the biggest transport station on the line. 

"The whole project is going very well now. The railway will be paved up to Lhasa by the end of the year. We're sure that the whole railway will be ready for trials by next July 1," said Sun Fuqing, vice-minister of railways here yesterday. 

Accompanied by the sound of drills and sledgehammers, members of the central government delegation to Tibet to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region visited the under-construction station and greeted the workmen yesterday. 

Jia Qinglin, head of the delegation, spoke highly of the railway: "The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is a landmark project that is part of the government's drive to develop the country's western regions. It will benefit the development of Tibet's communications and tourism, and promote economic and cultural exchanges between Tibet and other parts of China." 

Work on the project began on June 29, 2001. The railroad starts from Golmud in Qinghai Province, and stretches a distance of 1,142 kilometres to Lhasa in the south. About 960 kilometres of the track are over 4,000 metres above sea level, with the highest point 5,072 metres. In addition, 550 kilometres of the line are laid on frozen earth, according to Sun. 

"When completed, it will be the highest and longest highland railroad in the world," Sun said. 

Tenzin, a worker on the Tibet Railway Station project, said: "All of us hope that the whole line can be completed at an early date. It will only take 48 hours to travel from Lhasa to Beijing." 

On the construction site, only one narrow route is available for workmen and vehicles to pass through. Tenzin said it is to protect the ecosystem along the railway. 

Wetlands and the vast expanse of frozen earth are also carefully protected along the railway, according to Vice-Minister Sun. 

On Monday, 200 bar-headed geese were released into the wild at the highest swamp in the world Lhalu Wetland Nature Reserve after being raised by humans for 18 months. "It is the first time in China that artificially-bred bar-headed geese have been released into the wild," said Ding Feng, a researcher with the Nida Research Base of Wild Animal Breeding in Lhasa.


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## hkskyline

*Nanjing courts MTR investment
City eyes property model of HK operator as it chases funds for 10.5b yuan project*
Mark O'Neill in Nanjing
8 September 2005
South China Morning Post

Nanjing needed six billion yuan in outside capital to finance a second railway and wanted investment from MTR Corp, the city's vice-mayor said yesterday. 

Nanjing's first railway, of 21.7km, opened on Saturday, making it the sixth mainland city with a metro, after Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. 

"We have applied for permission from Beijing for a second line and will receive it," vice-mayor Chen Jiabao said at a BNP Paribas Peregrine seminar. 

"This will need 10.5 billion yuan in capital, of which the government will invest 40 per cent and the rest will come from banks and the public. We welcome investment by Hong Kong's MTR." 

MTR has invested in the metros of Beijing and Shenzhen but may baulk at the less appealing prospects on offer in Nanjing. 

"We have sent people to study [the MTR] and receive training. Of course, our network is too small now to make money. On the second line, we will use the Hong Kong model and develop property along the line," Mr Chen said. 

The China market offers to MTR investment prospects unmatched in the world. 

At the opening of the Nanjing line, Vice-Minister of Construction Chou Baoxing said that over the next five years, mainland cities would invest 500 billion yuan in 1,500km of railways and light rail systems. 

"We have 43 cities with over one million people and 14 cities with over two million. By 2010, 45 per cent of the population will live in urban areas. Railways are vital," Mr Chou said. 

He praised the construction of the line in Nanjing as the cheapest in China so far, at 400 million yuan per kilometre. Total construction cost 8.5 billion yuan. 

According to its website, the Nanjing Metro plans to build 10 railway and four light rail lines by 2050, with 433km of track. It first drew up a railway plan in 1984 but did not start construction until December 2000 because it could not obtain permission from Beijing. 

The government is nervous about approving rail lines because of the enormous costs and the possible inflationary effects. In October 2002, it banned approvals of new lines, which it relaxed only in June this year. It has since cleared the plans of four cities - Hangzhou, Shenyang, Harbin and Chengdu.


----------



## hkskyline

*Beijing subways to haul 15 million travels during National Day holidays *
26 September 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, September 26 (CEIS) -- The subway network of this national capital will haul approximately 15.05 million travels during the upcoming National Day holiday that will begin from Oct.1. 

An official with the Beijing Municipal Subway Operation Corporation sets the daily passenger transport volume via the subway network during the seven-day holiday period at 2.15 million journeys, and the travel peak might occur on Oct.1, with 2.6 million travels. 

To ensure a normal operation of the subway system, the Beijing Municipal Subway Operation Corporation have got all trains currently used for transportation checked thoroughly and have had 14 other trains in reserve, said the official. 

In the meantime, the corporation is also expected to prolong the current service time on all the four subway lines by 35 minutes to 80 minutes to cope with the rising need of passengers for travels during the national holiday season.


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## hkskyline

*China builds 200-kph railway in southeast province *
4 October 2005

Fuzhou, October 4 (Xinhua) -- China has started building a 200 kilometer-per-hour railway from Fuzhou, capital city of southeast China's Fujian Province, to Xiamen, a coastal city in the province. 

The line, with a length of 273 kilometers and a total investment of 14.42 billion yuan, will be completed in 2009. 

Since the railway will be constructed in high land, about 40 percent of the railway will be on bridges and in tunnels. 

The Fuzhou-Xiamen line is part of China's coastal network of express railways. 

The original railways in the province, with speeds of 60 to 70 kilometers per hour, are antiquated, a local official said. 

The Fuzhou-Xiamen line will connect the original ones and form a network within the province, he said.


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## hkskyline

*Construction on 200-kph railway in Fujian begins *
10 October 2005
China Daily 

China has started building a 200 kilometer-per-hour railway from Fuzhou, capital city of East China's Fujian Province, to Xiamen, a coastal city in the province. 

The line, with a length of 273 kilometers and a total investment of 14.42 billion yuan (US$1.78 billion), will be completed in 2009. 

Since the railway will be constructed in high land, about 40 percent of the railway will be on bridges and in tunnels. 

The Fuzhou-Xiamen line is part of China's coastal network of express railways. 

The original railways in the province, with speeds of 60 to 70 kilometers per hour, are antiquated, a local official said. 

The Fuzhou-Xiamen line will connect the original ones and form a network within the province, he said.


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## hkskyline

*China approves first Sino-foreign urban subway project *
14 October 2005
China Daily

The National Development and Reform Commission has approved a Sino-foreign franchised project on the No 4 subway line in Beijing, Beijing Daily reported. 

This is the first of its kind approved by the commission. Construction on the 28.65-km No 4 subway line, which runs through Fengtai, Xuanwu, Xicheng and Haidian districts of Beijing,started last November and is expected to be completed in 2009. The investment is estimated at 15.3 billion yuan (US$1.90 billion). 

The Sino-foreign joint venture, Beijing Jinggang Subway Co Ltd, will be responsible for the financing, construction and operation of the subway line. The term of the franchised project will be 30 years after the subway's trial operation.


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## hkskyline

*Rail link brings rest of world to Tibet *
17 October 2005
China Daily

The first fully-loaded train to cover the entire Qinghai-Tibet Railway route arrived in Lhasa, the Tibet Autonomous Region, on October 15. 

The historic journey added a perfect finishing touch to what President Hu Jintao described, in his congratulatory message at the celebration ceremony, as an "unparalleled feat" on the "roof of the world." 

Like our second manned space flight, which is arousing both pride and envy at home and abroad, the 24-billion-yuan (US$2.96 billion) project is the fruit of our growing comprehensive national strength. 

Tibet's need for and dream of a rail link with the rest of the country did not start until in 2001, when construction began. 

The region had for decades remained the only province-level administrative area in China without a railway, because we had neither the money nor the technology. 

We should first pay tribute to the railway workers that contributed either their ideas or physical strength to making the decades-old wish come true. 

Our scientists demonstrated impressive competence in the uncharted waters of railway construction at extremely high altitudes. 

A total of 960 kilometres of the 1,142-kilometre Golmud-Lhasa section of the railway are at least 4,000 metres above sea level. The track reaches 5,072 metres at Tanggula Pass. 

At such altitudes, frozen soil, the fragile ecology and oxygen deficiency were believed to be insuperable natural barriers to railway building. Among voices of dissent, there was the claim that a railway like this would result in irreparable damage to the environment. 

In total, 550 kilometres of the tracks were laid on frozen soil. Vegetation was meticulously preserved. Pollution was kept to a minimum. In order not to disrupt the seasonable migration routes of animals, including the famous Tibetan antelope, planners added to their blueprints a network of culverts. 

At such altitudes, often considered unsuitable for human habitation, railway building is not only a challenge to human wisdom, but first of all a test of physiological endurance. 

For that alone, the railway should forever be appreciated with respect and gratitude for its builders. 

Each sleeper and section of track they laid took a huge effort, quite aside from the construction of the numerous bridges and tunnels that dot the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. 

They have made history not just in China but the whole world. 

The railway, which they sweated for four years to build, is set to make history in the country's strategic attempt to balance regional development. 

The rail link does more than incorporate the Tibet Autonomous Region and part of Qinghai Province in the national railway network. It will prove a significant boost to economic progress on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. 

The lack of a rail link with the rest of the country had long been a major obstacle to the area's economic ambitions. The railway will considerably reduce transport costs and accelerate the flow of commodities when it begins trial operations in July 2006. 

Unlike traditional track-rolling missions, the first train was not loaded to full capacity with sand or rocks, but arrived at Lhasa on Saturday carrying aid. 

Major State firms have donated 12,300 tons of various materials, including chemical fertilizers, wheat flour and steel products, in an enthusiastic response to the Ministry of Railways' idea to turn the track-rolling trips into aid missions. 

Tibet has been receiving assistance from both the central government and fraternal provinces. 

With the newly acquired rail link, the people of Tibet can expect even more benefits from afar.


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## hkskyline

*China Announces Completion Of Work On Tibet Railway *
15 October 2005

BEIJING (AP)--China Saturday announced the official completion of the first railway to Tibet, a controversial engineering feat that is one of the world's highest train lines, crossing mountain passes up to 5,000 meters high. 

The railway is part of efforts to develop the poor west and bind Tibet more closely to China's interior. The government says it will start carrying passengers next year and should spur trade and investment, easing poverty in Tibet. 

Activists complain the line will bring a flood of ethnic Chinese migrants to the isolated Himalayan region, diluting its unique Buddhist culture. Environmentalists say it will damage Tibet's fragile ecology and lead to the exploitation of its resources. 

Completion of construction was marked with a ceremony Saturday morning in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. 

"Tibet's regional capital basked in glory," Xinhua said. 

Critics say most of the economic benefits of Tibet's economic development will go to immigrants from China's east. 

But activists and foreign diplomats also say the communist Beijing government is the only entity willing to invest the billions of dollars needed to ease poverty in the region. 

Chinese officials insist that they are making efforts to employ Tibetans on the railway and are taking precautions to protect the region's fragile ecology. 

About 80% of the 1,956-kilometer line linking Lhasa to the city of Xining in the western province of Qinghai lies above 4,000 meters, according to the government. 

The train will have special cars that are sealed like aircraft to protect passengers from altitude sickness. Crews building the line worked at such high altitudes that they breathed bottled oxygen. 

Until now, goods going to and from Tibet have been trucked over mountain highways often blocked by landslides or snow, making trade prohibitively expensive. 

Communist troops occupied Tibet in 1950 and Beijing says the region has been Chinese territory for centuries. But many Tibetans say they were independent for much of that time. 

Beijing has planned the railway since the 1950s. But construction was blocked by the cost and technical obstacles. 

The track crosses hundreds of kilometers of permafrost, and sits on special rollers and pontoons designed to keep it in place as the ground melts and refreezes. 

Its highest station will be in Nagqu, a town at an altitude of 4,500 meters in the rolling grasslands of the Tibetan plateau. 

According to Xinhua, the highest point on the line is 5,072 meters, which the government says is a world record.


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## hkskyline

*Germany's Siemens to Provide 72 Cars for Shanghai Subway*

SHANGHAI, Oct 21 Asia Pulse - Siemens has been contracted to deliver 72 new cars for the Shanghai Subway Co. by 2007.

Siemens signed the deal in association with its Chinese partner Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Plant. The deal also includes the renovation of the former 24 subway cars it made for Shanghai Subway, which would add the number of carriages from six to eight for each car.

The new subway cars' carrying capacity will reach 2,480 passengers each from the present 1,860 passengers a car each.

Siemens is not only a provider for Shanghai's subway cars, but also the metropolitan's subway signal, power supply and telecommunications systems. It signed a contract to provide Shanghai's No. 2 Subway Line with 168 subway cars in 2002.

(XIC)


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## hkskyline

*Shenyang to Build 6 Subway Lines in Next 10 Years *
21 October 2005
SinoCast China Business Daily News

cSHENYANG, October 21, SinoCast -- Chen Zhenggao, mayor of Shenyang City of northeastern China's Liaoning Province, said that the city planned to complete construction of six subway lines in the next ten years or more time. 

Mr. Shen told journalists that preparation works for the first phase project of the Subway No.1 Line would be completed by the end of this October and the Phase I project of the Subway No.2 Line would be launched in 2006. 

Then Shenyang will successively start construction of the rest four lines. The mayor explained that it would not be convenient for people if there were only one or two subway lines. 

Rapid economic development in Shenyang will support subway construction there. In the first nine months of this year, GDP of the whole city reached CNY 158.6 billion with a year-on-year growth of 15.7%, fiscal revenues topped CNY 12.32 billion with a year-on-year growth of 28.4%. 

The city aims to control subway construction cost within CNY 430 million per kilometer.


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## hkth

*Translating from Hong Kong Railway Discussion Board,*

The Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway Coporation (GSRC) is starting to replace the paper tickets into IC Cards (Intellgent Cards) today. The IC Cards have both Single-Ride and Multi-Ride Cards. 

*Four Phases for transforming into IC Card,
First Phase:* Only the last departure;
*Second Phase:* 3 north bound and 3 south bound departures at night;
*Third Phase:* Extend to most departures at night;
*Last Phase (At around Nov 27):* All high-speed trains between GZ and SZ use IC Cards.


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## hkskyline

*MTR to seek US$370.85m loan to help fund Beijing rail link *
18 October 2005
China Daily 

Hong Kong-listed MTR Corp Ltd will seek a three billion yuan (US$370.85 million) loan with State-owned partner Beijing Capital Group after winning approval from the National Development and Reform Commission to build and operate a rail link running across the center of Beijing. 

Richard Wong, MTR's general manager said 735 million yuan of the total investment will come from internal funds and the remaining 3.03 billion yuan will come from project financing. 

MTR and Beijing Capital will each hold 49 percent in the venture developing the project, with municipal government-owned Beijing Infrastructure holding 2 percent. 

The Beijing municipal government will pay for 70 percent, or about 10.7 billion yuan, of the project's total cost of 15.3 billion yuan. 

The remainder, about 4.6 billion yuan, will be borne by the joint venture, of which 66 percent will come from bank loans and the rest from shareholders, Wong said.


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## hkskyline

*Shenzhen RMB50 billion to improve subway and public transport *
26 October 2005

Shenzhen City Deputy-mayor Zhang Si-ping reveals that the Shenzhen city government is planning to invest RMB50 billion to further improve transport networks in the city. These transport networks include subway and bus transport. 

Among all public transport network, about RMB37 billion will be invested in subways which include Metro No. 4 Phase II, currently under construction by Mass Transit Railway Corp. (MTRC). The subway is scheduled to complete by 2010. The RMB37 billion of work is estimated to give Shenzhen 150km of subway by 2010. The Metro No. 4 Phase II requires an investment of RMB6 billion. It is expected to start operation in 2008. It connects to Kowloon Canton Railway Corp. (KCRC) and Lok Ma Chau railway line in Hong Kong. 

Shenzhen Bus Group, a joint venture of Kowloon Motor Bus and the Shenzhen City Public Transport Group, is required to meet the following standard by 2007: 

1) reducing customer complaints by 50%. 

2) increasing network coverage to 98% 

3) adding 20 new bus routes. 

4) improving bus outlook. 

5) bringing in 200 big buses. 

6) using electronic bus route map and display. 

7) reducing bus accidents and inappropriate incidents. 

All these are set and done with a purpose of raising public transport management and service quality. Shenzhen city government has invested RMB1.1 billion into the joint venture. KMB, on the other hand, invests RMB500 million to take a 35% equity stake. 

Wen Wei Po


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## hkskyline

*China plans to list part of rail network - FT *

LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - China wants to list part of its rail network on domestic or overseas stock markets within the next two years, a government official said in comments published on Tuesday.

Speaking to Britain's Financial Times, Huang Min, chief economist at China's railway ministry, said foreign investors will be able to take minority stakes in national lines and majority or full ownership of local railways.

"I hope overseas companies will think this is an opportunity and will invest and take a direct role in operations," he told the newspaper in a report on its Web site (http://www.ft.com).

"We will encourage the entities with the best market efficiency to list, including on overseas markets. This will happen next year or the year after."

The initial public offerings would help fund proposed railway investment worth $248 billion up to 2020, the report said.


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## hkskyline

*GE wins deal to supply 300 train locomotives to China *

WASHINGTON, Nov 1 (AFP) - US conglomerate General Electric Co. said Tuesday it had won a big contract to supply 300 train locomotives to China to help in the booming country's bid to modernise its vast rail network. 

GE said it had signed the contract worth more than 450 million dollars with the Chinese Railways Ministry to supply the 6,000-horsepower locomotives in cooperation with the Qishuyan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works. 

"We are excited and pleased to advance our presence in the rail industry in China," said John Dineen, chief executive of GE Infrastructure's rail business, in a statement. 

The deal "will open new lines of revenue, give us a larger installed base outside of North America and enable GE to better compete to replace China's current fleet of 6,500 mainline locomotives over the next 15 years", he said. 

Delivery of the locomotives is planned to start in 2007 and end in 2009. 

The Railways Ministry Tuesday outlined plans to list parts of China's vast but creaking rail network on global stock markets to raise some of the 250 billion dollars it needs over the next 15 years for renovation and expansion. 

Although investment has poured into China's roads and airports, its laggard railway system has not kept pace, causing holdups at the country's ports and lengthy delays in the delivery of commodities.


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## hkskyline

*Phase 2 Project of Shenzhen Metro Line 4 Starts Construction *

SHENZHEN, November 08, SinoCast -- The second phase project of 16-kilometer Shenzhen Metro Line 4, developed by MTR Corporation Limited, has started construction, which will link the city center and "Longhua central district". 

After it is operational, Hong Kong people will be able to get to Longhua by subway, and then go to Shenzhen airport, or they even can directly arrive in Shanghai by train from Shenzhen, said an official from Shenzhen Planning Bureau. 

Shenzhen will set up its new railway station in Longhua Town, which is the crossing point of Beijing-Guangzhou-Shenzhen and Hangzhou-Fuzhou-Shenzhen railway lines. The six trunk roads under construction or will be constructed will connect Longhua too. 

Insiders from the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region said express railways between Hong Kong and Guangdong Province is forming, and midway stop will be located in Longhua District, which will drive more Hong Kong people to buy properties there. 

It is estimated that population in Longhua will swell to 830,000 from current 430,000 in ten years.


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## hkskyline

*14 Chinese Cities Plan 1,500 Km of Urban Railway Lines *
10 November 2005

Fourteen Chinese cities have so far presented plans for developing urban railway networks comprising a total 55 lines with a combined length of 1,500 km and total investments standing at 500 bln Chinese yuan ($61.8 bln/52.6 bln euro), the China Communications and Transportation Association said.

Nine Chinese cities had urban railway lines with a total length of over 400 km as of February 2005, including 293 km of underground lines. The nine cities were Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Changchun, Dalian, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Nanjing.

There are over 40 Chinese cities with a population of over one million. More than 30 of these cities have started building urban railway lines or are carrying out preliminary construction works.

Chinese cities have invested 200 bln yuan ($24.7 bln/21 bln euro) in urban railway projects in the period 2001 to 2005. By 2010, cities in China will have urban railway networks with a total length of over 1,000 km.

http://www.sinoprojects.net


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## hkskyline

*MTR expected to get Beijing No.10 Subway Line *
11 November 2005

MTR Corporation (MTR) is expected to reach an agreement with Beijing City Government to build the Beijing No.10 Subway Line. This is MTR's another major project in China after it has secured a subway and property development project to build the Shenzhen No.4 Metro Line.

The Beijing No.10 Subway Line has a total length of 32.9km and 28 stations. The construction will be divided into two phases. The first phase of construction, involving 24.585km of subway length, will have 22 subway stations. The second phase of construction connects the No.10 Subway Line with the No.5 Subway Line at Songjiazhuang station. Another part of the No.10 Subway Line in the second phase is a westward extension from Xitou Wanliu Station to Nanding Station.

Although details of the Beijing No.10 Subway Line is not revealed, it is believed that the No.10 Subway Line will not have property development rights attached.

Hong Kong Commercial Daily News


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## hkskyline

*Shinkansen on track for China network *
Kazumasa Higashi
Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
22 November 2005

China will buy Shinkansen Hayate trains made and marketed by a consortium of six Japanese companies for a 12,000-kilometer high-speed railway network expected to cost more than 10 trillion yen, it was learned Monday. 

Germany's Siemens AG's InterCity Express (ICE) trains also will be used in the project. The Chinese Railway Ministry has decided to purchase 60 ICE trains, each with eight cars, and plans to reach a contract with the Japanese consortium for 60 Hayate trains soon, sources said. Trains will travel at up to 300 kph on the network. 

The six firms are Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., Hitachi, Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Mitsubishi Corp., Itochu Corp. and Marubeni Corp. 

Although Japan, France and Germany competed to have trains used exclusively in the network, the Shinkansen and ICE models will almost certainly both be used, the sources said. A French high-speed model called the TGV train was not adopted. 

The Shinkansen train will make its maiden run on the railway system in China in 2008 at the earliest. 

Construction of the high-speed railway network includes a project to connect Beijing with Shanghai. The Japanese government has urged China to adopt the Shinkansen model for this section, but it is unclear if the Shinkansen train will run between Beijing and Shanghai. 

The ministry sounded out the Japanese firms and Siemens for the purchase in October, the sources said. The ministry likely will urge Japan, Germany and other nations to supply other project components, such as railway signals, for individual lines.


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## hkskyline

*Central China industrial city to build subway next year *
24 November 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

WUHAN, November 24 (CEIS) -- Construction on two subway projects is expected to begin next year in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province. 

The two railway lines, one about 27 km long and the other about 16 km, will both include tunnels across the Yangtze River, which will greatly alleviate the traffic load on the existing bridges. 

Located at the juncture of the Yangtze River and Han Rivers, the city is segmented into three towns and traffic relies heavily on the aboveground transportation networks. 

Wuhan has more than 640,000 motor vehicles in the main urban area, or 99.6 automobiles per 1, 000 people, a rate three times higher than the national average, which has become a heavy burden for Wuhan's two major bridges above the Yangtze River. 

The city put a light-track system into operation last year. Moreover, a 70-km subway plan has been mapped out with a total investment of 26 billion yuan (some 3.2 billion US dollars) to help ease the transportation bottleneck. 

The first two subway projects have been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission and are now open for investments from both at home and abroad, said Miao Yu, Wuhan city committee CPC Secretary. 

With a population of over 8 million, Wuhan is the center of five railway tentacles, six expressways, and several highways. The city serves as the gateway to China's hinterlands and is nicknamed the "thoroughfare to nine provinces".


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## hkskyline

*World's fastest subway car to debut in South China city *
22 November 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

GUANGZHOU, November 22 (CEIS) -- Three high-speed subway cars at 120 km per hour, the fastest ever in the world, are expected to be in service next month in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province. 

Sources from Guangzhou Metro Corp. (GMC) said that the three new cars just got off the production line last week and are expected to debut on the first section of the newly-built metro line 3 in Guangzhou which is to operate on December 26. 

A joint product of China's electric locomotive power -- China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation (CSR) and Germany's Siemens AG, the new car is specially designed for Guangzhou's metro lines, said the GMC. 

According to the GMC, each subway car will have only three compartments at the earlier operation period with a total length of 60 meters, which is capable to seat 675 passengers. Each compartment will have six public information screens. 

The speed of these cars will reach 80 km per hour during the trial operation period and then to hit 120 km per hour after adjustment, said the GMC. 

Guangzhou is busy this year in construction of seven new subways in addition to its original two. By 2010, the subway network in Guangzhou will be about 255 km long.


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## Monkey

^ Impressive!


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## hkskyline

*Shenyang Subway Line 1 Begins Construction *
25 November 2005
China Industry Daily News

The Shenyang city's Subway Line 1 Project began construction on November 18th, the Xinhua website reported on Tuesday. The project is carried out by the China Rail 9 Group and China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group Co. Ltd, which are under China Railway Engineering Corporation. 

The 22.05-kilometer Subway Line 1 has a total investment of 9.48 billion yuan. It starts from the Shenyang Economic Development Area, ends at the Liming Cultural Palace, passing the Shenyang Economic Development Area, Yuhong District, Tiexi District, Heping District, Shenhe District and Dadong District. The Subway Line 1 has 18 states, with maximum speed of 80 Km/h and average speed of 35 Km/h. 

The project will last for 54 months, and will be put into use in May 2010. Daily delivery capacity is expected to reach more than 300,000 passengers.


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## hkskyline

*Construction of rail route linking to Shanghai World Expo venue underway *

SHANGHAI, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Construction of the No. 7 rail line was kicked off in Shanghai, which will be linking to the venue of the 2010 World Expo. 

The construction started at the Jing'an Temple station on the 35 km long rail line Friday. Upon completion by the end of 2009, the rail system will shoulder the transportation of one sixth of passenger flow to the Shanghai World Expo., or about 120,000 to 150,000 people in 2010. 

There will be 28 stations along the rail line. Twenty-six subway trains are designed to work on the route offering shuttle transportation at an interval of three minutes. 

The east China metropolis, with a population of nearly 14 million, is undertaking eight urban rail projects, which will add 389 km-long metro and light-rail lines by 2012.


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## hkskyline

*Rail passenger transportation exceeds one billion *
28 November 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, November 28 (CEIS) – By November 21, Chinese railway had transported over one billion passengers, the best performance ever reported since 1990, sources of the Ministry of Railway disclosed. 

In the 10-day Golden week in May Day this year, Chinese railway transported 38.577 million passengers, 2.126 million more than in the same period of 2004. While the passenger transportation in the 10-day Golden Week in the National Day came to 38.442 million, an increase of 1.842 million. On October 1, the number of passenger transported reached 4.549 million, the highest since the founding of the People’ s Republic of China. 

By November 23, Chinese railway had transported 1.006 billion passengers, 29.06 million more or up 3 percent year on year; the average daily passenger transport was 3.075 million, an increase of 98,000 or up 3.3 percent.


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## hkskyline

*Beijing - Europe Silk Railway*

*Beijing backs plan for silk railroad link to Europe *
Jeremy Page Dostyk, Kazakhstan 
The Times 
6 December 2005

WORK has begun on a high-speed rail link that is expected to rejuvenate the ancient Silk Road trade route between East and West. 

The 4000km rail link to the western borders of Kazakhstan will become the fastest land route between Asia and Europe. 

When completed in 2010, the $US5billion ($6.7billion) Iron Silk Road project will take freight, and eventually passengers, from China to Europe via Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey in just 10 days, its proponents say. 

The Eurasia Land Bridge will also strengthen China's hand as it battles with Russia and the US for influence in Central Asia in a modern version of the 19th-century "Great Game". 

Looking at a map of the world, the railway seems logical enough. Kazakhstan sits at its very heart, a huge expanse of flat desert and grassland stretching all the way from China to the Caspian Sea. 

"Building here is easy; you won't see a mountain for hundreds of kilometres," said Kanat Zhangaskin, vice-president of Kazakhstan's national railway company. "It makes perfect sense to reopen this ancient trade route." 

At the moment, most of the estimated pound stg. 120billion ($280billion) of goods traded between China and Europe is transported by sea, which usually takes 40 days, or on the Trans-Siberian railway, which takes 15 days. 

The Chinese Government is trying to move manufacturing to its western hinterland to remove a dangerous income disparity with its eastern seaboard and exploit new markets in Central Asia. 

Chinese President Hu Jintao has given the Kazakh project his personal backing and state-controlled Chinese companies have pledged billions of dollars in investment. China is also spending $US750million to upgrade its own line to Kazakhstan's border. 

The only snag in the plan is the route west from Kazakhstan. The favoured route now is to duck south into Turkmenistan, through Iran and into Turkey, which offers the added advantage of a potential link to the Persian Gulf. That depends to a large extent on the questionable political stability of Iran and Turkmenistan. 

But Mr Zhangaskin is not deterred. He argues that Kazakhstan needs the railway for itself to transport oil and minerals to China's vast markets. "The trade flow is already rising. We need it fast." 

The Iron Silk Road joins other transcontinental lines 

* The most famous is the Trans-Siberian, completed more than 100 years ago. It is a vital east-west freight artery 

* The Canadian Pacific runs from Montreal to Vancouver 

* Amtrak runs a trans-American service from Chicago to the Pacific 

* South Africa's luxurious Blue Train still makes regular runs from Pretoria to Cape Town 

* One transcontinental line became a reality only two years ago, a century after it was planned: the Ghan, which crosses the Australian desert from Adelaide to Darwin


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## hkskyline

*China railway will carry 143.9 mln passengers during traditional holiday *
2 December 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, December 2 (CEIS) -- With Spring Festival still two months away, China is gearing up its railway network for an expected 143.9 million passengers, up 3.1 percent from the same period last year. 

China's Ministry of Railways has identified a 40-day period -- from Jan. 14 to Feb. 22 -- as the peak travel season. 

Daily passenger flow is expected to reach 3.6 million, an increase of 110,000 from 2004, said the ministry. 

Chinese people celebrate the Lunal New Year, or the traditional Spring Festival by returning home for an annual family re-union. Every year the nation's transportation system is pushed to its limits as millions of Chinese flock back home and then return to their jobs over a two-week holiday period. 

Trains, popular for their safety record and low costs, are the first choice for the majority of the holiday travelers, including many rural migrant workers and college students. 

This year, the Railway Ministry will arrange 216 temporary express trains to cope with the passenger traffic.


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## sharpie20

geez...so many stories not enough time to read :eek2:


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## evangelistik

Has China decided on which railway system it would implement to connect the two cities of Beijing and Shanghai? Last I heard, they were interested in TransRapid, Alstom, and the Shinkansen.

Any news?


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## Monkey

^ According to post #40 they are going for the Japanese and German systems.


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## hkskyline

*China city tramlines to reach 5,000 km *
7 December 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

SHENZHEN, December 7 (CEIS) -- Twenty five Chinese cities have marked out tramline networks, totaling 5,000 km, with investment topping 800 billion yuan (about 100 billion US dollars), according to sources with the seminar on city tram traffic held in Shenzhen of south China's Guangdong Province. 

Ten cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have already set up tram traffic networks, and all of which have got finance support from the State Development Bank. 

The State Development Bank has promised to offer more than 60 billion yuan (7.5 billion US dollars) in loans by November, 2005, as finance support for tram traffic construction. 

Seminar participants hold that city tram traffic equipment, in the category of public facilities, produce few economic returns. Experts suggest that Chinese mainland cities can refer to the Hong Kong experience of tramline development. 

The seminar was hosted by the State Development Bank and the Hong Kong metro Co.Ltd.


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## hkskyline

*China's Planned Urban Rail Transit Mileage Reaches 5,000KM *
9 December 2005
SinoCast China Business Daily News 

BEIJING, December 09, SinoCast -- At present, 25 Chinese cities have mapped out rail traffic network plans related to totally up to 5,000 kilometers of mileage, which include the lines having been built in ten cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. 

And the total investment to be involved is estimated to exceed CNY 800 billion, according to a recent symposium on investment and financing pattern for China's urban rail transit construction held in southern city of Shenzhen. 

China Development Bank(CDB), one of the country's policy financial institutions, has already provided financing support for urban rail traffic projects to ten cities in these years. 

However, because such commonweal facility projects can hardly yield high economic benefit, the domestic investments in this field are still in a huge shortage. 

For this problem, the symposium introduced the successful experience in terms of overall planning, comprehensive development and professional management of rail traffic projects well-performed by Hong Kong-based MTR Corporation Limited, who is one of a few underground railway operators in the world being able to make lucrative businesses presently.


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## hkskyline

*Direct Beijing-Lhasa train available for travelers next July *
12 December 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, December 12 (CEIS) -- It will take travelers only 48 hours by direct train trip from Beijing to Lhasa, capital of west China's Tibet Autonomous Region as of July 1 next year, a railway official said. 

Travelers can enjoy the world-class tourist sites along the newly- built line during the 48-hour direct railway trip, including the Qinghai Lake," said Zhang Shuguang, director of the Transportation Bureau with China's Ministry of Railways. 

The new railway line will be operational at the Beijing's West Railway Station from July 1, 2006, the official said, adding that key parts of the line, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, had been completed on Oct. 12 this year. 

Qinghai-Tibet section of the railway is the world's highest railway, the official said, adding that some 960 kilometers of the tracks were laid at 4,000 meters above sea level, with the highest parts reaching 5,072 meters. 

The railway is still the world's longest plateau railroad which extends 1,956 kilometers from Qinghai's provincial capital Xining to Lhasa in Tibet. The Golmud-Lhasa section, completed on Oct. 12 this year, zigzags 1,142 kilometers across the Kunlun and Tanggula mountain ranges. 

"The Beijing-Lhasa train will run at a speed of 160 km per hour on the plain, but will slow down at 120 km per hour when it reaches the Qinghai-Tibet section" Zhang said. 

According to the official, the trains running on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway are the most advanced ones in China. All the carriages of the trains are installed with oxygen-supplying equipments and every passenger will be provided with an oxygen mask. 

"Passengers will not feel altitude reaction or sickness," he said. 

In addition to Beijing, some other Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, will also launch direct railway passenger transportation to Lhasa as of July 1 next year, Zhang said.


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## hkskyline

*China's last steam engines stop service*
9 December 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

HOHHOT, December 9 (CEIS) -- China's last 27 steam engines stopped service on December 9 at Jitong Railway Section in Hexigten Banner in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Jitong Railway was built in 1995 by the Ministry of Railways and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, stretching for about 1,200 km across the prairie.

At that time, a new steam engine was priced at 300,000 yuan (37, 000 US dollars) and demanded an annual expense of 900,000 yuan (111, 000 dollars). In comparison, an internal-combustion engine cost 4 million yuan (493,800 dollars) together with an annual expense of 2.7 million yuan (333,300 dollars), said Wang Huichuan, general manager of Jitong Railway Company.

Due to limited funding and market capacity, the company chose to purchase steam engines. It owned 126 steam engines in prime time.

In the past ten years, the steam engines raked in remarkable income for the company and the annual revenue increased from 750 million yuan (92.59 million dollars) to 1 billion yuan (123.46 million dollars), Wang said.

Steam engines, born about 180 years ago, were regarded as important symbols of modern industrialization, but they were inevitably substituted by internal-combustion engines with modern technology development, said Su Nan, deputy board chairman of Jitong Railway Company.

China's last steam engines were produced in 1986 with 20 years of service term. The retired engines will be used in tourism in the following three years, according to the company.


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## zergcerebrates

hkskyline said:


> *World's fastest subway car to debut in South China city *
> 22 November 2005
> Xinhua's China Economic Information Service
> 
> GUANGZHOU, November 22 (CEIS) -- Three high-speed subway cars at 120 km per hour, the fastest ever in the world, are expected to be in service next month in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.
> 
> Sources from Guangzhou Metro Corp. (GMC) said that the three new cars just got off the production line last week and are expected to debut on the first section of the newly-built metro line 3 in Guangzhou which is to operate on December 26.
> 
> A joint product of China's electric locomotive power -- China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation (CSR) and Germany's Siemens AG, the new car is specially designed for Guangzhou's metro lines, said the GMC.
> 
> According to the GMC, each subway car will have only three compartments at the earlier operation period with a total length of 60 meters, which is capable to seat 675 passengers. Each compartment will have six public information screens.
> 
> The speed of these cars will reach 80 km per hour during the trial operation period and then to hit 120 km per hour after adjustment, said the GMC.
> 
> Guangzhou is busy this year in construction of seven new subways in addition to its original two. By 2010, the subway network in Guangzhou will be about 255 km long.



By 2010 will they have more length than that of HK metro? I really have no clue the overall length of HK's network.


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## philip

hkskyline said:


> According to the official, the trains running on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway are the most advanced ones in China. All the carriages of the trains are installed with oxygen-supplying equipments and every passenger will be provided with an oxygen mask. .


That is so wicked COOL !!!


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## hkskyline

*Guangzhou Subway Fares Set to Drop *
By Zheng Caixiong
13 December 2005
China Daily

GUANGZHOU: Subway fares could be cut in the Guangdong provincial capital in the coming months. 

Guangzhou Municipal Price Bureau held a public meeting yesterday morning to discuss prices for the metro service in Guangzhou. 

Proposals that would favour people travelling longer distances were agreed, according to Lan Lan, an official with Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Price. 

Guangzhou Metro Corporation had offered three proposals for its shake-up of fares earlier this year amid growing calls from residents to cut the price of tickets. All three plans would offer cheaper prices overall to their underground passengers. 

The preferred third option still has to wait for final approval from Guangzhou municipal government, Lan told China Daily yesterday. 

She said her bureau transferred the result of the hearing to upper authorities for final review and approval after yesterday' meeting. 

According to the third plan, metro passengers will pay an initial 2 yuan (US$25 cents) within 4 kilometres and increase 1 yuan (US$12 cents) for every 4 kilometres after that. 

Fares will increase by 1 yuan (US$12 cents) for every 6 kilometres after travelling 12 kilometres, and 1 yuan (US$12 cents) for every 8 kilometres after 24 kilometres. 

"That indicates the longer distance passengers will take, the more preferential prices will be given to them after the new plan is introduced in the future," Lan said. 

Under the new system, passengers will pay only 5 yuan (US$62 cents) to complete the current 13-station Metro Line One a 1 yuan (US$12 cents) reduction from the current fare. 

Guangzhou Metro Line began in 1997 and runs from Fangcun District in the western part of the city, crossing the Pearl River, to end in Guangzhou Tianhe Railway Station. 

More than 100 government officials, experts and local residents' representatives attended the hearing yesterday. They included Shen Zhichao, director of Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Price and the senior executives from Guangzhou Metro Corporation. 

Many local residents yesterday praised the proposed cuts. 

Wu Shanyin, a housewife, said Guangzhou's metro fares could be reduced because they have been higher than those in Beijing and Shanghai. 

"The monthly income of Guangzhou residents has not been more than their friends and relatives in Beijing and Shanghai," Wu told China Daily. 

Hu Zhaoguang, an office worker, said the price reduction would benefit both the metro company and passengers. 

He hoped the metro system would further improve after the fare cuts. 

Hu, 39, who works in a foreign-funded company, mainly uses the underground to reach his office in Tianhe District, a new business centre in Guangzhou. 

One executive at Guangzhou Metro Corportation, who refused to be named, said profits would not be hit by the reduction as more passengers would be encouraged to use the subway. 

There are currently two metro lines in Guangzhou. 

Metro Line Two, which started service in 2002 and runs from the south to north, connects with the Metro Line One that operates from east to west in Gongyuanqian. 

The city's metro service attracts more than 1.5 million passengers every year. 

Guangzhou municipal government plans to construct up to seven metro lines to form a comprehensive underground network in the coming years to try to reduce congestion on the roads. 

It would see the total length of the city's metro tracks reach more than 500 kilometres.


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## hkskyline

*Beijing-Shanghai Railway ready for speed-raise shortening trip to 7 hours *
13 December 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, December 13 (CEIS) -- Beijing railway authority said here on December 13 that it has finished the renovation of the Beijing-Shanghai railway and got ready for next year's speed raise. 

Sources from the No. 6 Bureau of the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) that the tacks of 200-kilometer Beijing section of the Beijing-Shanghai railway has all been replaced by Tuesday morning, increasing the speed to 200 kilometers per hour from 160 kilometers per hour. 

China plans to launch its sixth speed-raise in national railways in 2006, a marked step to increase its transport capacity in the railway sector. 

Renovation of the 1462-km Beijing-Shanghai railway, one of the busiest in China, was started in May this year, with most switches and tracks replaced to meet the demand for accelerated speed trains. 

The CREC said the new round speed raise next year will shorten the trip from Beijing to Shanghai from the current 13.5 hours to 7 hours.


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## mopc

I especially liked that Beijing-Lhasa train!!! What a journey that must be!


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## hkskyline

*MTR Expected to Participate in Wuhan Subway Operation *
21 December 2005

WUHAN, December 21, SinoCast -- Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, Central China, wants to invite Hong Kong's subway operator Mass Transit Railway Corp. (MTR)to participate in investment, construction and operation of Wuhan Subway as the first phase project of the No.1 Line of Wuhan Railway Traffic has to suffer a huge loss of CNY 350,000. 

Wuhan completed construction of Phase I project of the No.1 Line of the light rail with a total length of 10 kilometers in July 2004 and planned to reach daily passenger throughput of 210,000 people time. 

However, daily passenger throughput reaches just more than 10,000 people time every day. Total costs on operation of Phase I project of the No.1 Line of the light rail are approximately CNY 550,000. Phase II project of the No.1 Line of the light rail started construction on December 15, 2005. 

MTR, the world's only profitable subway operator, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Wuhan Municipal Government this May and has spent CNY 15 million on early-stage market research. 

The Wuhan subway project, with a total investment of more than CNY 26 billion, has been agreed by the State Development and Reform Commission, China's macro-economy regulator, and is now waiting for the approval from the State Council, the country's cabinet. 

Yin Zengtao, vice secretary of Wuhan Municipal Committee, told journalists that No.2 Line of the Wuhan Subway through the Yangtze River would start construction firstly. 

Wuhan obtained fiscal revenues of over CNY 30 billion in 2004 and its fiscal revenues cannot support subway construction. Demands for investments in urban infrastructure construction sharply rise in recent years. Investments in urban infrastructure construction reached CNY 3.8 billion in 2003 and CNY 10 billion in 2004 and are expected to arrive at CNY 1.3 billion. 

The city started construction of more than 400 projects in 2004 and investments in the Tianxingzhou Bridge and cross-river tunnels hit over CNY 1 billion. 

China's subway construction is now in full swing. The Chinese government plans to build 5000-kilometer subway lines with total investments of more than CNY 800 billion in 25 cities. 

Currently, ten cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen own already-built subways throughout the country. China Development Bank has extended loans to domestic cities to support their subway construction. The bank has promised to provide loans of more than CNY 60 billion and had extended loans of over CNY 40 billion by the end of this November. 

Urban railway traffic such as light rail vehicles is commonweal facilities not intended to earn money and needs huge investments. Industry analysts suggested that domestic subway construction should learn from Hong Kong subway construction and operation. 

MTR reached an agreement on January 15, 2004 to build and operate Shenzhen Phase II of the No.4 Line for 30 years. The 20.5-kilometer No.4 Line will run from Huanggang, on the boundary between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, to the center of Longhua New Town. 

The test segment of the second phase project of Shenzhen Subway No.4 Line started construction on November 4, 2005. The No.4 Line is a north-to-south line with 15 stations will be a main route between Hong Kong and Shenzhen in the future. MTR makes a total investment of CNY 6 billion in the Phase II project. 

(USD 1 = CNY 8.0730)


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## hkskyline

*China's electrified railway mileage ranks world's third *
29 December 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, December 29 (CEIS) -- China's electrified railway mileage has surpassed 20,000 kilometers, ranking the third in the world after Russia and Germany, the Beijing Daily said in a report published on December 28. 

China achieved the goal with the recent completion of a 625-km electrified railway line which links Chongqing in southwest China and Huaihua in central China's Hunan Province. 

By the end of 2005, China has completed construction of 43 electrified railway lines with a total length of 20,132 km, the report said. 

China began to build its first electrified railway line, the Baoji-Fengzhou railway line, in 1958.


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## hkskyline

*Subway expansion completed in Tianjin, trial operation due next March *
29 December 2005
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

TIANJIN, December 29 (CEIS) -- The No. 1 subway expansion project in Tianjin, the largest port city in north China, which was completed on December 28, will begin trial operation on March 28, 2006. 

A test run was conducted on the newly completed subway tracks on December 28, sources from Tianjin Subway Corporation said. 

Tianjin is China's second city built with a subway system. But because of low construction standards, the old subway failed to play a key role in diverting passenger flows after it was put into traffic in 1984. 

The expansion project, which began in November 2002, was carried out on the basis of the outdated 7.4 km subway section. With a budget of 7.8 billion yuan (about 962 million U.S. dollars), the expanded subway is 26.2 km long and is built with 22 stops, including eight elevated open-air stops and one ground stop. Each stop is installed with automatic ticket vending machines. 

A corporate spokesman predicted the expanded subway system, which connects six administrative districts from north to south, would haul 48,100 journeys an hour at most. 

According to him, Tianjin will plan to build six new tracked routes in the years to come and by the year of 2050, the city will have a tracked transport network with its length totaling 154 km. 

At present, the city's second and third subway projects, with a combined budget of 20 billion yuan (2.47 billion U.S. dollars), are under preparation. 

Subway service is now available in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, as well as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, both in south China's Guangdong Province.


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## mopc

China is going fast!!!


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## hkskyline

*China to invest $20 bln in railways in 2006 *

BEIJING, Jan 6 (Reuters) - China plans to invest 160 billion yuan ($19.8 billion) in railway construction in 2006, but is still likely to face problems with transportation bottlenecks over the next five years, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

"China's large-scale railway construction will boom over the next five years. Shortages in transportation capacity will remain and development of the transportation market is not mature," Xinhua quoted Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun as saying.

However the ministry would make transporting key commodities, such as coal, oil, grain and fertilizer, a priority.

It also planned to raise the speed of trains for the sixth time in October, it said.

China's rail and shipping networks have struggled to keep up with the country's fast-growing economy, which expanded 9.8 percent in 2004 according to recently revised figures.

Foreign companies such as France's Alstom, German conglomerate Siemens AG, Canada's Bombardier Inc. and Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries are all vying to sell railway equipment and expertise to China. 

($1=8.063 Yuan)


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## hkskyline

*Shanghai Metro Line No. 4 opens, few riders *
1 January 2006
Shanghai Daily

Metro Line No. 4 went into operation yesterday, connecting the city's first three metro lines and providing a new link between Pudong and Puxi. 

About 30,000 people took the line on the first day of operations, said the Shanghai Metro Operation Company. 

The figure was far below the expected passenger flow of 150,000 people a day, but officials attributed it to the new line's late opening at 8:45am, well after the start of morning rush hour. 

Starting today, the line will run on a normal schedule with the first trains heading out at around 6am. 

Metro operators also noted that many companies were closed yesterday for the New Year, which cut into passenger numbers. 

Besides, many commuters still didn't know about the new line and are unfamiliar with its route. 

Despite the low number of commuters, many said they are thrilled the line is finally up and running. 

"It will be easy for me to go to work and I won't be delayed by ground traffic congestion," said Hong Yan, who works on Jiangsu Road.


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## hkskyline

*China Rail Company Plans Express to Tibet *
By ELAINE KURTENBACH
9 January 2006

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Banking on the appetite of foreign and newly wealthy Chinese tourists for adventure, with five-star amenities, a Shanghai-based company plans to set up luxury express railway lines to Tibet's Himalayan capital, Lhasa. 

The trains, equipped with king-sized beds, butler service and oxygen canisters to combat effects of the high altitude, will run from major cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, Wei Yumei, director of the publicity department of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Co. said Monday. 

The luxury trains are to run along a recently completed high-altitude route between Xining, in western China's Qinghai province, and Lhasa. 

Wei said that details of the plan could not yet be disclosed because the 50-50 joint venture between her company and Shanghai-based private equity fund TZGPartners, dubbed RailPartners, has not yet been formally approved by the government. 

"Yes, we are cooperating with RailPartners on this project," Wei said. "The project is due to be finished in 2007." 

The trains will have to travel through Xining, the terminus of the 1,220-mile high-altitude line that is Lhasa's only rail link. Completed in October, the 27 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) line is due to begin test runs in July. 

TZG Partners is a private fund set up by foreign investors focused on starting new businesses in the leisure, travel and real estate industries. 

RailPartners' aim, according to the company's Web site, is to create the "most magnificent train" in the world, offering passengers luxury on a par with that found in the best hotels, along with stunning scenery. Three trains are to accommodate 88 passengers each -- 88 being a lucky number symbolizing wealth, according to Chinese tradition. 

The trains, to be built by BSP, a joint venture between China and Canada's Bombardier, are to be designed by SURV, a Shanghai design firm involved in a variety of projects including boutique hotels and yachts, it says. 

The Hong Kong newspaper The Standard reported Monday that RailPartners plans to use a $130 million loan to help finance the project. Wei refused comment on that report. 

The route to Lhasa is one of the world's highest railways, crossing mountain passes up to 16,500 feet high, with about 80 percent of the line above 13,000 feet. 

Earlier reports said the trains would be sealed like aircraft to help protect passengers from the effects of the high altitude. The oxygen canisters would be used to help passengers breathe more easily. 

Travelers to Tibet now must travel by air or over mountain highways often blocked by landslides or snow. 

The railway is intended to promote trade, tourism and investment in the region, helping to ease poverty in one of China's poorest regions. 

It has provoked criticism, however, from activists who contend that ethnic Chinese migrants are more likely to benefit than local Tibetans.


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## hkskyline

*China plans high-speed Beijing-Shanghai rail line: report *

BEIJING, Jan 9 (AFP) - China's railway ministry has given priority to the construction of a Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway line in its five-year plan from 2006-2010, state media reported Monday. 

"During the period, the Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway will take priority in the construction of passenger railways," the Beijing News quoted Rail Minister Liu Zhijun as saying at a planning meeting. 

The project has not received final approval from the central government although the green light could come soon, the paper reported. 

Trains on the new line are expected to travel between 200 and 300 kilometers (120 and 180 miles) an hour, the paper said. The current rail line is 1,462-kilometers long. 

It is unlikely the railway line will use German magnetic levitation technology, but other imported technology is still under discussion, the paper said. 

China aims to have its railroads account for a significant share of its public transport for decades to come, and has announced plans to spend 250 billion dollars over the next 15 years to renovate and expand its network. 

Liu said that up to 185 billion of those dollars would be spent in the coming five years, the paper said. 

Other lines to be built or renovated during the next five years include lines between Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Harbin, Shenyang-Dalian and Lianyungang-Gansu, he said. 

Late last year, China inked a 1.3 billion-euro (1.5 billion dollar) contract for 60 high speed trains from German engineering giant Siemens. 

It also reportedly agreed to buy 60 high speed Hayate-model bullet trains from a Japanese consortium led by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. 

The new trains are expected to be put into use as early as 2008 and spearhead China's efforts to build a faster railway system. 

Germany, Japan, France and the United States have been engaged in high-stakes lobbying efforts for years to sell trains and rail technology to China.


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## hkskyline

*Chinese vice premier stresses railway construction in coming five years *
9 January 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, January 9 (CEIS) -- Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju said here on January 7 that China will step up the construction of railways in the 2006-2010 period to address the transportation bottleneck of the economy. 

Huang said at the national railways working conference that the problem of inadequate railway capacity is expected to be relieved in the coming five years. 

Sources with the railways ministry said that China will not only construct more railway lines during this period, but also plan for large-scale upgrading of train speeds. 

Compared with other means of transportation, Huang said, railways consume less energy but have larger capacity. As the country is facing an energy shortage, railway development should be given priority. 

China said on on January 6 that it will input 160 billion yuan (19. 7 billion US dollars) on railway construction in 2006. Huang said the country will also push the reform of railway financing.


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## hkskyline

*ADB to help China draw up railway system reforms *
11 January 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

MANILA, January 11 (CEIS) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on January 10 said it would conduct a study to help China draw up a policy reform plan for the country's railway passenger and freight transport through a technical assistance grant of 400,000 U.S. dollars. 

The ADB said in a statement that although the passenger and freight transport has continued to grow rapidly over the last two decades, reaching 9 percent and 7.4 percent respectively between 1978 and 2004, China's railway system has lost ground to other modes of transport. 

"In recent years, despite significant progress and notable achievements, China's railways have been unable to meet the increasing demand for passenger and freight transportation," says Manmohan Parkash, an ADB Transport Specialist. 

To remove constraints facing the railways system and to expand the network, the Chinese government has, under its five-year plan for 2001-2005, envisaged building some 6,000 km of new lines to previously unserved areas, providing 3,000 km of double lines, electrifying 5,000 km of key lines to boost capacity, and increasing operating speeds on 5,000 km of lines, the bank said. 

According to the ADB, during 2003-2007, investments in capital construction for the Chinese railways sector are expected to reach450 billion Yuan (about 55.8 billion U.S. dollars). 

"Given the enormous investment requirements and the need for a sound administrative environment, ADB's new TA will help review the passenger and freight demand structure and assist in preparinga reform plan to meet these challenges," Parkash said. 

The bank said that the study will look at the conflicting rolesof meeting social obligations and making profits, competition withother transport modes, and the impacts of urbanization and economic development on transport. 

It will also look at the possibility of innovative passenger and freight transport projects or products to enhance the competitiveness of the railway sector and improve customer satisfaction, it added.


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## hkskyline

*Internet access to be available on Chinese trains *
11 January 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, January 11 (CEIS) -- Multimedia information and Internet access will be available on most Chinese trains in the coming years as high-tech information systems are installed. 

The Beijing Railways Bureau said here on January 11 that the bureau has started a trial operation of such systems in several of its railways. 

According to the bureau, modern information systems, including a multimedia terminals and LAN Internet service, have already been installed on a group of trains running on over 30 railways. 

Information systems were listed as a key project launched by the Ministry of Railways and Qinghua University. 

Qinghua University and Beijing-based Shenzhou Yipin technology company have jointly founded an institute on the study of media information which will focus on China's railway system.


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## hkskyline

*China launches 301 pairs of temporary direct trains for peak travel season *
16 January 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, January 16 (CEIS) -- A record 301 pairs of temporary trains will be launched on China's railways for the peak travel season, according to the Ministry of Railways here on January 13. 

Hu Yadong, vice minister of Railways, said at a press conference on national transportation for the lunar new year that this is 59 pairs more than that for last year's festival, up 24 percent. 

China has identified a 40-day period -- from Jan. 14 to Feb. 22 -- as the peak travel season, while the Spring festival falls on Jan. 29. 

People around China celebrate the Spring Festival as a special occasion for family reunions. For years, the nation's transportation system has been strained during the season, as millions of migrant workers and other Chinese flock back home and then return to the work place in just two weeks. 

The ministry said as the lunar Spring Festival comes not more than one month after the New Year's day, most of the Chinese, including students, migrant workers and other staffs will visit their homes in this short period. 

During the 40 days, the ministry predicted that a total of 141 million people will take trains, up 3.1 percent year-on-year, among which direct passengers account for 63.75 million, up by 7 percent. 

The ministry predicted that the passenger flow will get its before- festival peak of 3.55 million from Jan. 25 to 26, 130,000 passengers more than the same period last year, up 3.8 percent. 

After the festival, the traffic volume of migrant workers, travelers and short-distance passengers will also increase for the reason that most other people have to go to work before the eighth or sixteenth day of the lunar new year.


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## hkskyline

*China heavily invests in railway construction in 2006 *
16 January 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, January 16 (CEIS) – China will invest 160 billion yuan in railway construction in 2006, according to the Ministry of Railways. 

It is learned that the investment will go to the construction of 87 new projects and 38 continued projects, the tracklaying of 376- kilometer-long new railway lines and 1,028-kilometer-long double- track railway lines, and the completion of electric railway lines with a length of 3,860 kilometers. 

The Ministry of Railways said that priority will be given to the intercity rail line between Beijing and Tianjin, the trial operation of Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the opening of the electric railway from Beijing to Shanghai, ensure the capacity expansion projects of the Dalian-Qinhuangdao and Houma-Yueshan railway lines, and the completion of the sixth speed acceleration of passenger trains. 

The ministry will undertake 24 new and continued projects for passenger transportation lines in 2006.


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## hkskyline

*Beijing railways receive Spring Festival passenger flow peak *
26 January 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, January 26 (CEIS) -- Beijing railways expect a soar of daily passenger flow surpassing 300,000 people on January 26, the highest during the Spring Festival rush season. 

Beijing West Railway Station, one of the city's two major railway stations, expects 180,000 passengers who embark their homebound journey from the Chinese capital. 

The municipal railway administration plans to launch 62 temporary trains for the peak, said the Beijing News. 

The tickets for long-distance trains have already been sold out and those for short-distance trains are in great demand. 

The railway station has strengthened control of its waiting room and organized employees to help local police maintain public order. 

In addition, the station has opened more than 240 ticket counters to provide 24-hour service. 

The other major railway station, namely Beijing Railway Station, has put ahead the check-in time by 20 minutes and opened emergency routeways to cope with passenger rush.


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## hkskyline

*Report: Shanghai may extend maglev line to connect airports *
24 January 2006

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Shanghai plans to extend its underused magnetic levitation railway to link the city's two airports, a report said Tuesday, citing government officials. 

The state-run Shanghai Daily said the city authorities hope to get permission from the central government to extend the high-speed line, which runs to the city's eastern suburbs from its Pudong International Airport, to Hongqiao Airport, in the western suburbs. 

The plan would allow travellers to move from one airport to the other -- a distance of about 55 kilometers (35 miles) -- in only about 15 minutes, it cited Xu Zheng, president of the government-owned Shanghai Construction Group, as saying. 

However, a spokesman for the company cast doubt on the proposal, saying he believed Xu had only said there was a "possibility" for such a project. 

"It was just a possibility," said Zhang Lin, spokesman for the Shanghai Construction Group. "There is no approval from the central government at all." 

The current US$1.2 billion rail line is a showcase for Shanghai: the world's only commercial high-speed maglev, with a top speed of 430 kilometers per hour (270 miles per hour). But it runs well under capacity, both because ticket prices are relatively high and because its terminus is awkwardly located and lacks convenient public transport links. 

Officials earlier denied reports that the government had approved plans to use German-developed maglev technology to link Shanghai with Hangzhou, a city to the southwest. 

The Shanghai Daily said the extended maglev line would run from the current terminus in Pudong through the site of the Shanghai World Expo, planned for 2010. 

Routes and other details have not yet been decided, the report cited Xu as saying. It said officials would not give cost estimates for what would be a multibillion-dollar project.


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## hkskyline

*About 678 million passengers take Beijing subway in 2005 *
2 January 2006
Xinhua News Agency

BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese capital witnessed a new record in subway traffic in 2005, with the total passenger flow growing 11.8 percent year on year to 678 million. 

The average daily transportation volume of Beijing's subway system reached 1.86 million in 2005, according to Monday's Beijing Youth Daily. 

The Beijing Municipal Subway Operation Corporation, which runs the subway system, was quoted as promising better services this year. 

Beijing now has 54 km of subway under operation and plans to build another 140 km in the near future.


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## hkskyline

*Chinese railways carry more direct long-distance passengers *
9 February 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, February 9 (CEIS)-- An increasing number of Chinese long- distance travelers chose railways as the means for their return to work places after the traditional Spring Festival family reunion. 

According to statistics from the Ministry of Railways, the Chinese railways carried some 1.956 million direct long-distance passengers on Feb. 8 alone, some 30,000 more than the passenger flow on the peak day of last year. 

The ministry said more long-distance passengers were expected to take trains on February 9. 

On Feb. 8, which witnessed a total passenger flow of 4.181 million, the ministry launched 712 temporary trains, 414 of which were direct long-distance ones. 

By Feb. 8, the daily railway passenger flow had remained above the four million mark for seven consecutive days. The number of direct long-distance travelers has kept growing since it reached 1.8 million on Feb. 3. 

During the peak travel days around the Spring Festival, or the Chinese lunar new year that fell on Jan. 29 this year, the ministry suspended a large number of short-distance trains and launched more long-distance ones.


----------



## Cantonese




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## hkth

Xinhua news:
*Railways carry 103 mln passengers in 28 days** 
2006-02-11 22:44:36 *

BEIJING, Feb. 11(Xinhuanet)-- More than 103 million passengers were carried by the country's railways from Jan. 14 to Feb. 10, reported the Ministry of Railways on Saturday.

Beginning Jan. 29 this year, the Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, is a time for family reunions. The Spring Festival travel rush began on Jan. 14 and will be end on Feb. 11.

About 44.9 million passengers used medium-range or long-distance trains, up 9.3 percent year-on-year.

To handle the passenger traffic, the ministry brought in 14,124temporary trains, up 19 percent compared with the similar period last year.

Feb. 4, the seventh day of the new year, witnessed a total passenger flow of 4.34 million, the largest number for a single day.

The railways carried some 1.956 million passengers on medium-range and long-distance trips on Feb. 8, some 30,000 more than the peak day of last year.

By Feb. 8, the daily railway passenger flow had remained over 4million for seven consecutive days.

On average the railways carried about 3.502 million passengers per day leading up to New Year's Day, up 10 percent year-on-year. About 3.882 million passengers took railways since New Year's Day, the same as last year.


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## hkskyline

*China's railways report passenger increase *

BEIJING, Feb 12, 2006 (AFP) - China's extensive railway network saw a 3.3 percent increase in ridership last year, transporting 1.15 billion passengers, despite growing competition from planes and buses, state media said Sunday. 

The Ministry of Railways said the passenger load marked a 10-year high, according to the Xinhua news agency. 

Of the total, about 434.5 million passengers took long-distance trips, up 6.9 percent year-on-year. 

Railways also transported 2.6 billion tons of freight, up 8.2 percent compared with 2004. 

This included 1.3 billion tons of coal, a 10.8 percent increase from last year, and 153 million tons of oil, a 7.5 percent increase. 

Trains remain the primary form of transportation in China despite a booming aviation industry that sees many more people flying than before.


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## hkskyline

*Beijing to continue expanding public transport as priority *
13 February 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

BEIJING, February 13 (CEIS) -- Beijing will continue to expand public transport as a priority during the 11th Five-year Program ( 2006-2010). 

Information from the municipal commission of communications said Beijing will refurbish 4,615 old buses now in service and add 5,000 new ones, bringing the total number of public buses in service to 24, 000 by2010, with air-conditioned public buses making up more than 63 percent of the total. 

In the meantime, 324 old subway train cars will be replaced with new ones and the fleet of subway cars will be increased by 84 new ones, said the sources. 

More investments will be made in the transport sector in the years to come, and investment in public transport and in the overall transport infrastructure will be raised from 35 percent to 50 percent. 

Greater efforts will be made in improving the road network, developing rail transport and large-capacity public transport. The total mileage of roads for public transport in Beijing will amount to 300 km by the year 2010. 

By 2008, the carrying efficiency of roads at rush hours in Beijing will be improved by 40 percent from last year's level. 

The city will also spend 5.16 billion yuan (about 637 million U.S. dollars) to improve transport infrastructure in its rural areas this year. 

Public bus service will be extended to all rural villages in the suburban areas of Beijing in three years, the source said.


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## UD2

Time for a couple pix


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## hkskyline

*China Hastens Subway Approval *

NANJING, February 14, SinoCast -- More than 20 Chinese cities including Xi'an, Dalian, Chongqing, Qingdao and Suzhou are now waiting for approval from the State Council, the all- powerful cabinet, to start railway traffic construction. 

Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, Eastern China, was approved by the State Council by the end of December 2005 for its railway traffic program. 

It plans to build five subway lines including the No.2 Line, Nanyan Line of No.1 Line, Dongyan Line of No.2 Line, Xiyan Line of No.2 Line and No.3 Line. The five lines are 119.3 kilometers long and with an investment budget of CNY 45.313 billion. Total length of subway lines to be built recently is 97.6 kilometers long. The city's No.1 Line started operation on December 3, 2005. 

Shanghai also won the go-ahead for its high-speed track traffic program and Hangzhou, Shenyang, Harbin and Chengdu were also agreed to construct their subways in 2005. 

Shanghai intends to complete construction of subway networks and to increase length to 400 kilometers from the existing 123 kilometers within five years. The subway network will include 13 lines and 237 stations. The proportion of track traffic to the city's total passenger flow will be raised to 35% to 40% from about 10% currently. 

Zhu Husheng, vice president for Shanghai Shentong Metro Co., Ltd., pointed out that overseas cities with developed subway networks like Now York, with a subway length of 421 kilometers, and London, with 408 kilometers, spent more than 100 years completing their networks. 

The Chinese government used to be cautious o f subway construction owing to huge investments and has suspended approval of track traffic projects respectively in 1996 and 2002. It nonetheless lifted the ban on subway projects last year to ease urban transportation pressure. 

Ten cities in China such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Tianjin, Nanjing, Chongqing, Changchun and Dalian had completed construction of 420-kilometer railway traffic by June 2005. 

China's railway traffic construction now hits boom times and the state has become the world's largest urban railway traffic market. Over 30 cities each with a population of more than one million have started construction of railway traffic or have been preparing for construction. 

About 14 cities have submitted their railway traffic network program and plan to construct 55 lines, about 1500 kilometers long, with a total investment of CNY 500 billion including an estimated investment of more than CNY 200 billion during the Eleventh Five-year Plan ending 2010, according to China Communications and Transportation Association. 

Chongqing, vowing to build the first subway in western China, has made full preparation for subway construction although it has not got the approval from the State Council. The city reserved certain underground room for its subway project several years ago. 

Industry analysts said that China's railway traffic construction was in full swing presently. The Chinese government plans to build 5,000-kilometer track traffic lines with total investments of more than CNY 800 billion in 25 cities. 

Urban railway traffic such as light rail vehicle is commonweal facilities not intended to earn money and needs huge investments. Industry experts suggested that domestic subway construction should learn from Hong Kong's experience. The city's subway operator Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Corp. is profitable to operate subway projects. 

(USD 1 = CNY 8.04)


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## hkskyline

*Shanghai - Power problem delays subway *
15 February 2006
Shanghai Daily

Thousands of commuters were delayed for up to 30 minutes yesterday morning after a power problem shut down part of Metro Line No. 1 in one direction. 

The line was out of service from the Shanghai Railway Station to the Gong Kang Road Station from 6:25am to 7:04am, according to Shanghai Metro Operation Co Ltd. 

Most of the affected stations are located along the northern extension of the line, and the power problem only shut down trains travelling north. 

Thousands of morning commuters were affected, leading to large crowds at several of the stations, according to several passengers who were on the scene. 

At least 2,500 passengers were stuck at the Pengpu Xincun Station, according to station workers. 

Metro officials said they gave refunds to at least 500 people during the delay. 

The breakdown was caused by a power grid malfunction near the Gongkang Road Station, Metro officials said. 

Police arranged 15 buses to take commuters from the Pengpu Xincun Station to the Shanghai Railway Station, a public transport hub. 

"The trains were so crowded that the commuters' faces were pressed against the glass windows," said Tao Hengzhi, who was on one of the trains.


----------



## chepillin

wow, china needs lots of infrastructure because is the most populates country in the world.


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## hkskyline

*China home-made high-speed maglev train to be trialled in Shanghai this July *
16 February 2006

SHANGHAI (AFX) - China's first home-made high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train will be put through its first trial run in Shanghai in July this year, said Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Co Ltd (CAC), a unit of China Aviation Industry Corp. 

Production on the train, which is expected to run at a speed of 500 km per hour, started at the end of September last year. 

The train has a designed speed of 500 km per hour and can carry 90 passengers. CAC possesses complete independent intellectual property rights of this project, a company official said. 

Shanghai currently has one maglev line, which runs 30 kilometers from the international airport to a stop near a subway line in Pudong. That line, which cost 8.9 bln yuan to build, opened three years ago and was designed and built by engineering giants Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp AG. 

Shanghai is planning to extend the line from its current terminus to the domestic airport, although details on the route and cost have not yet been decided. 

China is also planning a high-speed link between Shanghai and Beijing, although it is reportedly considering technology other than maglev. 

The country has announced plans to spend 250 bln usd over the next 15 years to renovate and expand its network.


----------



## hkskyline

*City Subway Spree Poured Cold Water *

SHANGHAI, February 15, SinoCast -- Industry experts suggested that the Chinese government should be cautious to approve subway projects in the Yangtze River Delta, one of China's economic hubs, owning to huge investments and difficult operation. 

Statistics revealed that Singapore paid the equivalent of CNY 332 million on average to build one-kilometer track rail at the beginning of 1990s. Singapore had three urban track traffic rails, namely, 19-kilometer subway, 44.8-kilometer elevated line and 13.2-kilometer ground line. 

Mexico spent equal to CNY 246 million on average to build one-kilometer subway. The subway is 23.7 kilometers long. Tokyo spent CNY 754 million on average on one-kilometer line of its most modern Subway No.11 Line. 

Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou paid CNY 600 million to CNY 800 million on one-kilometer line of their subways in the 1990s. Chinese cities now are expected to invest more in subway construction. 

China plans to construct 55 lines, about 1500 kilometers long, with a total investment of CNY 500 billion including an estimated investment of more than CNY 200 billion during the period of the Eleventh Five-year Plan, according to statistics from China Communications and Transportation Association. 

An insider told journalists that only Nanjing and Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta submitted their applications to win an approval for their subway projects and other cities such as Suzhou and Changzhou had not applied. 

Lin Fang, a director for the Changzhou Municipal Development & Reform Commission, said in an interview that the city was now doing the preparation work. Suzhou Municipal Development & Reform Commission also said that the city was now in the early stage of doing research. 

Shanghai has been approved to complete track traffic network construction from 2005 to 2012 to ease transportation pressure in 2010, when the World Expo is held there. 

Shanghai is set to newly build eight railway traffic lines with a total length of 389 kilometers during the period and will complete construction of 11 lines, 400 kilometers long, by 2010, and 13 lines, 510 kilometers long, by 2012. 

A track traffic network will be available in Shanghai by 2010 and 80% of residents within the inner-belt way can take subway or light rail at the stations 600 meters far from their houses. The city's track traffic system will transport almost 8 million people daily, accounting for around 40% of total passenger flow. 

The city will make an investment of CNY 15 billion in track traffic projects this year. It must finish civil structure construction of three subway lines by 2007 and another four by 2009. The No.7 Line, which has been approved, is 35 kilometers long and goes through Baoshan District, Putuo District, Jiang'an District, Xuhui District and Pudong New District. 

Track traffic construction has been a focus of Jiangsu Province's Eleventh Five-year Plan as well. Jiangsu will newly build 450-kilometer inter-city rail and approximately 100- kilometer light rail in the following five years. 

The Shanghai-Nanjing intercity rail will be the most important project and the Nanjing-Hangzhou intercity rail will be started as quickly as possible. The program of the Nanjing- Yangzhou-Zhenjiang intercity rail will be launched. 

Jiangsu would like to accelerate its pace of completing Nanjing Subway No.2 Line and to launch Suzhou Subway No.1 Line, Changzhou Subway No.1 Line and Nanjing Subway No.3 Line. 

(USD 1 = CNY 8.04)


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## hkskyline

*2 New Passenger Railway Lines Receives Approval to Be Established *
17 February 2006
China Industry Daily News

Two new passenger railway lines, including the Beijing-Shijiazhuang line and Tianjin-Qinhuangdao line recently received approvals from the National Development and Reform Commission to be built, the Shanghai Securities News reported today.The Beijing-Shijiazhuang line is a section of the Beijing-Guangzhou-Shenzhen passenger railway line, with a total investment of 25.1 billion yuan. The 278-kilometer railway line starts from the Beijing West Railway station, passing Zhuozhou and Baoding cities in Hebei province, and ends at Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei. 

The Tianjin-Qinhuangdao line is an important part of the Beijing-Shenyang-Harbin passenger railway line. The new railway line will total 245 kilometers in length, with an investment of about 20.7 billion yuan. It connects the Tianjin West Railway station and the Qinhuangdao Railway Station, passing the Tangshan and Beidaihe city in Hebei province.


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## hkskyline

*Bank of China Provides Loan to Beijing Subway *

BEIJING Feb 23 Asia Pulse - The Beijing branch of Bank of China recently won a public bidding to provide a 25-year loan amounting to 8 billion yuan to the first-phase project of Beijing No. 10 subway line. 

Under the contract, the interest rate of the loan with 12 years of grace period will be the most preferential one under the current monetary policy. The loan includes the foreign exchange loan quota of US$150 million. 

According to Beijing's blueprint, Beijing will construct a subway traffic network with a total length of 270 kilometres by the end of 2010, requiring a total investment of 67 billion yuan (US$8.3 billion).


----------



## davidwei01

*Trains on Himalayas,Qinghai-Tibet railway offers luxury travel to "Roof of the World"*

Posted to Travel forum, enjoy!
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=324206


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## hkskyline

*China to use own technology for high-speed rail *

BEIJING, March 9, 2006 (AFP) - China has decided to use domestic technology instead of international firms to construct a much-anticipated high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai, state press reported Thursday. 

"Our technology is a re-innovation on the basis of assimilating advanced technologies of foreign countries," Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun said, according to Xinhua news agency. 

It is the first time that a high-ranking Chinese official has specifically ruled out the use of foreign technologies to build the 1,300-kilometre (808-mile) railway. 

The 200-billion-yuan (24.7-billion-dollar) project was first proposed in 1994 and was originally supposed to be completed before the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. 

However, disputes over which technology to use have delayed the project. German, French and Japanese companies had vied for the deal, but now it appears those efforts were in vain. 

The express railway, designed for speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour, is expected to shorten travel time between the two cities from 13 hours to less than five.


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## davidwei01

*china's local high speed train, "China Star"*



hkskyline said:


> *China to use own technology for high-speed rail *
> 
> BEIJING, March 9, 2006 (AFP) - China has decided to use domestic technology instead of international firms to construct a much-anticipated high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai, state press reported Thursday.
> 
> "Our technology is a re-innovation on the basis of assimilating advanced technologies of foreign countries," Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun said, according to Xinhua news agency.
> 
> It is the first time that a high-ranking Chinese official has specifically ruled out the use of foreign technologies to build the 1,300-kilometre (808-mile) railway.
> 
> The 200-billion-yuan (24.7-billion-dollar) project was first proposed in 1994 and was originally supposed to be completed before the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
> 
> However, disputes over which technology to use have delayed the project. German, French and Japanese companies had vied for the deal, but now it appears those efforts were in vain.
> 
> The express railway, designed for speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour, is expected to shorten travel time between the two cities from 13 hours to less than five.


*china's local high speed train, "China Star", debut on ShenYang - ShanHaiGuan, 8/2005*


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## hkskyline

Monday March 13, 8:37 AM
*HK PRESS: MTR Corp May Invest In Hangzhou Subway System *

HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--Hong Kong rail operator MTR Corp. (0066.HK) may invest in the city of Hangzhou's planned subway system, The Standard reported Monday, quoting Mayor Sun Zhonghuan.

Hangzhou city is in talks with several companies, including MTR, about its planned eight-line subway system, the paper quoted Sun as saying. The capital of Zhejiang province hopes to build the first two lines by 2010, at a cost of about CNY33 billion, the report said.

Hangzhou may allow MTR to develop land around subway stations, the paper quoted Sun as saying. MTR pays for most of its Hong Kong rail operations through similar property development arrangements.

Newspaper Web site: http://www.thestandard.com.hk


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## oKo

Woah...the shenyang looks nice (although i know not of its technical bits)...

China's rail infrastructure seem to be going on the right track


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## hkskyline

*High-speed rail links approved Maglev line will run from Shanghai to Hangzhou *
14 March 2006
South China Morning Post

The central government has approved plans to build a magnetic-levitation railway between Shanghai and Hangzhou , and a high-speed rail link between Shanghai and Beijing. 

On its official website yesterday, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said the State Council had approved a proposal to build the Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev line and work would start on a feasibility study for the project. 

The 35 billion yuan, 175km maglev project will cut commuting time between Shanghai and Hangzhou from two hours to 30 minutes, according to Xinhua. 

The Zhejiang section will be 105km long and include a stop in Jiaxing . 

The project was expected to be completed in 2008 and be operating before the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, Xinhua said. 

Wu Ying, a Shanghai office worker whose home town is Hangzhou, said the maglev line would make trips between the two cities faster and more convenient. "The present Meilong railway station in Hangzhou is very run down, and during peak times such as the Lunar New Year, the trains can be very crowded," Ms Wu said. 

She said that even though the maglev's price would put it out of the range of regular passengers, the line would offer people greater choice. 

The NDRC statement did not mention where the technology would be acquired from. 

The existing 30km maglev in Shanghai's Pudong area is operated by Transrapid, a consortium comprising ThyssenKrupp, Siemens and the German government. 

The NDRC also announced the State Council had given the go-ahead for a high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai. 

"All parties have reached consensus on major issues such as the technological plan, and the opportunity for construction is ripe," the commission's statement said. 

The track will allow trains to cover the 1,320km between the two cities at 300km/h, cutting the travel time from 13 hours to less than five hours. Railways Minister Liu Zhijun said last week the Beijing-Shanghai link would employ foreign technology and the 140 billion yuan needed for construction would come from the market. 

The NDRC said a company would be established to build and operate the line with financing from private and foreign sources.


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## *UofT*

WOW, That's awsome news the Speed Train!

Pakistan and other asian nations should ask the Chinese Authorities to build transporation links and metros. Good stuff all around.


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## hkskyline

*Alstom sees strong demand in China metro expansion *
By Jerker Hellstrom

SHANGHAI, March 14 (Reuters) - French engineering group Alstom aims to increase its metro equipment sales in China this year as the nation's cities expand their subway networks, a top company executive said on Tuesday. 

Alstom Transport sold 50 million euro ($59.81 million) to 70 million euros worth of metro trains and equipment in China in both 2004 and 2005, said Marc Chatelard, Senior Vice President, Alstom Transport Asia Pacific. 

He would not comment on whether the figure grew or declined from one year to the next. 

"We are fighting to increase that," Chatelard said. "I see a very big market in the metro segment. Many cities are contemplating to expand their metro networks." 

Alstom Transport had total sales of 600 million euros in the Asia Pacific region in 2004, with the transport unit's regional earnings accounting for about 3 percent of group profits, Chatelard said. 

Alstom faces competition in China from German conglomerate Siemens AG , Canada's Bombardier Inc. and Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries , which also are vying to sell railway equipment and expertise to China. 

Alstom signed its latest major train deal in China in 2004, a non-metro agreement, when Beijing agreed to buy 60 trains and 180 freight engines worth about 1 billion euros. 

Alstom also hopes to strike a deal with Beijing to export its TGV trains as China plans to build 28,000 kilometers of railway by 2020. 

Siemens signed a contract with Beijing late last year to supply 60 high-speed InterCity Express (ICE) trains. 

China plans to invest 160 billion yuan ($19.9 billion) in railway construction in 2006, but is still likely to face problems with transportation bottlenecks over the next five years, according to official forecasts. 

China's rail and shipping networks have struggled to keep up with the country's fast-growing economy, which expanded 9.9 percent in 2005 according to official data. ($1=8.0468 Yuan) ($1=.8360 Euro) (Additional reporting by David Lin)


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## hkth

A series of the Xinhua News:
New railway lines feature high speed link

Shanghai subway construction set for fast track

Guangzhou on track for new railway station

Qinghai-Tibet Railway expected to be extended from Lhasa to Xigaze

Transport by Qinghai-Tibet Railway is most expensive


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## hkskyline

*China to Build Second Beijing-Guangzhou Railway This Year *

BEIJING, March 15, SinoCast -- A few days ago, the vice minister of China's Ministry of Railways Cai Qinghua said the second railway from Beijing to Guangzhou had been allowed for construction by National Development & Reform Commission of China. And the Beijing-Shijiazhuang section of this will start construction this year. 

Cai said the Beijing-Guangzhou railway was used for both passenger and freight transportation and was fully occupied, especially in the Spring Festival period, which made it hard to improve the capacity of passenger transportation. So Chinese government has decided to construct another railway on the same line with a budgeted investment of CNY 25.1 billion. 

The construction of the route from Wuhan to Guangzhou has been going since last December and was supposed to be finished in December 2009. "At present, the Wuhan-Guangzhou railway has been fully occupied and could not meet the need of transportation. The new construction will expand the capacity of transportation and relieve the pressure of ticket purchasing" said an official of Wuhan to Guangzhou passenger transportation section. 

As to the construction of the route from Wuhan to Beijing, a professional said that the plan had submitted to relative organizations but the details were still on planning board. 

Due to the great expenditure of the 2nd Jing Guang railway, government may consider to attract domestic or foreign capital.


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## hkskyline

*Design of Beijing Subway Line 5 Approved *
16 March 2006
China Industry Daily News

The design of Beijing Subway Line 5 recently received approval from the Beijing Municipal government; the Beijing Times reported quoting from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning. A bike parking space will be established at each station of the Subway Line 5. 

The Beijing Subway Line 5 starts from the Songjiazhuang station in Fengtai district in the south part of the city, ends at Taipingzhuang Beilu station in Changping district in north Beijing. The 27.665-kilometer subway will have 23 stations. The under earth part of the subway totals 16.875 kilometers, with 16 stations. The part of subway on the ground reaches 10.79 kilometers, with 7 stations. 

According to the Project Department of the Subway Line 5, they will also consider establishing taxi parking spaces and public buses parking spaces near the subway stations to facilitate the citizens. 

The Subway Line 5 project has already begun construction. The rail-laying project will be finished by the end of the year.


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## hkth

A series of the Xinhua News:
Xi'an mulls subway project

Eight metro lines to be operational in Shanghai by 2007


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## hzkiller

*^^^^^CHINA NEW [email protected]@@@*


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## Manila-X

OH YEAH, THAT'S OFF THA HOOK


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## hzkiller




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## hzkiller

WANCH said:


> OH YEAH, THAT'S OFF THA HOOK


-----------------
????so funny


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## Manila-X

So The Mainland is getting it's own Shinkanzen. I would like to see these trains run from HK to Guangzhou or even to other Mainland cities.


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## hzkiller




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## hzkiller

>200km/h


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## hzkiller




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## Andrew

Oh, so that's what trains eat for lunch!! Must be a little uncomfortable for the guy getting eaten! eewwww! lol
Nice looking trains though, good to see China getting them. Still not as impressive as it will be once they've built the Shanghai to Hangzhou maglev, that'll be awesome!!!


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## Manila-X

hzkiller said:


> -----------------
> ????so funny


that means they're cool


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## Sen

nah, KHI made them.


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## superchan7

Second train is Japanese Shinkansen.

Is the first train Chinese made? It looks like it might be.


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## coldstar

superchan7 said:


> Second train is Japanese Shinkansen.
> 
> Is the first train Chinese made? It looks like it might be.


2nd train is Shinkansen made by Kawasaki Heavy industries and Hitachi.
1st train seems to be the one made by Canda's Bombardier.


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## raymond_tung88

Wait... can someone clarify these trains? Where are they going to run? Where are they from? And so on...


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## Sen

the first train is nothing special, it might be bombardier, china already has those in various routes beginning with Z. (express) for example between Beijing and Shanghai, it's not HSR, the max speed is about 160 km/h.

i dont know about the second one (Kawasaki one), it might be HSR train, as far as i know china has two quasi-HSR lines in operation (max speed 200 km/h), one is from Zhengzhou to Wuhan, and the other one is from Guangzhou to Shenzhen.(广深城际特快）, but AFAIK, both lines use locally made locomatives.

sorry i cant give more information, there are just too many rumours floating around, nothing is confirmed, so far we have had german maglev, chinese maglev, chinese made non-maglev and shinkansen, dont know which one is true.


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## RFonline

China Star AC Transmission EMU of 270km/h

http://www.csrgc.com.cn:8888/product1.asp?id=657&asp=default.asp
http://english.people.com.cn/200412/16/eng20041216_167536.html









This train is developed based on fhe AC traction EMU and AC traction passenger locomotive projects listed in fhe National Ninth Five-Year Plan .It has adopted the high-speed AC traction motor of 270km/h by absorbing internationally advanced technologies . It is the first high speed power- concentrated EMU with our own IPRS in China. The overall design is highly integrated and Modularized .The equipment layout has adopted the world popular arrangement of AC transmission EMU ,i.e. through aisle , diagonallayout and desk cab console. 1.The train has adopted fhe China made transmission system with GTO water-cooling converter and 1225kw high power asynchronous traction motor .It has the features of wide constant power rate range, high axle power ,super adhesion ,high efficiency and power factor,ect.. 2.The control system has adopted distributed microcomputer network control system ,and redundancy design (with one mainframe standby and redundancy I/O ) to improve the train running reliability. 3.Wide and light car-body , integrated load bearing, drum profile structure were adopted for the car body .The streamlined aerodynamics cab head was adopted in China for the first Time for reducing the air Pressure wave. 4.Roof interlayer ventilation , fraction motor independent air cooling technologies are adopted for fhe train . water cooling mode is adopted to the main converter and oil cooling mode is adopted to the main transformer, Compound aluminum radiator board water and oil cooling exchanger is adopted.


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## superchan7

That looks like a locomotive-driven train. Are you sure it is EMU type?


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## hkth

Xinhua News:
China arranges first four scheduled trains to Tibet


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## zergcerebrates

WOW! And why on earth did they choose Shinkansen! Arrgh. Anyways I really like the First train the design is awesome. More details would be nice as which city or cities are using those.


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## zergcerebrates

Just a thought. I noticed that the Japanese train was delivered to Qingdao, do you guys think it'll be used to transport people from Beijing to Qingdao during the 2008 Olympics?


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## Momo1435

Sen said:


> the first train is nothing special, it might be bombardier, china already has those in various routes beginning with Z. (express) for example between Beijing and Shanghai, it's not HSR, the max speed is about 160 km/h.


These are indeed Bombardier trains, type C2008, but these are not already in service. This Swedish design is based on the "Regina" local trainsets build for various operators in Sweden. These eight-car trainsets have a maximum speed of 200 km/h and are delivered between July 2006 and July 2007.

Bombardier C2008 trains:

Gauge mm 1 435
Power supply 25 kV 50 Hz
Maximum speed km/h 200
Maximum acceleration m/s² 0·6
Overall width mm 3 328
Roof height mm 4 040
Floor height above rail mm 1 250
Maximum axleload tonnes 16
Length of eight-car trainset m 214
Total weight tonnes 420
Number of seats (max) 760
Toilets per trainset 14


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## AlexS2000

The "China Star" look very interesting. Does any one know any website that talk about its development and spec. Also, is the "China Star" used in China and where?
Thank


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## hzkiller

the secend is Shinkansen!


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## hzkiller

中国计划订购60列以东日本旅客铁道(East Japan R ailway Co.)的“疾风”(Hayate)新干线列车为原型的高速列车。 

作为中国铁路提速项目的组成部分，中方将向川崎重工业(Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd.,7012.TO)和其他日本公司处订购这批火车。据悉，日本的“疾风”型子弹头列车时速可达275公里左右。 

川崎重工业新闻发言人 Masahito K odera表示，公司正在和中方谈判，但是拒绝就共同社披露的数据作出评论。 Masahito K odera说：“谈判还在进行中，因此不便就细节作出评论。”川崎重工业去年曾成功赢得中国铁道部改造重要铁路线的合同。 

据报道，中国计划通过使用日本高速列车，将五条铁路的时速提高一倍。


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## hzkiller

China plans to purchase 60 railway passengers in the east of Japan (East Japan R ailway Co. ) "high" (Hayate) prototype for the high-speed train Shinkansen train. As part of China's railway acceleration project, the Chinese side will provide Kawasaki Heavy Industries (Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. , 7012.TO) and other Japanese companies Department ordered these trains. It is reported that the Japanese "winds" - the first bullet trains at speeds of up to 275 kilometres offshore. Kawasaki Heavy Industries spokesman Masahito K odera said, the company is negotiating with the Chinese side, but refused to comment on the form of data disclosure. Masahito K odera said : "Negotiations are still ongoing and therefore inconvenient to comment on the details. "Last year, Kawasaki Heavy Industries won the China Ministry of Railways successful transformation of important rail contract. According to reports, China plans through the use of Japanese high-speed train railway will be five speed doubled. 
-------------------------------
by google


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## hzkiller




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## hzkiller




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## Chevin

Nice train choices, finally some decent long distance travelling trains in mainland china (except the maglev there the best!!).


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## Sen

so those Shinkansen trains are not for HSR either?


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## Momo1435

These Shinkansen are not for HSR, these are only 200 km/h fast. 60 eight-car sets have been ordered, the first trains will be build in Japan, the rest in China.

When new lines are build for real HSR, 275 km/h Shinkansen trainsets will come to China.


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## samsonyuen

That's cool. Was there any train operations to/out of Tibet before?


----------



## Sen

OLD article, but it gives an overview of China's HSR development.

High speed trainsets take shape
01 August 2005

Chinese Railways has ordered three fleets of high speed trains for operation of 200 km/h regional inter-city services

TO OPERATE its emerging network of dedicated passenger routes (p479), Chinese Railways expects to put into service by 2015 a fleet of 1000 trainsets designed to operate at speeds of 200 km/h or more. 

Tenders are to be called next year for the very high speed trains to operate on the 300 to 350 km/h routes, but work is already underway on three fleets of 200 km/h trainsets to operate intermediate services on regional corridors and the three inter-city networks. 

To support the high speed fleet, the Ministry of Railways is planning to develop four major depot and workshop complexes in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou, each with a capacity of around 250 trainsets. 

As part of the ongoing speed-up programme, CR and the China Academy of Railway Sciences have been working for several years on developing a range of locally-built 200 km/h trainsets to work on existing lines. In addition, the China Star trainset (RG 6.03 p344) was developed by a consortium of Chinese manufacturers at a cost of 100m yuan for operation at up to 300 km/h on the Beijing - Shenyang high speed line. 

However, when the present Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun took office in mid-2003, the ministry's focus changed from developing domestic technology to addressing rapidly the growing bottlenecks on the railway network. 

Faced with the need to build up a large fleet of high speed trains in a relatively short timescale, the Ministry of Railways decided to call international tenders for the supply of 140 trainsets, split into seven batches of 20 units. On October 9 2004 technology transfer contracts were awarded to three international consortia. 

Shinkansen success 
A ¥140bn contract for 60 eight-car trainsets was awarded to a consortium of Japanese companies led by Kawasaki that includes Hitachi, Itochu Corp and Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsubishi Electric and Marubeni Corp, working with the Nache Sifang subsidiary of the China Southern Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry Co. As consortium leader, in charge of managing the overall design and manufacture of the 480 vehicles, Kawasaki's share of the contract is worth ´80bn. 

The Japanese trainsets will be based on the E2-1000 Shinkansen design used by JR East for its premier Tokyo - Hachinohe Hayate services launched in December 2002. The first three trains will be supplied complete from Japan and the following six in knocked-down form. The remaining 51 sets will be assembled in China by Nache Sifang over the next two years under the terms of the technology transfer deal. 

An improved variant of JR East's E2 design, the E2-1000 achieved 362 km/h during a high-speed test run on the Joetsu Shinkansen between Urasa and Niigata on April 6 2003. The design features a double-skin carbody structure and 25 kV 50Hz traction equipment. The E2-1000 driving trailers and first class car have active suspensions for 275 km/h operation, whilst semi-active suspensions are used on the remaining vehicles (Table I). VVVF traction controls and three-phase motors are fitted. 

The Japanese sets have a 10-car formation with two driving trailers and eight motor vehicles, seating 814. The Chinese sets will be shorter, as an eight-car formation has been selected as standard. Two trainsets will be able to operate in multiple. 

Wide-bodied Pendolino 
Another 60 trainsets are being supplied by Alstom in conjunction with China Northern's subsidiary Changchun Railway Vehicles. Other Chinese companies such as Yongji are supplying subsystems for the trains which are expected to enter commercial service in 2007. Based at Beijing, the units will run on the northern routes around Beijing and Harbin. 

In a similar breakdown to the Kawasaki contract, the first three Alstom trains are due to be completed in France, with parts for the next six being shipped to China for local assembly. The remaining 51 sets will be built at Changchun. Components will be sourced from Alstom's plants at Savigliano and Sesto San Giovanni in Italy and from Tarbes and Ornans in France. 

The design is derived from the wide-bodied Finnish variant in Alstom's tilting Pendolino family, with bodyshells formed of extruded aluminium profiles. There will be no provision for tilt. Maximum width of the Chinese sets will be 3200mm (Table II). The air-conditioned trains will be sealed to cope with pressure pulses from two trains passing at 200 km/h in double-track tunnels. The trains are being designed to operate in temperatures ranging from -25°C to +40°C. 

Each eight-car trainset will be powered by 10 underframe-mounted asynchronous traction motors, giving a total continuous rating of 5500 kW. The 6·5 kV IGBT traction controls will be water-cooled, with three transformers and five converter sets to offer a degree of redundancy. Rheostatic and regenerative braking will be fitted, and two units will be able to operate in multiple. 

Styling has been placed in the hands of Giugiaro Design. Seating will be arranged 2+2 in first class and 2+3 in second class. An eight-car set will have 622 seats. There will be a mix of face-to-face seating with tables and airline-style face-to-back seats. For improved circulation, the internal and external doors will have a clear width of 800mm, as will the internal gangway and inter-car connections. Retractable steps will be fitted at each doorway. 

Each trainset will include an area for passengers with reduced mobility, including a wheelchair-accessible toilet. There will also be a bar-cafe area and catering service facilities including hot water dispensers for tea making. The passenger information system includes audio and visual displays, plus external announcement facilities. As well as automated announcements, there is provision for manual broadcasts by driver or train crew members. On-train entertainment will be provided, with the first class cars featuring armrest-mounted headphone controls and drop-down ceiling-mounted video monitors. 

Regina variant in the south 
The remaining 20 trainsets in the initial tranche are coming from the established Bombardier Sifang Power joint venture in Qingdao, which is already building loco-hauled inter-city stock for CR. Under the US$424m order, the C2008 trainsets are due for delivery between July 2006 and July 2007, and are expected to be used on routes in the south of the country. 

On June 27 this year the Ministry of Railways signed a 'strategic co-operation framework agreement' with Bombardier which provides for the purchase of additional trainsets, starting with an option for 20 more eight-car sets for delivery in 2007-08. 

This accord also includes an agreement for the consortium to develop and support the Guangzhou maintenance depot able to service up to 250 high speed EMUs. The ministry will provide land for the depot, which will be designed and equipped by Bombardier. The company will also supply maintenance management services, spare parts, technical support and training over 20 years. 

The C2008 trains are being designed at Västerås in Sweden, where some of the propulsion equipment will be manufactured. Bogies will come from Bombardier's Siegen plant, and the trains will be assembled by BSP at Qingdao. The design is a development of the wide-bodied Regina EMUs now in widespread use on regional services in southern and western Sweden. 

Electrically, each train will be split into three units. Two will be formed with a driving motor, pantograph trailer and non-driving motor car, and the middle section will pair another non-driving motor and trailer car. This will give 20 powered axles out of 32 (Fig 1). 

With a body width of 3 328 mm, the C2008 can easily accommodate the required 2+3 seating for standard class and 2+2 in first class, giving a total of up to 760 seats in an eight-car train (Table III). Seating will be a mix of face-to-face with tables and face-to-back airline style. Each vehicle will have a single wide doorway offset from the centre of the car, opening into a large vestibule area with toilets and related services. A bistro area will be included in each trainset. 


Table I. Japanese E2-1000 Shinkansen trainsets 
Car body length (driving) m 25·7 
Car body length (intermediate) m 25·0 
Maximum width mm 3 380 
Maximum height above rail mm 3 915 
Maximum axleload tonnes 12 

Table II. Alstom CA250 trainsets 
Gauge mm 1 435 
Power supply 25 kV 50Hz 
Maximum speed km/h 200 
Maximum acceleration m/s² 0·6 
Car length mm 27 600 
Length of eight-car trainset m 211·5 
Maximum car width mm 3 200 
Floor height above rail mm 1 270 
Maximum axleload tonnes 17 
Seating: first class 60 
second class 562 
Wheelchair spaces 1 

Table III. Bombardier C2008 trains 
Gauge mm 1 435 
Power supply 25 kV 50 Hz 
Maximum speed km/h 200 
Maximum acceleration m/s² 0·6 
Overall width mm 3 328 
Roof height mm 4 040 
Floor height above rail mm 1 250 
Maximum axleload tonnes 16 
Length of eight-car trainset m 214 
Total weight tonnes 420 
Number of seats (max) 760 
Toilets per trainset 14 


http://www.railwaygazette.com/Articles/Article.aspx?liArticleID=336&PrinterFriendly=true


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## Sen

delivery of Shinkansen trains to China.
http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~dajf/byunbyun/news.htm


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## hkth

samsonyuen said:


> That's cool. Was there any train operations to/out of Tibet before?


This is a NEW RAILWAY! :eek2:


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## zergcerebrates

Sen said:


> delivery of Shinkansen trains to China.
> http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~dajf/byunbyun/news.htm


from ^ that site.
"In a low-key affair designed not to inflame popular anti-Japanese sentiment in China"

No wonder most Chinese haven't heard about this story, its a big contrast when Taiwan received its first Shinkansen. So how are these new Chinese shinkansen compared with those of Taiwan?

Good news that China is accelerating its High speed rail development, I believe in 10 yrs time China will have some of the most interesting high speed trains in the world due to its procurement from France,Japan plus locally built ones. China will have a huge array of trains with different designs and styles hopefully it'll be as interesting as those of JR.

Oh btw, does anybody know what made the Chinese choose to use Japanese built trains? I thought they were after the new TGVs.


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## zergcerebrates

What is that train on the right? Looks aggressive.


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## Bertez

They look pretty good....but there is just something about them


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## baersworth

I thought they were after the new TGVs.
==============================
China cut the cake and let several countries share a bit, it is good for bargaining the price. The new TGV will be used in the second stage.


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## coldstar

zergcerebrates said:


> What is that train on the right? Looks aggressive.


The factory is Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Kobe.

and the right train is one of Japan's newest Shinkansen series, Fastech 360Z.
(operation speed is 360km/h)


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## Chevin

^^^ Nice !!


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## Marstor

不知道国产的怎样才能应用，但愿高速火车不要重蹈运十飞机的覆辙，中国一定要有自己的东西，就算是亏本也要造，锻炼技术和能力，一定要把我们自己的东西发展上去。


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## zergcerebrates

The Fastech looks kinda odd, feels kinda heavy in the front.

I still think the JR 500 series is the best looking train in the world.


















Second would be the Tsubame, such a beautiful train


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## superchan7

Japan's shinkansen are the best looking HSR in the world.


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## Chevin

^^^ Stop going of the topic, we know Japan's trains are the best, but now China have some good trains now...


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## hzkiller

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=8484021#post8484021


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## Manila-X

Honestly I think these kinds of trains will be very useful for China since it's a big country.


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## Herbicide

Wow these trains look amazing apart from this one that looks like a childs toy-


coldstar said:


>


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## bustero

I'm sure China makes trains. But do they make modern trains that can be used as trams, light rails and metros. Just curious. I'm thinking like so many other things this should be cheaper than ones made in germany or japan. specially if they are basic ones.


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## zergcerebrates

bustero said:


> I'm sure China makes trains. But do they make modern trains that can be used as trams, light rails and metros. Just curious. I'm thinking like so many other things this should be cheaper than ones made in germany or japan. specially if they are basic ones.


Yes they do. China makes their own trains, light rail or trams, locally develop and design ones. Lately they've been doing joint ventures where the first set of trains are shipped from Europe or Japan the rest will be built in China plus the legal technology transfer.


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## DonQui

coldstar said:


>


That is hideous.


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## bustero

So the trains listed above , those will eventually be made in china as well??? So this will be cheaper in time?

Is anyone familiar with the China National Machinery and Equipment Corp. Apparently our MetroManila North Rail project is getting the train sets from them. Am curious what kind of trains these are. DMU? Are they modern. Pix appreciated. tks.


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## coldstar

DonQui said:


> That is hideous.


hideous?
OK, how about this?
another newest Shinaknsen series, Fastech 360S
(opertation speed: 360km/h)


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## en

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=8445275&postcount=73

Pics of Fastech from JR brochure taken by me from now closed transportation museum in tokyo


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## zergcerebrates

I suppose those yellow flaps are air brakes?


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## hkth

Xinhua news:
Qinghai-Tibet railway to transport 4,000 more tourists each day


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## honwai1983

zergcerebrates said:


> I suppose those yellow flaps are air brakes?


Those yellow flags are aerobrake. They are used as emergency brake (such as earthquake).
When it is used, breaking distance (360Km/h to 0) near to E2-1000 (275Km/h to 0).


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## Momo1435

Come on Kids, there are enough threads were we can drool over Japanese trains, please keep it on topic.


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## zergcerebrates

momochan said:


> Come on Kids, there are enough threads were we can drool over Japanese trains, please keep it on topic.



It is on topic considering the Chinese are getting Japanese trains.

BTW, anymore updated pics and what route these trains would served would be nice.


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## lucky1988_61

*New Shanghai South Railway Station night shots*


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## RFonline

WoW.Beautiful


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## hkskyline

*Nanjing's subway line to be extended *
20 November 2006
Xinhua's China Economic Information Service

NANJING, Nov. 20 (CEIS) -- Preliminary work started on an 18-km extension of the only subway line in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, on Monday. 

"Construction will begin before the end of the year if the geological studies prove the extension can be accommodated," said a spokesman for the Nanjing city government. 

The extension will run from Andemen, currently the southern terminus of the No.1 north-south subway, southward toward Jiangning University. 

The line will cost 6.92 billion yuan (about 865 million U.S. dollars) and will have 12 stops. 

"All the subway stops and other civil engineering work are expected to be finished by August 2008 if everything goes to plan, and the entire project will be finished and put into service on Dec. 1, 2009," said the spokesman. 

The No. 1 north-south subway in Nanjing began operation in September 2005. With a length of 21.72 km and 16 stops, the subway cost 8.5 billion yuan (1.06 billion US dollars). 

Industry experts said that the completion of the planned subway extension project would alleviate traffic congestion in the southeastern part of the city. Construction of the east-west No.2 subway is also in progress.


----------



## hkskyline

*Guangshen Railway applies for A-shr IPO *

SHANGHAI, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Guangshen Railway Co. , the largest rail operator in booming southern China, said on Wednesday that it had applied to float A-shares in Shanghai to fund its expansion. 

The Hong Kong-listed railway operator will sell as many as 2.75 billion new shares, equivalent to 38.81 percent of its enlarged share capital, in Shanghai, it said in a statement. 

The firm did not give a specific fund-raising target, but an issue of that many shares could raise 11 billion yuan ($1.4 billion), if the offer is priced close to Guangshen's Wednesday morning Hong Kong share price of HK$4.00, as analysts expect. 

In July Guangshen, which carries both passengers and cargo, said it hoped to raise more than 10 billion yuan to buy assets from Yang Cheng Railway, a unit of its state parent, including a railway line. 

Other railway operators in the country are also tapping the stock market to help their expansion. 

Daqin Railway Co. , a coal-transporting railway based in Shanxi province in the northwest, raised 15 billion yuan in an initial public offer in Shanghai in July. 

China's securities regulator said it would review Guangshen's IPO application on Dec. 4. ($1=7.84 Yuan)


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## hkskyline

UPDATED: 19:40, December 01, 2006 
*Shanghai unties technological knots in subway train power system *
By People's Daily Online 

A comprehensive testing system for the main circuit of subway trains for Line 1 of Shanghai's subway network passed an appraisal on Thursday by specialists organized by the city's Commission of Science and Technology. 

The testing system, which identifies and analyses breakdowns in the vehicles' central power system, can reduce the maintenance period, thus saving the trouble of on-line testing. It can also help with performance testing, problem detection and technological evaluation of key parts. 

The new system has broken the "technological gray box" used for imported subway trains. It can read technical details-like the internal structure of a power system and software codes-that have been held back by the original developer, which means that railway operators will no longer be forced to import parts.


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## hkskyline

*China-made locomotives to run on high-speed rails *
11 December 2006
China Daily

The first batch of China-made high-power alternating current electric locomotives have come off the production line in northeastern coastal city Dalian. 

The locomotives will play a leading role in the sixth speed rise of China's trunk railway to be launched on April 18 next year. 

The locomotive is named "Hexie", meaning "harmony" in Chinese. 

Such drive electric locomotives are advanced in the world, said Zhang Shuguang, deputy chief engineer and director of the Transport Administration of the Ministry of Railways. 

According to Sun Xiyun, board chairman of the Dalian Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co Ltd, the producer, drive locomotives running on Chinese rail lines now are all double current. 

Most electric locomotives in operation can only drive freight trains up to 3,800 tons at 80 to 100 km per hour, while "Hexie" can drive as much as 5,000 tons running at 120 km per hour. 

The new locomotives will be used in trunk lines such as the Beijing-Guangzhou railway and the Beijing-Shanghai railway, and main coal transportation lines, said Zhang. 

According to Sun, 44 units of the locomotives will come off the production line and put into use by the end of this year and 180 units more next year.


----------



## hkskyline

*New metro extension leads to crowded trains *
21 December 2006
Shanghai Daily

The extension of Metro Line 3 into Baoshan District, which opened on Monday, has raised complaints about overcrowded trains along the line. 

The 14-kilometer extension runs from Jiangyang Road N. Station in Baoshan and connects to Jiangwan Town Station with 10 new stations in total. 

It was set up to help Baoshan residents travel between their homes and downtown much quicker, cutting the trip by about 30 minutes compared to previous bus routes. 

The additional passengers the extension has added to the line left many trains overly packed on Monday morning, a problem that could have been predicted as the same thing happened when an extension to Metro Line 1 opened two years ago. 

About 27,000 commuters traveled on the northern extension of Metro Line 3 on Monday, less than half the expected figure by the Metro operator. 

However, due to a long waiting interval and lack of trains, the additional commuters still managed to cause difficulty for others along the line. 

Commuters at some major stations on the original line, such as Jiangwan Town and Chifeng Road stations, said trains were significantly more crowded during rush hours in the morning. 

"Instead of an empty train, passengers from the extended line had already filled up 30 to 40 percent of the train's capacity when it arrived," said a female morning commuter on Jiangwan Town Station. 

Metro workers said many passengers had to wait for a later train to arrive as the first train was too packed for any more passengers to get on. 

Metro workers sometimes had to push the passengers into the trains in order to help the doors close. 

No extra trains will be added to the line until 2008, so the waiting time between trains is not expected to drop, Metro officials said.


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## JoshYent

man so much to read! ahh i cant keep up!


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## hkskyline

Pretty much every major Chinese city has some rail development plan happening, but the central government is trying to curb infrastructure spending to stop an overheating economy, so the number of projects has slowed lately.


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

line 3's extension is already in operation? thats odd, urbanrail.net is usually quick to update it but on their map, it still didnt show the extension. any explanation for that?


----------



## staff

^^
As usual, the explaination is that it's very hard to keep up with all the developments in China. 

They haven't updated the map with the recent station name changes either, it seems.









On line 2, Shimen Lu Station is now named Nanjing Xilu Station, and Henan Zhonglu is now named Nanjing Donglu, for example.


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## drunkenmunkey888

thats unusual cuz i remember last year when line 4 first opened, urbanrail.net updated it the day it opened. so i guess i was under the false impression that urbanrail updates its information as quickly as a newspaper publicizes.


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## hkskyline

*Beijing officials try to convince people to use public transportation *
By STEPHEN WADE 
27 December 2006

BEIJING (AP) - Beijing officials are trying to convince the city's 13 million residents to use public transportation, a step that should please 2008 Olympic planners troubled by the capital's snarled traffic and dirty air. 

Without offering specific money figures, Liu Xiaoming, spokesman for Beijing's Transportation Commission, said Wednesday that spending on public transportation would be boosted in the 600 days remaining before the 2008 Olympics begin. 

Liu also said new bus and subway passes would be introduced early in 2007. 

The city's subway system is expected to grow from its present 120 miles, reaching 185 miles by 2010 and 350 miles by 2015. 

Despite the optimism, Liu offered figures suggesting the city was losing ground in its battle with chronic traffic congestion which, along with nearby heavy industry, is the source of frequently choking air pollution. 

-- Beijing has 2.85 million vehicles, a figure expected to swell by 35 percent to 3.8 million in 2010. 

-- The number of commuters using public transportation has increased from 26.5 percent in 2000 to 29.6 percent in 2005. In the same span, the number of private cars used for commuting has grown even more quickly from 23.2 percent to 29.8 percent. 

"Our effort in alleviating congestion has been mitigated by the growth of urban construction and population," Liu said. 

Liu said city officials were encouraged by the fall in car usage during last month's China-Africa summit. Using mandatory and voluntary measures, about 30 percent of vehicles were removed from the roads during the six days of meetings between Chinese and African leaders. 

The measures may be a preview of the 2008 Olympics. 

"It was a very good experience for us for the 2008 Olympic Games," Liu said. "I think the China-Africa forum has accelerated our efforts in developing and reforming our public transportation." 

However, Liu said there was no plan to stem the soaring number of vehicles in the capital. 

"At present the government does not have any policy or intention to control the number of private cars," he said. "But that does not mean the number of private car can grow without limits."


----------



## Nozumi 300

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SO MCUH TO READ!!!!!!!!!OMG I FINALLY FINISHED!!!!!!owww my eyes hurt :lol:


----------



## staff

Could anyone move this thread to the Railway subforums where it belongs?


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## hkskyline

I have made the request in the 'About the forums' section and by PM. It has been a number of days and nobody seems to care.


----------



## AlexS2000

hkskyline said:


> *China-made locomotives to run on high-speed rails *
> 11 December 2006
> China Daily
> 
> The first batch of China-made high-power alternating current electric locomotives have come off the production line in northeastern coastal city Dalian.
> 
> The locomotives will play a leading role in the sixth speed rise of China's trunk railway to be launched on April 18 next year.
> 
> The locomotive is named "Hexie", meaning "harmony" in Chinese.
> 
> Such drive electric locomotives are advanced in the world, said Zhang Shuguang, deputy chief engineer and director of the Transport Administration of the Ministry of Railways.
> 
> According to Sun Xiyun, board chairman of the Dalian Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co Ltd, the producer, drive locomotives running on Chinese rail lines now are all double current.
> 
> Most electric locomotives in operation can only drive freight trains up to 3,800 tons at 80 to 100 km per hour, while "Hexie" can drive as much as 5,000 tons running at 120 km per hour.
> 
> The new locomotives will be used in trunk lines such as the Beijing-Guangzhou railway and the Beijing-Shanghai railway, and main coal transportation lines, said Zhang.
> 
> According to Sun, 44 units of the locomotives will come off the production line and put into use by the end of this year and 180 units more next year.


Is this Chinese made high speed locomotive done with Chinese technology?
Or is it using foreign designed component but assemble in China?
Or could it be technology transfer?

I know that China was working on her own high speed train named "China Star" and it could go more than 200Km/H.


----------



## AlexS2000

hkskyline said:


> *China home-made high-speed maglev train to be trialled in Shanghai this July *
> 16 February 2006
> 
> SHANGHAI (AFX) - China's first home-made high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train will be put through its first trial run in Shanghai in July this year, said Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Co Ltd (CAC), a unit of China Aviation Industry Corp.
> 
> Production on the train, which is expected to run at a speed of 500 km per hour, started at the end of September last year.
> 
> The train has a designed speed of 500 km per hour and can carry 90 passengers. CAC possesses complete independent intellectual property rights of this project, a company official said.
> 
> Shanghai currently has one maglev line, which runs 30 kilometers from the international airport to a stop near a subway line in Pudong. That line, which cost 8.9 bln yuan to build, opened three years ago and was designed and built by engineering giants Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp AG.
> 
> Shanghai is planning to extend the line from its current terminus to the domestic airport, although details on the route and cost have not yet been decided.
> 
> China is also planning a high-speed link between Shanghai and Beijing, although it is reportedly considering technology other than maglev.
> 
> The country has announced plans to spend 250 bln usd over the next 15 years to renovate and expand its network.


What was the result of the home grown Maglev train?
Did it succede or fail?
Thank


----------



## superchan7

AlexS2000 said:


> Is this Chinese made high speed locomotive done with Chinese technology?
> Or is it using foreign designed component but assemble in China?
> Or could it be technology transfer?
> 
> I know that China was working on her own high speed train named "China Star" and it could go more than 200Km/H.


I read on Wikipedia that China Star had some teething problems and had to have its speed reduced from 270 km/h to 160 km/h, and then it was taken out of service completely. A second train is in production.


----------



## AlexS2000

superchan7 said:


> I read on Wikipedia that China Star had some teething problems and had to have its speed reduced from 270 km/h to 160 km/h, and then it was taken out of service completely. A second train is in production.


Thank for the information. I tried to look into Wikipedia, but I could not find.
Could you provide the link so I can get more detail information?
It is not that I don't trust you I would like to read more about it.
Thank


----------



## superchan7

It's on Chinese Wikipedia, maybe that's why you couldn't find it. There is no English version of this article.

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中華之星


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## sathya_226

Can naybody compare indian railway system with chinese ones...which one is much better in quality and service. But both these big asian giants are really engaged in building metro trains ,trams and highspeed trains ..good luck to both these emerging stars of asia..........................................


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## hkskyline

Chinese trains are nowhere as crowded as the Indian ones. You will never see people in China travel on rooftops and hanging along the sides.


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## staff

I have never been on an Indian train, but I'd say that Chinese rail service and standards are much higher than those of India.
If you have a soft seat/sleeper ticker for a Chinese train, you'll have a pretty pleasant experience.


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## hkskyline

*Railway transport accounts for a quarter of world's total *
29 January 2007
Copyright 2007 China Daily Information Company. All Rights Reserved. 

China saw its railway transportation volume account for a quarter of the world's total last year, with only 6 percent of global operational railway mileage, the Ministry of Railways (MOR) has said. 

China beat all other countries in passenger and cargo traffic by railway last year, with its passenger turnover hitting 662.2 billion person-kilometers and freight turnover reaching 2.87 billion ton-kilometers, MOR spokesperson Wang Yongping said on Friday. 

The general railway turnover also topped the world with a total of 2.86 trillion ton-kilometers, 130 billion ton-kilometers more than that of the United States and one and a half times that of Russia. 

Meanwhile, the country has only 76,600 kilometers of railways in operation, making the density of its railway transportation the largest in the world. 

"Although China's railways have the highest efficiency of transport, they still lag far behind the nation's economic and social development," said Wang. 

The country can provide more than 2.42 million seats for railway travelers every day, only half the number of daily passenger traffic during the peak season of the Spring Festival, China's traditional New Year Festival. 

In 40 days starting from February 3, more than 156 million passengers will travel by train, according to the ministry's estimation. 

But even before the busiest period, Beijing's largest railway station was already hit by its first peak of passenger traffic. 

The Beijing West Railway Station is expected to see 110,000 passengers depart on Saturday, most of them college students going home for winter vacation, said the station's spokesperson Saturday. 

While millions of Chinese, the bulk of them students and migrant workers, travel home by train to spend the Spring Festival with their families. 

During the Spring Festival, the MOR will strictly regulate ticket sale, crack down on scalpers and improve services aboard like food, water supply and hygiene, said Liu Zhijun, MOR Minister. 

"With an extreme shortage in railway transportation capacity, we'll face even bigger pressure for this Spring Festival," said Liu. 

He urged the railway departments to ensure the safety of travelers and get fully prepared for emergencies.


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## hkskyline

*Station sees passenger flow peak before Spring Festival * 
29 January 2007
Copyright 2007 China Daily Information Company. All Rights Reserved. 

Beijing West Railway Station, the capital's largest station, has reported a peak passenger flow three weeks before the Spring Festival with 110,000 travelers leaving on Saturday. 

Most of the passengers were college students on their winter vacation and migrants workers returning home for Spring Festival, according to a station official. 

Passenger numbers have been rising and the station has seen an average 100,000 departures per day since Wednesday, up 20 percent year-on-year. The station has arranged 13 extra trains to ease the traffic pressure. 

The official said the extra trains should be able to accommodate all travelers and tickets were being sold 10 days in advance. 

The Ministry of Railways announced on January 10 that railway ticket prices would not be raised during the Spring Festival period this year. The news has been widely welcomed by the public. 

During the past Spring Festival travel season, fares for ordinary hard seats increased 15 percent while those for other seats went up 20 percent. 

Beijing's railway stations have opened group ticket-booking offices for migrant workers in large construction companies and have set up ticket sales desks at colleges. 

Stations have also opened 24-hour ticket sales windows. 

Passengers should be quick to arrange their travel as the fare freeze might attract more travelers, according to railway officials. 

The Gaungzhou Railway Station, in the capital of southern Guangdong Province, has also reported a large number of travelers on Saturday with more than 90,000 departures, dramatically up from the usual 70,000. 

"Saturday and Sunday will be the high time for the collage students to return home and we have prepared 28 special trains for students," said Zhang Xueke, head of the railway station. 

The Ministry of Railways estimates that China's railways will transport an unprecedented 156 million passengers during the 40-day Spring Festival travel peak from February 3 to March 14, up 4.3 percent year-on-year. 

Passenger flows will be concentrated in Beijing and Guangzhou during the first 15 days and in Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanchang and Hefei during the remaining 25 days. 

The peak is expected to come after the lunar New Year's Day, which falls on February 18 this year, when college students begin to return to school and migrant workers set out for big cities.


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## hkskyline

*Bullet trains make slow debut *
29 January 2007
Shanghai Daily

Crowds of people packed into the city's two train stations yesterday for the debut of Chinese-made express trains capable of travelling at speeds up to 250 kilometers an hour. 

The trains won't travel at top speeds until later this year, but that didn't dampen enthusiasm to be one of the first riders yesterday. 

The first high-speed express left the city from Shanghai South Railway Station at 8:30am sharp yesterday, bound for Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. The train was fully packed carrying about 1,200 passengers, according to railway authorities. 

From yesterday morning until the end of the peak Spring Festival travel period in the middle of March, seven bullet trains will run between the Shanghai South Railway Station and Hangzhou and the Shanghai Railway Station and Nanjing in Jiangsu Province. 

The trains to Nanjing will leave the city every day at 8:44am and 4:04pm. 

The trains to Hangzhou will leave the city every day at 8:30am, 10:05am, 1:35pm, 3:58pm and 7:12pm. 

Trains will be restricted to a maximum speed of 160 kph during the festival travel period, but are scheduled to begin travelling at higher speeds on April 18, when the national rail network upgrades its speed limits. 

New look 

The trains don't only run faster than current models, they look very different. 

While passengers needed to use a small ladder to get onto old trains, the new bullet trains are built on the same level as railway platforms, making it easier and safer to get on and off. 

Both ends of the train are tapered like a bullet, and the inside is less spacious than previous trains. 

Seats are laid in rows, all facing the same direction, and the aisle is noticeably narrower than regular trains. 

The end result looks a little similar to the city's Maglev trains on the inside. 

Each of the trains has several engines, which allow them to travel much faster than older trains.


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## superchan7

The news articles are still leaving out the fact that they are Japanese Shinkansen designs.

I think it might be better if they didn't tell the people in Nanjing...


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## hkskyline

*China fires up bullet trains to ease New Year rush *

BEIJING, Jan 31 (Reuters) - China is laying on a fleet of 15 brand-new high-speed bullet trains to tackle the passenger rush before and after next month's Chinese New Year holiday when just about the whole country is on the move. 

More than 100 drivers and repairmen had been sent to training programmes at universities in Beijing and Sichuan and 34 were licensed to drive the trains, known as CRH (China Railway High-speed), at 200 kph (125 mph) and above, Xinhua news agency said. 

"The new bullet trains will begin operating at a top speed of 250 kmh in April, when the Ministry of Railways launches the sixth nationwide rise in the speed limit," it said. 

But for safety reasons, the ministry has capped the maximum speed at 160 kmh during the holiday rush, which starts on Feb. 3 and lasts for 40 days. 

The ministry said Chinese travellers were expected to make 156 million train journeys over the holiday, the biggest of three "Golden Week" holidays in China when most people try to make it back to their home provinces for family reunions. 

The Year of the Pig begins on Feb. 18. 

China is ramping up investment in railways, ports, roads and airports to remove transport bottlenecks that could slow its economic expansion. 

The capital Beijing is investing some $40 billion in Olympics-related infrastructure projects to prepare for the 2008 Games.


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## hkskyline

*Estonian rail company mulls link with Shanghai *

TALLINN, Feb 7, 2007 (AFP) - Estonian Railways plans to launch a freight service from the Baltic country's capital to China, in order to grab a slice of rising trade between northern Europe and the Asian giant, the company said Wednesday. 

"We intend to open a direct freight service between Tallinn and Almaty so that we could transport container goods from Tallinn via Kazakhstan to Shanghai in China," Estonian Railways marketing director Rene Varek said at a transit trade conference. 

"The transportation of rail containers is twice as speedy as that of sea containers on that route," he said. 

Estonian Railways, which is state-owned, plans over coming years to increase the total volume of rail container transport it carries from the current 10,000 containers per month to 500,000 a month. 

Varek said the opening of the new service would depend on negotiations with Moscow, as the route would cross Russia. 

The rail delivery of container goods would take up to 20 days, while sea containers can take from 35-45 days to reach Shanghai from Tallinn.


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## hkskyline

*China to develop test "maglev" train by 2010-Xinhua * 

BEIJING, Feb 11 (Reuters) - China will develop its own magnetically levitated trains that can travel at speeds of up to 500 kilometres per hour, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday citing a government report. 

A 30-kilometre-long test line will be built before 2010, said the report from the Ministry of Science and Technology. 

So-called "maglev" trains are listed in the "national scientific and technological support projects" of the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010) that aims to "solve crucial science and technology problems that hamper China's economic and social development", Xinhua cited Wang Xiaofang, director of the ministry's planning bureau, as saying. 

China already has the only maglev in operation in the world. Launched in 2003 using German technology, it floats for 30 kilometres on a magnetic cushion between the booming coastal city of Shanghai and its international airport in Pudong. 

German industrial giant Siemens , which helped develop maglev technology, and steelmaker ThyssenKrupp A.G. lead a consortium that is negotiating to extend the track by 160 kilometres to the city of Hangzhou.


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## Andrew

hkskyline said:


> China already has the only maglev in operation in the world. Launched in 2003 using German technology, it floats for 30 kilometres on a magnetic cushion between the booming coastal city of Shanghai and its international airport in Pudong.


Why do reporters always get this wrong? China has the only HIGH SPEED, COMMERCIAL maglev operation in the world. A number of countries have operating test tracks. In addition, Japan has the Linimo - a commercial low speed urban maglev system operating in the city of Nagoya.

Anyway, that was a bit off topic, it will be good news for China if they do succeed in developing their own high-speed maglev system.


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## hkskyline

*China looks to Japan firms for train know-how-paper *

TOKYO, Feb 26 (Reuters) - The Chinese government has approached Japanese firms about providing technological know-how for a high-speed passenger route between the northern cities of Harbin and Dalian, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday. 

Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd , Hitachi Ltd and East Japan Railway Co. are among the firms that have been approached, the Nikkei said. 

The newspaper said European and U.S. firms are also likely to have been approached.


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## hkskyline

*3 killed, 34 injured after strong wind derails train in western China *
28 February 2007

BEIJING (AP) - A sandstorm packing hurricane-force gusts derailed a train early Wednesday in western China, killing at least three people and injuring 34, state media said. 

The 11-car train had just left a station in Turpan, in the Xinjiang region, when it was hit by wind, the Xinhua News Agency said. 

"A strong sandstorm cracked window panes soon after the train left Turpan, and blew some of the cars off the rail when we were trying to plug up the windows," Xinhua quoted passenger Su Chuanyi as saying. 

Xinhua said rescuers with the Urumqi Railway Bureau had initially put the death toll at four but later corrected it to three fatalities. 

At least 100 rescue workers, doctors and police went to the scene of the derailment, which disrupted operations of the Southern Xinjiang Railway, Xinhua said. 

The train had been running between the capital city of Urumqi and Aksu, in the west. 

Each spring, sandstorms fed by the deserts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia blow toward Beijing and the eastern seaboard. Sometimes, the dust blows out across the Pacific, clouding the skies of South Korea and occasionally drifting as far as the West coast of the United States. 

They were at their worst in the 1950s and '60s after campaigns to raise farm and factory output following the 1949 Communist revolution stripped the soil of vegetation in many areas.


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## hzkiller

毁林共产党有错　但是最主要的是人口增长过快～


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## Yardmaster

hkskyline said:


> *Estonian rail company mulls link with Shanghai *
> 
> TALLINN, Feb 7, 2007 (AFP) - Estonian Railways plans to launch a freight service from the Baltic country's capital to China, in order to grab a slice of rising trade between northern Europe and the Asian giant, the company said Wednesday.
> 
> "We intend to open a direct freight service between Tallinn and Almaty so that we could transport container goods from Tallinn via Kazakhstan to Shanghai in China," Estonian Railways marketing director Rene Varek said at a transit trade conference.
> 
> "The transportation of rail containers is twice as speedy as that of sea containers on that route," he said.
> 
> Estonian Railways, which is state-owned, plans over coming years to increase the total volume of rail container transport it carries from the current 10,000 containers per month to 500,000 a month.
> 
> Varek said the opening of the new service would depend on negotiations with Moscow, as the route would cross Russia.
> 
> The rail delivery of container goods would take up to 20 days, while sea containers can take from 35-45 days to reach Shanghai from Tallinn.


Interesting. I would like to know what sort of goods might be travelling between Estonia and China, or vice-versa. 

I am sure rail is faster than shipping ... but speed is only a factor for higher-priced goods. What holds for Estonia, also holds for Europe.

Running goods- perishables, etc.- between Europe and China via Almaty could be a very profitable operation, provided the infrastructure across Russia ,Kazakhstan, and Western China is up to the job.

20 days? "Around the world in 80 days?"


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## hkskyline

Yardmaster said:


> Interesting. I would like to know what sort of goods might be travelling between Estonia and China, or vice-versa.
> 
> I am sure rail is faster than shipping ... but speed is only a factor for higher-priced goods. What holds for Estonia, also holds for Europe.
> 
> Running goods- perishables, etc.- between Europe and China via Almaty could be a very profitable operation, provided the infrastructure across Russia ,Kazakhstan, and Western China is up to the job.
> 
> 20 days? "Around the world in 80 days?"


Source : http://www.vm.ee/eng/kat_176/827.html

Estonian foreign trade with China (millions EUR) in 2004
Exports - 28.6
Imports - 127.9

Main export articles in 2004:

Machinery and equipment - 30% 
Metals and metal products - 26,7% 
Transport vehicles - 20,2% 

Main import articles in 2004:

Machinery and equipment - 63,5% 
Textiles and textile products - 14,2%


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## hkskyline

UPDATED: 08:20, April 03, 2007
*China carries out tests prior to sixth railway speed boost *
http://english.people.com.cn/200704/03/eng20070403_363209.html

China's railway authorities Monday started tests for the coming sixth speed boost.

An official with China's Ministry of Railways said passenger trains with a speed of 200 kilometers and above per hour will be tested for several days on the Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou railways.

China has been raising train speed limits since 1997, when most were running at a mere 60 kilometers per hour. The new speed boost is scheduled for April 18.

After the speed boost, trains will run at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour on the Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou railways. In some sections the speed can be raised to 250 kilometers per hour, the international railway speed upper limit.

The coming speed boost will increase the railway system's passenger handling capacity by 18 percent, and its cargo capacity by 12 percent, according to the ministry.

Insiders say a speed of 200 kilometers per hour demands much higher safety standards and hence more work on upgrading trains and tracks.

Railway safety drew public attention after hurricane-force winds derailed 11 carriages of a train in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on February 28, killing three and injuring 34.

Experts with the ministry say trains running at high speed are more likely to be overturned by strong winds.

The ministry has asked a research center to develop a wind warning system.

Source: Xinhua


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## Trainman Dave

*Chinese signaling*

Thank you "hkskyline" for this very useful and informative thread. Please keep the information coming. 
I am assuming that you read chinese and that you do monitor the chinese language press. With the step up from 160 km/h to 200 km/h the Chinese railways will have to make a significant increase in the capability of their signaling. Unfortunately the chinese english language press does not discus these technical details. If you should find any discussion of signaling technology being installed in the 200 km/h lines, it would be greatly appreciated if you could provide a summary. In particular, are the Chinese railways using the ETCS/ERTMS protocols?


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## hkskyline

Hi. I actually don't monitor the Chinese press for news, since it'll be easier to post English news from mainland media outlets and the international newswires. I need to do some digging to find out what kinds of new signaling technologies they'll be using with this upgrade.


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## hkskyline

*China's southernmost city joins national rail network *
UPDATED: 19:53, April 13, 2007

China's national rail-ferry network has been extended to the country's southernmost city of Sanya, on the island of Hainan.

Sanya's inclusion comes after the completion of a 364-kilometer rail link with Haikou, capital of Hainan Province.

The service would start on April 18, allowing trains to travel at up to 160 kilometers per hour, almost double the previous speed, said Wen Jianru, vice general manger of Yuehai Railway Corporation, which built the line.

Starting in Sanya, the service would run through nine cities or counties before linking with the ferry to the mainland. Passengers could travel to major mainland cities without transferring, said Wen.

The maiden trips would be to Guangzhou, scheduled to take 15 hours, and Shanghai, taking 36.5 hours. The service to Beijing would begin on April 19 and take 35 hours.

The renovation of the rail link to Sanya, begun in June last year, cost 2.3 billion yuan funded by the provincial government and the Ministry of Railways.

The new service is expected to carry up to 10 million tons of freight a year.

Source: Xinhua


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## hkskyline

UPDATED: 17:02, April 16, 2007 
*China wholly capable of producing high-speed locomotives *

China is already among the countries capable of independently developing high-speed railway locomotives, said Zhang Shuguang, deputy general engineer of the Ministry of Railways on April 12. One of the highlights of the forthcoming speed limit increase across China's trunk lines, he said, will be the wide release of "Harmony" high-speed locomotives that travel at a minimum speed of 200 kilometers per hour. 

Only a few countries including Japan, Germany and France have developed the technology for high-speed locomotives, which is a landmark technology in high-speed railways. The project to build locomotives capable of traveling at 250 kilometers per hour began in 2004, with the first trains ready on April 18 for mass operation. 

These locomotives are world-class in terms of design, manufacturing techniques, performance, comfort and security, said Zhang. Zhang attributed China's fast progress in locomotive production to a solid national strategy and technological preparation. 

First of all, he said, the State decided to "introduce advanced technologies, work with other countries in design and production and develop Chinese brands". Since reform and opening up, China's economic and technological strength has increased, particularly over the last few years. This has made improvements possible, and since the first national railway speed limit increase in 1997, much progress has been made in locomotive operations, communication signals and management. Finally, using imported locomotive technologies as a base, China has pooled resources and focused on assimilation and innovation to produce its own trains in a relatively short term. 

By People's Daily Online


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## Tri-ring

If pointing out the facts is trolling then I am guilt as charged but then you only have a$$ licking mindless propaganda followers at any forum.

PRC was demanding Transrapid transfer of technology which Transrapid refused, so PRC announces postponement of Shanghai-Hangzhou route because of baseless accusation concerning environment safety to save face.

*No it is not POLITICAL it's petty PRIDE.*

How can you trust a govenment if they can't swallow it up and do their sworn duties to show accountability?

If it was truely an environment safety concern then they should shut down the present line as well and announce whatever data they based their concern and have a third party to examine it.


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## ningxiard

Tri-ring said:


> If pointing out the facts is trolling then I am guilt as charged but then you only have a$$ licking mindless propaganda followers at any forum.
> 
> PRC was demanding Transrapid transfer of technology which Transrapid refused, so PRC announces postponement of Shanghai-Hangzhou route because of baseless accusation concerning environment safety to save face.
> 
> *No it is not POLITICAL it's petty PRIDE.*
> 
> How can you trust a govenment if they can't swallow it up and do their sworn duties to show accountability?
> 
> If it was truely an environment safety concern then they should shut down the present line as well and announce whatever data they based their concern and have a third party to examine it.



You based all of your judgement on a ten-line story, then started your anti-Chinese government ranting. Don't you find yourself simple-minded? hno: This short story is from the AP, since when did we ever read any objective and comprehensive coverage on Chinese issues from them? This news story was first released by local Chinese media, and then some foreign media like the AP just intentionally picked up particular fragments of the whole story to present to their readers, and then some stupid readers instantly jumped to quick conclusions out of their pre-set minds. 

Why shouldn't the radiation be a concern? Do you know the huge difference between the neighborhoods the current mag-lev line and the proposed line run across? Apparently you know nothing, so please stop making yourself an ignorant and noisy fool.

There have been lots of debates about this Shanghai-Hangzhou mag-lev line in China since the very first day it was proposed. The huge investment, the safety, the interest-conflict between the Shanghai and Zhejiang government, the recent changing of leaders in Shanghai and the ensuing power struggle, and of course also the big mess of technology transfer, all these issues have been entangled together on these mag-lev lines. Of course I am sure there are still some inside stories and hidden politics that the general public in China and also the rest of the world would never know, simply because of the control of Chinese government on our media. But wouldn't it be more interesting if we look at the whole thing from multiple perspective? And also, could some ideologically-charged guys stop ranting and dishing out those simple-minded judgements after reading just a ten-line story from a crappy new source like the AP? The world would be such a better place if these guys didn't exist.


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## Tri-ring

ningxiard said:


> You based all of your judgement on a ten-line story, then started your anti-Chinese government ranting. Don't you find yourself simple-minded? hno: This short story is from the AP, since when did we ever read any objective and comprehensive coverage on Chinese issues from them? This news story was first released by local Chinese media, and then some foreign media like the AP just intentionally picked up particular fragments of the whole story to present to their readers, and then some stupid readers instantly jumped to quick conclusions out of their pre-set minds.
> 
> Why shouldn't the radiation be a concern? Do you know the huge difference between the neighborhoods the current mag-lev line and the proposed line run across? Apparently you know nothing, so please stop making yourself an ignorant and noisy fool.
> 
> There have been lots of debates about this Shanghai-Hangzhou mag-lev line in China since the very first day it was proposed. The huge investment, the safety, the interest-conflict between the Shanghai and Zhejiang government, the recent changing of leaders in Shanghai and the ensuing power struggle, and of course also the big mess of technology transfer, all these issues have been entangled together on these mag-lev lines. Of course I am sure there are still some inside stories and hidden politics that the general public in China and also the rest of the world would never know, simply because of the control of Chinese government on our media. But wouldn't it be more interesting if we look at the whole thing from multiple perspective? And also, could some ideologically-charged guys stop ranting and dishing out those simple-minded judgements after reading just a ten-line story from a crappy new source like the AP? The world would be such a better place if these guys didn't exist.


Wow ! A hard-core communist fundamentalist.
First look at the facts.
It is electromagnetic radiation not particle radiation, electromagnetic radiation is floating all-over our modern world. Cell-phones, radio, television, electric power lines, so on and so forth. Any kind of metallic coil that runs electrcity radiate electromagnetic radiation. As I stated before our own planet radiates electromagnetism.
Danger to prolonged exposure has been long studied and their is no toxicity as long as it is within certain levels. The German TUEV tested them and certified them. PRC accepted those figures, that is why the Shanghai-airport line was approved and built in the first place.

I have gone through this couple of threads and picked up some posting that the local, municipal and other governmental bodies approved this project with praise.
Here are the links;

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2...ent_868138.htm

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=10055464&postcount=128

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=7153771&postcount=74

If they decided to postpone they should have announced the facts not some lame cover up story which doesn't hold water in the first place and smear dirt into Germany to keep their own face.

If their were protest concerning this project and you had concerns, why didn't you voice them when they first announced the project?


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## hkth

Delete.


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## UD2

*Maglev Made in China*

To shed some light on the ever developing question of why they might be delaying the Transrapid construction.

Here's a picture of another Maglev train, only this time made by Changchun Passanger Train Works. Two end cars have been manufactured so far and both are under testing in Shanghai's TongJing University. 

This is actually a really old trick in the books. Its more like a warning to the Germans saying that you can either give us the technology and have us pay you for it, or we can just build it our selves in a couple more years and you won't get a cent. 

The Russians had to bite the bullet the last time they rejected to give tech transfers for the Su-27upgrade kits to Shenyang Aircraft Works, and shortly after that they lost all orders for the Su-27 and Su-30MKK. Shenyang is now happily making their own version of the upgraded Su-27s with 100 percent Chinese made parts. 

Let's hope the Germans don't make the same mistake.


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## pflo777

wahooo, now this is what I call a chinese copy....

Are more pitctures of that train availabe? Where in Shanghai is the test track, how long is it and how fast do they want to go with that maglev?

I wonder if its compatible to the existing maglev line in Shanghai (SMTDC) and if they want to use it, to extend the line sooner or later without zu germans.

I cant believe it... the guidway, the vehicle itself, the levitation frames...everything looks exactly the same then it does on the german original!!!!!

Do they plan to make something like a public presentation of this?


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## pflo777

its time that western politicians do something about this technology theft...it cant go on like this.....

If you want to buy oil, you have to pay for it. If you want to buy a car, you have to pay for it. If you want technology...well. then you can steal it or what??????

Thats crazy, germany should seirously think about consequences on that...


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## Tri-ring

UD2 said:


> <Edited>
> 
> This is actually a really old trick in the books. Its more like a warning to the Germans saying that you can either give us the technology and have us pay you for it, or we can just build it our selves in a couple more years and you won't get a cent.
> 
> The Russians had to bite the bullet the last time they rejected to give tech transfers for the Su-27upgrade kits to Shenyang Aircraft Works, and shortly after that they lost all orders for the Su-27 and Su-30MKK. Shenyang is now happily making their own version of the upgraded Su-27s with 100 percent Chinese made parts.
> 
> Let's hope the Germans don't make the same mistake.


This could easily flash over to become a trades war with EU if PRC keeps it up.
Yeah, I know. PRC's logic is that since China is a big market, EU would turn a blind eye and let this fly as usual...
EU may accept defeat or EU may use it's influence over the finacial industry to place pressure using nation credit evaluation rate as leverage.
Remember they have to save face as much as PRC does.
I also wonder how the German automobile industry which is investing heavily in mainland china, would respond to this kind of extortion also.
In any case PRC is losing whatever international reputation they had left with these kind of stunts.


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## pflo777

the Point is, that in the not to distant future, all Businismen and Politicians in Europe and the US will find out, that you cannot make any money in deals with china, simply because you whole know how, all technologies and patenst are stolen and used against you after some years.

Just look at that Brilliance BMW thing...Maybe BMW is making some money in China, actually most western fims dont, and just hope they will do so in the future what keeps investments flowing...but in some years, they will find out, that they lost much more than they gained.

And dont forget, that most western countries already do have a negative import-export ration with china....


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## financial way

whatever, we will be the winner.

japan? keep licking your master's ass.

US? for PPP GDP you are not the largest economy anymore in next two years.

no body care about your investments, if you don't want, just leave it. 

we can make everything soon by ourself.

did japan copy and stolen tec before? yes, thousands years from China, and 

200 years from the west. still using chinese now, still copy french car now.

there is no that most western countries ... blablabla...

only you alone, USA.


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## pflo777

thanks, 

its good that the chinese start showing their real face.


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## snow is red

I would like to ask japanese members here a question, Why are u guys so concerned about China and its issues, I dont really see any Chinese members on this forum participate in any Japan-related topics/issues.


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## snow is red

Financial way, please watch your words, you are not doing any good for China. This guy does not represent Chinese people at all.


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## pflo777

that guy is unimportant...the facts speak enough about china today.

Does anybody have any inforamtion about that Chinese-Copy Transrapid?

Maybe some more pics of the vehicle and the track?

Maybe someone could find some on the website http://bbs.hasea.com and link them here?


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## Tri-ring

02tonyl said:


> I would like to ask japanese members here a question, Why are u guys so concerned about China and its issues, I dont really see any Chinese members on this forum participate in any Japan-related topics/issues.


Concerned?
Interested maybe, well come to think of it a little concerned since we are seeing alot of problems lately.
Although the following maybe off topic but, there has been a rise of industrial espionage cases by PRC citizens and a few agaisnt the JMSDF.
I also notice alot of hazardous exports like the tainted dog food and proceed fish meat in the US, tainted medicine in middle America and lead tainted cookingware in Japan that is creating a scare globally.
As for forum participation, for your information their are tons of CCP trolls rampaging various Japanese forums making baseless accusations.

There are trade secrets, patended ideas, and copyright art work. They are all proprietary with people and companies alike investing huge amount of their time and money to develop them. 
If PRC does not understand the fundamental concept then it will not be long before everybody starts leaving because there is not enough insentive how ever large to justify violation of their proprietary assets.


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## snow is red

Please do not feed other trolls, keep this forum peaceful please. Yes China has a lot of works to do like her food industry, the government needs to track down the criminals and punish them. The chinese government already has a 5 year plan to improve the country's food safety standards. And for the German maglev, I hope the maglev that being developed by the shanghai university is not a copy of the german one, I hope they just learn from the German tech and design the trains and track on their own, or even better that China just buy off the technology from germany, mutual benefits.China has been investing a lot in R&D, so please do not assume that everything China made is a ripoff, copy.  Yes maybe they took/copy the external design but tech is self developed. 

Thank you for reading


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## snow is red

pflo777

I just found interesting articles here if you dont mind reading them 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/ind...e=UPI-1-20070211-18362900-bc-china-maglev.xml



"Even after the German government intervened to clarify the issue, the public was not entirely convinced. Germany began to feel uneasy at this time....."

"German national television said people should be aware of two issues following the accident. Firstly, Germany must admit that Chinese people have their own technology. Chinese experts have spent 20 years tackling these technological challenges; "the Chinese have been studying maglev technology carefully so that they will be able to compete in five years." Secondly, they need to concede that the German technology is not as "miraculous" as was believed. Germany certainly has room for improvement. ....."

http://english.people.com.cn/200608/17/eng20060817_294049.html


"Nowadays, there are three types of magnetic levitation technology in the world, namely, superconducting electromagnetic levitation, normal-conducting electromagnetic levitation and permanent magnetic levitation. The first one is developed and possessed by Japan. The second is developed and owned by Germany. The third is independently developed by the Dalian permanent magnetic levitation project team, and is an innovation completely controlled by China. It is an entirely new technology......"

http://english.people.com.cn/200607/24/eng20060724_286049.html

"The Dalian permanent magnetic levitation project team started to do research on permanent magnetic levitation in 1998. From 1998 to 2006, the project team made a number of breakthroughs and devised many innovative techniques. On August 7th 2003, a magnetically levitated vehicle made by the team for conveying park visitors was successful in the operation test, indicating that China has its own magnetic levitation technology. After that, the project team succeeded in solving 5 major technical issues. On December 26th 2004, they made a permanent maglev train that made satisfactory performances on a 70-meter long track during operation test. 

Magnetic engine is the core technique of a maglev train. The magnetic engine inside a permanent maglev train is a decentralized power device developed by China on its own. This type of engine can help to cut costs dramatically and can reduce energy consumption by about 50 percent. The Dalian project team has managed to develop two types of magnetic engines, one with traction of 105 newtons and the other with traction of 15,000 newtons. The former, with a rated velocity of 140 kilometers per hour and a maximum velocity of 218 kilometers per hour, aims to be used in low-speed permanent maglev train. The latter, with a rated velocity of 268 kilometers per hour and a maxim velocity of 536 kilometers per hour, can be adopted in medium-speed passenger or cargo permanent maglev train....." 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/11/content_5725990.htm

http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/logistics/2007/02/21/500kph-maglev-trains-on-test-by-2010/



As you can see , China does sincerely want to develop its own technology to serve its people, China is investing a lot of money into R&D, therefore I believe Chinese scientists can come up with their own development, as you can read from those articles above, Chinese have been studying maglev tech for the past 20 years, they dont just come up with that technology from nowhere.Yes the current German maglev tech is far better than the Chinese, and chinese maglev tech will have a lot of problems but they are trying to tackle these problems. 

And even if Chinese want to build the maglev on their with German tech , i am pretty sure the Chinese government will pay to buy off the patent like they when they bought the high speed bullet trains technology from Germany, France and Japan (The chinese sides pay them all).

So lastly, please dont quickly assume that Chinese scientists cannot develop its own technology, and all they can do is to copy.They are doing hard work there too 

Thank you for reading


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## pflo777

it would be very helpfull if we could get more information on the maglev that is shown on the big picutre.

Maybe some of the chinese speaking guys could translate that for me as al the online translators suck)



http://news.21cn.com/domestic/yaowen/2007/05/16/3234841.shtml



记者：长客最近在产品研发方面还有哪些新动向？

董晓峰：我们已经研制出了时速达到350公里的动车组，将在明年投入“京津城际轨道”运行，这条线路区间大概是120公里左右，中间有几个站点，全程运行时间只需20多分钟。






长客董事长董晓峰 本报记者 郭亮 摄


记者：350公里是我们已经研制出的最高速度吗？

董晓峰：其实，长客从2003年起即开始研制磁悬浮列车，这个项目得到了国家支持，被列入“863计划”，它的速度更快，设计时速达到550公里。

记者：磁悬浮列车研究进展怎么样？

董晓峰：几年来，这方面研制经费已投入了近亿元，现已生产出一辆约27米长的车头，它代表着国内在这方面最尖端的科技。目前，这辆“磁悬浮”正在上海某大学进行“悬浮试验”，测试悬浮状态下的设施运行情况，结果令人满意。由于试验段只有一公里长，现在还没办法测试它的真正速度，到底何时测试实际运行速度，还要看国家有关方面的具体安排。

昨日，长春轨道客车股份有限公司董事长董晓峰接受了本报记者独家专访。据他透露，长客已研制出一辆设计时速达550公里的磁悬浮列车车头，正在上海某大学进行试验。

动车组

国外公司抢着和我们合作

记者：外界对于4月18日起投入使用的动车组一直很感兴趣，在它的研制过程中，您最难忘的事情是什么？

董晓峰：动车组的技术是从国外引进的，合作过程中遇到许多难题。说到最难忘的事，是在选择合作对象时，掌握这门技术的一些国外公司都抢着和我们合作。事后我分析了，他们主要是看好了中国经济的发展速度和高速列车的发展前景，及长客的实力。|

记者：技术既然是引进的，那么在合作过程中，我们除了动车组，还有其他的收获吗？

董晓峰：国外公司的目的是赚钱，我们的目的是引进并学习。外方在合作中，也想在某些技术方面对我们有所制约，但双方接触后，我们也得到了想要的东西。

记者：我是不是可以这样理解，通过合作，我们掌握了动车组的相关研发技术？

董晓峰：我同意你的理解。

人们对动车组晚点很敏感

记者：投入使用后的动车组也遇到了一些麻烦，比如说列车晚点成了新闻，您怎么评价这件事？

董晓峰：过去中国铁路交通是低速时代，慢车出了问题晚一点，大家也不在意。现在逐渐进入了高速时代，大家对运行速度就比较敏感了，一旦有事都挺关注，这很正常。

记者：您认为是什么问题导致了动车组的晚点？

董晓峰：晚点不只在北方，南方也出现了这个问题。我分析原因主要有五个，第一是动车组本身调试周期短，还有一些没调试到位，需要一些时间；第二是个别操作者还没摸透驾驶方法，因为操作不当而出现故障；第三是维护和保养方面，高速技术对中国企业是个课题，对铁路运营单位也有个适应问题；第四是运行环境，国外运行线路没有道砟，都是水泥面，车快起来也不会飞沙走石，不存在把车打坏的情况；第五是网压不稳的问题，动车组运行需要电网的网压稳定在2.2万伏左右，一旦网压超出一定幅度，动车组会启动自我保护装置进入低速运行状态。

(更多热点新闻,请关注21CN新闻) 



下一篇:中国政府全力搜救“5 12”船舶碰撞事故失踪人员

Edit: somehow the fancy green white livery of that maglev looks like it was made to match the Expo Logo...what would have made sence, if the line was extended...


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## Tri-ring

First off, I don't know were one news source got it's 20 years research when the other article clear claims;


> The Dalian permanent magnetic levitation project team started to do research on permanent magnetic levitation in 1998.


Second, since the articles does not specify the fundemental principle for the so called "permanent magnetic levitation" so I can not be sure but,the transrapid system uses "ferromagnetic stator" or permanent magnets so from what I can read from the article I can not see any difference.
In other words, the article is basically writing vaporware without any substance.

Patents are usually not sold, they are leased since owners of that patent will be able to make more profit through this arrangement. I am sure none of the nations you mentioned sold their proprietary assets. I also believe that they placed clauses within the contract stating that they will terminate any arrangement if they find PRC infringing the contract.


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## wigo

There are tons of articles talking about "permanent magnetic levitation", but they are mostly in Chinese so you have to search "永磁悬浮"。

This is one article:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/st/2006-06/08/content_4664370.htm

Which clearly states that "permanent magnetic levitation" differ from all other existing technology in that electricity is not needed, because some "permanent magnetic material" is used. These "permanent magnetic material" originates from rare earth elements, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element. China has abundant such resources, highest in the world maybe, in Inner Mongolia. 

The permanent magnetic levitation is a brand-new concept.


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## tiger

pflo777 said:


> the three picutres I postet from the guidway are not from chinese media.
> The pic of the vehicle UD2 linked in here is from a forum


But the original producer is probably Chinese media.




pflo777 said:


> The only thing thats funny, but its not funny any more, is that not a single pic is provided by you guys. For SWFC everyday, one or two are uploaded....


And they must confirm that it's not originated from media.Who can?you?^^


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## pflo777

the three photos of the guidway were taken by a group of students form Tongji...

I mean, you could just go there take some pics, upload them to flickr, link them here, an thats it.


Just like thousand others do with SWFC, Pudong airport Extension and millions of other projects in china....

If you want to, I could go to munich airport and take some pics of our maglev, thats shown there, in return 

And a picture is something different than a scientific paper


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## tiger

pflo777 said:


> the three photos of the guidway were taken by a group of students form Tongji...


Why don't you ask if they are employed by any media at the same time since you're so suspicious.In your logic,Anyone might be a Chinese politician that trys to do some propaganda on the forums including on SSC.Who do you believe?How to justify your choice.



> And a picture is something different than a scientific paper


What's the difference when everything in the photo could be PSed nowadays.:bash:


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## Trainman Dave

This thread used to be a useful discussion of the developments in the Chinese Railways which I enjoyed  .

This rancorous shouting about the international politics of MagLev may interest some so please go away and create your own thread called MagLev politics and return this thread to its original purpose which was railways not MagLev hno: :bash: hno: :bash:


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## Prestonian

^ fine by me, I'll leave the thread. Too few people seem to have any manners or understanding of what does and does not constitute theft and fair terms. I don't much appreciate being called an idiot either, again quite rude.

My final word is that buying a product does not give you the right to copy it. If China wants to play like that then I wish it luck in destroying the world economy which is based on trust, the rule of law and property rights something that clearly hasn't sunk in yet.


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## ningxiard

Prestonian said:


> ^ fine by me, I'll leave the thread. Too few people seem to have any manners or understanding of what does and does not constitute theft and fair terms. I don't much appreciate being called an idiot either, again quite rude.
> 
> My final word is that buying a product does not give you the right to copy it. If China wants to play like that then I wish it luck in destroying the world economy which is based on trust, the rule of law and property rights something that clearly hasn't sunk in yet.


Who cares?! You shouldn't have jumped into the fighting at the beginning. You covered your ears from all the background information other people provide to you about this whole event, you made all the accusations about China stealing this, stealing that on this mag-lev project without having any proof to support them, and you made all those totally groundless judgements that China smeared the mag-lev technology, China broke the agreement and gave Germany a hard time. How would you expect Chinese to respond to you? Do you expect us to be sheepish and shut up our mouths?! 

And wow, you are leaving now, with another big slogan left behind, accusing other people not knowing how to do things properly. So what? That gives you the sense of victory and superiority? Give us a break! hno:


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## Andrew

Well, this whole thread has been nicely ruined. I have no sympathy though. I tend to side with China in arguments like this, giving it the benefit of the doubt, but this time I just can't. Unless Transrapid publicly state that they did sell or lease the patents for the core technology to the Chinese, I will class this Chinese built version as an illegal copy.









You cannot just copy someone else's technology and pass it off as your own, it's theft, pure and simple. If someone can show me the details of the patents sold or leased by Transrapid that give the Chinese the right to copy the German technology then I'm absolutely willing to accept that this is legitimate. So far I have seen no such evidence...


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## pflo777

http://www.euro2day.gr/articlesfna/35727501/


Shanghai backtracks on reports of maglev train project suspension
29/5/2007 11:23 London Time | story 0756 



SHANGHAI (XFN-ASIA) - Shanghai officials have backtracked on state-media reports that plans to build a high-speed magnetic levitation train linking Shanghai and the eastern city of Hangzhou have been suspended due to health concerns. 
Zhang Qing, a spokeswoman of the Shanghai government, said there has been no notice of any suspension of the project.
Separately, an official of the Shanghai Maglev Company, which operates the current maglev line in city, said he was also unaware of any project suspension. 
On Sunday, the state-owned Xinhua news agency, citing unnamed Shanghai officials, reported that the 170 km project has been suspended following petitions from residents living along the proposed route worried about possible health problems from the maglev''s high powered magnets. 
The maglev uses powerful magnets to drive trains at speeds of up to 430 km per hour.


****it seems even inside china nobody knows whats really going on******


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## Andrew

The Chinese media seems to have absolutely no credibility! How can a state controlled media have so little idea of what's going on?


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## Momo1435

This thread reminds me of a story I once heard about a Dutch machine manufacturer that shipped one of it's machines to China to show it on a trade fair. But during the transport it took some damage and it had a few dents when it went on show. A year later the same manufacturer came back to the trade fair and was surprised to see an exact copy of his machine made by a Chinese manufacturer. The best thing was that it also included the dents that shouldn't have been there. The moral of the story is that it's no secret that some Chinese companies steal foreign technology. In the long run it will even be harmful for the Chinese economy, there are already cases of companies that build new factories in Europe rather then in China even when the costs are higher because of the technology theft.

On the other hand Europeans have stolen lot's of ancient technology from China in the past, without giving credit. This also shows that China has a tradition of making inventions, in order to keep the current economic boom sustainable they need to pick up that tradition again. 

Anyway I hope in this case of the maglev that the chinese put in a solid crashzone, last year maglev accident in Germany clearly shows that it's needed even when there is supossed to be lot's of security measures to protect any collisions. If you copy technology, try to make it even better!


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## growingup

I completely agree with Momo1435, it could be harmful for the chinese economy if cases like this one happen again along time. 
I don't know (and don't understand) why if the chinese made their own maglev (if it's their own) they didn't change the design of the Maglev. Why would you make something that looks EXACTLY (well, it has a different livery) the same as other's one and clame later on you've used your own technology when you know international opinion won't give you credit for it? I seriously can't understand it. That's not much R&D on aerodynamics, I'll say...
You have another example with that chinese train that looks fairly equal to Siemens' ICE3. Although the mechanical equipment is completely different, it looks as a huge rip-off from Siemens' ICE3s design, and they didn't get it quite right...


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## tiger

上海回应有关沪杭磁悬浮项目暂停消息
http://www.sina.com.cn 2007年05月29日11:23 浙江在线 (来源：21世纪经济报道)
　　各界瞩目的沪杭磁悬浮工程再次被推到风口浪尖。

　　近日有媒体引述有关消息人士的发言称，“目前沪杭磁悬浮项目已经暂停”。

　　5月28日，上海市政府新闻办在回答本报提问时表示，“我们已专门向市政府相关职能部门了解此事，现在暂时没有‘暂停’的消息”。

　　工程是否获批？

　　而据本报了解，之前关于所谓国务院 “批准”沪杭磁悬浮项目的说法也存在着理解上的偏差。

　　_有轨道交通专家解释说，这里的“批准”并不是确定要建磁悬浮，而只是批准立项进行可行性研究。_

　　然而早在2006年10月，所谓的“沪杭磁悬浮上海段”工程已经开始进行拆迁。拆迁过程引发沿线居民争议，双方争执至今未得到解决，“暂停”的传闻可能与此有关。

　　既然尚未获批准，为什么就开始拆迁了？据了解，相关部委确曾批准过上海市“机场快速公交系统”。而这实际上就是当前媒体所说的沪杭磁悬浮上海段。此后相关拆迁公告上，仍然标注拆迁建设项目为“上海机场快速公交系统基地”，但房屋拆迁人却是“上海磁浮交通发展有限公司”。

　　相关专家评价说，这种名称上的变换有打擦边球之嫌。

　　拆迁争议

　　目前关于沪杭磁悬浮上海段的最大争议，是沿线居民对磁悬浮环境影响的质疑。居民们提出，为什么德国磁悬浮两边预留300米空间，而上海部分路段只留了22.5米？如此近的距离是否会导致电磁辐射影响居民身体健康？

　　早在2006年6月，上海市环境科学研究院、浙江省环境保护科学设计研究院就已拿出了《沪杭磁浮交通工程环境影响报告书》。该报告事实上已对电磁辐射状况作出评估：“根据监测结果，沿线静磁场、工频(50Hz)电场、磁场、5Hz-5kHz磁场、无线电干扰、电视信号均符合环境标准。”

　　有长期从事磁悬浮工作的人士说，并没有发现自己及孩子身体有何异常。

　　_也有专家告诉记者，“德国为什么预留300米防护带，其实德国自己也没有一个标准，为了防止对人体影响，所以预留多一点”。_

　　曾经参加上海磁悬浮(龙阳路段)环评工作的同济大学环境科学与工程学院评价室主任杨海真教授说，“我们在(龙阳路段)第一个磁悬浮项目做好了之后，没有做好后续的工作，没有做测试方面的科学研究。所以我们还有好多东西不知道，认识还不充足。”

　　_预留22.5米还是300米不是单纯环保问题，因为这意味着不同的拆迁量。“如果要求300米的话，因为是穿过市区，就会有很大的拆迁量，这个项目就很困难了”，杨海真说。_

　　_“归根结底，还是磁悬浮的技术不成熟，安全性尚不了解”，一位轨道交通专家评论道。_

　　此外，根据前述《沪杭磁浮交通工程环境影响报告书》的预计，这一工程的“施工期持续时间将为2年左右”。

　　据悉，国家环保总局已责成建设单位在编制环评报告过程中要保证公众充分参与，采取听证会等形式广泛征求沿线居民意见。


----------



## wigo

Andrew said:


> Well, this whole thread has been nicely ruined. I have no sympathy though. I tend to side with China in arguments like this, giving it the benefit of the doubt, but this time I just can't. Unless Transrapid publicly state that they did sell or lease the patents for the core technology to the Chinese, I will class this Chinese built version as an illegal copy.


Again, know what you are talking about before you open your mouth, it is annoying. The resemblance is body, not core technology, which China has not obtained it.



Andrew said:


> You cannot just copy someone else's technology and pass it off as your own, it's theft, pure and simple. If someone can show me the details of the patents sold or leased by Transrapid that give the Chinese the right to copy the German technology then I'm absolutely willing to accept that this is legitimate. So far I have seen no such evidence...


1. Everyone is innocent until proven guity. 2. The Tongji tech vehicle is not a secret, everyone can have a visit.

@Pfo777, is there any chance that you can email the photo to Transrapid to see whether they have any comments.


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## ningxiard

Wow, more guys are eager to jump in and spread all those hearsays, gossips, and change this thread into "China Stealing the IP from every country in the world" propoganda machine. Feel free to do whatever you want to do on this forum as long as the Mods allow you the freedom to do that, but, keep this your mind, the debate that has been going on so far in this thread is about the Mag-lev line. Start a new thread to satisfy your irrepressible urge of criticizing China on IP issue.

And read the previous posts in this thread carefully, at least get a little background knowledge before you guys even open up your mouths. Talking about those mag-lev trains, the info we have in this thread so far don't support the allegation that China actually stole the German technology. I don't deny that possibility, but if you don't have any convincing evdence to support that allegation, don't jump to the conclusion, otherwise nothing else could make you sound even more simple-minded. Talking about that picture, most of the cars in the world look similiar to each other in appearance, so all the auto companies are stealing technology from each other?! Unless you are an expert with the mag-lev trains, therefore are able to tell all the secrets with just a glipmse at a picture from the internet (apparently that's not the case with you guys), or you actually worked in the mag-lev business and knew all the inside stories (did you?), you had better shut up your mouths with those accusations.


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## wigo

okay, here is the contact info of Transrapid:

http://www.transrapid.de/cgi-tdb/en/basics.prg?session=80ad922d465c343d&a_no=64

Contact them before saying anything, I am sick of whole bunch of idiots, inculding: Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian. Sorry if the truth sounds offensive.


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## Trainman Dave

ningxiard said:


> keep this your mind, the debate that has been going on so far in this thread is about the Mag-lev line.


Wrong :bash:! This thread started out dicussing "China Railway Development News".

It was first hijacked by the MagLev advocates:soapbox: 
Then it was hijacked by the intelectual propoerty debate!

Lets return to basics


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## pflo777

I already mailed them concerning the vehicle...but didnt get a response so far.

But what is confirmed, is that the guidway girders at Tongji, which are chinese made (upon the gemerman patents that were legally aquired) are equipped with a linear-motor ( or linear-engine), thats made of components that were left over by building the Shanghai Maglev .

So the linear engine is not copied from german stuff, it actually is german stuff that was left over and would have been thrown away otherwise.....



> The Tongji tech vehicle is not a secret, everyone can have a visit



Yep, thats why I am asking about more pictures all the time....


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## ningxiard

Trainman Dave said:


> Wrong :bash:! This thread started out dicussing "China Railway Development News".
> 
> It was first hijacked by the MagLev advocates:soapbox:
> Then it was hijacked by the intelectual propoerty debate!
> 
> Lets return to basics


I am sorry about that. I understand your frustration, but if someone suddenly start the fighting, slap us dead on the face, we can't keep silent.


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## pflo777

^^ ^^ ^^ if someone starts to do exactly the same with us I cannot stop either ...

:chears: 

Althouhg I do everything to clearify the situation...


----------



## snow is red

Give us the latest updated news if you can 

Thank you 

Now people can we get back to the topic please ?


----------



## Momo1435

wigo said:


> okay, here is the contact info of Transrapid:
> 
> http://www.transrapid.de/cgi-tdb/en/basics.prg?session=80ad922d465c343d&a_no=64
> 
> Contact them before saying anything, I am sick of whole bunch of idiots, including: Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian. Sorry if the truth sounds offensive.


I reply with............. sorry if the truth sounds offensive. 

BTW, if it's stolen technology Siemens will find out about it anyway and take action even without us informing them. 

btw, SSC wouldn't be the same when all threads just stay on-topic. Fighto!

Luckily for this thread, all the other High Speed Trains that China buys are from the big Japanese, Canadian and European manufactures often in cooperation with Chinese companies. Since it seems like nobody knows right now if there going to be more Maglev lines, conventional rail is the way to go right now for China.


----------



## snow is red

Yup if the tech is stolen then I believe the german government and transrapid will not keep their eyes closed.


----------



## wigo

Well, if I can give an educated guesses, I would say: A. German knew the Tongji Maglev projects long time ago. B. There will never be an official allegation from Transrapid regarding Tongji project or other Chinese stealing.

But anyway, I will wait for one week, before I officially label Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian as idiots, and quote their dog-barking every time when I see them.

I may be rude, but what is the point to be nice to disgusting pieces of work like them, who started their dog-barking even the facts are just out there.


----------



## snow is red

You don't have to call them idiots, they are just expressing their opinions, btw why do u have to wait for one week ?


----------



## Momo1435

I'm already proud to be an idiot! epper: I just can't wait 1 week!! There's nothing like teh good old fashioned zOMG Internet Drama! 
And wigo, it looks like you got some trouble with your guilty conscience, why else would you react so dramatic. 


In the end of the day, stolen or not, a new fantastic design would have been nice, "Let's make things better!"


----------



## wigo

Momo1435 said:


> I'm already proud to be an idiot! epper: I just can't wait 1 week!! There's nothing like teh good old fashioned zOMG Internet Drama!
> And wigo, it looks like you got some trouble with your guilty conscience, why else would you react so dramatic.
> 
> 
> In the end of the day, stolen or not, a new fantastic design would have been nice, "Let's make things better!"


No, I only have problem with those who made baseless accusations, who apparently qualify as idiots. Anything wrongs with that?


----------



## Momo1435

^^
I will know in one week! :|


----------



## Andrew

wigo said:


> 1. Everyone is innocent until proven guity.


Last I heard, that's not how it works in Chinese courts...
However, I made that accusation based on the fact that the vehicle shown in the photo looks *exactly the same*, so we have visual evidence that China was copying Transrapid technology, the alligations can be easily refuted by showing evidence that they have the legal right to copy it. You say that it is the vehicle design that they copied not the core technology, fair enough. I presume neither of us has enough technical knowledge of the transrapid system to judge whether that is correct or not just by looking at that picture, so I'll let that one rest unless there are some experts on here who can clarify this point. However, we can both see that the vehicle does look exactly the same as a Transrapid vehicle. So I ask; has China got permission to copy the vehicle design?




wigo said:


> I am sick of whole bunch of idiots, inculding: Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian. Sorry if the truth sounds offensive.


I read through the whole thread before I made that post and gave my opinion based on what had been written. By all means correct me if I get some facts wrong but you're damn right I'm offended if you call me an idiot just because you don't like what I said. If you can't handle criticism it's not my fault. If you've read my posts before you'll know that I don't make a habit of baselessly criticising China or starting arguments. I actually happen to like your country and am very impressed by the rate of development. That doesn't mean though that if I see something that I disagree with that I won't argue against it. I saw what appears to be a gross breach of intellectual property rights and I duely criticised it. You want to call me an idiot for that?




wigo said:


> But anyway, I will wait for one week, before I officially label Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian as idiots, and quote their dog-barking every time when I see them.
> 
> I may be rude, but what is the point to be nice to disgusting pieces of work like them, who started their dog-barking even the facts are just out there.


Too late, you've already officially labeled us idiots, but I'm not going to respond in kind. I'm going to call you names in reply because that would put me on your level.
You know what, I suspect that you're right about transrapid not saying anything in a week. Transrapid never seem to talk to the public and probably wouldn't be willing to openly criticise China even if the technology/vehicle design (whatever) has been stolen. If they do though... hahaha, I'll have a field day!


----------



## growingup

Well, wow it seems it has been a busy day over here...
First of all, I have to say that I've read all the thread until making my post, and I haven't found any evidence for saying anything is fake or not. I didn't say either one or the other in my post. I think others should read before insulting anyone... I've based my opinion actually in what I can see from those pictures posted here, and the only thing I can judge is the appearance (design) of both trains. I'm not going to enter on that issue again.
By the way, I've just "open my mouth to bark" one time, and I've been called an idiot. That's enough for not answering back the person who made the comments, as i didn't offend anyone in here. I understood a forum was to collect infromation, have a talk with other members and discuss, not to insult other beacuse his/her opinion doesn't fit with yours.
That said, I think that rude attitude does not match to the one that has been going until now. Let's try to be polite to each other. Momo1345, Andrew, prestonian, just forget about those comments...
Returning to the topic... , we'll have to wait to know the whole thing. Time will say.


----------



## wigo

Andrew said:


> Too late, you've already officially labeled us idiots, but I'm not going to respond in kind. I'm going to call you names in reply because that would put me on your level.
> You know what, I suspect that you're right about transrapid not saying anything in a week. Transrapid never seem to talk to the public and probably wouldn't be willing to openly criticise China even if the technology/vehicle design (whatever) has been stolen. If they do though... hahaha, I'll have a field day!


What kind of level do you have if Transrapid does not give a damn to your fabricated accusation? But let's what is going to happen in a week.


----------



## UD2

Guys, let's just say that Changchun Train Works successfully copies the Transrapid maglev and build it in China without paying a cent to Transrapid. What can Germany do. Germany as a country is not surviving on Transrapid's maglev technology (which BTW havne't really made enough money to cover the development cost yet), and they have much more important profitable businesses in China than transrapid's maglev. Siemens for example, another company in the railroad sector, have been doing great business with the Department or railroad transportation as well as the public transit authorities of major cities. 

Is Germany along with the EU going place trade senctions against China over Transrapid? Then what about Volkswagen? Deimler-Benz? Airbus? BMW? Siemens? Alstom? Even LV and Gucci along with the entire European tourism industry (especialy French)? 

Do you really think anybody is going to levy anything against China over transrapid? growup will you. 

now let's talk about trains, because from what's mentioned here you clearly are not politicans.


----------



## chewys

It would be naive for someone to think that China would waste a billions to showcase German technology, without any returns.

Hence the returns would be in form of transfer of technology. The test track at Shanghai Tongji university must have been built to complement the technology transfer process. Millions would have been spent on it, and the German must have been well aware of this as it is in Shanghai and not in a far flung province. 

The Chinese are the one who got off worst in this debacle, as they wasted at least US $1.2 billions with a loss making maglev line that is going nowhere, while German got to showcase their technology to whole world.

Chinese officials should have done better in this saga. Pay no heed to promise of technology transfer from any anyone, unless it is clearly inked out in the formal agreement.


----------



## ningxiard

Andrew said:


> However, we can both see that the vehicle does look exactly the same as a Transrapid vehicle. So I ask; has China got permission to copy the vehicle design?


I don't agree with you on that. Why do you presume that China must have the premission from Germany to make trains that look physically similiar to theirs? Unless it's protected by the patent law (which nobody knows except experts), I don't see why Chinese have to develop a new train with entirely different shape if the old ones work perfectly well.


----------



## Momo1435

^^
The design is not protected by patent laws, but by copyright laws instead.


----------



## Kenwen

as long as it benefit the country, who gives a shit about copy, chinese invented paper and compass, so please everyone give money to the chinese people,lol


----------



## snow is red

Ok let assume that the Chinese side really copied the tech, but how stupid is the Chinese government to let the the whole knows that copy tech by putting it right in Shanghai, and let people visit the construction site and take pictures ??


----------



## wigo

Okay, one day has passed and nothing has happened, as I had expected.

The issue is about whether China legally copies it, so all we need to know is whether Transrapid knows and, has any objection against Tongji Test vehicle.

Let's wait for another six days, if it turns out China is nothing wrong, meaning no response from Transrapid. I want Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian, if they think they are decent human beings, to issue a sincere apology to China for their irresponsible accusation. However, I am not sure about whether they are decent human being.

Again, if anyone wants to contact Transrapid, feel free to do so.
http://www.transrapid.de/


----------



## ningxiard

wigo said:


> Let's wait for another six days, if it turns out China is nothing wrong, meaning no response from Transrapid. I want Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian, if they think they are decent human beings, to issue a sincere apology to China for their irresponsible accusation. However, I am not sure about whether they are decent human being.


Wigo, take it easy. We fellow Chinese all understand your fury and frustration. Sometimes I also wanted to jump up and punch them dead on the face. :lol: But this is still just an online discussion. At least Andrew is a very nice and friendly British boy, he doesn't deserve to be described as an indecent person.


----------



## Momo1435

wigo said:


> I want Andrew, growingup, Momo1435 and prestonian, if they think they are decent human beings, to issue a sincere apology to China for their irresponsible accusation. However, I am not sure about whether they are decent human being.


I won't apologize, because if you had read my post properly you would have known that I never claimed that in this case the technology was stolen. I said that there are cases of stolen technology, that's not even a secret. There are even lot's of disputes between Chinese companies over intellectual property, that are settled in court. Also the US government is right now in negotiation with China via the WTO about the protection of intellectual property, so there is really something going on and the accusations are not simply baseless (although there is no actual proof in this particular case).

In your anger you read only "China" "stolen technology" "maglev", and didn't read between the lines. So there's no need to apologize from my side, because I did not offend anybody.

I also have an advice, don't take everything personal, it's not against you. It's only an online discussion like ningxiard said,


----------



## wigo

Momo1435 said:


> I won't apologize, because if you had read my post properly you would have known that I never claimed that in this case the technology was stolen. I said that there are cases of stolen technology, that's not even a secret. There are even lot's of disputes between Chinese companies over intellectual property, that are settled in court. Also the US government is right now in negotiation with China via the WTO about the protection of intellectual property, so there is really something going on and the accusations are not simply baseless (although there is no actual proof in this particular case).
> 
> In your anger you read only "China" "stolen technology" "maglev", and didn't read between the lines. So there's no need to apologize from my side, because I did not offend anybody.
> 
> I also have an advice, don't take everything personal, it's not against you. It's only an online discussion like ningxiard said,


Well, everything you say under perticular context has its meaning. When you brought up a "hearsay" into a "China-Maglev-stealing" debate, it is clear that you want to be an ally of such accusation.

And, what does it mean when you say this


Momo1435 said:


> ^^
> I will know in one week! :|


Anyway, I take your explanation since as you said, you never made a specific statement about "China-Maglev-stealing".

But, we both know the truth is, you know that you are losing this "China-Maglev-stealing" debate, therefore you decide to quit. :lol:


----------



## YelloPerilo

Trainman Dave said:


> Are you using a wireless connection or are you connecting from an International Hotel?


Wireless connection from my appartment.


----------



## pflo777

Shanghai denies suspension of Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev project 



Jiao Yang, a Shanghai municipal government news spokesperson, announced that media claims regarding the suspension of the Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev project are false, as reported by CCTV. 

He stated that "from what we have been told by relevant departments, nobody has received any notice on the issue of the suspension of the Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev project." 

Yang also noted that the Maglev project was authorized by the State Council last year. This railway line, with a total length of 175 kilometers, a speed of 450 kilometers per hour, and a cost of approximately 35 billion yuan, will be built by 2010, in time to reduce traffic tensions during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. 

In response to concerns about how the electromagnetic radiation will affect residents who live along the railway line, Yang said that since the Shanghai Maglev project is still in its early stages, the government will listen to opinions from all sides. 

By People's Dai'ly Online


Edit: Link for 02tonyl http://english.people.com.cn/200706/05/eng20070605_381026.html


----------



## snow is red

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL . More confusions. It was all over on the Chinese media. And now what is this ??? I am seriously confused. Btw pflo, can you please provide a link or source to the article above please.
Thank you


----------



## UD2

*Again...*



02tonyl said:


> LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL . More confusions. It was all over on the Chinese media. And now what is this ??? I am seriously confused. Btw pflo, can you please provide a link or source to the article above please.
> Thank you


it's from the People's Daily so you needn't bother varifying credibility, it's creditable. 

This late breaking news can only indicate that Transrapid have just agreed to another term that China has put forward in their on going discussion.

As mentioned before, these news are nothing more than political play (which the infamous picture that I posted was just apart of it) and anyone who actually understands Chinese culture would not take them seriously. There are just very realistic threats used as a barginning point; they are very rude in the prospective of fairness, but they are also extremely effective

Siemen's ignored one of these threats during the 2004 CRH bid, and was eliminated from the process while the other three manufactures Alstom, Kawasaki and Bombardier all secured orders. Because of this the entire Siemens' staff team in China was fired and CEO in Germany was replaced. Siemens had to end up coming back the next year with a new bid that is even more favourable to the Chinese than it was demanded during the first bid.

Let's hope Transrapid doesn't make the same mistake.

Let's hope Transrapid doesn't


----------



## Tri-ring

UD2 said:


> As mentioned before, these news are nothing more than political play (which the infamous picture that I posted was just apart of it) and anyone who actually understands Chinese culture would not take them seriously. There are just very realistic threats used as a barginning point; they are very rude in the prospective of fairness, but they are also extremely effective


Which do you think happened?
Did Transrapid cave in or did the plan back fired?


----------



## UD2

whatever I or anyone say or think is just speculation. I prefer not to speculate and I would apperciate it if nobody else did.

let's just use these things as references and not debate over them, nothing would be learned this way; it'll just misinform people.


----------



## snow is red

Well transrapid is the seller, China is the buyer, seller needs to satisfy the needs of the buyers, so the buyer can feel compelled to buy the products. I do not agree with UD2, it is not threats, it is basically just an agreement between buyer and seller, if the seller is not happy with the conditions then the buyer can just buy from someone else. In the end of the day, we need to remember that it is the buyer that pay the money and help the seller make profits.


----------



## pflo777

^^ ^^ ^^ 
i thought we already had that discussion over the last 20 pages?


----------



## pflo777

btw, here are some more pics of the guidway, that were not posted before....

but I am more curious about pix of the vehicle.....



















http://www.fahrenhait.net/ShowPost.aspx?aT=ImageGallery&PostId=723


----------



## pflo777

found that pick on flickr.....I wonder what that huge building complex in the backround is? Can`t be residential....

flickr is not bad, I also found some pics about crh


----------



## UD2

Chinese designed and manufactured EMU, XianFeng is entering regular passanger service under the Nanjing Railway Ministry. 

Design top speed 250km/h, Service top speed 160km/h

These arn't offical release images, but picture taken by someone with his own camera. Please do not redistribute for commercial/media uses without the owners aknowladgement as it would be illegal.

Copy Right QuanShui （泉水） Hasea.com


----------



## UD2

'


----------



## YelloPerilo

The pinyin font is horrible.


----------



## zergcerebrates

I hope this train is just a prototype for other future HS rail. The design is OK nothing special. They need to design trains that have a nicer body. Besides the head the other carriages just looks like 70's design. . Boxy. Why can't they create curvy bodies? Like the Pendolino, ICE, or even the JR500 series.


----------



## UD2

you gotta start somewhere


----------



## Momo1435

YelloPerilo said:


> The pinyin font is horrible.


I'm pretty sure it's still missing the tip of it's nose, they probably haven't put it on due to practical reasons. Now they can tow the train away when necessary without having to uncover the coupler. 

But I have to agree that the design doesn't look as slick as the European trainss


----------



## zergcerebrates

UD2 said:


> you gotta start somewhere


Their design knowledge of these trains started 10yrs ago. So they have a lot of time to start somewhere. Its time to improve upon the design well now that they have access to Pendolino,ICE and Shinkansen they should somewhat have knowledge of what elegant trains are.


----------



## UD2

This train was designed almost 10 years ago and has been under testing and mothball for almost 5 years.

What's important right now is proformance, and not design. They want to make sure that it can run normally without hiccaps first. 

it's also important to remember that the Chinese have never ever been very good a creative design. It's he education system that stresses religiously on technicalities and completely negelects creativity.


----------



## pflo777

I am so surprised, that not one single more pic of that tongji maglev appeared.

Seems like they wanted only that single pic to appear, but not one more.

it would be nice to get at least one from the front, or a perspective view of that thing, or maybe one without the truck...


----------



## YelloPerilo

UD2 said:


> it's also important to remember that the Chinese have never ever been very good a creative design. It's he education system that stresses religiously on technicalities and completely negelects creativity.


Never is a bit streched. What about the the architecture of the Tang and the furniture and garden design of the Ming?


----------



## kelvinyang

YelloPerilo said:


> The pinyin font is horrible.


Chinese still do not have a taste for latin letter font. They still think cursive font from 19th century is pretty. :lol:


----------



## pflo777

I think thats not so much a chinese problem, but a general problem in Asia, and in areas, where economy and technology are developing faster than society is able to deal with.

Thats where bad taste comes from.
Just compare downtown Tokyo or downtown Seoul with downtown Paris or downtown Prague.

You have so many good designers in China, like Luigi Collanin and many others---you could easily just let them do a good job, by designing all that stuff. Who is doing that now? Some bureacrat from the CCP?

Transportation design and everything that comes along with it is one of the most interesting fields of study in our time.


----------



## snow is red

Made-in-China trains will debut on Shanghai subway
(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2007-06-13 09:00

Shanghai will use subway trains that are made in China by a Chinese-owned company for the first time on Metro Line 9, which is set to open by the end of this year, subway officials announced yesterday. 
All of the subway trains currently used in the city are either imported or produced by foreign joint ventures in China. 

"The purpose of developing our own subway cars is to lower costs and promote overall industrial capacity," said Wu Xinyi of Shanghai Shentong Holdings Company - a major investor in the city's Metro system. 

The cheaper trains won't lead to lower subway fares, however. 

"The investment in subway trains only accounts for a small part of our overall investment in the subway," said Wu. 

Officials wouldn't say yesterday how many of the domestically produced trains they plan to buy. 

Several of the new subway trains are being exhibited at the China International Urban Rail Transport Expo at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. 

The six-carriage trains, which look like the current trains operating in the city, were developed by Shanghai Rail Traffic Equipment Company, an arm of Shanghai Electric. 

According to Chen Chao, a project manager at Shanghai Metro Operation Company's department of new subway trains, the new trains will be tested for around six months before they are put into use. 

The test will check if they work well with current trains and study the levels of electromagnetic fields they create. 

"If they produce too much electromagnetism, they will affect all the other moving trains and their inter-communication system," Chen said. 

Han Bin, a manager at Shanghai Electric, said domestically made cars will cost "tens of thousands of yuan" less than imported cars or those produced by joint ventures. 

The new cars will also be equipped with cameras to monitor each carriage. 

The first phase of Metro Line 9 - linking rural Songjiang District with Xuhui District - will open late this year. 

Metro operators have spent US$326 million on 51 six-carriage subway trains from the Canada-based Bombardier Transport for the new line. 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-06/13/content_893115.htm


----------



## snow is red

Homemade 350 kmh trains to start service next year
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-06-13 16:37

Commuters traveling between Beijing and Tianjin will be able to take swift China-produced passenger trains next year running at speeds up to 350 kilometers per hour, the manufacturer said on Wednesday. 

Design of the high-speed train has been completed and the first train will roll off the production line at the end of 2007, according to a spokesman at Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co Ltd based in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province. 

The eight-car trains, which can seat around 600 passengers, will operate on the 115-km-long Beijing-Tianjin route before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Travel between the two cities will be reduced from the current 70 minutes to less than 30 minutes. 

The same trains will also run on the Beijing-Shanghai and Wuhan-Guangzhou lines. 

Sifang Locomotive, a subsidiary of China Southern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation, will deliver 10 such trains to the Ministry of Railways in the first half of next year, said the company. 

China launched its sixth train speed boost on April 18 bringing the country more firmly into the era of high-speed train travel. Trains run on the Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou routes at speeds up to 250 kilometers per hour.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2007-06/13/content_893642.htm


----------



## Trainman Dave

Very interesting. Does anyone know if these trains replace the CRH #3 Velaro trainsets from Siemens which were to be built in Tangshan?


----------



## SimFox

Yeah... there seems to be an open season on Siemens in China...


----------



## pflo777

Thursday, June 14, 2007 at 09:29
Subject: /China-Transport/Germany/

China plans environmental assessment on maglev extension

Beijing (dpa) - China plans to conduct an environmental impact assessment before deciding whether to extend the world's first commercial magnetic levitation (maglev) line, the government said on Thursday, following protests by local residents. 

"The project impacts the direct interests of people living along the route, and some residents, scholars and organizations have been questioning (its environmental impact)," Zhang Lijun, deputy head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), told the official government website. 

The government would decide the future of the project "based on scientific evaluation, after thoroughly studying opinions of experts and the public," Zhang was quoted as saying. 

Officials in Shanghai suspended preparatory land clearances for a planned extension of the line last month because of nearby residents' health concerns.

Concerns over electromagnetic radiation from the line were a major reason for the suspension, an official from the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress said. 

Uncertainty had already surrounded long-term plans to extend the existing 30-kilometre maglev line between the city's financial district and the main Pudong airport. 

The Chinese operator and Germany's Transrapid consortium, led by Siemens and ThyssenKrupp, were unable to agree on a price and technology transfers for a planned extension. 

Thousands of local residents have protested against the possible expansion because of fears of noise, vibration and electromagnetic radiation from the line. 

Two different plans would extend line to the nearby city of Hangzhou, some 170 kilometres away, or by a 37-kilometre link to Shanghai's second airport and the Expo 2010 site. 

Some officials favour a conventional high-speed line rather than a maglev line to Hanghzou, saying the high-speed line would cost only half as much and provide services that are almost as fast as maglev trains.


----------



## UD2

in other words... if you don't give us the price that we want, we'll shelf your project behind bearucratic red tape... again


----------



## pflo777

^^ ^^ ^^ 
Siemens and Thyssen are long enought in the business right now, especially in China, to know whats behind it.

And they made enought deals, including the deals for the ValeroE and new high-tech coal fired power plants (with high efficiency/reduced Co2 exhaust) to know, how it works in China.
Both deals included huge technology transfers, what means, that they wont make any deals in China concerning that technology in the future anymore.

To sum it up, its very easy: Siemens, who not only produces the Shanghai Malgev, but also the Valero (ICE3/CRH-something) knows very well the qualities of their maglev and the potential for the future.

China on the other hand, who bought all high-speed trains available on that planet including their technology knows very well what the qualties of that maglev system is as well.
Otherwise they would not keep on wanting the core technology.

One wants it, the other one has it. Well, as an old european, I would say, time for a cooperation. ....


----------



## pflo777

> Very interesting. Does anyone know if these trains replace the CRH #3 Velaro trainsets from Siemens which were to be built in Tangshan?


altogether 60 ice3/valero were meant to be put into service betwenn 2007 and 2009, with 3 produced in Germany and 57 produced in China as a result of the tech transfer.

I am pretty sure, that the trains the article is talking about are the 57 chinese made valeros.


----------



## pflo777

SEPA to review on Shanghai-Hangzhou magnetic train report 



In regards to the Shanghai-Hangzhou magnetic train project, Zhang Lijun, deputy head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), on June 13th, said that the SEPA has received the project's environmental assessment report. 

Zhang Lijun said that, the National Development and Reform Commission approved the project proposal in May 2006 and agreed on the establishment of the project. Due to the adjustment of Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport's function, definition, and scale of development, Shanghai Longyang Road station in the original proposal was replaced by Hongqiao Station, indicating the future addition of a maglev line connecting to the Shanghai airport. It will be called the Shanghai extension project of the Shanghai-Hangzhou line. The line will run through the districts of Pudong, Xuhui, and Minhang. The Minhang district is a total length of 34.8-km. "The project directly impacts the wellbeing of people living along this route; thus some residents, scholars and organizations have been questioning the project," Zhang Lijun said. He also said that the SEPA will study opinions from experts and the public; make a scientific judgment according to related laws and rules; and then implement the SEPA's final decision. 

By People's Daily Online


----------



## mrmoopt

It's almost hard to believe that the PRC is conducting these feasability studies!~ Usually they're all go go go and the wouldn't care about how many ppl's homes are destroyed in the process.


----------



## zergcerebrates

Why is the ICE3 project in China so quiet?


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

theres a bunch of people argueing, that the picture of the chinese-maglev "copy" is a photoshoped picture of the extisting maglev.

Any ideas if that could be true?


----------



## UD2

who cares... nobody knows anything for sure atm.

read the news when it comes out, let's not speculate it.


----------



## petermandelson

*CRH5*

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/MuGy_WOjGdQ/

very funny


----------



## kelvinyang

^^
Nice video. Who is the maker of of CRH5?


----------



## firegun

Andrew said:


> Well, this whole thread has been nicely ruined. I....
> You cannot just copy someone else's technology and pass it off as your own, it's theft, pure and simple. If someone can show me the details of the patents sold or leased by Transrapid that give the Chinese the right to copy the German technology then I'm absolutely willing to accept that this is legitimate. So far I have seen no such evidence...


Andrew, on ur theory, a nation must make terms with the patentor before use, otherwise it is thief. Right?
Ok, I want to question u herein, did u white guys pay for patents of the gunpowder, compass, typography, paper and lots of other Chinese inventions? They all belong to Chinese. If in terms of payment, i think u already "payed" us opium, iron&blood, and centuries of humiliations. Can China purchases ur patents with the above "payments"? If we did, would u still call us as thief? :bash: :bash:


----------



## Cherguevara

I would imaine none of those things actually had patents


----------



## Trainman Dave

kelvinyang said:


> ^^
> Nice video. Who is the maker of of CRH5?


It was reported that the Changchun Railway Company is building the the CRH5 using a Design and Technology which was purchased from the trains devision of the Fiat company in Italy. Since that contract was signed Fiat sold their trains division to Alstom which is a French comapny.


Thus we have a Chinese company building an Italian developed design which is now owned by a French comapny.

It does resemble the new ETR-600 trains in Italy.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

Fake building material imperils new Chinese railway 


BEIJING — Fake construction material is jeopardizing the safety of China's newest high-speed railway, a Chinese newspaper says.

An investigation by the newspaper found that large quantities of bogus material had been used in several hundred kilometres of a $12-billion (U.S.) high-speed railway between the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou.

The newspaper, China Economic Times, said the scam by unscrupulous suppliers could lead to cracking in the railway's concrete supports, creating a “great danger” to the railway.

The newspaper report, published this week, has triggered an investigation by the Chinese Railways Ministry.

...
Almost 20 per cent of goods made in China for domestic consumption have failed China's own standards for safety or quality in the first half of this year, a government agency reported this week. The tests focused on food products, fertilizers, farm machinery and common consumer goods.

...
At the same time, however, China has attacked the foreign news coverage of the hazardous products. “I think it would be better if the media would stop playing up this issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said this week.

Last week, Chinese censors went through every issue of Time magazine sold in China to tear out and destroy the first two pages of an article headlined “The Growing Dangers of the China Trade.”

The daily propaganda newspaper China Daily accused “foreign protectionists” of using safety issues to discriminate against Chinese products. “Any bias against products with a ‘made in China' tag does injustice to Chinese exports' overall good quality,” it argued in an editorial this week.

.


----------



## Andrew

That's terrible news! I hope the problem is sorted quickly because it could have some serious safety implications.


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

^^ 

Well this is the first step isnt it? The fact that the Railway ministry and newspapers are making a difference is a good thing.


----------



## mr.x

*Fake building material imperils new Chinese railway*
GEOFFREY YORK 
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
July 7, 2007 at 1:25 AM EDT

BEIJING — Fake construction material is jeopardizing the safety of China's newest high-speed railway, a Chinese newspaper says.

An investigation by the newspaper found that large quantities of bogus material had been used in several hundred kilometres of a $12-billion (U.S.) high-speed railway between the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou.

The newspaper, China Economic Times, said the scam by unscrupulous suppliers could lead to cracking in the railway's concrete supports, creating a “great danger” to the railway.

The newspaper report, published this week, has triggered an investigation by the Chinese Railways Ministry.

*
 Passengers ride in a maglev train in 2006 in Shanghai, China. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)*

The report is the latest revelation in the widening scandal over shoddy and hazardous goods in China. The issue has emerged as a global concern, with many countries, including Canada, increasingly worried by the dangers of food and other products from China.

Almost 20 per cent of goods made in China for domestic consumption have failed China's own standards for safety or quality in the first half of this year, a government agency reported this week. The tests focused on food products, fertilizers, farm machinery and common consumer goods.

China has also announced that 180 food factories have been shut down in recent months because their products were contaminated with illegal materials such as formaldehyde, industrial dyes and paraffin wax.

Fake cellphone batteries are another lethal danger. This week, the Chinese media revealed that a number of counterfeit batteries have exploded in safety tests. A man was killed in western China last month when a cellphone exploded in his chest pocket while he was welding. The explosion broke his ribs, and rib fragments pierced his heart. The faulty battery was labelled Motorola, but it was reportedly a fake.

* In the railway scam, the China Economic Times reported that the railway's contractors had been tricked into buying large quantities of fake or deficient coal fly ash, a common ingredient in concrete.
The newspaper described the suppliers as “profiteers blinded by greed.” It published several photos of trucks loaded with fake fly ash and factories where the material is produced.*

It said the bogus material was discovered in March by a construction engineer, who noticed a blockage in a pipe where concrete was being poured. Such blockages are uncommon, and he suspected it was caused by phony fly ash. The fake material looks identical to the genuine material, and only laboratory testing can tell them apart.

The high-speed railway, designed to carry trains at speeds up to 350 kilometres an hour between two of China's biggest cities, is currently under construction. It is described as the longest and most technologically advanced high-speed railway in China, and it has been praised lavishly by the Chinese news media.

Faced with mounting evidence of hazardous goods, the Chinese authorities have reacted ambivalently. They have announced crackdowns and safety campaigns, but they have also reacted with denials and censorship.

* Harsh penalties have been announced in some cases. Yesterday, a former drug regulator was given a death sentence for accepting $307,000 in bribes from two medical companies.*

At the same time, however, China has attacked the foreign news coverage of the hazardous products. “I think it would be better if the media would stop playing up this issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said this week.

Last week, Chinese censors went through every issue of Time magazine sold in China to tear out and destroy the first two pages of an article headlined “The Growing Dangers of the China Trade.”

The daily propaganda newspaper China Daily accused “foreign protectionists” of using safety issues to discriminate against Chinese products. “Any bias against products with a ‘made in China' tag does injustice to Chinese exports' overall good quality,” it argued in an editorial this week.


----------



## Andrew

Definately, it's good that this problem has been brought to the public's attention. Perhaps the fact that this was actually reported and not covered up represents a positive step towards more openness in China's media industry. I seriously hope the problem can be sorted very soon because it could have serious safety implications.


----------



## Grygry

Andrew said:


> That's terrible news! I hope the problem is sorted quickly because it could have some serious safety implications.


In france a TGV derailled at full speed because of bogous underground, due to unknown thranchees dating from WW1. (hopefully no injured)
No wonder this could have serious implications!


----------



## Trainman Dave

Grygry said:


> In france a TGV derailled at full speed because of bogous underground, due to unknown thranchees dating from WW1. (hopefully no injured)
> No wonder this could have serious implications!


When did this happen?


----------



## UD2

CRH3 Arrives at China Tangshan Coach Works.

produced by Siemens using ICE3 technology.


----------



## Rachmaninov

Ah shit. It's quite a shame that China is still plagued with fake stuff, especially when it could result in loss of lives... hopefully this situation is going to be mitigated


----------



## pflo777

looks more like a 1:1 model or a mock-up of the head of the train to me.

Nevertheless, its going to be a great train, IMO the best high speed train in China.
Hope we can see some more pics of the CRH3 soon...

(and maybe some progress and more pics on the maglev you postet UD2...)


----------



## snow is red

China to invest US$82b to expand urban rail systems
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-07-14 09:18

China will spend 620 billion yuan (82 billion U.S. dollars) building subways and urban railways in 15 major cities in the next ten years to ease traffic jams, according to the Ministry of Construction. 

Around 1,700 kilometers of light rail systems will be built in the 15 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Shenzhen and some provincial capitals. 

Currently, there are only 22 urban rail lines with a total length of 602.3 kilometers in operation or in trial operation in China, mainly in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to ministry's statistics. 

An official with the ministry said that 36 urban rail lines are under construction in 12 cities.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2007-07/14/content_5435040.htm


----------



## pflo777

I ve found two more:


----------



## snow is red

Thanx for the pics plfo


----------



## zergcerebrates

I think the ICE3 train is the best out of all the HSR in China.


----------



## mrmoopt

Gosh the interior seating looks ugly.


----------



## CarlosBlueDragon

cal_t said:


> Gosh the interior seating looks ugly.


Melbourne look ugly too!! :lol:


----------



## zergcerebrates

cal_t said:


> Gosh the interior seating looks ugly.


Well the train isn't even done yet, and you can't base it how it actually looks like with that poor image quality. For all I know that could be a mockup.


----------



## Kiss the Rain

Oh you beautys.


----------



## Globetrotter77

Hi guys!

I asked the same question in Chinese forum but it seems to be more "interaction" over here...

I wonder if there is a high speed connection between Shanghai and Nanjing. Anyone knows? I also would like to find out how long the trip is, by normal train and if there is any fast connection, how many hours do I need to spend on the train.

Thanks


----------



## zergcerebrates

Globetrotter77 said:


> Hi guys!
> 
> I asked the same question in Chinese forum but it seems to be more "interaction" over here...
> 
> I wonder if there is a high speed connection between Shanghai and Nanjing. Anyone knows? I also would like to find out how long the trip is, by normal train and if there is any fast connection, how many hours do I need to spend on the train.
> 
> Thanks


Yes there is, it departs from the Shanghai South Railway Station. The CRH2 goes to Nanjing. As for the time I have no clue.


----------



## CarlosBlueDragon

zergcerebrates said:


> Yes there is, it departs from the Shanghai South Railway Station. The CRH2 goes to Nanjing. As for the time I have no clue.


Cool!! ask u, If Shanghai Goes to Guangzhou Can??


----------



## Jiangwho

zergcerebrates said:


> As for the time I have no clue.


2h10min



CarlosBlueDragon said:


> Cool!! ask u, If Shanghai Goes to Guangzhou Can??


No


----------



## Globetrotter77

Thank you guys for the information and the nice pic!


----------



## UD2

Globetrotter77 said:


> Hi guys!
> 
> I asked the same question in Chinese forum but it seems to be more "interaction" over here...
> 
> I wonder if there is a high speed connection between Shanghai and Nanjing. Anyone knows? I also would like to find out how long the trip is, by normal train and if there is any fast connection, how many hours do I need to spend on the train.
> 
> Thanks


trip takes 2 hours. Second class coach cost 84.00 Chinese.


----------



## forzagrifo

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> Fake building material imperils new Chinese railway
> 
> 
> BEIJING — Fake construction material is jeopardizing the safety of China's newest high-speed railway, a Chinese newspaper says.
> 
> An investigation by the newspaper found that large quantities of bogus material had been used in several hundred kilometres of a $12-billion (U.S.) high-speed railway between the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou.
> 
> The newspaper, China Economic Times, said the scam by unscrupulous suppliers could lead to cracking in the railway's concrete supports, creating a “great danger” to the railway.
> 
> The newspaper report, published this week, has triggered an investigation by the Chinese Railways Ministry.
> 
> ...
> Almost 20 per cent of goods made in China for domestic consumption have failed China's own standards for safety or quality in the first half of this year, a government agency reported this week. The tests focused on food products, fertilizers, farm machinery and common consumer goods.
> 
> ...
> At the same time, however, China has attacked the foreign news coverage of the hazardous products. “I think it would be better if the media would stop playing up this issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said this week.
> 
> Last week, Chinese censors went through every issue of Time magazine sold in China to tear out and destroy the first two pages of an article headlined “The Growing Dangers of the China Trade.”
> 
> The daily propaganda newspaper China Daily accused “foreign protectionists” of using safety issues to discriminate against Chinese products. “Any bias against products with a ‘made in China' tag does injustice to Chinese exports' overall good quality,” it argued in an editorial this week.
> 
> .


goddamn corrupt and greedy officials. Those fucking bastards...


----------



## UD2

Delete


----------



## snow is red

Bombardier Transportation wins US$91M for rail signal equipment in China


MONTREAL (CP) - In what it calls a groundbreaking deal, Bombardier Transportation (TSX:BBD.B) has won a contract for rail signalling equipment in China worth US$91 million.
The new system will manage high-speed trains travelling at speeds up to 300 kilometres an hour along nearly 1,000 kilometres of rail line between the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou.

The order came from systems integrator China Railway Signalling and Communications Corp. and involves European Rail Traffic Management System Level 2 technology, Montreal-based Bombardier said Friday.

The new system is scheduled to enter commercial operation in January 2010 and the contract involves a 15-year agreement between CRSC and Bombardier.

"This contract reinforces our excellent business relationship in China and further demonstrates the customer's confidence in Bombardier," Andre Navarri, president of Bombardier Transportation, said in a release.

The system will be developed at Bombardier Transportation's rail control solutions sites in Sweden and Thailand, and will include technology transfer so that the final units for the contract can be built in China. Product design will be carried out in Sweden and China.

On the Toronto stock market Friday morning, shares in parent company Bombardier Inc. were down 42 cents, or seven per cent, to $5.32.


http://www.mytelus.com/money/news/article.do?pageID=ex_business/home&articleID=2724922


----------



## snow is red

Self-developed 'bullet' train to debut by year end
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-24 10:53


Related: High-speed trains zip off production line this year

QINGDAO - China's first self-designed and self-manufactured passenger train with a designed speed of 300 km per hour, equal to that of the famous Japanese bullet train, will roll off the production line by the end of this year, the manufacturer has announced.


China Railway High-speed (CRH) train [File photo] 

The new high-speed trains, which can seat around 600 passengers, will run on the 115-km-long Beijing-Tianjin rail route before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in August. The rail journey between the two cities will be reduced from the current 70 minutes to around 30 minutes.

Production of the high-speed train is well underway and the first train will debut at the end of the year, said a spokesman of the Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co Ltd based in Qingdao, a coastal city of East China's Shandong Province.

Currently, China's fastest domestic trains run at a service speed of up to 250 km per hour.

Sifang Locomotive, a subsidiary of China Southern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation, will deliver 10 such trains to the Ministry of Railways in the first half of next year, said the company.

China launched its sixth train speed boost on April 18 bringing the country more firmly into the era of high-speed train travel. Trains run on the Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou rail routes at speed of up to 250 kilometers per hour.

A Eurostar train shattered the record for the quickest rail journey between Paris and London when it traveled at 300 km per hour on the UK speed track on Tuesday.

French national railway's TGV bullet trains, currently the world's fastest, travels at a service speed of 320 km per hour. 

China's planned Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev railway will allow trains to run at 450 km per hour

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-09/24/content_6129255.htm


----------



## zergcerebrates

^ I wonder how it looks like. Hopefully its very stylish and modern.


----------



## pflo777

initially it was planned, to use CRH3 (ICE3 or Valero) trains on the Bejing Tianjin route...

And as far as I know, Siemens and that Chinese firm made a deal for the tech-transfer and the production of alltogether 60 units...










But maybe, that was another deal...


----------



## UD2

CRH3 being built at Tangshan Coach Works, China.












The wood mokeup of what's being produced above


----------



## Kiss the Rain

pflo777 said:


> initially it was planned, to use CRH3 (ICE3 or Valero) trains on the Bejing Tianjin route...
> 
> And as far as I know, Siemens and that Chinese firm made a deal for the tech-transfer and the production of alltogether 60 units...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But maybe, that was another deal...



Aren't they hot?? Just look at it...


----------



## mrmoopt

Just in on TVB news 01/02/2007 a news report saying that residents of HK prefer to shop in HK as GZ prices are just as expensive, and getting a seat on the CRH from SZ to GZ now incurs a 20min wait due to Golden Week holidays as opposed to the normal 10mins expected usually.


----------



## Rail1435

*CoCo*

Does anybody know of which type is this model?








On the back right, you can see a HXD2 from Datong.
On the back top, one CRH3.
But on the front is that an electric or a diesel CoCo?
Future or in service?


----------



## Momo1435

Judging from it's number, or what I see of it it's a HXD and it looks like a single locomotive just like the HXD3. But of course is not the HXD3 that's already known. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CRH5 in Beijing by Vueltaa on flickr


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

---------------------


----------



## Vagabond

China has the world largest high-speed rail network and make it overnight. Surprise to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_by_country


----------



## big-dog

*Work on Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail to start by end of 2007*

It'll finally start. :cheers: 
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jLcZMtp2UBzNsdfYPjwRbX9TXTqw



> Chinese engineer shows a locally designed electric train at a hitech expo in Beijing
> 
> SHANGHAI (AFP) — Work on a long-awaited high-speed rail linking Beijing and Shanghai is expected to start by late 2007, with a budget that could exceed initial estimates by 50 percent, state media said Wednesday.
> 
> Construction on the project will "surely begin before the end of this year," the China Daily reported, citing an unnamed source with the Ministry of Railways.
> 
> The State Council, or cabinet, approved a feasibility study of the *1,318-kilometre (820-mile) line* last month, the paper said, citing a notice from the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planner.
> 
> Trains would be running at speeds of up to *350 kilometres (220 miles) per hour)*, cutting travel time between Beijing and Shanghai from the current 10 hours to *less than five*, according to the report.
> 
> The project, which had been on the drawing board for more than 10 years and expected to start construction last year, was delayed as the central government moved more cautiously after it realised how costly it would be, it said.
> 
> The project could eventually cost more than *200 billion yuan*, according to insiders quoted by China Economic Net, a website controlled by the official Economic Daily newspaper.
> 
> This compares with original estimates by the railway ministry putting the cost at just 130 billion yuan.


----------



## snow is red

China completes new 'bullet' train body
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-10-19 23:25


BEIJING -- The body of the first Chinese designed and manufactured high-speed train, with a possible speed equal to that of the famous Japanese bullet train, has rolled off the production line, according to the builder.

The train is the latest model in the country's China Railway High-speed (CRH) Series and China's first locomotive capable of traveling at 300 kilometers per hour.

Slower CRH series -- able to travel at 200 kilometers per hour -- are already in service.

Instead of being driven by a single engine, the high-speed trains are equipped with multiple engines embedded inside separate units.

"The completion of the body lays a solid foundation for the scheduled debut of the whole train by the year end," a senior official with CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co. Ltd. told Xinhua here Friday.

"The train body, made of aluminum alloy, weighs about seven tons, the lightest of its kind in the world," said the official who asked to remain anonymous. "The thinnest part only measures 1.5 millimeters."

Production of other parts, such as engines, were well underway, he said.

The company would deliver ten such trains to the Ministry of Railways in the first half of next year, according to the company.

The trains, which can seat about 600 passengers, will run on the 115-km Beijing-Tianjin route before the Beijing Olympic Games in August 2008 and reduce the journey time from the current 80 minutes to around 30 minutes.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-10/19/content_6192197.htm


----------



## superchan7

Um, aren't they referring to CRH3, which is basically an ICE3 Siemens Velaro?


----------



## hkskyline

*Bombardier gets railcar order from China Railways *

MONTREAL, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Bombardier Inc said on Wednesday that its Chinese joint venture received an order for 640 high-speed train cars from the Chinese Ministry of Railways. 

The order for Bombardier Sifang Power (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd. is valued at $1.5 billion, with Bombardier's share totaling $596 million. The trains will be made at Bombardier Sifang Power facilities in Qingdao, China. 

The order calls for delivering 40 of Bombardier's electric 16-car trainsets, which are capable of reaching speeds of 250 kilometres an hour. Deliveries are scheduled for February 2009 to August 2010. 

"It is the largest single order for rail passenger cars placed at one time in Chinese rail history," Bombardier said in a release. 

Bombardier Sifang Power is a joint venture between Bombardier Transportation, Power Corp of Canada and China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation. 

($1=$0.96 Canadian)


----------



## UD2

hkskyline said:


> *Bombardier gets railcar order from China Railways *
> 
> MONTREAL, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Bombardier Inc said on Wednesday that its Chinese joint venture received an order for 640 high-speed train cars from the Chinese Ministry of Railways.
> 
> The order for Bombardier Sifang Power (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd. is valued at $1.5 billion, with Bombardier's share totaling $596 million. The trains will be made at Bombardier Sifang Power facilities in Qingdao, China.
> 
> The order calls for delivering 40 of Bombardier's electric 16-car trainsets, which are capable of reaching speeds of 250 kilometres an hour. Deliveries are scheduled for February 2009 to August 2010.
> 
> "It is the largest single order for rail passenger cars placed at one time in Chinese rail history," Bombardier said in a release.
> 
> Bombardier Sifang Power is a joint venture between Bombardier Transportation, Power Corp of Canada and China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation.
> 
> ($1=$0.96 Canadian)


very good news, looks like the CRH5(Regina) worked well enough on the Guangzhou-Shengzhen line to justify purchases of more trains. They're bigger too, no need for articulation anymore. Great news.


----------



## UD2

looks like Beijing-Shanghai highspeed rail has a good chance of being bombardier.
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Bombardier Joint Venture Awarded Contract For 40 High-Speed Trainsets In China

Berlin, October 31, 2007

First Application Of ZEFIRO Modular Concept Offers China New Dimension In Overnight Rail Travel 

Bombardier Transportation announced today that its Chinese joint venture, Bombardier Sifang Power (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd. (BSP), has received an order for 40, 16-car, high-speed trainsets (640 cars) from the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR). The order is valued at approximately 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion US) with Bombardier’s share valued at approximately 413 million euros ($596 million US). BSP is a joint venture between Bombardier Transportation, Power Corporation of Canada and China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation. 

The contract was signed during today’s ceremony in the presence of Mr. Zhang Shuguang, Deputy Chief Engineer of MOR and Director General of Transportation Bureau and Laurent Beaudoin, Chairman and CEO, Bombardier Inc. It is the largest single order for rail passenger cars placed at one time in Chinese rail history.

The new electric-multiple-unit (EMU) trainsets will be capable of speeds up to 250 km/h. Twenty of the EMU trains will be specially designed for overnight service and fitted with sleeping berth interiors. These trains will feature the world’s first EMU sleepers cars capable of travel up to 250 km/h and will be developed utilizing core elements of the BOMBARDIER ZEFIRO family of high-speed and very high-speed products. The new 16‑car trains (at an overall length of 430 m) represent a sophisticated mix of new modular concepts and proven technology in a unique application. The high-speed sleepers will offer overnight travellers an advanced level of comfort, convenience and trip-time efficiency in a region where long-distance train trips are common. 

The remaining 20 EMU trains will be upgraded, 16-car versions of successful eight-car trains now being delivered to the MOR as part of orders placed in May 2005 and October 2004. 

Bombardier’s ZEFIRO family of trains specifically address the need for additional flexibility in next-generation rolling stock. ZEFIRO train designs introduce new methods for improving operating efficiency, capacity, interoperability and true cross-border travel. 

Bombardier Transportation President Andre Navarri said the contract further strengthens Bombardier’s presence in the high-speed rail market and underscores its leadership in China. “It is always good news to sign a contract of this magnitude,“ said Navarri, “but especially when the order is based on a customer’s prior positive experience with our products and trust in our technology leadership. China is one of the most important rail markets in the world, and we are pleased to be continuing our positive relationship wth the MOR.” 

Stéphane Rambaud-Measson, President, Bombardier Transportation Mainline and Metros Division, said “This order is clear recognition of the high level of reliability reached by Bombardier high-speed trains already in operation in China, as well as of our ability to efficiently manage a complex localisation project in a new and very demanding market. All Chinese Bombardier high-speed trains are manufactued at our joint venture in Qingdao with very high levels of contribution from the local rail industry and its expertise.”

Jianwei Zhang, President and Chief Country Representative, Bombardier China, said Bombardier’s growing success is based on consistent market focus and a product portfolio that is well-suited to the country’s vibrant transit sector. “Bombardier has a long-term commitment to this market, “ said Zhang. “We offer one of the broadest product portfolios in the world and that is apparent in the spread of contracts we have for high-speed trains, locomotives, propulsion equipment, commuter trains, automated transit systems, metro cars, signalling systems and other products. This is a priority market, and our focus here is showing results.”

The new high-speed EMU trains will be manufactured at BSP production facilities in Qingdao, China. BOMBARDIER MITRAC propulsion systems for the trains will be jointly produced by Bombardier CPC Propulsion System Co. Ltd., a Bombardier joint venture based in Changzhou, and Bombardier facilities in Europe. MITRAC propulsion systems are included in more than 23,000 rail vehicles worldwide.

First deliveries of the new trains are scheduled for February 2009. Delivery of the final train is expected August 2010. 

Note to editors: 
Useful company background facts and contact details follow.

Background facts and figures

Bombardier Recent Rail Contracts in China
Other recent contracts awarded to Bombardier and its Chinese partners: 

Signalling system for high-speed rail line between Wuhan and Guangzhou (August 2007) 
Automated People Mover System for the City of Guangzhou (May 2007) 
192 metro cars and propulsion and controls equipment for Shanghai Metro Line 7 to Shanghai Shentong Co. (May 2007) 
500 electric freight locomotives for the Ministry of Railways (February 2007) 
306 metro cars and propulsion and controls equipment for Shanghai Metro Line 9 (November 2006) 
Propulsion and controls equipment for 192 cars on Beijing Metro Line 4 (July 2006) 
40 automated rail cars for Beijing Capital International Airport Link (March 2006) 
About Bombardier in China
Including its three joint ventures, Bombardier currently employs 2,500 people in China. In addition to its rail transportation operations, Bombardier is also the number one supplier to the Chinese regional aircraft market with an installed base of more than 30 aircraft in operation with six airlines. It is the top-ranked supplier of business aircraft to China as well. Bombardier’s longstanding business


----------



## Rail1435

UD2 said:


> very good news, looks like the CRH5(Regina) worked well enough on the Guangzhou-Shengzhen line to justify purchases of more trains. They're bigger too, no need for articulation anymore. Great news.


Regina are CRH1, The CRH5 are "Pendolini" without tilting devices.


----------



## superchan7

Guangshen is using CRH1 (Regina), I think exclusively now. I don't see any of the older Blue Arrow trains anymore. However, the maximum operating speed on Guangshen remains 200 km/h, and only very very briefly. It mostly stays in 160-180 km/h.


----------



## UD2

Rail1435 said:


> Regina are CRH1, The CRH5 are "Pendolini" without tilting devices.


srry my bad, typo. I mean CRH1


----------



## UD2

superchan7 said:


> Guangshen is using CRH1 (Regina), I think exclusively now. I don't see any of the older Blue Arrow trains anymore. However, the maximum operating speed on Guangshen remains 200 km/h, and only very very briefly. It mostly stays in 160-180 km/h.


too many curves right? if i remember correctly. the Regina was designed to be somewhat of a commuter highspeed train, should nagivate the area with no problem.

As for Blue Arrow, good riddens, that thing was an energy gazzaler.


----------



## hkskyline

*China to invest 100 billion yuan in intercity passenger transport service *

BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) – China will build 12,000 kilometers of intercity high speed passenger transport network in Bohai-rim, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta areas by 2020, according to a national railway network plan. 

It plans to invest at least 100 billion yuan in accomplishing the project in the next decade. 

Currently, 16 passenger railways are under construction. Included are the Beijing–Tianjin, Hefei-Nanjing and Hefei-Wuhan railways to be in operation soon. 

Construction of the Harbin-Daqing, Wuhan-Guangzhou, Zhengzhou-Xi’ an and Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong railways is well under way. 

According to the Ministry of Railways, feasibility study on constructing the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway program was approved recently. 

The project is one the most advanced in the world with unrivaled mileage under one-time construction.


----------



## snow is red

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7108722.stm

China Railway in $3bn flotation 

The firm's shares are on track to trade from 3 December 
China's state-owned railway builder has raised 22.44bn yuan ($3bn; £1.5bn) in its initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
China Railway Group said the share sale was massively oversubscribed - attracting 3.38 trillion yuan of bids to buy shares, a new Chinese record.

Interest was strong despite a cooling of China's main stock market, which has lost about 20% in the past month.

Many analysts believe that shares in China are overvalued.

China Railway Group's shares are due to begin trading on 3 December.

There are also plans for a stock market listing in Hong Kong.

Bids for China Railway Group trumped the 3.378 trillion yuan bid for oil group PetroChina.

PetroChina raised 66.8bn yuan - a record for a mainland China exchange.


----------



## snow is red

Rail projects 'major boost' for Fujian
By Xin Dingding and Hu Meidong (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-24 08:48


Fuzhou - Construction of two new railway lines in Fujian Province began on Friday.

"Once they are completed in five years' time, the new lines will be a major boost to the province's rail network, as well as help provide a fast, convenient link between coastal and inland areas," Liu Zhijun, minister of railways, said.

The lines will also contribute to the economic development of Fujian, which is considered the base of the economic zone on the west side of the Taiwan Straits.

One of the railways starts in Xiamen, a major city of Fujian, and will head southwest along the coast to Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.

With trains able to travel at up to 200 kph along some sections of the 502.4-km double-track electrified railway, the journey time between the two cities will be slashed from the current 11 hours to less than three, Liu said.

On completion in 2011, the railway will carry both passenger and cargo trains, stopping at 20 stations. It is estimated that 12 million tons of cargo will be transported on the line every year.

The 41.7 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) construction cost will be shared by the Ministry of Railways, and the Fujian and Guangdong provincial governments.

Yu Kaiyang, director of the Fujian provincial railway construction office, said the railway will provide improved access between the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta.

At its northern end, two other railway projects are already under construction, linking Xiamen and Fuzhou, capital of Fujian Province, and linking Fuzhou and Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province.

In the future, passengers will be able to travel by train all the way from Shanghai to Shenzhen, Yu said.

The second major line will link Fujian with Central China, via Jiangxi Province, passing through 23 stations.

The 603.6-km double track electrified railway will run from Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi, to Fujian, and have terminals in both Fuzhou and Putian.

The railway will carry both passengers and cargo, and is expected to carry some 20 million tons of cargo every year.

Estimated to cost 51.8 billion yuan, the railway will open to traffic in 2012.

"This is Fujian's first modern railway leading to the hinterland," Yu said.

"Together with other ongoing railway projects, it will provide a direct route for provinces in Central China to the ocean. It can also be used to carry coal to provinces like Jiangxi."

The new line will cut traveling distance between the two provinces by at least 117 km, he said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-11/24/content_6276606.htm


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## Kailyas

great constructions.


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## snow is red

Beijing-Shanghai express rail project invites bids
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-07 13:59


BEIJING -- The company leading the construction of a Beijing-Shanghai express railway has invited bids for the project, which is to begin construction in January.

In an announcement on Thursday, the Beijing Shanghai Express Railway Company invited global firms and organizations to compete for the project consulting work.

Two other contracts, for civil construction and engineering supervision work, are limited to domestic institutions and companies.

The bidder for the global contract could also be a joint venture of one foreign consulting institution and two local ones, with the Chinese side as lead bidder.

Bidding closes on December 17.

Construction is projected to take five years. The 160 billion yuan (21 billion US dollars) project is becoming a reality after 10 years of preparation.

The announcement said the Ministry of Railways would provide 78.9 percent of funding, significantly more than the 51 percent proportion mentioned in earlier reports, the Beijing Times said, citing sources familiar with the situation.

The remainder of the funding would come from local governments and companies.

Major beneficiaries are expected to be the railway construction and machine manufacturing companies.

The project will provide five-hour express services between the two cities. The 1,318-kilometer high-speed railway, when completed, will be the longest high-speed rail line in the world. It is expected to carry 160 million passengers annually and double the transport capacity between the two cities.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-12/07/content_6305948.htm


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## hkskyline

*China Railway +27% On HK Debut
Infrastructure Demand Expected *
6 December 2007

HONG KONG (Dow Jones)-- China Railway Group Ltd. (0390.HK) rose 27% on its debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange Friday morning, on expectations of strong demand for infrastructure in the country. 

At 0220 GMT, China Railway was trading at HK$7.35, above its initial public offering price of HK$5.78. The benchmark Hang Seng Index was up 1.1%. 

But China Railway's Hong Kong debut was dwarfed by the performance of its A shares Monday, which rose 63% on their first day of trading. At 0220 GMT, the company's A shares were up 1.7% at CNY8.49. 

"I think the debut is quite solid. There is always a price differential between the A shares and H shares of the same company and I'm not surprised," said Kitty Chan, a director of CASH Asset Management. 

A company's A shares usually rise more than its H shares due to China's overly abundant liquidity and Chinese investors' practice of speculative trading in new stocks, analysts said. 

China Railway Group, the world's third-largest construction contractor in terms of revenue, raised US$2.46 billion last week in an initial public offering of H shares, ahead of a listing in Hong Kong. Those shares were priced at the top of an indicative range of HK$5.03-HK$5.78 a share. 

That followed the company's IPO of A shares in China, which raised CNY22.44 billion from selling 4.675 billion A shares at the top of an indicative range of CNY4.00-CNY4.80 a share in late November. 

China Railway Group is the first Chinese firm to carry out a dual float on a domestic bourse and in Hong Kong in which the mainland China listing was done first. 

China Railway Group has built over two-thirds of China's more than 75,000 kilometers of railway links and 95% of the country's electrified railway lines. 

Apart from railway construction and the related design and equipment manufacturing businesses which together contribute about 93% of the company's revenue, China Railway Group has mining and property operations, with a medium-sized land bank of 4.7 million square meters of gross floor area. 

It also builds expressways, bridges and tunnels.


----------



## snow is red

Beijing to build world's largest metro system
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-10 14:48


BEIJING -- Total investment in Beijing's subway system is set to approach 80 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) by 2010, and the city's underground network is expected to be the world's largest as of 2015.

The financing includes 71.5 billion yuan approved by the municipal government for public transport during the 11th five-year plan period, which ends in 2010, the Beijing Morning Post reported on Monday.

The huge investment will boost construction of rail lines, which are expected to total 561 km by 2015 with a capacity of 9 million passengers daily.

By that time, rail service will extend from the downtown area to many key locations on the city fringes, including the Olympic Park and seven suburban satellite cities.

Subway transport is expected to account for 50 percent of all public transit use within eight years, greatly easing pressure on the roads.

Five new subway routes -- Line 6, the second phases of Line 10 and Line 8, and the Yizhuang and Daxing lines -- with a total length of nearly 140 km began construction in the city on Saturday. All are to be completed by 2015.

Currently, the first phases of Line 10 and Line 8, as well as a 28-km line linking downtown to Beijing Capital International Airport, are under construction.

The capital now has Line 1, Line 2, Line 5, Line 13 and the Batong line in operation, carrying about 2.3 million passengers each day. Their combined length is 142 km.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-12/10/content_6310173.htm


----------



## hkskyline

*Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail delayed by years: ministry *

BEIJING, Dec 8, 2007 (AFP) - A planned high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai is unlikely to be completed until at least 2013, China's government has said, in the latest setback for the long-delayed project. 

A notice on the website of the national railway ministry on Saturday also said the ministry will take a 78.9 percent stake in an investment vehicle formed to finance the project, whose ballooning costs have fuelled delays. 

The line is expected to take five years to complete, the notice said, meaning it will not be operational for the 2010 World Expo to be hosted by Shanghai, China's commercial hub, as originally hoped. 

The project was first proposed in 1994 and was originally supposed to be completed before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. As delays mounted, the government later set its sights on completion in time for the Shanghai expo. 

China's railway minister had said in September that construction would begin "soon" but no specific date was given. 

Trains on the 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) line will run at speeds of up to 350 kilometres per hour, halving travel time between China's two dominant cities to less than five hours, state media has reported previously. 

The project, which has been on the drawing board for more than 10 years was expected to start construction last year but has been delayed by the central government as costs spiralled. 

It finally won approval in September with a budget nearly twice the initial estimate of 130 billion yuan (17.3 billion dollars). 

The ministry notice gave no information on how much the investment vehicle would raise. 

Rising real estate and construction material prices have been blamed for the soaring budget.


----------



## Railfan

Ho is the name of this trains made in hina and export to Venezuela?

All photos was take in Venezuela

Diesel










DMU










OTHERS


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## pflo777

do we have any news on this baby here:










maybe some more pics from other angles?


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## snow is red

Pflo. Maybe if you can give me the name of it, I can do a quick search and find it for ya  I really don't know the name of it.


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## snow is red

Railfan said:


> Ho is the name of this trains made in hina and export to Venezuela?
> 
> All photos was take in Venezuela
> 
> Diesel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> DMU
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> OTHERS


Are you sure "Ho" is the correct name ?


----------



## pflo777

I dont know the exact name, but its most likely called " CNR CRC Tangshan Maglev " or something like that.

But dont mix it up with this one, which is a low speed urban train


From what I know its a homegrown chinese maglev capable of 500 kmh, which is tested at the Tongji University, at the Jiading Campus west of Shanghai to be exact.

Thats a pic of the guideway at the Tongji University Campus, made from one of the Students dorms, but unfortunately without vehicle 




























The green/white livery of the Train is due to the fact, that they originally planned to take it into service for the WorldExpo 2010, so that it fits the expo-Logo design (not kidding).
Unfortunately I have only this single pic of it, but as its on a campus with dozenz of students, there should be more. I have also been to the Shagnhai Metrofans webpage, but didnt find anything there.... 
http://www.metrofans.sh.cn/forum/


----------



## snow is red

Thanks for the pics. I did give it a try but unfortunately I could not find any pics. Btw just to let you know that the project is also known as CM1 Dolphin , I hope that will make your search easier


----------



## Railfan

02tonyl said:


> Are you sure "Ho" is the correct name ?


Excuseme is an ask "How"


Wow is the name of the locomotive that chine export to Venezuela?


----------



## 33Hz

pflo777 said:


> do we have any news on this baby here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> maybe some more pics from other angles?



From that picture, that looks like an exact copy of a Transrapid...


----------



## snow is red

33Hz said:


> From that picture, that looks like an exact copy of a Transrapid...


We already had a long lengthy discussion on that matter on previous pages, if you just go back to few pages you will see


----------



## pflo777

33Hz said:


> From that picture, that looks like an exact copy of a Transrapid...





> We already had a long lengthy discussion on that matter on previous pages, if you just go back to few pages you will see



btw I have some news concerning that issue :

According to the German Transrapid consortium, what we see on the pic above being pulled by the red truck is a licenced reproduction of the Transrapid08.

Transrapid 08 in Lathen/Germany :










Built by Tangshan Coach Works.
The interior, the car-body , everything except the levitation system is made in China.
It was part of the tech-transfer deal for the extension of the shanghai maglev to Hangzhou, that the next trains will be produced almost entirely in China.
Thats why it looks like a TR08---because it IS a TR08.
According to inofficial sources, the Chinese have already finished a 4 Section Vehicle.

I dont know why they dont publish more pics of it btw, because as soon as the extension is done, they will use it there, and everybody knows that they are testing it on the campus of the Tongji University.....


----------



## snow is red

pflo777 said:


> btw I have some news concerning that issue :
> 
> According to the German Transrapid consortium, what we see on this pic is a licenced reproduction of the Transrapid08.
> 
> Transrapid 08 :
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Built by Tangshan Coach Works.
> The interior, the car-body , everything except the levitation system is made in China.
> It was part of the tech-transfer deal for the extension of the shanghai maglev, that the next trains will be produced almost entirely in China.
> Thats why it looks like a TR08---because it IS a TR08.
> According to inofficial sources, they have already finished a 4 section vehicle.
> I dont know, why they dont publish pics of it btw, because as soon as the extension is done, they will use it there.....


Aha , thanks for the clarification.


----------



## 33Hz

pflo777 said:


> btw I have some news concerning that issue :
> 
> According to the German Transrapid consortium, what we see on the pic above being pulled by the red truck is a licenced reproduction of the Transrapid08.
> 
> Built by Tangshan Coach Works.
> The interior, the car-body , everything except the levitation system is made in China.
> It was part of the tech-transfer deal for the extension of the shanghai maglev to Hangzhou, that the next trains will be produced almost entirely in China.
> Thats why it looks like a TR08---because it IS a TR08.
> According to inofficial sources, the Chinese have already finished a 4 Section Vehicle.
> 
> I dont know why they dont publish more pics of it btw, because as soon as the extension is done, they will use it there, and everybody knows that they are testing it on the campus of the Tongji University.....


Do you have any sources/links for this?

I presume that the Tongji vehicle will have propulsion systems bought from Transrapid, though?


----------



## pflo777

33Hz said:


> Do you have any sources/links for this?
> 
> I presume that the Tongji vehicle will have propulsion systems bought from Transrapid, though?


The fact that in case of an extension the vehicles '(except the levitation system) will be produced entirely in China was published already 2 years ago in dozens of newspaper articles, that dealt with the extension.
The information about the green/white vehicle in the pic being one of these chinese made Transrapids came from the press office of the consortium, after I asked them several times whats going on over there.
As you know, that pic brought up a heavy discussion in the german press half a year ago....

They didnt tell anything about whats the deal with the propulsion system at the Tongji-track, but as it is compatible, they have either bought it, or they "developed" their own 

I just dont get, why there is exactly ONE friggin pic of that vehicle. 
Last time that I have been to china, I asked several people in Shanghai, and they said that they have seen that green-white train being tested on that track.....


----------



## Jiangwho

Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway compeleted


















Workers have completed laying the tracks for intercity high-speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin on Sunday morning, the first of its kind in China.The 200-km rail, starts from the Beijing South Railway Station in the downtown area and ends at Tianjin Railway Station, passing through the districts of Yizhuang Industrial Park, Yongle New Town and Tianjin's Yangcun, said a spokesman of the railway project.Designed for a full speed of 350 kilometers per hour, the railway will shorten the journey between the two cities from the current 70 minutes to around 30 minutes.A maximum of 20 pairs of trains will run on the new rail route per hour. Starting at an interval of 3 minutes, the trains are expected to carry up to 18,000 passengers per hour.At a cost of more than 13.3 billion yuan (about US$1.8 billion), the project started in July 4, 2005 and will be operational before the Beijing Olympic Games next August.According to the blueprint of the Ministry of Railway, intercity high-speed railway network will be set up in the economic developed areas, including the Yangtze River Delta, the Bohai Sea Ring area and the Pearl River Delta, by 2020.
(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2007)


----------



## snow is red

More pics of Beijing-Tianjin


----------



## hkskyline

*京津城際鐵路時速300公里
全程半小時 京奧前通車 *
17/12/2007









【本報訊】 內地首條時速三百公里的城際鐵路「京津（北京至天津）城際鐵路」，昨日上午全線貫通。預計二○○八年北京奧運會前正式通車，屆時北京到天津僅需三十分鐘，令中國北方兩大直轄市一體化加速實現。

京津城際鐵路是內地「中長期鐵路網規劃」的重要快速通道，也是中國率先建成的首條時速三百公里的城際鐵路，工程連接北京、天津兩個直轄市，鐵路全長一百二十公里，對加快京津區域經濟一體化進程，促進環渤海地區的經濟交流和人員往來具有重要作用。

_為高速客運網定基礎_
中鐵十八局集團京津城際項目部指揮長范成國表示，京津城際鐵路既是中國鐵路跨越式發展的標誌性和示範性工程，同時也是北京奧運會交通配套工程。專家指出，京津城際鐵路工程是中國現代化鐵路建設的一個開端，通過京津城際這一工程，中國將為下一步建設世界一流的客運專線和高速鐵路奠定基礎。

_首採用無碴軌道技術_
該鐵路首次大面積採用無碴軌道技術，具有壽命長、維護周期長、污染少、噪音低的特點，創中國鐵路建設史先河。根據「中長期鐵路網規劃」，到二○二○年，內地將建成省會城市及大中城市間的快速客運通道，在環渤海地區、長江三角洲地區、珠江三角洲地區形成城際快速客運網。


----------



## hkth

Xinhua News:
Launch date set for luxury trains from Beijing to Tibet (Part 1)

Launch date set for luxury trains from Beijing to Tibet (Part 2)


----------



## pflo777

First units of ValeroCN (CRH3) delivered from Germany to Tianjin.

Altogehter, China ordered 60 units.

They will be used on the Bejing Tianjin Route, and be ready for the Olympics











































> China’s first high speed train ready for shipment
> Velaro CN loaded on board a ship in Bremerhaven
> Erlangen/ Bremerhaven, 2007-Dec-19
> 
> The first vehicles of the Velaro CN eight-car train, China’s first high speed train, have meanwhile been loaded on board a ship in Bremerhaven. In all, sixty such trains were ordered by Chinese Railways in 2006 from Siemens and its Chinese partner Tangshan Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works. Three of those sixty units are being built in Krefeld. As many as five of the new high speed trains will be used to link the cities of Beijing and Tianjin during the 2008 Olympic Games.
> 
> It took less than three hours to load the 40-metric-ton, 25-meter-long cars of the first Velaro CN on board the freighter “Gjertrud Maersk” for ocean transport to Tianjin. The voyage will take six weeks. But, before these trains can be put into revenue operation on the Beijing―Tianjin line, a number of major milestones have to be passed: the first tests are already scheduled to take place early in 2008. Since this project began it has directly involved over 900 Siemens employees worldwide. And it was only a week ago that a Chinese delegation paid a visit to the plant in Krefeld-Uerdingen in order to get an impression of the first completed trains.
> 
> The trains have a total length of 200 meters. The CRH 3, the Chinese class designation for this train, is based on Siemens’ Velaro platform for high speed trains, which in turn was developed from the ICE 3 built for German Railways (DB). The advantage of the Velaro platform lies in its ‘multiple unit’ concept, i.e. the traction equipment and system modules are arranged under floor over the entire length of the train and, therefore, are not concentrated in a locomotive at the beginning and at the end of the train as favored by push-pull concepts. As a result, about 20 percent more seat space is gained from the same length of train because elimination of the locomotives creates additional space for passenger accommodation. Consequently, for example, the Chinese Velaro CN is able to carry 600 passengers. The wider car body allows five seats to be arranged side by side in the second class compartments. In addition, the train features a bistro-restaurant section that is directly attached to the first class area.
> 
> With an installed traction rating of 8800 kilowatts, the Velaro CN is built for a maximum running speed of 300 km/h. The fact that half of all the axles are driven direct gives the train a better acceleration performance than locomotive-hauled trains. Furthermore, the traction concept enables the unit to climb line sections with grades as steep as 40‰. The electric brake feeds the energy generated during braking back into the overhead power supply system, which translates into energy and cost savings. The train control system is based on Europe’s ETCS and has been adapted by Siemens specially for the Chinese railway operations.
> 
> The design and engineering work for these Chinese high speed trains was carried out at the Siemens locations in Erlangen and Krefeld-Uerdingen in Germany. The production of the first three trains and major components likewise took place in Germany. The rest of the trains will be built at the Tangshan Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works in China, a production facility of the China Northern Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation (CNR). The contractual agreements also call for the transfer of technology and the provision of support during train production. Numerous German and European suppliers of subsystems and components are participating in the high speed train project and technology transfer and are also cooperating with Chinese partners.
> 
> You may find pictures related to this press release under
> 
> www.siemens.com/ts-pictures/VelaroChina


----------



## snow is red

Hmm... Are the Velaro CN really China's first high speed trains ? There are quite a number of high speed lines in operation in China already.


----------



## superchan7

Depends on what is considered "high-speed"

CRH1 runs 200 km/h (very briefly, ripoff!), same speed as the old Blue Arrows
CRH2 runs 250 km/h

How fast does CRH5 run? Are they even running right now?

And also many DF11 and SS9 locomotives are hauling ass right now, with many lines over 160 km/h.


----------



## Trainman Dave

superchan7 said:


> Depends on what is considered "high-speed"
> 
> CRH1 runs 200 km/h (very briefly, ripoff!), same speed as the old Blue Arrows
> CRH2 runs 250 km/h
> 
> How fast does CRH5 run? Are they even running right now?
> 
> And also many DF11 and SS9 locomotives are hauling ass right now, with many lines over 160 km/h.


Velaro is the first Chinese train to run at 300 km/h on a dedicated track built for high density, high speed operations such as the TGV's in France.

The UIC (the French contraction of the International Unions of Railways) considers any route with a speed limit of 250 km/h or greater as "High Speed".

The CRH5 are supposed to run on the line from Qingahao to Shengyang which is more than 200 kms long. It was rebuilt for mixed freight and passenger operations with a maximun speed of 250 km/h about five years ago. 

China has a very aggressive program for increasing the speed of its trains and in April 2007 annouced that they were begining to operate high speed trains on 6000 route miles and they are running the CRH trains on these route miles.

There is hugh difference between "route miles" for the CRH trains and actual route segments which have been engineered for the operation trains at speeds faster than 180 km/h. I suspect that by the end of 2007 the actual milage operated at 200km/h or more is less than 1000 km with Beijing to Tianjin the only section operating at 300 km/h


----------



## pflo777

the valeros run 350 kmh in Spain and 320 kmh on the TGV-Est route from Paris to Stuttgart, so I wonder why they run "only" 300 in China.

Maybe they will be able to rise the speed to 350 over the time.....

Nice train, and good for china. With its high-speed rail programm, China is already now lightyears ahead of the US, and most other countries in the world....


----------



## Revas

Actually, I'm not that certain that it will eventually run at 350km/h in Spain. I heard that the track had some problems, and the limit speed may be reduced to 320 km/h on a French forum.


----------



## AR1182

pflo777 said:


> the valeros run 350 kmh in Spain and 320 kmh on the TGV-Est route from Paris to Stuttgart, so I wonder why they run "only" 300 in China.


Probably because that's all they need. Beijing-Tianjin seems too short for an additional 50 Km/h to bring any significant benefit.


----------



## Trainman Dave

pflo777 said:


> the valeros run 350 kmh in Spain and 320 kmh on the TGV-Est route from Paris to Stuttgart, so I wonder why they run "only" 300 in China.
> 
> Maybe they will be able to rise the speed to 350 over the time.....
> 
> Nice train, and good for china. With its high-speed rail programm, China is already now lightyears ahead of the US, and most other countries in the world....


Because they are not the same trains!

"Velaro" is a family of trains which use the same technology. Each "Velaro" contract contains unique specifications and the trains are built in different facilities. Just becuase Spain specified power systems and gearing for 350 km/h does not imply that all Velaros will have the same specification.


----------



## snow is red

New railway to link special economic zones
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-06 20:57


SHENZHEN -- China began building a railway linking China's two economic zones, the Xiamen Economic Zone in Fujian Province and Shenzhen Economic Zone in Guangdong Province.

The railway starts from Xiamen, a port city facing Taiwan, and runs 502.4 kilometers southwest along the coast to Shenzhen, a booming city bordering Hong Kong.

Upon its completion in 2011, the railway will allow trains to travel at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, and a journey between the two cities will take about three hours compared with current 11 hours.

The rail link is designed to transport 12 million tons of cargo a year and accommodate 120 pairs of trains per day.

The 41.7-billion-yuan (5.6 billion U.S. dollars) project will be co-funded by the Ministry of Railways, and the Fujian and Guangdong provincial governments.

The new line will be another important section of China's coastal railway artery. Currently, two railway lines, one links Wenzhou of Zhejiang Province with Fuzhou, capital of Fujian, and the other links Fuzhou and Xiamen, are under construction.

Xiamen and Shenzhen are among the first four special economic zones designated by the state council in 1980.


----------



## snow is red

Railway firms win bids for Beijing-Shanghai line
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-07 15:20


China Railway Construction Corp and China Railway Group Ltd are among four domestic companies that have won bids for more than 80 billion yuan ($11 billion) worth of construction contracts for a Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway.


Contracts for the project are divided into six sections and China Railway Construction has won its bid for the two largest contracts worth 33.7 billion yuan and make up 40 percent of the total project, the official Xinhua News Agency reported over the weekend.


China Railway Group won a bid for 22 billion yuan worth of contracts, or 26 percent of the total.


Sinohydro Corp and China Communications Construction Co Ltd respectively won bids for contracts worth 14.3 billion yuan and 13.7 billion yuan.


The Chinese government plans to build a Beijing-Shanghai high-speed line that would cut the trip between China's capital and its financial hub to five hours from 12, earlier media have reported.


Trains on the 1,320 km line would run at speeds of up to 350 km per hour , which would become China's highest-speed railway, according to earlier reports.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-01/07/content_6375751.htm


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## big-dog

*Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway to break ground mid-Jan*

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-01/07/content_6376410_2.htm



> (Xinhua)
> Updated: 2008-01-07 23:45
> 
> 
> BEIJING -- The building of a multi-billion-dollar high-speed railway linking Beijing and Shanghai could be underway as soon as the middle of January after six companies were confirmed as winners of the construction bids.
> 
> Sources with the contractors said construction of the rail line would commence before Spring Festival, which falls on February 7, with mid-January the earliest possible time.
> 
> Civil engineering work on the 1,318-kilometer railway is expected to cost 83.7 billion yuan and is divided into six sub-contracts.
> 
> China Railway Construction Corporation which built the Qinghai-Tibetan Railway, Shanghai Maglev train, Beijing-Kowloon Railway and the western railway across Hong Kong, took the lion's share of 40.3 percent, or 33.74 billion yuan (US$4.64 billion), through its two subsidiaries, the No. 12 and No. 17 Bureaus.
> China Railway Group Limited secured the second largest share worth 21.965 billion yuan( US$3.02 billion), about 26.2 percent, through its No.1 and No. 3 Bureaus.
> 
> The other two smaller contractors are Sinohydro Corporation and the China Communications Construction Company, each responsible for more than 16 percent of the project, worth around 14 billion yuan (US$1.97 billion).
> 
> The railway ministry's chief engineer He Huawu told the Dongfang Daily in late December that China aimed to use the project to develop an advanced express railway technology system, with 70 percent of the technology developed domestically.
> 
> "The principle is to introduce up-to-date foreign technologies, tap into them by carrying out joint design and manufacturing and cultivating a local brand name," he said.
> 
> China hopes to run the China Railway High-speed (CRH) train with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour on the new railway. The latest model of CRH series with a speed of 300 kilometers per hour, rolled off the production line only last month.
> 
> Sources close to the project said that apart from the civil engineering, bidding and procurement for other relevant projects ranging from the signal system to the construction of the upgraded CRH trains will soon start.
> 
> 
> The Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway project, which has been under discussion for more than ten years, officially kicked off in late December after the inauguration of the Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway Company Limited.
> 
> With an estimated total investment of 160 billion yuan (US$21 billion), the railway, upon its completion after 2013, will cut travel time between the Chinese capital and its economic hub from the present 10 hours to about five hours, doubling the existing transport capacity of 160 million passengers annually.
> 
> By 2020, China will have 12,000 kms of express rail lines, with 16 new express passenger rail lines put into place, linking provincial capitals and large and medium-sized cities, as well as cities in the booming Bohai Sea, Yangtze and Pearl River regions.
> 
> The construction of such lines is aimed at substantially enhancing the country's rail transport capacities, as stated in the country's mid- and long-term plan on railway networks.
> 
> The 115 km express rail line connecting Beijing and Tianjin will become the country's first to allow a maximum speed of 300 kilometers per hour. Track laying on the route started in November.
> 
> The line will be ready for operation in time for the 2008 Olympic Games in August, and will shorten the journey between Tianjin and Beijing from 70 minutes to around 30 minutes, according to Liu Rong, director of the railway construction project.


----------



## snow is red

Beijing rail system set to double with 11 lines under construction
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-08 14:50


BEIJING - Eleven subway or above-ground rail lines will be under construction this year in Beijing and two will be completed before the Olympic Games in August, according to officials at the municipal Development and Reform Commission.

These projects will add 270 kilometers to the municipal rail system's track length, nearly doubling its current size.

The two, which are scheduled to open before July, are an elevated line connecting the airport with the transport hub of Dongzhimen in Beijing and the first phase of the No. 10 subway. When these facilities open, the track length of Beijing's metro system will be about 200 km, said Wang Haiping, deputy director of the commission.

"With the completion of the two lines, Beijing's subways can meet the traffic demand during the Olympics," Wang said.

Work will start this year on two new subways. These are the No. 7 line, which terminates at Beijing's main railway station, and the 42 km No. 14 line, which will be the longest single subway line in Beijing with terminals at Lugou Bridge in the southwest and Wangjing in the northeast.

Seven other subways are also under construction this year.

"The running distance of the rail network will amount to 561 kilometers by 2015, which is expected to make Beijing's subways the largest in the world, surpassing New York City," said Xu Xiaoyuan, head of the infrastructure department of the commission.

Starting from this year, the municipal government will appropriate 10 billion yuan (US$ 1.37 billion) annually as subway investment.

Beijing also plans to build low-cost or free parking facilities near the fifth ring road (one of several highways encircling the city) to encourage those living in satellite towns to use public transportation for the final leg of their trip into the city proper, the commission said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-01/08/content_6378737.htm


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## big-dog

^^ wow 11 subway lines are under construction at the same time! Beijing is really booming.


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## Blue Viking

What is the train like from Shanghai to Beijing? I'm considering going on that train in April


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## staff

Blue Viking said:


> What is the train like from Shanghai to Beijing? I'm considering going on that train in April


There are different services and different classes. You can go on everything from peasant's standing class, to soft seat class that is way more luxurious than any train service in Scandinavia.


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## staff

Where did pflo777's maglev thread go?

http://shanghaiist.com/2008/01/09/return_of_the_m.php


> January 9, 2008
> Return of the Maglev protests
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From Boxun.com (you need a proxy) we discovered that there was a maglev-related protest on January 6th. It first started around 11am, around the Xinzhuang/Minhang area, and was dispersed, only to form again sometime around 3pm, this time in the busy Xujiahui CBD. It managed to, in some form, last until 11pm. Protesters carried signs saying "out for a walk" (散步), while other chanted slogans about protecting their homes. The proposed maglev was to link the city's two airports as well as Shanghai to Hangzhou. However, recent protests brought public attention to the health effects of the maglev, leading, according to some, to the recent government decision to reroute the maglev so as to minimize the noise, radiation, and collateral damage. These proposed changes are part of the reason why the price estimates of the maglev have increased from 200 million per km to about 500 million per kilometer.


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## z0rg

02tonyl said:


> "The running distance of the rail network will amount to 561 kilometers by 2015, which is expected to make Beijing's subways the largest in the world, surpassing New York City," said Xu Xiaoyuan, head of the infrastructure department of the commission.[/url]


Hmmm, since Shanghai is planning 970km by 2020 I'm not sure wether Beijing will get the big title in time or not. London and not NYC has world's largest subway system today, btw. Both Guangzhou and Shenzhen are planning systems far above 400km too, this is becoming an exciting race.


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## Blue Viking

^^ Damn those nimbys!! :bash:

I guess you found the maglev-thread already: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=458705 

Thanks for the info about the train. I think I've made up my mind that l will fly though. I promised you a beer a long time ago for your great Shanghai photos. Will you be in Shanghai by the end of March?


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## staff

^^
Unfortunately I'll have to take a rain check - I won't be in Shanghai until the end of June. 

Flying domestic in China is a breeze with the larger airlines, such as Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Shanghai Airlines.


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## snow is red

New train route opens from China to Germany

A container train left Beijing on Wednesday on its way to Hamburg, Germany. The new service was welcomed as real progress made in international rail cooperation. 


Experts project that the new land route will take a big slice of the pie of Chinese-EU trade. 


The train will travel about 9,800 kilometers through six countries, including China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany. The trip has gained support from those in customs declaration and clearance. 

Zheng Mingli, chairman of China Container Transportation Co., said, "This can be seen as a breakthrough in our cooperation. Today, railway officials from six countries are here to witness this event. 

This is very important to the development of the Asia-Europe Continental Bridge. This means of transportation has great potential for the countries involved." 

Cargo on board includes electronic products, textiles and shoes. The trip to Hamburg, Germany will take 18 days. The same trip would take at least 40 days by container ship. 

Tomasl Palaszewski, vice president of Polish National Railway, said, "There is big potential for container transportation to Europe. The ceremony today shows that it will bring big benefits to all of us. So we hope that it will not only be a pilot train, but a permanent connection between China and Europe." 

Railway officials from the six countries will discuss detailed measures to facilitate and promote container transportation. 

Experts project that the new land route will take a big slice of the pie of Chinese-EU trade. But improvements in Chinese railway networks will still matter. China has plans to invest huge amounts of money to build up 18 railway container terminals in the coming five years. 

Video : http://www.cctv.com/video/ChinaToday/2008/01/ChinaToday_300_20080110_4.shtml

http://www.cctv.com/english/20080110/100959.shtml


----------



## Jiangwho

南京南站本月开建 
第一根站房基础桩轰然打下，亚洲最大的铁路枢纽站——京沪高铁南京南站正式进入开工建设阶段，率先打响江苏境内京沪高铁建设的“发令枪”。 

高速铁路南京南站和公路南京南站一起，共占地二平方公里左右，建成后将是京沪高铁全线规模最大的火车站。 

按照设计方案，南京南站为高架车站，站台在二楼，候车大厅在三楼，地面一层为换乘广场，广场中心区域有地铁一号线、三号线和六号线的进出站口；广场南侧有一个机场快客停靠带，高架路联通禄口机场；公路客运南站设在铁路南京南站的南广场。在这里可实现铁路、公交、地铁、长途客车和机场大巴的“零距离”换乘。 

有关专家表示，南京南站建成后，除京沪高速铁路外，还将引入沪汉蓉(上海—南京—合肥—武汉—重庆—成都)铁路、宁安(南京—芜湖—安庆)和宁杭(南京—杭州)铁路，成为华东地区最大的交通枢纽。 

伴随着南京南站大交通枢纽的建设，南京古城将明显向南发展。南京近年来发展的河西新区和江宁区将联成一片。南京城将在古城墙以外的广大区域快速发展，一个现代化的新区将与古城区一样，成为城市的繁华区。(朱晓颖)
XINHUA NEWS

GOOGLE translation
Nanjing South rail Station started to construction this month 

First root sudden stops laying the foundation pile, Asia's largest railway hub stations - the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway formal entry into the South Station in Nanjing started construction stage, the first in Jiangsu Province started the construction of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway "the starting gun." 

Nanjing high-speed railway station and South Station to the south of Nanjing Road, occupies a total area of about two square kilometers, will be built Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is the largest all stations. 

In accordance with the design of the Nanjing South Station for the elevated station platform in the second floor waiting hall on the third floor, the ground for a transfer square, a central region of Metro Line 1, Line 3 and on the 6th line access station ; south side of the square there is a customer call with the Airport Express, the viaduct Unicom Lukoujichang; Highway southbound passenger railway station in the south of Nanjing South Station Square. You can achieve rail, bus, subway, long-distance bus and airport bus "zero distance" transfer. 

Experts said that after the completion of the Nanjing South Station, in addition to the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, will be the introduction of Shanghai Han Rong (Shanghai - Nanjing - Hefei - Wuhan - Chongqing - Chengdu) Railway, Zhuan (Nanjing - Wuhu - Anqing) and the Nanjing-Hangzhou (Nanjing - Hangzhou) Railway, in east China become the largest transportation hub. 

Nanjing South Station along with the transport hub of construction, the ancient city of Nanjing will be a noticeable development of the south. In recent years the development of Nanjing Hexi District, and Jiangning District will be linked up. Nanjing City in the ancient city wall outside the rapid development of the vast region, a modern city with a new area in the same district, a bustling area of the city. (Zhuxiaoying)


----------



## big-dog

Germany-China rail freight plan 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7180906.stm

*A new rail freight service between Germany and China, that would be twice as quick as sea travel, has been backed by six countries, Chinese media says. *










The China Daily state newspaper says China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany are to work together on the Hamburg to Beijing train route. 

The states are to ease customs and border checks to minimise travel time. 

China Railway Container Transport said the 20-day-long freight journeys should start in early 2009. 

"Barring any complications, a scheduled container train should be shuttling between China and Germany in a year's time," said the firm's chairman Zheng Mingli. 

A trial run is under way, with a container train taking a sample of Chinese products to the north German city. 

After it arrives the six countries will analyse ways to improve the rail route, including easing customs barriers, and integrating different railway types. 

Moving goods by sea between the two cities usually takes 40 days and means passing through the Indian Ocean, which adds an additional 10,000km to the journey.


----------



## snow is red

China to invest 300b yuan in railway in '08
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-11 23:29


BEIJING -- China plans to invest 300 billion yuan (US$41 billion) to lay 7,820 kilometers of railway in 2008, the Ministry of Railways said on Friday.

"A batch of new projects will start construction this year, and the building of the high-speed railway linking Beijing and Shanghai is the most important one," said Railway Minister Liu Zhijun at a national work conference.

Earlier reports said the construction of the multi-billion-dollar Beijing-Shanghai railway could be underway as soon as the middle of January after six companies were confirmed to have won the tender.

Liu said the new railways should use state-of-the-art technologies and meet the world's highest standards.

China will have 15,000 kilometers of new railways built and put into operation in the following three years, with 7,000 kilometers being passenger-only high-speed tracks. The total railway length will reach 120,000 kilometers by 2020.

From 2003 to 2007, China invested a total of 522 billion yuan (US$71.5 billion) in railway construction.

Liu predicted that passengers would make more than 1.4 billion rail journeys in 2008 and the cargo transported on railway would exceed 3.3 billion tons, generating a total revenue of 361 billion yuan (US$49.5 billion).

He said priority must be given to the transport of coal, grain, fertilizer, cotton, disaster-relief materials and people's daily necessities.

He also said China would strengthen international cooperation in the railway sector, including the construction of the pan-Asian railway network and technical cooperation with developed countries.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-01/11/content_6388613.htm


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## X236K

big-dog said:


> Germany-China rail freight plan
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7180906.stm
> 
> *A new rail freight service between Germany and China, that would be twice as quick as sea travel, has been backed by six countries, Chinese media says. *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The China Daily state newspaper says China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany are to work together on the Hamburg to Beijing train route.
> 
> The states are to ease customs and border checks to minimise travel time.
> 
> China Railway Container Transport said the 20-day-long freight journeys should start in early 2009.
> ...


Sounds great. I hope the price will be competitive.


----------



## big-dog

China to invest 300 bln yuan in railway construction in 2008 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/11/content_7408014.htm



> www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-11 21:59:07
> 
> BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- *China plans to invest 300 billion yuan (41 billion U.S. dollars) to lay 7,820 kilometers of railway in 2008*, the Ministry of Railways said on Friday.
> 
> "A batch of new projects will start construction this year, and the building of the high-speed railway linking Beijing and Shanghai is the most important one," said Railway Minister Liu Zhijun at a national work conference.
> 
> Earlier reports said the construction of the multi-billion-dollar Beijing-Shanghai railway could be underway as soon as the middle of January after six companies were confirmed to have won the tender.
> 
> Liu said the new railways should use state-of-the-art technologies and meet the world's highest standards.
> 
> China will have 15,000 kilometers of new railways built and put into operation in the following three years, with 7,000 kilometers being passenger-only high-speed tracks. The total railway length will reach 120,000 kilometers by 2020.
> 
> From 2003 to 2007, China invested a total of 522 billion yuan (71.5 billion U.S. dollars) in railway construction.
> 
> Liu predicted that passengers would make more than 1.4 billion rail journeys in 2008 and the cargo transported on railway would exceed 3.3 billion tons, generating a total revenue of 361 billion yuan (49.5 billion U.S. dollars).
> 
> He said priority must be given to the transport of coal, grain, fertilizer, cotton, disaster-relief materials and people's daily necessities.
> 
> He also said China would strengthen international cooperation in the railway sector, including the construction of the pan-Asian railway network and technical cooperation with developed countries.


----------



## big-dog

Express railway to link Shijiazhuang with Beijing 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/12/content_7410189.htm



> www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-12 13:12:27
> 
> SHIJIAZHUANG, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The construction of an express passenger railway which links Beijing with Shijiazhuang, capital of north China's Hebei province, will begin in June and finish in four years.
> 
> The National Development and Reform Commission has approved the project, and a ground breaking will be done on June 1, said a source with the city government of Shijiazhuang, adding a special company will be set up to take charge of the construction.
> 
> The new line is planned to alleviate transport pressure on the northern end of Beijing-Guangzhou railway, a north-south trunk route, and boost the development of areas around Beijing.
> 
> The projected route will stretch 281 km starting from Beijing West Railway Station and ending at Shijiazhuang South Railway Station. Trains can run at a speed of 350 km per hour. Speed in the initial stage can be 300 km per hour.
> 
> The new railway will take four years to complete. By that time, the journey from Beijing to Shijiazhuang only lasts about an hour, roughly halving the current travel time.
> 
> The investment of 43.87 billion yuan (about 6.01 billion U.S. dollars), will be shared by the Ministry of Railways and the governments of Beijing Municipality and Hebei Province.
> 
> While addressing a national work conference held in Beijing on Friday, Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun disclosed that the country planned to invest 300 billion yuan (41 billion U.S. dollars) to lay 7,820 km of railways this year.


----------



## big-dog

China to enter new railway era by 2010

http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20080112/100878.shtml



> Source: CCTV.com
> 01-12-2008 10:38
> China's railway system is integral for many of China's 1.3 billion people-be it for commuting or when they travel home for the holidays.
> 
> 
> This is what the Beijing South Railway Station will
> look like in half a year's time.(CCTV.com)
> 
> 
> At a press conference on Friday,the Ministry of Railways says China will enter a new era of railway travel by 2010.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is what the Beijing South Railway Station will look like in half a year's time.
> 
> Official say the renovated station will be come the number one passenger railway hub in the nation, with a floor space over 200,000 square meters.
> 
> It will also boast a waiting room which can accommodate as many as 10,000 people.
> 
> The railway regulator says that so far, 19 train stations in major cities like Shanghai and Nanjing have already been upgraded. Another 19 stations are due to be renovated in cities such as Wuhan, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Tianjin.
> 
> Passengers can also look forward to other upsides besides more spacious, modern train stations.
> 
> Officials say high speed railways and passenger-only lines will also help make it easier and more comfortable for passengers to travel by rail in China.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> China's railway system is integral for many of China's
> 1.3 billion people-be it for commuting or when they
> travel home for the holidays.(CCTV.com)
> 
> 
> Wang Yongping, Spokesman of Ministry of Railways, said, "The passenger-only lines will change the current situation that both passenger and cargo transport share the same railways. It will make it much easier for passengers to get on the trains. It will also improve the cargo transport capability."
> 
> The railway regulator says China will have 15,000 kilometers of new tracks built and put into operation over the next three years, with close to half designated for passenger-only high speed tracks.
> 
> The total length will reach 120,000 kilometers by 2020.
> 
> It adds that China will also strengthen international cooperation in the railway sector, including the construction of the pan-Asian railway network and technical cooperation with developed countries.


----------



## snow is red

Express railway to link Shijiazhuang with Beijing 


www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-12 13:12:27 Print 

SHIJIAZHUANG, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The construction of an express passenger railway which links Beijing with Shijiazhuang, capital of north China's Hebei province, will begin in June and finish in four years.

The National Development and Reform Commission has approved the project, and a ground breaking will be done on June 1, said a source with the city government of Shijiazhuang, adding a special company will be set up to take charge of the construction.

The new line is planned to alleviate transport pressure on the northern end of Beijing-Guangzhou railway, a north-south trunk route, and boost the development of areas around Beijing.

The projected route will stretch 281 km starting from Beijing West Railway Station and ending at Shijiazhuang South Railway Station. Trains can run at a speed of 350 km per hour. Speed in the initial stage can be 300 km per hour.

The new railway will take four years to complete. By that time, the journey from Beijing to Shijiazhuang only lasts about an hour, roughly halving the current travel time.

The investment of 43.87 billion yuan (about 6.01 billion U.S. dollars), will be shared by the Ministry of Railways and the governments of Beijing Municipality and Hebei Province.

While addressing a national work conference held in Beijing on Friday, Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun disclosed that the country planned to invest 300 billion yuan (41 billion U.S. dollars) to lay 7,820 km of railways this year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/12/content_7410189.htm


----------



## snow is red

Beijing-Shanghai express railway to be launched
(CRI)
Updated: 2008-01-14 15:38


The Beijing to Shanghai high-speed railway will officially break ground at a ceremony in Beijing on Friday with the start of 40 construction projects along its six sections. Chinese railway authorities, quoted in the Beijing Times report, said that completion will take five years.


A CRH (China Railway Highspeed) train [File photo] 

Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun disclosed at a national conference last Friday the multi-billion-dollar rail line had been listed as the top priority in the country's railway construction for this year.

The Beijing to Shanghai Express Railway project has been under discussion for more than ten years and officially kicked off in late December after the inauguration of the Beijing to Shanghai Express Railway Company Limited.

With an estimated total investment of 160 billion yuan ($21 billion), the railway, upon its completion after 2013, will cut the travel time between the Chinese capital and its economic hub from the present 10 hours to about five hours, doubling the existing transport capacity of 160 million passengers annually.

The Ministry of Railways will fund 78.9 percent of the investment. A participant at the conference told the newspaper that the Ping An Insurance (Group) Co of China Ltd will lead other insurance companies to provide a share of 13.93 percent with a joint investment of 16 billion yuan.

Another strategic partner in the project is the National Council for the Social Security Fund with an investment of 10 billion yuan. The China Development Bank (CDB), the country's largest policy lender, is also planning to buy a stake in the project, China Daily reported earlier.

Compensation fees for land requisition and relocation for the eight provinces and municipalities along the rail line is initially set at 23.3 billion yuan.

The newspaper learned from the provincial transport department that eastern China's Jiangsu Province is set to be the first to start construction on the project,.

The Beijing to Shanghai high-speed railway includes 357.5 kilometers in Jiangsu Province, which is 27.3 percent of the total length. Four of the six contracted construction sections are in Jiangsu.

Civil engineering work on the 1,318-kilometer railway is expected to cost 83.7 billion yuan and is divided into six sub-contracts.

The China Railway Construction Corporation took the lion's share of 40.3 percent, or 33.74 billion yuan (about $4.64 billion), through its two subsidiaries, the No. 12 and No. 17 Bureaus, official Xinhua News Agency reports.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-01/14/content_6392869.htm


----------



## big-dog

New high-speed railway to be kicked off in S China 



> www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-19 08:59:22
> 
> http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/19/content_7450344.htm
> 
> GUIYANG, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Construction of a new high-speed railroad linking Guangdong Province, an economic powerhouse in south China, and Guizhou, one of the country's poorest regions, will start this year.
> 
> The plan was announced by Lin Shusen, Governor of Guizhou, in his government work report to the first session of the 11th Guizhou Provincial People's Congress on Friday.
> 
> The planned railroad will have a length of 818 kilometers and a budget of 70.4 billion yuan (about 9.65 billion U.S. dollars). The cost will be shared among the Ministry of Railways, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and Guizhou and Guangdong provinces.
> 
> The railway will allow high-speed trains to run at 250 km per hour. The trip from Guiyang, the provincial capital of the land-locked Guizhou, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, will take four hours only.
> 
> Currently, there is no direct rail link between the two cities, and the need to change trains means the trip can take as long as 20 hours.
> 
> The Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railroad will link up with another planned high-speed railway between Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province in the remote northwest, and Chongqing, a major industrial city in west China, forming a west-south thoroughfare.


----------



## hkskyline

Looks like the HSR push is now reaching the secondary cities. But the cost is quite steep though for such a short distance!


----------



## stone

Beijing South Railway Station almost completed. Expect to be operational on Aug 1, 2008


----------



## big-dog

*China's railway network under pressure from growing economy*

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/21/content_7466033.htm



> www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-21 18:47:48
> 
> BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's railways carried 1.36 billion passengers in 2007, up 8 percent over the previous year's figure, but the country's booming economy means demand will be even greater this year.
> 
> More than 3 billion tonnes of cargo were transported by rail, an increase of 8.6 percent, Railway Minister Liu Zhijun said at a national work conference earlier this month.
> 
> In 2008, passengers would make more than 1.4 billion rail journeys and the cargo transported by railway would exceed 3.3 billion tons, he said.
> 
> Transport networks in many areas have reported a record volume of travelers this year, especially after the Chunyun, or Spring Festival transportation period, which began on Friday, five days ahead of schedule.
> 
> It is estimated Beijing's railways will bear 30.09 million passengers in the coming Chunyun, up 7 percent over last year. Northwestern traffic hub Xi'an has seen a record of 100,000 people a day since Monday, about 20,000 more than in previous years.
> 
> Cities in eastern and southern China also had similar problems, and Guangzhou is even asking for help from the Ministry of Railways for more trains. Railway stations across China had to add311 temporary round-trips to ease the pressure.
> 
> The overwrought railway traffic is likely to receive respite when 15,000 kilometers of new railways are built and put into operation in the following three years, with 7,000 kilometers being passenger-only high-speed tracks. The total length of the country's railway will reach 120,000 kilometers by 2020.
> 
> Construction of the most important railway construction project this year, the multi-billion-dollar high-speed railway between Beijing and Shanghai, is due to begin on Jan. 18.
> 
> From 2003 to 2007, China invested 522 billion yuan (71.5 billion U.S. dollars) in railway construction.


----------



## zergcerebrates

DANG! That Beijing South Railway Station is HUGE! And its circular too? How come nobody ever post info about this station?


----------



## big-dog

zergcerebrates said:


> DANG! That Beijing South Railway Station is HUGE! And its circular too? How come nobody ever post info about this station?


check this thread,
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=17309429

and renderings,



davidwei01 said:


> from skyscrapers.cn


----------



## pflo777

Is there a website that shows the construction progress on the shanghai bejing HSR?


----------



## snow is red

*Alstom awarded metro system contract*
By Song Wenwei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-25 16:50


Alstom Transport and its Chinese partners, Nanjing CSR Puzhen Rail Transit and Shanghai Alstom Transport Electrical Equipement Co Ltd (SATEE), have been awarded a contract worth a total of 85.5 million euros by the operator Nanjing Metro Company (NMC).

Alstom's consolidated share is estimated at 25.5 million euros. The contract is for the supplying of 126 metro cars for the Nanjing Metro Line 1 south extension.

"This new contract reconfirms Alstom's world leadership in metro systems, and consolidates its strong presence in China. We will continue to supply advanced products and services to contribute to the development of Nanjing's metro network", said Kim Chan, managing director of Alstom Transport China.


The contract involves 21 six-cars Alstom's Metropolis trainsets. According to the contract, Alstom is responsible for the design of the trains and the validation of the first trainset, Puzhen is in charge of the manufacturing and warranty of the 21 trainsets and SATEE will manufacture the auxiliary inverter and traction equipments. All the metro cars are scheduled to be delivered by 2011.


The Nanjing Metro Line 1 south extension, scheduled to enter into service March 2010, will be 18-kilometer long, linking Andemen and Chengdong Road. In 2002, Alstom supplied 120 Metropolis cars for Nanjing Metro Line 1.


Besides Nanjing Metro Line 1, the Alstom consortium also supplied 144 Metropolis metro cars for Nanjing Metro Line 2 in April 2007. To date, over 370 Metropolis metro cars have been sold in Nanjing and over 1,400 in China.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-01/25/content_6421771.htm


----------



## hkth

Xinhua News:
Qinghai-Tibet railway transports 5.95 mln tourists


----------



## big-dog

*beijing south station trial in June, officially open on Aug 1st 2008*


----------



## UD2

such a huge station


----------



## The Cebuano Exultor

*@ [anyone/everyone]*

Will this be the largest railway station in Beijing, Beijing West Railway Station notwithstanding?


----------



## foxmulder

Nice one, expecting more pictures


----------



## big-dog

*First CRH3 (ICE3) shipped from Germany*

12.24

Dunno if it has been posted or not


----------



## big-dog

*300km CRH2C (upgrade version)*

2.13 from skyscrapers.cn


----------



## zergcerebrates

OMG the trains are so dusty.


----------



## foxmulder

great pictures! Thanks...


----------



## pflo777

@big-dog:

Yes, the pics have been posted before, but the ship with the trains should have arrived in Tianjin alredy.

Furthermore the first CRH-3 units from chinese productions should be finished already.

I think we will see pics of the first crh-3 trains on the Bejing-Tianjin route soon.


----------



## Railfan

edit


----------



## hkth

Xinhua News:
China's railway passenger volume in January grows 23.6%


----------



## snow is red

*High-speed rail line linking Nanjing, Shanghai wins approval * 

www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-21 17:48:42 Print 

NANJING, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Work will start soon on a high-speed inter-city passenger rail link between Nanjing and Shanghai, railway officials announced on Thursday. 

The feasibility report for the project, estimated to cost 42.2 billion yuan (about 5.78 billion U.S. dollars), has been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, and ground-breaking will occur in the first half of the year, said Zhang Xiaoling, deputy chief with Jiangsu Provincial Office of Railways. 

The investment will be borne by the Ministry of Railways, Jiangsu and Shanghai, said Zhang, who declined to provide further details. 

The new railway will have a length of 300 kilometers, of which 269 km will be inside Jiangsu Province. The dual-track railroad will take four years to complete and will be able to accommodate trains traveling at 200 km to 250 km per hour. 

The line will cut the trip between the two cities from two hours at present to one and a half hours. 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/21/content_7644012.htm


----------



## city_thing

_"The line will cut the trip between the two cities from two hours at present to one and a half hours. "_

That's not much of a difference. It really makes this new HSR line seem like a bit of a waste. Unless of course, it's part of a bigger scheme to have a web like connection of Chinese cities.


----------



## elfabyanos

^^ I think it's part of the larger Beijing - Shanghai concept, and I believe they are building the lines to allow higher line speeds. Can anybody else confirm this?


----------



## Trainman Dave

city_thing said:


> _"The line will cut the trip between the two cities from two hours at present to one and a half hours. "_
> 
> That's not much of a difference. It really makes this new HSR line seem like a bit of a waste. Unless of course, it's part of a bigger scheme to have a web like connection of Chinese cities.


Much of the existing line is already operating at 200 km/h. This line will be the southern end of the Beijing - Shanghai HSL which will operate at 300+ km/h. 

The distance between Nanjing and Shanghai is quite short so the full impact of the speed increase is is only a 25% reduction in the overal running time. Remember that the last 15-20km out of Shanghai will be much slower than 300 km/h and that the new station in Nanjing which will not be built untill the new bridge over the Yangtse is built so the initial operation of the new line will also use the traditional line into the old Nanjing station when it is opened


----------



## willliu

railway development plan for the next decade


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## willliu

existing line


----------



## willliu

sceneries alone the railway


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## willliu




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## willliu




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## willliu




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## willliu




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## willliu




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## willliu




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## willliu




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## willliu




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## HKG

:applause:kay:


----------



## tuckerbox

BRILLIANT Photos! Well done!:applause:


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

whoa i didn't know that Qingzang railway is only single track. Are there any plans to make it double track to increase capacity and frequency?


----------



## Xabi

Incredible pictures. A travel in this railway should be unforgotable.


----------



## cmoonflyer

Great news , worth congratulating !


----------



## willliu

drunkenmunkey888 said:


> whoa i didn't know that Qingzang railway is only single track. Are there any plans to make it double track to increase capacity and frequency?


No, not in the near future. The geographical condition alone the rail is so harsh that making the rail double-track would add a lot to the budget. By the way there isn't much traffic on the line since the population in tibet is only around 2.6 million, so double-tracked rail isn't necessary.


----------



## big-dog

great thread willliu. 

the Qingzang railway traffic is growing fast, 2007 passenger figure is 1.59 million, up 420% from the figure in 2006. The 2007 total Tibet tourists surpassed 4 million, up 60% year on year.


----------



## foxmulder

This is an huge "achivement"...

There was a documantary about building this rail road. If anybody have the name or better a torrent file please share it  I want to wacth it again.


----------



## UD2

drunkenmunkey888 said:


> whoa i didn't know that Qingzang railway is only single track. Are there any plans to make it double track to increase capacity and frequency?


on top of the population issue. The cost to build and maintain another track on this route could very well bankrupt China.


----------



## mr.x

i saw a documentary on Discovery channel about this....huge achievement by the Chinese, and it's pretty cool that the trains are pressurized given the high altitude. There are even doctors on the trains.


----------



## hkth

Xinhua News:
Shanghai-Nanjing rail link approved


----------



## pflo777

willliu said:


> railway development plan for the next decade



what are the chances for the most western, extremely long dashed line ,parallel to the border, to get built?


----------



## willliu

pflo777 said:


> what are the chances for the most western, extremely long dashed line ,parallel to the border, to get built?


tibet-xinjiang railway(the one you refer to) is 1500km. The construction will start next year and will be finished before 2015.
the other railways in tibet will be finished before 2010.


----------



## big-dog

willliu said:


> tibet-xinjiang railway(the one you refer to) is 1500km. The construction will start next year and will be finished before 2015.
> the other railways in tibet will be finished before 2010.


are you sure of it? I've never heard any news mentioning it, please be accurate and provide the source, thanks.


----------



## willliu

big-dog said:


> are you sure of it? I've never heard any news mentioning it, please be accurate and provide the source, thanks.


here are some of the sources in Chinese:
http://info.upla.cn/html/2007/10-23/59392.shtml
http://news.eastday.com/eastday/node81741/node81762/node153122/u1a2233636.html
http://www.ywpw.com/forums/travel/post/A0/p0/html/178.html
http://cn.chinagate.com.cn/chinese/jj/69201.htm


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## snow is red

*China plan to make 350 km/h bullet train 
*


China will start research in building a 350-kilometer-per-hour train for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway that has been under discussion for years, said the country's science ministry and the railway ministry.


The Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Railway signed an agreement on Tuesday night to collaborate in developing an upgraded version of the present China Railway High-speed (CRH) trains.


The latest model of CRH series with a speed of 300 kilometers per hour, rolled off the production line only last December. It will first serve on the Beijing-Tianjin railway in August this year, in time for the Beijing Olympics.


The two ministries did not specify a timetable for the development of the upgraded bullet train, but said they intended the new CRH train to provide service on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway which would kick off construction "very soon", according to the railway minister Liu Zhijun, present at the signing ceremony.


The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, expected to extend 1,318 kilometers long, has been under discussion for more than 10 years.


With an estimated investment of 160 billion yuan (21 billion U.S. dollars), the railway upon its completion would become the largest as well as the most expensive engineering project in the country.


It would cut travel time between the Chinese capital and the country's leading financial hub from around 10 hours at present to about five hours, doubling the existing transport capacity to carry 160 million passengers annually. 


(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2008)

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2008-02/27/content_10929657.htm


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## drunkenmunkey888

i found the discovery channel program in its entirety on youtube but im having trouble embedding it. the crux of the show is describing how engineering difficulties were overcome on the 1200 km line and how meticulous they were about worker safety. Not a single worker died of high altitude sickness or contagious disease. They established very comprehensive mobile hospitals all along the way with some very sophisticated equipment. 

I must say I'm very surprised considering China's reputation as a place where workers' lives are highly expendable and huge building projects usually cost as many lives as dollars. I mean think about all that extra medical equipment and trained staff that needed to be present. Wouldn't it have been much cheaper for workers to work till they die and find new ones? They could've saved so much money on their medical equipment but they didn't. Instead they made sure all the workers were healthy and received adequate medical care. 

All those people complaining about human rights and labor abuses in China should really find out about the Qingzang rail project.


----------



## hkth

Xinhua News:
Chinese railway carries 196 mln passengers during Spring Festival travel season


----------



## willliu

drunkenmunkey888 said:


> i found the discovery channel program in its entirety on youtube but im having trouble embedding it. the crux of the show is describing how engineering difficulties were overcome on the 1200 km line and how meticulous they were about worker safety. Not a single worker died of high altitude sickness or contagious disease. They established very comprehensive mobile hospitals all along the way with some very sophisticated equipment.
> 
> I must say I'm very surprised considering China's reputation as a place where workers' lives are highly expendable and huge building projects usually cost as many lives as dollars. I mean think about all that extra medical equipment and trained staff that needed to be present. Wouldn't it have been much cheaper for workers to work till they die and find new ones? They could've saved so much money on their medical equipment but they didn't. Instead they made sure all the workers were healthy and received adequate medical care.
> 
> All those people complaining about human rights and labor abuses in China should really find out about the Qingzang rail project.


I am surprised you think of China that way. I know media in the west like to portray China in its dimmest light, but I never know its that bad. The work market in China is like everywhere else. People applied for the job on the Qinghai tibet railway because the construction companies are willing to pay high salaries, and they can quit the job anytime they want if they felt their lives are intimidated. So off course hospitals are built alone the 
rail to make sure people stay. China is not made up of a party and 1.3 billion slaves on their master's disposal. That's entirely not true. If you don't believe me, come and see by yourself. I guarantee you will find you will find China nowadays more capitalistic than North America and Europe.


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

willliu said:


> I am surprised you think of China that way. I know media in the west like to portray China in its dimmest light, but I never know its that bad. The work market in China is like everywhere else. People applied for the job on the Qinghai tibet railway because the construction companies are willing to pay high salaries, and they can quit the job anytime they want if they felt their lives are intimidated. So off course hospitals are built alone the
> rail to make sure people stay. China is not made up of a party and 1.3 billion slaves on their master's disposal. That's entirely not true. If you don't believe me, come and see by yourself. I guarantee you will find you will find China nowadays more capitalistic than North America and Europe.


Yes, well like I said, watching the documentary was a real eye-opener. If only BBC or CNN would report things like this. Whenever western media talks about Qinghai Tibet railway, they only talk about the environmental strains, the Tibetan protest, and how the railway is supposed to strengthen the 'evil' communist party's control over Tibet. They never mention how salaries were high for the workers and how worker safety was a top priority on the project. In fact, I got the vibe from the video that the hiring process was selective too and that only the most fit workers were chosen. Sadly, many westerners do believe that China is made up of a party and 1.3 billion slaves.


----------



## foxmulder

Thanks, I already download the documantry from youtube


----------



## snow is red

*Qinghai-Tibet railway extensions necessary*


March 04, 2008

Construction of Qinghai-Tibet railway extensions is "quite necessary", said Qiangba Puncog, chairman of Tibet Autonomous Region, on Tuesday. 

"We will fully tap the potential of railway in the region, and we hope the extensions linking Lhasa to Xigaze and Nyingchi would bring more benefits to the Tibetan people," said Qiangba Puncog, who is a deputy to the 11th National People's Congress, China's top legislature. 

The 1,956-km Qinghai-Tibet Railway has had profound influence on the Tibetan people since it was put into operation in July 2006,ending the history of the region without railway, noted the chairman. 

Tourism industry in the landlocked plateau was greatly boosted, as Tibet chalked up 4 million plus of tourists in 2007, about 1 million more than estimated. Tourism revenue surged 73.3 percent year-on-year to 4.8 billion yuan (about 676 million U.S. dollars) last year, accounting for about 14 percent of the gross domestic product in the southwestern region. 

The railway helped shorten regional difference in cost, drawing more investment to Tibet. Last year Tibet took in non-governmental investment of 8.45 billion yuan (about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars), 29 percent up from 2006. 

"The railway also offered more job opportunities for local workforces, and people saw hope of faster development of Tibet," said Qiangba Puncog. 

However, the vast region taking up one eighth of China's territory in size is still in need of capital for development, he said. 

The legislator disclosed that preparations for the Lhasa-Xigaze railway had completed while the construction plan was undergoing approval from the central government. 

The 254-km extension line, the first feeder for the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, is planned to start this year and expected to be completed in 2010, according to an earlier report. 


http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/6366119.html


----------



## snow is red

*Work on Shanghai rail link to start soon*
By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-07 07:56


Work on the high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai will start anytime soon, Shanghai Railway Administration director Wu Qiang said yesterday.

The new line is expected to cut the travel time from 10 to 5 hours and strengthen the ties between the two major economic hubs of the Bohai Rim and the Yangtze River Delta.

Ticket prices have yet to be finalized, but the authorities will definitely consider passengers' affordability, Wu said.

Several shorter railway lines linking Shanghai and other cities in the Yangtze River Delta region that have also been approved will bring the country's major economic powerhouses closer, Wu said.

An expanded railway network could "help us handle disasters" such as the heavy snow before Spring Festival with greater ease, Wu said.

The Beijing-Shanghai railway, which will cost about 160 billion yuan ($21 billion), will double the transport capacity after its completion in 2013.

The National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning body, has approved plans to build a high-speed passenger railway to link Shanghai with Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, and Nanjing and Nantong in Jiangsu province.

Work on the 39.45-billion-yuan ($5.52 billion) Shanghai-Nanjing line could start as soon as next month, Wu said. The line will be completed in four years and shorten travel time on the 300-km route from two hours to just 72 minutes.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-03/07/content_6515894.htm


----------



## snow is red

*China-made bullet train to link Beijing, Tianjin in Aug*
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-09 22:13


BEIJING -- The first China-made bullet train designed to run at 300 kilometers per hour has completed a test run and will be in service between Beijing and Tianjin in early August, a railway official said on Sunday.

"A train prototype rolled off the production line in December and has completed a test run," said Shao Liping, director of the railway authority in Nanning, capital of the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The new train is expected to be running along a 117-km intercity railway beginning August 1, a week before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.

It will reduce the travel time between Beijing and Tianjin to around 30 minutes from the current 70 to 80 minutes, said Shao on the sidelines of the annual session of China's parliament.

Shao said the train, the latest model in the China Railway High-speed (CRH) Series, will be produced jointly by manufacturers in Qingdao of the eastern Shandong Province, and Tangshan of the northern Hebei Province.

In the meantime, Shao said Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Railways are carrying out research on a 350-km-per-hour train for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway that has been under discussion for years.

At present, China's fastest self-developed trains run at a service speed up to 250 km per hour. Those trains, which debuted last April, link Beijing with Harbin, Shanghai and Guangzhou.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-03/09/content_6520777.htm


----------



## Trainman Dave

02tonyl said:


> The first China-made bullet train designed to run at 300 kilometers per hour has completed a test run and will be in service between Beijing and Tianjin in early August, a railway official said on Sunday.


But engineered by Siemens!!


----------



## pflo777

are there already pics of the testruns of the CRH3 units on the Bejing Tianjin route?


----------



## big-dog

*"largest IPO so far this year"*

China Railway's Dual IPO Raises $5.4B 

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5597771.html



> © 2008 The Associated Press
> 
> HONG KONG — State-owned railroad builder China Railway Construction Corp. priced its Hong Kong initial public offering at the top end of the indicative range Thursday, according to a media report, raising $5.4 billion along with a dual Shanghai share offering to make the world's biggest IPO so far this year.
> 
> China Railway Construction raised $2.33 billion in Hong Kong from the sale of 1.7 billion shares at 10.70 Hong Kong dollars ($1.37) each, a person familiar with the deal told Dow Jones Newswires.
> 
> It had set an indicative price range of HK$9.93 ($1.28) to HK$10.70 ($1.37) a share.
> 
> The retail offering of the Hong Kong IPO was 291 times oversubscribed, tying up more than a record of $60 billion from investors in Hong Kong while the institutional tranche was 80 times oversubscribed, the person said.
> 
> China Railway Construction is scheduled to list in Hong Kong on March 13.
> 
> The railroad builder had already sold 2.45 billion A shares in its Shanghai IPO at 9.08 yuan ($1.28) each, also the top of the indicative range, to raise 22.25 billion yuan, or $3.13 billion. The company is planning to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on March 10.
> 
> Nine strategic investors subscribed to $450 million worth of the Hong Kong shares, or $50 million each.
> 
> Those investors include Singapore's Singapore state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., Yale University, Citic Pacific Ltd., Bank of China Investment Management Co. and China Life Insurance (Group) Co.
> 
> China Railway Construction earlier said it would use 80 percent of the funds raised in the Hong Kong offering for equipment purchases, with the remainder to be used for construction of a cement plant in Nigeria and for working capital.


----------



## snow is red

*Five-star Beijing-Tibet train to run after Games*
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-10 15:42




BEIJING -- Luxury passenger train service from Beijing to the southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region will be launched on Sept. 1, the operator said on Sunday.

The interior of the train will be decorated according to the standards of a five-star hotel, making it the most luxurious train in the world, said Zhu Mingrui, general manager of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Corporation (QTRC).

"Such a train can only seat 96 passengers. The fare would be about 20 times the normal price and also much more than an airline ticket," he said.

Online ticket sales have begun for domestic and overseas tourists, who will enjoy the unique scenery of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, he said.

Earlier reports said that the project, approved by the Ministry of Railways in November, will be operated by a joint venture between Rail Partners, a subsidiary of the Shanghai-based investment company of TZG Partners, and the QTRC. It has attracted an investment of US$52.9 million from Hong Kong's Wing On Travel (Holdings) Limited.

There will be three trains, which will head from Beijing to Tibet's capital, Lhasa, every eight days. The luxury journey will take five days.

Each train will have 12 passenger cars, two dining cars and a sight-seeing car. Each passenger car will have four ten-square-meter suites featuring a double bed, a living room and bathing facilities.

"All sewage and garbage on the trains will be collected and properly disposed of; thus, they will not damage the environment of the plateau," Ben Tsen, managing director of TZG Partners, has said.

The 1,956-km Qinghai-Tibet line, running from Xi'ning, capital of northwest Qinghai Province, to Lhasa, started operation in July 2006, ending Tibet's history without railways.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-03/10/content_6523659.htm


----------



## snow is red

*New technology saves Qinghai-Tibet Railway*
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-10 20:55


XINING -- China has developed an advanced sand-solidifying technology, which will be used along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to save the highest railway in the world from the ravages of the desert.

The development, named "OH sand-solidifying and foliage-planting technology", is being experimented on in Qinghai, a seriously sand eroded province in northwest China, a local scientist said on Monday.

"The main part of the technological development is a special kind of sand-solidifying drug," said Li Runjie, chief of the project under the Qinghai Provincial Water Conservancy and Hydropower Scientific Research Institute.

According to the experiment, after sowing grass seeds, pouring water and fertilizer into a plot of sand, the treatment was sprayed on the sand surface. In one to two hours, the sand became solid. Grass grew out of the solidified sand in about 15 days.

"The chemical treatment, which is able to solidify the sand into a rubber-like solid earth, has no poisonous or harmful elements," the expert said.

"The solidified sand can hold water, thus efficiently preventing evaporation," he said

According to Li, the experimental test has been conducted at the origin of the Yellow River in Qinghai since May last year.

"We have also tested the development in some areas along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway," he said, adding that it successfully solidified the flowing sand that was threatening the railway.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, running 1,956 kilometers from Xining city in Qinghai province to Lhasa in Tibet, has 960 km of the track at 4,000 meters above sea level and the highest point at 5,072 meters. It was officially put into operation in July 2006. It is the highest railway in the world and ended Tibet's history without a railway.

Soils around the Qinghai-Tibet Railway have been turning into desert because of dry temperatures and strong winds, threatening the safety of the trains.

Chinese scientists have tried to prevent the soil along the railway from the danger of becoming a desert since the late 1980s, when the railway was in the design stage.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-03/10/content_6523962.htm


----------



## z0rg

*High-speed rail to cross Taiwan Strait?*

SHANGHAI, China, Chinese media in January reported an ambitious plan to link mainland China and Taiwan by high-speed railway. It is the latest in a series of proposals to physically link the island with the mainland. The plan does not address the political obstacles -- presumably these will be dealt with on a parallel track while the railway is under construction.

The new initiative was exposed in a protocol signed between China's Ministry of Railways and the government of Fujian province. According to the signed protocol, the project is to get underway in 2008, with 1,900 kilometers of railway lines in place by 2020.

Much of this construction will take place within Fujian province, which lies along the Taiwan Strait facing Taiwan. Railway lines will connect the province's major cities of Fuzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou with one another, then head inland to the provinces of Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan, A separate line will head to Guangdong province and the special economic zone of Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong.

When this high-speed railway project is finished, the whole of Fujian province will be conveniently connected to central and western China, as well as to the Yangtze River and Pearl River deltas. It is expected to facilitate trade across southern China and to bring considerable economic benefit to Fujian.

The map of the planned railway includes an eventual extension to Taipei. If realized, it would enable Taiwanese travelers and business people to board a train in Taipei that would carry them as far as Beijing or Kunming.

The construction of the high-speed railway is not the first such initiative designed to cross the Taiwan Strait. In 2004 the Ministry of Communications published a plan for an express highway between Beijing and Taipei, to be completed by 2030. The Taiwan Strait would be crossed by an undersea tunnel.

The country's first undersea tunnel, nine kilometers in length, is currently being built in the coastal city of Xiamen, across the strait from Taiwan. The tunnel, which delves six kilometers below sea level, has been under construction since 2005 and is due for completion in 2010.

A tunnel bridging the Taiwan Strait would be much more ambitious, as it would have to traverse 150 kilometers.

In 2005 the government announced plans for five major undersea tunnels to be built in the next 20 to 30 years, including the one linking the mainland with Taiwan. The other four would connect Hong Kong with Macau or Zhuhai, Dalian withYantai, Shanghai with Ningbo, and Hainan Island with the mainland.

Political issues aside, China is planning its infrastructure development for the long term. It is hoping that continued economic development will lure the Taiwanese into an ever-closer economic relationship, leading eventually to reunification.

Since China initiated its open door policy in the late 1970s, the mainland and Taiwan economies have become increasingly interdependent. After both of them joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, economic ties have strengthened further.

However, despite closer economic engagement, political relations between Taiwan and the mainland have become increasingly strained, especially since the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in 2000. Led by Chen Shui-bian, Taiwanese politicians have advocated an independent "Taiwan Republic," thereby challenging China's ambitions for reunification.

China has consistently proposed closer economic and transport links as a strategy to hold off Taiwan's moves toward independence. The railway and tunnel construction plans are merely an extension of this strategy -- and are based on the presumption of success.

China has effectively used its international influence to isolate Taiwan politically -- only 23 states now recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation thanks to China's aggressive diplomacy and insistence on a "one China" policy in all major international bodies. At the same time China has been equally aggressive in engaging Taiwan economically. In this carrot-and-stick approach, the high-speed railway is one of the carrots on offer.

Many Taiwanese, especially businessmen, oppose the DPP administration's policies and hope for better relations with the mainland. The growing dissatisfaction with the DPP was reflected in the party's huge losses in the recent legislative elections, and the party is very likely to lose in the March "presidential" election.

Regardless of which party wins in March, the future Taiwan government will likely distance itself from the Chen administration. Both the DPP candidate and that of the opposition Kuomintang have explicitly or implicitly expressed a willingness to engage China economically, seeing this as a clear benefit for the Taiwan people. If the pro-unification KMT wins the election, it will very likely introduce new cooperative polices toward the mainland.

It may take awhile for even the KMT to agree to the high-speed railway and tunnel plans. With a target completion date of 2030, however, the plans may not be at all unrealistic.

--

http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Economics/2008/02/15/high-speed_rail_to_cross_taiwan_strait/1798/


----------



## z0rg

Found this map, btw. No idea wether they show 3 alternative plans or what...


----------



## xXFallenXx

so how long would the bridge actually be?

EDIT: Ok, wait.....that would be over 160 kilometers wouldn't it? 
wow. are they serious about this? It sounds like this would be unprecedented.


----------



## WotaN

z0rg said:


> The country's first undersea tunnel, *nine kilometers in length*, is currently being built in the coastal city of Xiamen, across the strait from Taiwan. The tunnel, which *delves six kilometers below sea level*


Now that's a mistake. If it would be true, trains would ascent and descent at angle of 53 degrees, which is too steep even for cog rails (45 deg max).


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## z0rg

^^ You didn't understand it. It is a 9km tunnel, 6 of them below the sea


----------



## snow is red

*Beijing-Fujian high-speed railway to be built *

March 11, 2008 


China will build a high-speed railway linking Beijing and Fujian province in southeastern China. 

The railway, designed to run at least 300 km per hour, and with a two-lane electrified standard, will start construction in 2010. 

It will begin at Bengbu station of the Beijing Shangahai high-speed railway line, and continue through Hefei (Anhui province), Huangshan (Anhui province), Shangrao (Jiangxi province), Wuyishan (Fujian province), Naping (Fujian province) and Fuzhou (Fujian province).

The Ministry of Railways and the Fujian municipal government signed in Beijing “the meeting summary about driving forward a new round of railway construction in the Economic Zone on the Western Coast of the Taiwan Straits,” during the on-going Two Sessions (NPC & CPPCC sessions).

According to the meeting summary, a 4,800 km first class, international railway network will form in the economic zone within 5-10 years. The network will include the high-speed railway from Beijing to Fujian.

The new round of railway construction includes: the electrification renovation of the railway from Hengfeng (Jiangxi province) to Fuzhou (Fujian province) will start this year; the double-track railway from Ganzhou (Jiangxi province) to Longyan (Fujian province) will start construction in 2009, designed to run 200 km per hour and with a two-wire electrification standard, making it a large rail passageway from Kumming (Yunnan province) to Xiamen (Fujian province); the Nanping-Sanming-Longyan railway will be renovated to be become an important part of the Hangzhou-Guangzhou Railway, forming the fastest and most convenient passageway from the Changjiang Delta, the economic zone on the western coast of the Taiwan Straits, to the Pearl River Delta.


http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6370969.html


----------



## snow is red

*Shanghai-Hangzhou express railway to be completed before 2010*
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-03-13 14:00


"We will strive to complete ahead of time the Shanghai-Shenzhen coastal express railway, which travels through Hangzhou, Ningbo and Xiamen, in tandem with the Shanghai-Hangzhou express railway," said Lu Dongfu, Vice Minister of Railways, yesterday.



The Shanghai-Hangzhou express railway project plan has been submitted to related authorities, and the project is expected to be completed during the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-2010), he said. "The Shanghai-Hangzhou and Hangzhou-Ningbo railways were both designed as express railways, with maximum speeds of over 250 kilometers per hour."



He added, "there are 14 railways from Japan's Tokyo to Osaka, but we have only two from Shanghai to Hangzhou and from Hangzhou to Ningbo. We should have at least 6 railways to boost economic growth."



Lu attributed the problems caused by Spring Festival travel peaks to inadequate railway capacity. "We have invested 2 trillion yuan (US$281.63 billion) to construct railways measuring over 20,000 kilometers," he said. "We will accelerate railway construction in the next five years."

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-03/13/content_6533823.htm


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## drunkenmunkey888

^^

So does that mean Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev is off the table for good then?


----------



## Trainman Dave

drunkenmunkey888 said:


> ^^
> 
> So does that mean Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev is off the table for good then?


By no means!
You are trying read much to much into a press report which actually seemed to be justifying different developments and was not interested in the MagLev project.


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## UD2

^^

project was never more than a dream to begin with. Shanghai/Hangzhou doesn't have the political wrist to get the project approved.


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## General Huo

Wuhan-Guangzhou 350km/h HSR is constructing


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## foxmulder

nice tools, nice construction, and very very nice updates. Thanks a lot.


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## dodge321

Coool, so thats how its done.


----------



## Trainman Dave

Does anyone have a reference to a web page which keeps track of all the railway construction in China?

Wikipedia is extremely frustrating as there about 10 or twelve pages which have conflicting information.


----------



## big-dog

*Beijing-Tianjin express rail* construction pics (it's almost done, will be running on Aug 1 2008)


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## elfabyanos

Excellent - Loving all the photos. That's some crazy contraption building that bridge. Looks like it'll slowly build it's way over an entire valley in a week!!!


----------



## snow is red

*Fujian railway network to total 4,000 km by 2020*
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-03-17 16:45



A new round of railway construction is making its way to Fujian Province, according to vice governor Zhang Zhinan. In the next few years, Fujian will build an average of one high-grade railway every year and the Fujian railway network will total 4,000 kilometers by 2020, he said.

The Wenzhou-Fuzhou railway will be operational this year, and so will the Fuzhou-Xiamen railway next year, followed by the Longyan-Xiamen railway, the Xiamen-Shenzhen railway and the Xiangtang-Putian railway. 

Lagging traffic, and especially railway problems, have hindered Fujian's economic and social development for a long time.


The Ministry of Railways and the Fujian provincial government signed three "meeting conslusions" on December 17, 2004, November 23, 2007 and March 8, 2008 respectively to promote the railway construction in the province.


The Hengfeng-Fuzhou railway electrization reconstruction will be brought under the "2008 Railway Construction Plan" and will start within the year, according to the most recent "meeting conclusion", launching a new round of railway construction on the mainland side of the Taiwan Strait.


The Ganzhou-Longyan double-track railway also will strive to start construction next year, becoming a great railway channel between Kunming and Xiamen. The Beijing-Shanghai express railway will be extended from Bangbu station to Fuzhou, traveling through Hefei, Huangshan, Wuyishan and Nanpin, and becoming a major express railway channel between Beijing and Fuzhou.


The latest "meeting conclusion" also mentioned the Nanping-Sanming-Longyan railway, the Gangping-Quanzhou-Xiaocuo railway reconstruction, and the Changting-Yongan railway construction, improving the Hangzhou-Guangzhou and Kunming-Quanzhou railway channels.


Meanwhile, preliminary work on the Quzhou-Ningping railway, the Fuzhou-Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Longyan inter-city railway, the coastal freight railway, the Wuyishan-Jianning-Longyan railway and the Zhangzhou-Gangwei railway will start as soon as possible.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-03/17/content_6543058.htm


----------



## foxmulder

great updates... keep them coming


----------



## big-dog

China Railway Group Wins $257 Million Road Contract in Morocco 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a8of1kOCaR_U&refer=africa


> By Lee Spears
> 
> March 18 (Bloomberg) -- *China Railway Group Ltd., Asia's biggest construction company, won a $257 million contract to build two highways in Morocco. *
> 
> The projects will take 30 months to complete, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai stock exchange last night, without saying when work will begin.
> 
> China Railway's shares debuted in Hong Kong and Shanghai in December after a dual initial public offering that raised $5.6 billion for equipment, capacity expansion and equipment upgrades.


----------



## snow is red

big-dog said:


> China Railway Group Wins $257 Million Road Contract in Morocco
> 
> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a8of1kOCaR_U&refer=africa


I don't think this has anything with China railway development, it is more like Morocco's railway development.


----------



## coreyt

02tonyl said:


> I don't think this has anything with China railway development, it is more like Morocco's railway development.


While this may be true, don't tell someone that they shouldn't post without posting relevant info or opinions yourself. I think China's railways are progressing incredibly and sometimes I wish that we didn't have all of the bullshit red tape that we do here in the US.


----------



## UD2

elfabyanos said:


> Excellent - Loving all the photos. That's some crazy contraption building that bridge. Looks like it'll slowly build it's way over an entire valley in a week!!!


that's not a birdge. The entire track is elevated. Prob the Beijing-Tianjin 300km/h HSR.


----------



## elfabyanos

Elevated track is a type of bridge.


----------



## didu

elfabyanos said:


> Elevated track is a type of bridge.


no it's not. bridges are supposed to span across some sort of un-commutable gap. elevated tracks are just raised railway tracks.


----------



## big-dog

*High-speed rail constructions*

Guangzhou high speed rail (Guangzhou - Zhuhai)



















Jiaoji high speed rail (Qingdao- Jinan)


----------



## elfabyanos

didu said:


> no it's not. bridges are supposed to span across some sort of un-commutable gap. elevated tracks are just raised railway tracks.


It's still a type of bridge. If it wasn't a type of bridge it would be an embankment.


----------



## Railfan

Nice Photos, they worck very fast!


----------



## foxmulder

thanks for pictures. why is one of the workers wearing camouflage?


----------



## lena5538

what about metro in china? is it easy to get lost in metro stations?


----------



## Slartibartfas

I know nothing about this project, but they are not going to drive 350 km/h fast through this curve, are they?


----------



## big-dog

^^ it's designed for 350km/h. at the opening it'll run at 300km/h. I dunno if the train needs to slow down or not for this curve but apparently a leaning rail was laied from the photo.


----------



## snow is red

*Tianjin to get three new railways in 2008*


By Tu Lei 

2008-04-03 




North China's Tianjin Municipality will add three railways in 2008, transforming it into a comprehensive modern transportation center.


The three lines are the Tianjin section of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, the railway from the Tianjin west railway station to the Tianjin station, and the Tianjin-Qinhuangdao railway.


The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is planned to start at Beijing South railway station and leave Tianjin from Tianjin West and Huayuan stations.


The railway from the Tianjin West railway station to Tianjin railway station will have 5.2 kilometers underground and a 3.889 kilometer long tunnel.


And the Tianjin-Qinhuangdao railway is designed to run at 300 kilometers per hour, and the travel time between Tianjin and Tangshan of Hebei Province will be 50 minutes. It will be only 20 minutes from Tangshan to Qinhuangdao. The railway will stretch 262 kilometers and stop at Tianjin West, New Tangshan and Qinhuangdao stations.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-04/03/content_6589585.htm


----------



## ANR

*Daqin Railway expansion*

From Shanghai Daily on 4/4:

*Daqin Railway on track to raise capacity with spending*
Created: 2008-4-4
Author:Winny Wang

DAQIN Railway Co plans to spend nearly 17.3 billion yuan (US$2.5 billion) to expand its capacity at Daqin line, a major railway link that transports coal from western China to the eastern part of the country.

Daqin, the country's largest listed train operator, will purchase 3,000 open-goods wagons for 1.65 billion yuan and 360 electric locomotives for 15.61 billion yuan, the company said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday. 

The company will apply for a credit line of 15 billion yuan from financial institutions to fund the purchases. It said it has not excluded the possibility of issuing bonds to raise funds to reduce borrowing costs, according to the statement. 

The 360 locomotives will mainly run on the Daqin line, which links Datong City in Shanxi Province and Qinhuangdao in Hebei Province, the statement said. 

The locomotives will benefit the company's sustainable development, enhance its competitiveness and raise its market share, but the expenditure may add some pressure in the short term, Daqin said.

"After the facilities are put into use, the capacity on the Daqin line will reach 400 million tons and we estimated that its earnings per share will reach 0.60 yuan this year and 0.69 yuan in 2009," said Zheng Dong, an analyst at China International Capital Co Ltd.

The company's capacity rose from 150 million tons in 2004 to 300 million tons last year. 

"The purchase of new facilities is essential for the company to raise its capacity and transport efficiency, but it will also generate depreciation expenditure that would affect its profit," said Zhou Meng, an analyst of Shenyin & Wanguo Securities Co. "The company is estimated to pay 2.52 million yuan for the depreciation of each locomotive annually and 99 million yuan on the 3,000 wagons."


----------



## ANR

*Daqin Railway (con't)*

Below is map of Daqin Railway courtesy of Huawei
Technologies:


----------



## Songoten2554

WOW!!!!! China is progressing alot thats awesome why can't the USA do something like this?

oh man wow kudos to china keep progressing china maybe the USA will say oh man we should built HSR Railway Corridors and i will say to them its about time.


----------



## big-dog

Stunning Daqin railway's 20,000 ton coal shipping train video. I counted 200 carriages and still running ...

http://www.tudou.com/player/player.swf?iid=11769979


----------



## snow is red

*China unveils new 350km-per-hour bullet train*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-11 14:10


BEIJING -- China's first domestically produced bullet train, which is able to run at 350 kilometers per hour, rolled off the production line on Friday.

The train, the latest model in the China Railway High-speed (CRH) series, was produced in the northern city of Tangshan by the China Northern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corp.

The eight-carriage train can seat 557 passengers.

Three such trains would begin service on the new 120-kilometer Beijing-Tianjin route before the Olympics starts in August, the manufacturer said.

In all, 57 such trains were expected to be in commercial operation by the end of 2009


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/11/content_6610277.htm


----------



## amirtaheri

I think the reason why China is doing this is because the majority of Chinese people are unable to afford the price of air tickets or air travel. Thus, the vast majority of the traveling public travel by trains. Trains are cheaper even than long distance coaches. Due to the large volume of people traveling on them. The United States travelling public rely on air travel. The public can't really afford air travel and so the government, to cater for the majority of the public choose to invest heavily in public rail travel and rail infrastructure.


----------



## pflo777

its not about affordability...china would have to buy all the gasolin for the aircrafts for domestic flights in foreign countries...Furthermore High Speed Rail is much more eco-friendly, and the capacity is also bigger.

Just take a look at the corridor Shanghai-Bejing. in the not to distant future, more than 30 mio passengers will travel that route per year....In short: You could build a completely new airport just for that route...


----------



## amirtaheri

I wouldn't be so hopeful that the Chinese government chose high speed rail for it's environmental appeal but for other reasons.


----------



## snow is red

02tonyl said:


> *China unveils new 350km-per-hour bullet train*
> 
> (Xinhua)
> Updated: 2008-04-11 14:10
> 
> 
> BEIJING -- China's first domestically produced bullet train, which is able to run at 350 kilometers per hour, rolled off the production line on Friday.
> 
> The train, the latest model in the China Railway High-speed (CRH) series, was produced in the northern city of Tangshan by the China Northern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corp.
> 
> The eight-carriage train can seat 557 passengers.
> 
> Three such trains would begin service on the new 120-kilometer Beijing-Tianjin route before the Olympics starts in August, the manufacturer said.
> 
> In all, 57 such trains were expected to be in commercial operation by the end of 2009
> 
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/11/content_6610277.htm




Its name is Hexie


----------



## ANR

*Another article on the new locally built China high speed train*

From the Shanghai Daily on 4/12:

*Fast train off to flying start*
Created: 2008-4-12 0:10:16

CHINA'S first domestically produced train able to reach 350 kilometers per hour rolled off the production line yesterday.

The train, the latest model in the China Railway high-speed series, was produced in Tangshan City, Hebei Province by the China Northern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corp.

After taking the train for a two-kilometer test run, Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun said it marked "a new, significant achievement in China's railway equipment modernization."

The eight-carriage train, with a streamlined body made of light aluminum alloy, can seat 557 passengers.

Three such trains will begin service on the new 120-kilometer Beijing-Tianjin route before the Olympics start in August, the manufacturer said.

They will cut the travel time from 80 minutes to 30 minutes. In all, 57 such trains are expected to be in operation by the end of 2009.

The train is based on the Siemens ICE 3. The manufacturer said it started to cooperate with the technical support provider in 2005 and then created its own platform based on the world-class technology.

China unveiled the first domestic 300kph train last December, becoming the fourth country - after France, Germany and Japan - that can produce such trains.

The Beijing-Tianjin railway is considered a trial line for the 1,318-kilometer Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which will be completed in five years and run at between 300 and 350kph.

"China's railway service has long fallen short of demand," said Li Heping, a researcher at the China Academy of Railway Sciences. "There are two solutions - building more railways and raising the train speed."

China had raised train speeds six times as of April 2007, and railways that allow a speed of more than 200kph has totaled 6,227 kilometers in length.

By 2020, the total length of such railways will reach 18,000 kilometers, and the express train services will cover 50,000 kilometers, benefiting 90 percent of China's population.

Xinhua


----------



## foxmulder

I believe high speed rail is the way to go to "transport" people in high density areas. In China it is way better than planes in this manner. They also look very cool


----------



## Songoten2554

holy Shinkies!!!! (Tommy Boy Quote) china i am impressed by you doing that and 350 KM wow great job china

the USA has gotten beaten this time around shame USA very Shame more public transport investment and we could get a system like that running in the USA.

exactly HSR is very environmental Friendly and also the capcity is huge you see USA take notes from China, china is a country as big as the USA and its investing in HSR where are you in your investment America?

also thats a heck of a awesome Rail car set, heck even the women on board look like Flight attendents thats awesome, is it like that in the USA as well with Amtrak?


----------



## ddes

Congratulations to China on opening up another high speed link. This time between Beijing and Tianjin.

I was wondering; is America really suited for HSR. Sure, "short" sectors like Boston to Washington, California to Las Vegas, Houston to Dallas/ Ft Worth... But to connect the entire country with high speed rail? I'm pretty sure flying through the hub and spoke networks, combined with the delays, will still be significantly faster.


----------



## big-dog

China launches construction of Beijing-Shanghai railway

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hqP-QbH2I5pUHaa7phY2R_DjB5kg



> 4.18 SHANGHAI (AFP) — China started construction Friday of a long-awaited high-speed rail linking Beijing and Shanghai at a total cost of *220.9 billion yuan (31.6 billion dollars), *state media reported.
> 
> At a ceremony in Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao laid the cornerstone for the *1,320-kilometre (820-mile) *line, which is expected to be completed within five years, the Xinhua news agency said.
> 
> The formal launch of the project came after fierce snowstorms this winter crippled China's transport systems and stranded millions of passengers in January and February, highlighting the need to upgrade the railway network.
> 
> Trains would run at speeds of up to *350 kilometres (220 miles) per hour*, cutting travel time between Beijing and Shanghai by nearly half to five hours.
> 
> State media reported earlier this year China Railway Construction Corp won the two largest contracts of the project worth 33.7 billion yuan.
> 
> State media have said a state-run new investment firm would seek money from major local banks and overseas private equity investors for the construction, while the national pension fund also reportedly planned to invest.
> 
> "The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail was designed by China itself... and all the technological equipment was produced by domestic companies," the Xinhua report said, citing an official from the Ministry of Railway.
> 
> It did not say how big a role the foreign funds would play in financing the project.


----------



## snow is red

big-dog said:


> China launches construction of Beijing-Shanghai railway
> 
> http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hqP-QbH2I5pUHaa7phY2R_DjB5kg


*China starts work on Beijing-Shanghai express railway*
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04...ent_6627655.htm
Updated: 2008-04-18 14:00
BEIJING -- The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour started construction on Friday.








Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (2nd L) attends the ground-breaking ceremony of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Beijing, April 18, 2008. The railway, which will be completed in five years and run at 300km/hr to 350 km/hr, would cut travel time between the Chinese capital and the country's leading financial hub from around 10 hours at present to about five hours. [Xinhua]


The 1,318-km line, upon its completion in five years, would reduce the trip between the two metropolitans to five hours and lift the one-way transport capacity to 80 million passengers and more than 100 million tons of cargo annually, said the Ministry of Railway.

Attending a ceremony here, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced the formal start of the construction.

With an investment of 220.9 billion yuan (US$31.6 billion), the railway was the most expensive construction project China had started since 1949.

Trains would run at speeds of 350 km per hour. Last Friday, the country's first domestically produced train, able to reach 350 kilometers per hour, rolled off the production line.

According to the ministry, all the technological equipments for the self-designed line was produced by domestic companies.

About 50 percent of the investment was from the state-owned Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co Ltd. The rest would be raised through share offerings, bank loans and foreign investment, said a source with the ministry, without elaborating on specific proportions.








Workers pose for a group photo during the ground-breaking ceremony of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Beijing, April 18, 2008. [Xinhua]









Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (front, R) shakes hands with workers during the ground-breaking ceremony of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Beijing, April 18, 2008. [Xinhua]









Workers decorate the construction vehicle during the ground-breaking ceremony of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Beijing, April 18, 2008. [Xinhua]


----------



## snow is red

*Key facts and figures on China's high-speed railways * 
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/...ent_8003754.htm 
www.chinaview.cn 2008-04-18 16:20:16 Print 

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, the longest and most expensive of its kind in China, broke ground here on Friday, a giant step the country has taken to materialize its high-speed railway dream. 

Upon its completion in 2013, the 1,318-km Beijing-Shanghai railway with an investment of 220.9 billion yuan (31.6 billion U.S. dollars) will cut travel time between the two cities from the present 10 hours to five hours, doubling the existing transport capacity to 160 million passengers annually. 

Following are the key facts and figures on China's rapid developing railway industry: 

--Under the Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Program released in 2005, the total mileage of China's railways in operation will reach 100,000 kilometers by 2020. The total length of railways allowing a speed of more than 200 km/hr will reach 18,000 km while express train services will cover 50,000 km, benefiting 90 percent of China's population. 

--The program also foresaw a total investment of two trillion yuan in railway building, equivalent to a yearly average of 130 billion yuan in the 15 years ending 2020. 

-- China has invested 522 billion yuan in railway construction between 2003 and 2007, more than twice as much as the figure from 1998 to 2002. In 2008 alone, the investment was expected to hit 300 billion yuan as 7,820 kilometers of rail lines were to be laid. 

-- China unveiled its ambition to build a high-speed railway network as early as 2005 when the construction of the 995-kilometer-long railway between Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province, and south China's Guangzhou city started. 

-- In succession, the express passenger railway linking Shijiazhuang of Hebei Province and Taiyuan, provincial capital of Shanxi and that linking Wuhan and Hefei of eastern Anhui Province, both with a designed speed of no less than 200 km/hr, also broke ground. 

-- A shorter Beijing-Tianjin Railway, widely considered as a trial line for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, will be put into service before the August Beijing Olympics. 

-- China's first domestically produced high-speed trains, able to reach 350 kilometers per hour, rolled off the production line early April and would begin service on the 120-km-long Beijing-Tianjin route. They will cut the travel time from 80 minutes at present to 30 minutes. 

-- In December 2007, China became the world's fourth country after France, Germany and Japan that can domestically produce 300-km/hr trains. 

-- To cope with the rising pressure of railway traffic driven by its robust economy, China has raised train speeds six times as of April 2007, with railways allowing a speed of more than 200 km/hr totaling 6,227 km in length. 

-- China's railways carried 1.36 billion passengers in 2007, up 8 percent over a year ago. More than 3 billion tonnes of cargo were transported by rail, an increase of 8.6 percent. In 2008, passengers would make more than 1.4 billion rail journeys and the cargo transported by railway would exceed 3.3 billion tons.


----------



## ANR

*Hefei - Nanjing railway improvement*

From the Shanghai Daily on 4/18:

*Two hours saved on Hefei link*
Created: 2008-4-18
Author:Lydia Chen

A Train trip from Shanghai to Hefei will be reduced by more than two hours after a new rail link opens tomorrow.

The 166-kilometer Hefei-Nanjing Railway, connecting Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, and Hefei, capital of Anhui Province, will cut the trip from Shanghai to Hefei to four and a half hours from nearly six and a half hours.

Twenty-two passenger trains and five cargo trains will run on the link prior the end of July. 

No bullet trains will be included in the link's first phase of operation but, in August, six bullet trains will be added to the Hefei-Nanjing and Hefei-Shanghai routes.

The 4.31-billion-yuan (US$616 million) Hefei-Nanjing Railway is one of three planned intercity rail links to shorten travel from Nanjing to other neighboring cities, promoting regional economic cooperation in eastern China.

The line has four stations along its 119-kilometer section in Anhui and 47 kilometers in Jiangsu. 

Passenger trains will be limited to a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour.


----------



## Songoten2554

thats good China keep it up your doing great if only this scale was in the united states as well oh man i feel bad for the USA.


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

Is that yellow train gonna be the cars for the Shanghai-Beijing railway? Probably not I assume because it looks more like a subway than a long-distance train


----------



## gliazzurra

i think the beijing - shanghai railway deserves a new thread.. or is there one already??


----------



## elfabyanos

drunkenmunkey888 said:


> Is that yellow train gonna be the cars for the Shanghai-Beijing railway? Probably not I assume because it looks more like a subway than a long-distance train


It looks like a maglev! It's certainly completely the wrong picture.


----------



## Gaeus

gliazzurra said:


> i think the beijing - shanghai railway deserves a new thread.. or is there one already??


Yes, it deserves a new topic. This thread is just a general topic for the whole country. However, the construction just started so it may take awhile to post new pics or news or sub-topics. Plus, there are only few chinese who can generate and update the threads.


----------



## hzkiller

京津城际列车试运行 冲击亚洲最高速(图)
核心提示：今天下午，新型列车将在京津城际铁路上试运行，试验从300至350公里的最高时速，并冲刺亚洲第一时速350公里。 
今天（23日）下午，新型列车将在京津城际铁路上试运行，试验从300至350公里的最高时速，并冲刺亚洲第一时速350公里。

上午10时半，来自德国西门子的技术人员在中方工作人员陪同下登上“和谐号”CRH3-001.陪同的中方工作人员说，这些外国专家是负责技术设备检测的，主要是车内的娱乐设施，比如广播设备。

4月14日，国产时速350公里的CRH3“和谐号”动车组在中国北车集团唐山轨道客车有限责任公司下线。该型动车组由1辆一等座车、6辆二等座车和1辆带有厨房的二等座车组成，全车定员557人。首批下线的前3列动车组将在北京奥运会召开前驰骋在京津城际铁路上。预计2009年底之前，将有57列陆续下线投入运营。 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


小资料：CRH3是中国“CRH”动车组家族的成员之一，CRH是“China Railway High-speed”的缩写，意为“中国高速铁路”。“CRH”系列动车组目前拥有CRH1、CRH2、CRH3、CRH5等型号，其制造技术主要来自日本、德国、法国。经过消化吸收及国产化后，“CRH”已成具有自主知识产权的动车组产品系列。

其中，CRH3使用的是德国技术，是中国目前时速最快的动车组。 (本文来源：法制晚报 )


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## Alexriga

Wow, awesome. No country in the world could afford such development.


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## snow is red

*Bullet train makes trial run on Beijing-Tianjin railway*


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## Vagabond

Train to Tibet


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## snow is red

*China Railway 2007 profit up 92% on construction boom* 


2008-04-24 

BEIJING, April 24 (Xinhua) -- China Railway Group Ltd, Asia's largest construction contractor, said its 2007 profit soared 92.2 percent, helped by the building boom in the world's fastest-growing major economy. 

Net income jumped to 3.16 billion yuan (452 million U.S. dollars), or 0.24 yuan per share, based on domestic accounting standards, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange late on Thursday. Revenue rose 13.2 percent to 180.5 billion yuan. 

Its newly-signed contracts were valued at 248.5 billion yuan, 25.8 percent more than a year ago. 

The rapid increasing investment in the building of roads, railways and property in China has offered huge business opportunities for the construction firm. 

China's investment in railway construction reached a record high of more than 250 billion yuan last year, 43.2 billion yuan more than a year earlier, the company said, citing Ministry of Railway's statistics. 

"The nation's robust economic growth would continue this year to boost demand for domestic infrastructures, in particular the transport," Shi Dahua, China Railway's chairman, said in the statement. 

He noted China planned to invest a total 3.8 trillion yuan in transport infrastructure construction in the 11th Five-Year Period(2006-2010). 

During the five years, the government was expected to invest 1.25 trillion yuan in railway building and 170 billion yuan in inner-city rail construction, according to the statement. 

Investment in highway construction was forecast to hit 140 billion yuan annually in the coming years through 2010 and 100 billion yuan before 2020, the statement noted. 

China Railway, however, acknowledged it also faced challenges, including the increasing fierce market competition, rising raw materials prices, and uncertainties over the global economy and politics. 

The company went public in Shanghai and Hong Kong in November, raising 21.9 billion yuan and 21.4 billion Hong Kong dollars (2.7 billion U.S. dollars), respectively. 

Its shares surged 9.90 percent to 7.99 yuan in Shanghai on Thursday following the stock trading tax cut.


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/24/content_8045327.htm


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## Songoten2554

thats good go china show the USA what your made of.

United states government i hope your taking notes of this and build it quickly?


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## snow is red

Songoten2554 said:


> thats good go china show the USA what your made of.
> 
> United states government i hope your taking notes of this and build it quickly?


eh what are you talking about ? please no comparison. I think the US public transport is already quite good, China and the US i think are following two different planning model so the end result is different. 

PS : I think China builds these for the Chinese people not to show the USA 

:cheers:


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## khoojyh

just hope Asia railway system developing something like Eurostar.


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## UD2

khoojyh said:


> just hope Asia railway system developing something like Eurostar.


can't, the development stages and levels of infrastrucure in each country varies too greatly. Some even have different gauges. They'll be lucky of they can get a trans-regional conventional rail link to work.


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## pflo777

@#586 



> Bullet train makes trial run on Beijing-Tianjin railway


Those are great pics, thanks a lot. Do you have more ?


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## snow is red

pflo777 said:


> @#586
> 
> 
> 
> Those are great pics, thanks a lot. Do you have more ?


I will post when I see more


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## ANR

*China Railway Construction earnings*

From Bloomberg on 4/28 & gives an indication of the significant upgrades onging in China:

*China Railway Orders Expand on Improved Ability, Overseas Jobs*

By Lee Spears

China Railway Construction Corp., builder of more than half the nation's railroads, said its order backlog expanded 58 percent last year as it won contracts overseas and gained the expertise to handle complex projects.

Orders on hand rose to 323 billion yuan ($46 billion) last year, the Beijing-based builder said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange today. The company won 287 billion yuan of new contracts in 2007, 35 percent more than the previous year.

Economic growth in emerging markets and surging oil prices are spurring spending on facilities to transport and refine the fuel. Overseas income increased 81 percent to 6.36 billion yuan last year, tripling the order backlog from outside China to 1.17 billion yuan, China Railway Construction said.

``The company's superior construction technology, reputation and years of experience have helped overseas business to grow,'' the statement said. Business in markets in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East will ``continue to create favorable returns for the group in coming years.''

China Railway Construction gained 2.4 percent to HK$11.96 in Hong Kong as of the 4 p.m. close. The shares have gained 12 percent from their March sale price, about in line with the advance in the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, which tracks shares of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong.

*Earnings*

First-quarter net income was 705.9 million yuan, or 0.079 yuan a share, China Railway Construction reported today. Sales totaled 32.9 billion yuan, the company said, without giving year- ago figures.

Full-year profit beat the company's projections after it benefited from a state plan to spend as much as $800 billion on railways, roads and waterways through 2020. The company's biggest business, infrastructure construction, includes building railways, highways, bridges and tunnels.

The results are the first the company has announced since raising about $5.8 billion in share sales in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Larger rival China Railway Group Ltd. said on April 24 its full-year profit almost doubled to 3.16 billion yuan. The two companies, which each control about half of China's railway- building market, are helping the nation expand its rail network, which meets about 40 percent of demand, causing bottlenecks.

China Railway Construction's full-year net income based on mainland China accounting standards reached 3.14 billion yuan, higher than the 3.11 billion yuan projected in share-sale documents. The company yesterday reported 2007 profit of 2.31 billion yuan based on international accounting standards, compared with its projection of 2.26 billion yuan.

Full-year net income in 2006 was 2.01 billion yuan based on domestic accounting standards, and 1.5 billion yuan based on international standards, according to the share-sale documents.

China Railway Construction raised 22.2 billion yuan in February in Shanghai and HK$18.3 billion ($2.3 billion) in Hong Kong in share sales. On April 1, it exercised an option to allocate more stock in Hong Kong for an additional HK$1.94 billion.


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## hkskyline

* Passenger Train collision kills 66 in eastern China*
28 April 2008
By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - A high-speed passenger train jumped its tracks and slammed into another train in eastern China on Monday, killing at least 66 people and injuring hundreds. Authorities were quoted as saying human error was to blame. 

Seventy people were in critical condition after the pre-dawn crash in a rural area in Shandong province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The injured included four French nationals who were hospitalized with bone fractures, it said.

State television said 247 were injured while Xinhua said more than 400 had been hospitalized. No foreigners were among the dead.

The accident just before the May Day long weekend holiday happened when a train traveling from Beijing to the coastal city of Qingdao derailed and hit a second passenger train just before dawn. About 10 of the first train's carriages toppled into a dirt ditch, Xinhua reported.

The second train, traveling from Yantai to Xuzhou, was knocked off its tracks although it stayed upright. News photos showed one of its carriages sitting across the train tracks.

Xinhua reported that authorities said human error caused the first train to derail outside the city of Zibo and had ruled out terrorism. It did not say what the error was, but said two high-ranking railway officials in Shandong had been fired.

News photos showed rescuers pulling passengers from a carriage sitting on its side. Survivors bundled in white bed sheets from the sleeper cars stood or sat near the wreckage.

Xinhua said bloodstained sheets and broken thermos flasks could be seen on the ground beside the twisted train cars.

It did not say how many people were on both trains for the overnight trips.

"Most passengers were still asleep, but some were standing in the aisle waiting to get off at the Zibo railway station," one passenger surnamed Zhang told Xinhua.

"I suddenly felt the train, like a roller coaster, topple ... to one side and all the way to the other side. When it finally went off the tracks, many people fell on me," Zhang said.

Zhang, who was on the train from Bejing, was injured when the train toppled into farmland beside the track. She said local villagers used farm tools to smash train windows to pull out trapped passengers.

"I saw a girl who was trying to help her boyfriend out of the train, but he was dead," Zhang said.

A 38-year-old woman told Xinhua that she and daughter, 13, escaped unhurt by scrambling through a huge crack in the floor of their carriage.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao were monitoring the situation, China Central Television reported. Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang and Railways Minister Liu Zhijun were headed to the site to oversee rescue efforts.

Nine hotels and 34 rescue centers were set up for the families of the victims, Xinhua said.

It said the accident had cut traffic on the rail line that links the provincial capital of Jinan with Qingdao, the site of the sailing competition for the Olympic Games in August.

It was the second major railway accident in Shandong this year. In January, 18 people died when a train hurtling through the night at more than 75 miles per hour slammed into a group of about 100 workers carrying out track maintenance near the city of Anqiu.

According to the 163.com news Web site, it was the worst train accident in China since 1997, when another collision killed 126 people.

Trains are the most popular way to travel in China, and the country's overloaded rail network carried 1.36 billion passengers last year, Xinhua said. That is slightly behind India, which had 1.4 billion passengers last year, according to the Indian National Railways Web site.


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## staff

^^
God, that's terrible. My thoughts are with the victims' families now. 

If this would have happened in Europe it would be all over the news all day...


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## elfabyanos

Very bad news, it's such a shame that when trains and planes go wrong they go really wrong.


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## staff

The death toll is up to 70 now. Hundreds of injured.

FULL ARTICLE.


> Train collision kills at least 70, injures hundreds
> www.chinaview.cn 2008-04-28 20:07:28
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Photo taken on April 28, 2008, shows the site of the trains colliding accident, in east China's Shandong Province. Passenger train T195 en route from Beijing to Qingdao city in eastern China derailed and hit train 5034 early on Monday, causing "heavy casualties", witnesses and a government spokesman confirmed.(Xinhua Photo)
> 
> JINAN, April 28 (Xinhua) -- A high-speed passenger train jumped the track in the eastern province of Shandong early on Monday, striking another train and leaving 70 dead and 416 injured, railway authorities confirmed.
> 
> Preliminary investigations suggested the accident was caused by human error. Authorities have ruled out the possibility of terrorism.
> 
> The casualties were from both trains, one of which was en route from Beijing to Qingdao, a famous summer resort in Shandong and venue of the Olympic sailing competition. The other was traveling from Yantai, Shandong to Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province.
> 
> The high-speed train from Beijing, coded T195, derailed in the city of Zibo at about 4:40 a.m. and smashed into train 5034. The second train also left the tracks. At least 12 cars from both trains derailed.
> 
> No foreign citizens were killed in the accident, which occurred just before the May Day national holiday passenger rush. However, four French nationals were hospitalized with bone fractures. They were identified as 54-year-old Pascal Boisson, his 14-year-old son Pierre Emmanuel Boisson, 22-year-old daughter Joanne Boisson, and his girlfriend Robin Naurence, 42.
> 
> Joanne Boisson, who sustained minor back injuries, politely declined Xinhua's request for an interview. "I'm not feeling well. I'm on my way to see my younger brother at a separate hospital," she said over the phone.
> 
> Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, who was overseeing rescue work at the site, visited Zibo Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital where Joanne and her father were being treated on Monday afternoon.
> 
> The hospital had received 21 injured passengers so far and more were expected, said Zhang Jun, head of the orthopedics department.
> 
> The youngest patient was a 3-and-a-half-year-old boy, Liu Jinhang, from Qingdao.













My condolences.


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## staff

More Hexie CRH3 pics:


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## FerrariLover

*Train Deaths*

Sorry to comments to my chinese brothers that I must say Chinese railways system is still on an infant stage. Still have system failures such as the recent
accidents. Anyway...there is still time to improve at least this should not happen during the Olympicss...

---Keep On Improving...SAFETY FIRST..!!!


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## snow is red

FerrariLover said:


> Sorry to comments to my chinese brothers that I must say Chinese railways system is still on an infant stage. Still have system failures such as the recent
> accidents. Anyway...there is still time to improve at least this should not happen during the Olympicss...
> 
> ---Keep On Improving...SAFETY FIRST..!!!


*70 killed, 416 injured in train collision in Shandong*
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-28 19:00


JINAN -- A high-speed passenger train jumped the track in the eastern province of Shandong early on Monday, striking another train and leaving 70 dead and 416 injured, railway authorities confirmed.

Preliminary investigations suggested the accident was caused by human error. Authorities have ruled out the possibility of terrorism.

The casualties were from both trains, one of which was en route from Beijing to Qingdao, a famous summer resort in Shandong and venue of the Olympic sailing competition. The other was traveling from Yantai, Shandong to Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province.

The high-speed train from Beijing, coded T195, derailed in the city of Zibo at about 4:40 a.m. and smashed into train 5034. The second train also left the tracks. At least 12 cars from both trains derailed. 
No foreign citizens were killed in the accident, which occurred just before the May Day national holiday passenger rush. However, four French nationals were hospitalized with bone fractures. They were identified as 54-year-old Pascal Boisson, his 14-year-old son Pierre Emmanuel Boisson, 22-year-old daughter Joanne Boisson, and his girlfriend Robin Naurence, 42.

Joanne Boisson, who sustained minor back injuries, politely declined Xinhua's request for an interview. "I'm not feeling well. I'm on my way to see my younger brother at a separate hospital," she said over the phone.

Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, who was overseeing rescue work at the site, visited Zibo Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital where Joanne and her father were being treated on Monday afternoon.

The hospital had received 21 injured passengers so far and more were expected, said Zhang Jun, head of the orthopedics department.

The youngest patient was a 3-and-a-half-year-old boy, Liu Jinhang, from Qingdao


Pre-dawn nightmare

The accident occurred in Hejiacun village, about 500 meters east of the Wangcun Railway Station in Zhoucun District in the suburbs of Zibo, about 70 kilometers east of the provincial capital, Jinan.

One passenger, surnamed Zhang, said the train from Beijing was like a "roller coaster".

"It toppled 90 degrees to one side and then all the way to the other side. When it finally went off the tracks, many people fell on me and hot water poured out of their thermos flasks," said Zhang.

When Zhang escaped from the wrecked train, she saw many villagers had voluntarily joined the rescue work, some smashing train windows with farm tools to free trapped passengers. Others brought food and water from home.

"I saw a girl trying to help her boyfriend out of the train -- only to find he was dead," Zhang said.

Zhang and other survivors also joined the rescue work, using blankets and sheets from the sleeper cars as stretchers to carry out the seriously injured.

"For a time, so many people were trying to make phone calls that the mobile communications network was congested and no one could get through," said a fourth-year college student surnamed Xu, who was traveling from Beijing to Qingdao to visit her boyfriend. She was not injured in the accident.

Wang Xiaoyu, 23, from the northeastern Heilongjiang Province and his girlfriend were also among the lucky passengers on board T195. They were on the seventh carriage, far enough from the 10th to 18th carriages that derailed.

"We were still asleep but felt the train jump twice. Then the whole carriage had a power failure," said Wang. "Within 20 minutes, a stewardess came and told us to join the rescue work."

Wang and several other young men walked about 500 m to the derailed cars. "I pulled seven or eight people out of the wrecked train -- some of them were already dead."

Wang and more than 30 other survivors took a bus to Qingdao at 4:30 pm.

Xu Dongtan, a physician with Zibo Central Hospital, said he arrived at the site at 6 a.m. "I examined at least 110 patients to decide which hospital they were to go to. Most people suffered bruises and fractures," he said.

Patients were sent to 19 hospitals in or near Zibo. The city government has sent a 1,500-member team to help and console victims' families. Nine hotels and 34 rescue centers have been reserved for the victims' families.

Human error to blame

A preliminary investigation by railway and work safety authorities suggested the accident, the worst since 1997, was caused by human error.

Authorities have ruled out the possibility of terrorism.

Although investigations are continuing, *some investigators said that T195 was traveling at 131 kilometers per hour before the accident, far in excess of the speed limit of 80 km/hr between Zhoucun and Wangcun*.

Immediately after the accident, two top officials of the Jinan Railway Bureau were sacked. The bureau's former director Chen Gong and former Communist Party chief Chai Tiemin face an investigation by the Ministry of Railways.

The ministry has appointed Geng Zhixiu, deputy engineer-in-chief of the ministry as the new director, and Xu Chang'an, deputy chair of the ministry's trade union, as the new Party chief.

A ministry spokesman has offered condolences to the victims.

"We grieve over the loss of life and sincerely hope those who were injured in the accident will recover soon," said Wang Yongping.

The accident caught the attention of top Chinese leaders including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun and head of the State Administration of Work Safety Wang Jun are at the site to oversee the rescue work.


Traffic disruptions

The crash disrupted two-way traffic on the century-old Jinan-Qingdao Railway, a 384-km trunk line between the two big cities in Shandong.

The railway was originally built by the Germans in Qingdao in 1901 and opened to traffic in 1904.

Thousands of passengers were stranded at stations in Shandong on Monday and authorities arranged buses to divert the crowds.

Cranes and forklifts were sent in at midday to remove the wrecked cars and damaged cross-ties from the rails. By 5 p.m., more than 1,000 workers were still repairing the line. Electricians installed more lighting for night repair work.

The Ministry of Railways said it expected to restore service at about 8 a.m. on Tuesday.

Monday's crash was the second major rail accident in Shandong this year.

In January, a high-speed train from Beijing to Qingdao ran down a group of railway workers, leaving 18 dead and nine others injured. The workers were relocating the tracks when the train struck the work site in Anqiu.

China had raised train speeds six times as of April 2007, with railways allowing a speed of more than 200 km per hour totaling 6,227 km. By 2020, the length of such high-speed railways is forecast to reach 18,000 km and high-speed services will cover 50,000 km, serving 90 percent of China's population.

Work has started on several new high-speed rail lines, including the Beijing-Tianjin railway and the Beijing-Shanghai railway. The latter, with a designed speed of 350 km/hr, broke ground in mid-April.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/28/content_6649084_4.htm


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## staff

What a fucking idiot, exceeding the speed limit with more than 60%! 
Reminds me of the commuter train accident in Tokyo a couple of years back, where the speed limit also was grossly exceeded.

I can't wrap my head around that these people don't realize that they're playing with people's lives. hno:


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## snow is red

*China sacks railway officials shortly after deadly train collision * 


www.chinaview.cn 2008-04-28 

JINAN, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Two high-ranking railway officials were sacked on Monday following a deadly train collision which has claimed 66 lives and injured hundreds in east China's Shandong province. 

Chen Gong, former director, and Chai Tiemin, former Party secretary of of the Jinan Railway Bureau were sacked and subject to investigation by the Ministry of Railways, Xinhua learnt from the rescue headquarters. 

The ministry has appointed Geng Zhixiu, deputy engineer-in-chief of the ministry as the new director, and Xu Chang'an, deputy chair of the ministry's trade union as the new Party chief.


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/28/content_8067424.htm


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## foxmulder

terrible news. sorry for the lost ones.


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## snow is red

*Speeding blamed for deadly train collision*
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-29 11:55


ZHOUCUN, Shandong -- Overspeeding was responsible for Monday's deadly train collision in east China that killed 70 and injured 416 others, the investigation panel set up by the State Council said Tuesday.

A high-speed train from Beijing to Qingdao, coded T195, veered off the rails in the city of Zibo at about 4:40 a.m. on Monday. The derailed coaches smashed into another train, coded 5034, which was coming in the opposite direction along an adjacent line.

Investigators had said Monday that T195 was traveling at 131 kilometers per hour before the accident, far over the section's speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour.

Two top officials of the Jinan Railway Bureau, bureau director Chen Gong and Communist Party chief Chai Tiemin, were sacked just hours after the accident. They face investigations by the Ministry of Railways.

So far, the identities of 26 people killed in the fatal train collision on Monday morning in east China's Shandong Province which left 70 dead and 416 injured have been confirmed.
The victims, 16 male and 10 female whose names can be found on the portal website of Sina.com, are mostly locals or from north and northeast China, including at least two Beijing residents.

Among the victims, two are college students studying in Beijing -- 25-year-old Wang Tingting at the University of International Business and Economics and 23-year-old Huang Hao at the Renmin University of China. The 47-year-old Zheng Changling was identified as the policeman on duty on the train and 42-year-old Zhao Jingwei a reporter with the local Zibo Television Station.

Eight wounded passengers are also listed on the website, with their injuries specified.
Sources at a meeting of the State Council investigation panel said the panel, headed by Wang Jun, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, was set up Tuesday morning in Zibo City, Shandong.

"All the injured have been hospitalized and the dead have been transferred to local funeral homes," said Wang at the meeting.

"The accident site has been cleaned up and the stranded passengers evacuated," he added.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/29/content_6651957.htm


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## 王千源

*Say no to the 2008 Beijing Olympics!*

When Liu Zhixiang (the railway minister Liu Zhijun's brother) was given a suspended death sentence in April for a long list of crimes that included hiring an assassin, bribery and embezzling some 40 million yuan (5 million U.S. dollars), it sparked indignant letters of protest from ordinary people and legal scholars alike.

"We shouldn't let off some corrupt officials and punish others," argued legal scholar Yan Lieshan in the China Economic Times. "Corrupt officials' lives should be spared only if the capital punishment is negated for all economic crimes. The current practice of punishing some with death while sparing others harms the public's trust in justice."

The railway minister,Liu Zhijun has married five times,yes in self-claimed commie China. His brother is a gangleader who was given a suspended death sentence in April 2006.

But he cringes before HU JINTAO,so he is safe.


EU, UK hail China’s decision to talk with Dalai Lama - 26 Apr 2008


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## hkskyline




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## UD2

The driver in this case is not to blame like most would assume. Train operators operate according to their ATP, it seems that the monitor/control people either entered the wrong speed limit, or forgot to enter a speed limit. It also might be a maintinance problem, the ATP could've been malfunctioning. 

This is why the party chief and director were sacked. 

The driver was just a poor guy who was on the wrong shift. He probably had no idea that he was in a 80km/h zone.


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## hkskyline

I don't think we know enough of the facts to lay blame. Perhaps it's not the driver, or a combination of a lot of things including the driver.

But then, train accidents are quite rare in China lately.


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## hkskyline

*China rail accident linked to Olympic construction: official *

ZIBO, China, April 30, 2008 (AFP) - A new railway line being built as part of an upgrade ahead of the Beijing Olympics was a factor in a train crash that left 71 people dead in east China, officials and state press said Wednesday.

The pre-dawn crash near Zibo city on Monday, which also left more than 400 people injured, was the most severe in China in more than 10 years.

Authorities blamed the accident in Shandong province on the excessive speed of a train from Beijing to Qingdao city -- site of the Olympic sailing competition -- which derailed and slammed into an oncoming train.

According to Zhang Mingqi, vice-head of a cabinet-level team investigating the accident, orders had gone out to drivers to reduce speed on the section of the track where the accident occurred because of construction on the line.

At the site of the crash, workers had dug a more than 20-metre-deep (66-foot-deep) hole to be used as the foundation as they link up another railway line from the Shandong capital of Jinan, local officials said.

"This is part of the Jinan-Qingdao line which is being built for the Olympic Games," Zibo city spokesman Li Chenggang told AFP at the site of the crash.

"The line is expected to be completed before the Olympic Games and will make travel between Jinan and Qingdao much faster."

Last week, the Jinan Railway Bureau in Shandong printed an order to reduce train speeds on the section of the line under construction to 80 kilometres (48 miles) an hour, Zhang said.

The train was travelling 131 kilometres an hour when it derailed as it rounded a curve near the construction site.

Orders to reduce speed were not properly transmitted to train drivers, the Beijing News said.

"After this order was issued, no one confirmed that it had been received by the concerned work units," the paper said.

Workers on the project, many of whom had assisted in pulling out injured and dead passengers from the wreck, refused to comment on whether their construction work contributed to the tragedy.

But Wang Jun, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said that authorities were also investigating whether the construction work had destabilised the existing track.

"In this investigation we need to clearly grasp factors in several areas -- the first is the foundation of the track, whether or not it is stable," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wang as saying.

Three top officials of the Jinan Railway Bureau have already been sacked in the aftermath of the accident.

Chinese authorities have scrambled to deal with the fall-out from the wreck, with 19 hospitals in Zibo working overtime to treat the injured.

"The work carried out by Zibo city has gone smoothly," Liu Xinsheng, vice-secretary of the Communist Party in Zibo, told reporters Tuesday.

"Now we face the very hard and difficult task of taking care of all those who have been injured."

Of the 416 people injured, the vast majority remained in hospital Wednesday, with only 39 discharged so far.

Train service on the line resumed on Tuesday.

The accident was the second rail tragedy in Shandong province this year. In January, a high-speed train ploughed into a group of railway workers, killing 18 people.

However China's railways are generally regarded as relatively safe, if not always comfortable, and they are a primary source of travel for the nation's 1.3 billion people.

Travelling by train is seen as much safer than by road, with 81,000 people losing their lives in traffic accidents last year, an average of around 223 a day, according to China's state-run press.


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## hkth

Xinhua News:
Chinese railways carried 21.19 mln passengers during shortened May Day holiday


----------



## snow is red

*UBS: Railway annual investment gap 200b yuan in 3 years*
By Tu Lei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-05-06 13:45



The railway sector will see an annual investment gap of 200 billion yuan ($28.60 billion) in three years, said UBS Securities yesterday in Shanghai, according to yesterday’s China Securities Journal. 

Wei Qiang, vice-director of UBS Securities, said the railways need 1.25 trillion yuan in capital over the five years between 2006 and 2010, but capital expenditures will exceed 300 billion yuan annually over the next three years, resulting in an investment gap of 200 billion yuan for the period. 
Compared with other industries including power, telecommunications and banks, the railway sector is still in its initial phase with more reconstruction pressure, said UBS’s research report. 

Wei said the Ministry of Railways will inject more capital in three listed companies – Daqin Railways, Guangshen Railways and Tielong Container Logistics, and attract more commercial capital, including private capital. 

“It is impossible to issue bonds or loans to fill the gap,” said Wei, explaining that in 2006, the Ministry of Railways’ capital and interest repayments totalled 56 billion yuan, far higher than the profit of 3.2 billion yuan. 

Figures show that in 2006, transportation profits totalled about three billion yuan, with total assets of 1,520 billion yuan and an assets to debt ratio of 80 percent.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-05/06/content_6664533.htm


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## hzkiller

青藏铁路二线工程已完成投资15亿 有望2012年全线开通
记者自青藏铁路公司获悉，青藏铁路西格段增建二线工程进展顺利，目前已完成投资15亿元人民币，超额完成计划建设任务，全部工程有望于2012年完成电气化改造，实现全线开通。

　　青藏铁路西格段增建二线工程(以下简称“西格二线”)东起青海省省会西宁市，向西途径青海湖北岸，横穿柴达木盆地，跨越著名的万丈盐桥后到达格尔木市。 



贯穿了西宁和柴达木盆地这两个青海经济发展的重点地区，建成后，将成为青海经济发展的“主动脉”。

　　据青藏铁路公司有关负责人介绍，西格二线全长290.69公里，总工期60个月，工程总投资106亿元人民币。截至4月底，已完成投资逾15亿元，为设计的14.15%。

　　据悉，巴燕峡3号隧道已顺利贯通，全长2419米的湟源响河隧道已掘进500多米。全长32.6公里的控制性工程关角隧道，是目前国内在建的海拔最高、最长的高原隧道，施工难度海内外罕见。青藏铁路起点——西宁站的站改工程也已顺利完成。

　　青藏铁路从青海省首府西宁市至西藏首府拉萨市，全长1956公里，是当今世界海拔最高、最长的高原铁路，自2006年7月1日全线开通运营以来，共运送旅客265万多人次，其中进藏旅客约130万人次，通过青藏铁路运进西藏的物资140多万吨。（吕雪莉　骆晓飞） (来源：新华网)


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## hkskyline

*China - Papering over the cracks *
12 May 2008
International Freighting Weekly

The penetration of consumer goods manufacturers into the Chinese hinterland, in search of lower labour, land and development costs, is likely to be hindered by an exponential increase in logistics costs. Not only is inland infrastructure substandard in comparison with that in China's coastal regions, but the capacity of logistics operators is far less, especially in the key haulage market.

Domestic cargo transportation last year in China saw rail take a 15% market share, inland waterways 12%, pipelines 2% and road the remaining 71%.

The lack of pipelines to transport more fuel is, according to Pilar Dieters, director of supply chain specialist Alaris Consulting, taking up valuable rail transport capacity.

"Bottlenecks on the rail system can be up to 30 days, because government cargo, such as fuel supplies, takes precedence over private goods." As a result, any shortfall in capacity has to be taken up by the country's overburdened haulage sector, which continues to suffer from serious inefficiencies, the worst of which are the result of China's unreformed bureaucracy, "Intraprovince transport in China is excessively expensive and amounts to around 20% of GDP, " she says, "Not only do they have to contend with tolls that incur extra costs and transit time, but they are also commonly hit by permit problems, which means that a truck may well be unable to drive in a neighbouring province. So, they have to unload the goods off one truck and re-load on to another truck – assuming they have one available."

It is an astonishing fact that 70% of the world's road tolls are in China, and Dieter adds that an undercover auditing group, sent out by Beijing to study road freight bottlenecks, reported that many tolls are illegal.

However, the problems are not purely geographic. China's breakneck growth has been unbalanced and created huge cracks in its internal labour market, often papered-over to foreign eyes. However, Dieters says these labour issues have profound consequences for the increasingly extended supply chains of multinationals.

"It is to do with staff turnover – it is very difficult to keep good staff. When you begin to introduce the risks that staff turnover and continual transhipment of goods between different trucks create, you find that security also becomes an issue. Things like GPRS and RFID could help this, but the reality is that the further inland one goes, there's no such thing as tracking – there are not even proper B/Ls issued."

Driving inland

However, with rising costs in the east, and the intense competition between multinationals in their home retail markets now hinging so heavily on production costs, foreign investors are continuing to drive further inland.

According to Dominic Gates, MD of IDS Logistics, the next development will see international retailers establishing warehousing and distribution centres within China. For the past three years, IDS has been managing the transport and distribution of fashion goods from production in China to retailers across Australia. Gates says that with property costs at 30-50% of those in Australia, and labour costs at 10%, the value in placing an origin distribution centre as a central distribution hub for the supply chain is inescapable.

"We pick and pack at the origin DC with cross-docking in Australia to minimise warehouse handling costs, and we improve container loading from origins to destinations as shipments are scheduled more frequently to lower inventory holding in Australia, " he says, adding: "And this means we are able to do direct shipments of containers pre-packed with store-ready carton boxes to avoid expensive cross continent trucking." However, IDS got into the market early and has been able to fine-tune its operation at a time when the haulage market was responding to slightly less frantic demand levels. Later entrants might find their subcontracted transport operations resembling spaghetti, says Dieters.

"Most shippers track truckers which have small fleets of a few vehicles, as opposed to tracking one or two truckers with a national fleet. Moreover, many local logistics service providers offer little more than basic transportation, leaving managers desperate for alternatives.

"The low cost of manufacturing is a turn-on, " she adds, "but when logistics come to 20% of the product cost, you realise there are still serious issues, and most relate to infrastructure.

Good news

"The good news is that this has been recognised. More than 70,000km of road is to be built by 2020, including the Hangzhou Bridge. This means that the growth rate of overall logistics expenditure is beginning to plateau, " she says.

By 2010, the rail network is set to receive an annual investment of $8bn, roads $10bn, sea $8bn and inland waterways $1.1bn. Dieters adds that the $1.6bn investment committed by Deutsche Bahn, Zim Lines and CMA CGM to develop the rail network and a series of inland intermodal hubs is highly significant. "Not only does a development like this bring investment, but it also brings best practice." While over 80% of China's import and exports come from the three main gateways: Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River and Bohai Bay, that is destined to be reduced somewhat. Likewise, there are currently 10,000 warehousing companies in China and 85% of all warehouses are in those three main regions, but that is also expected to spread.

At the same time, the growth in the difficulties of providing logistics services in China has seen the growth of the overall industry, as those who are demonstrably good at it have found their services in high demand. The logistics arm of China's container shipping line Cosco, expects to see 20% growth in logistics activities in 2008, and a minimum growth of 16% in the added value logistics services – it believes that demand for sub-contracted logistics will increase as more and more Chinese enterprises have closed down their transport arms. Given the difficulties that all land transport providers face, increasing numbers are believing it is a business best left to specialists with critical mass.


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## hkskyline

*China rail traffic returning to normal after quake *

BEIJING, May 13 (Reuters) - China has resumed rail traffic between quake-hit Sichuan and other provinces, except on one major line where a tunnel collapsed.

Monday's 7.9 magnitude tremor killed around 12,000 people and flattened many buildings near the epicentre.

The State Administration of Work Safety called for coal mines, oilfields and chemical plants in quake-affected areas to halt operations as they checked for damage, although officials at major coal exporters said there was little impact on mining or logistics.

Rail services out of the provincial capital Chengdu to Baoji, a major hub in Shaanxi province, were suspended when a tunnel collapsed, setting fire to a freight train carrying gasoline, Xinhua news agency said.

The quake also damaged bridges on the Baoji-Chengdu line and cut power to 13 stations.

Passenger trains bound south from Baoji have been held back at Xi'an, an official with the Xi'an railway bureau told Reuters.

"Those are very steep grades and there are a lot of tunnels once you get past Baoji on the way to Chengdu," said a businessman whose company supplies the Chinese rail network.

"I would expect them to be concerned about the integrity of the tunnels and I don't know how long it would take, although they continually surprise me with their efficiency."

Xinhua said 187 trains carrying relief materials, including 50,000 tents and one fuel train, would head to affected areas. The ministry will also deploy an additional 1,400 trains for disaster relief, it said.

In Datong, the coal heartland of Shanxi Province, underground work was stopped temporarily but has since resumed with no disruption to rail transport, an official said.

Roads into the worst-affected regions north of Chengdu are cut off by numerous landslides, while heavy rain is also impeding the arrival of outside rescuers and supplies.

Sichuan itself produces about 3 percent of China's coal, but almost all of that is consumed within the province.

Transport between northwest China and central China along the Gansu corridor was not affected, said a railway official in Gansu's capital, Lanzhou.

An official at Panzhihua Iron and Steel, China's 11th largest steel maker in southwestern Sichuan province, said he did not expect the earthquake to hinder shipments.


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## zergcerebrates

anymore CRH3 pics?


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai - Nanjing high speed*

From the Shanghai Daily on 5/16:

*Work begins on Shanghai-Nanjing Express*
Created: 2008-5-16
Authorong Zhen

LOCAL authorities said construction will begin on the Shanghai-Nanjing express railway next month which will be open for service before the 2010 World Expo. 

The new 300-kilometer long high-speed rail includes a 32-kilometer section in Shanghai. Passenger trains on the rail line will run at 200 kph, the authority said. 

Officials said the express line would run parallel to the current Shanghai-Nanjing railway and will have 27 stations including stops at Kunshan, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Danyang and Zhenjiang cities in Jiangsu. 

The project will cost 39.45 billion yuan (US$5.64 billion).


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## ANR

*Railway line between Kazakhstan and China*

*ENRC to build railway line between Kazakhstan and China
*
2008-05-22

Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation PLC, the holding company of a leading diversified natural resources group based in Kazakhstan, announced that ENRC Logistics has won the Kazakhstan State tender for the China Gateway Project.

The China Gateway Project will involve the construction of approximately 300 kilometers of railway in South-East Kazakhstan, which ENRC will subsequently operate.

1. A single track railroad will be constructed between Zhetigen in the Republic of Kazakhstan and Khorgos on the Kazakhstan-Chinese border.

2. Four intermediate stations, ten intersections, and a loading complex will also be built as part of the project.

Mr Johannes Sittard CEO of ENRC said “We are proud to be involved in this great project. The new railway will facilitate the increase in cargo carried between Kazakhstan and China by up to 30 million tonnes per annum. It will provide ENRC’s operations with an additional secure transportation route and with an increased capacity for products to be sold into the growing Chinese market.”

The USD 900 million capital expenditure projects will be the largest ever private investment in Kazakhstan’s transport infrastructure. Construction will begin later this year and it is envisaged that the railway will commence operations in 2012. ENRC’s concession to operate the railway will run until 2036. The realization of the project will enable ENRC to improve the delivery of its products to customers in China, diversify the activities of ENRC Logistics and enhance profitability by offering services to third parties.

From www.steelguru.com on 5/22.


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## mgk920

^^

What technical standards will this new railroad use?

Mike


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## big-dog

Deutsche Bahn to launch direct China-to-Germany cargo trains within three months

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/05/26/afx5046965.html



> FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - Deutsche Bahn AG. is set to open a direct cargo train link between China and Germany within three months, Die Welt reported, citing Manfred Michel of China United International Railway Container Transport (CUIRC), the company operating the trains.
> 
> Deutsche Bahn owns an 8 percent stake in CUIRC.
> 
> *The trains will take 15 days to travel the 9,850 km between Berlin and Beijing.* The more expensive air cargo takes two to three days between Germany and China, while sea freight takes around 35 days.
> 
> 'The cargo trains can't compete with sea freight, but for express goods or oversize volumes they do make sense,' said Norbert Bensel, head of Deutsche Bahn's logistic operations.
> 
> The German rail operator is set to be partially privatised by the end of the year.
> 
> It is in talks with Russian railways RZD to take stakes in each other. RZD is Deutsche Bahn's main partner for the inter-continental connection between China and Germany.
> 
> Deutsche Bahn initially expects annual sales of between 10 million and 20 million euros from the project.


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## Holzmichel

9850 km in 15 days.That makes an average speed of 27,1 km/h.....

I see room for improvements....


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## drozdz

big-dog said:


> Deutsche Bahn to launch direct China-to-Germany cargo trains within three months
> 
> http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/05/26/afx5046965.html


Does anyone know if this trains are going to run through Poland?


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## AR1182

Holzmichel said:


> 9850 km in 15 days.That makes an average speed of 27,1 km/h.....
> 
> I see room for improvements....


I think it's already pretty good considering such a train would cross five borders.


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## big-dog

drozdz said:


> Does anyone know if this trains are going to run through Poland?


yes, it runs through China, Russia, Mongolia, Poland, Belarus, Germany.



drozdz said:


> I think it's already pretty good considering such a train would cross five borders.


it's especially useful for heavy machinery transportation.


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## ANR

*Daqin Railway*

From the Shanghai Daily on 5/31:

*Daqin in wagon buy-up*
Created: 2008-5-31
Author:Zhu Qingjing and Leo Zhang


DAQIN Railway Co said yesterday it plans to collect up to 15 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion) by issuing bonds to fund the purchases of locomotives and wagons.

Daqin, which operates China's longest coal transport line, said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange that the bonds will be sold to owners of its existing yuan-backed A shares. The debt will carry maturities of between seven and 10 years, while the timing and other issuance details will be decided by the company's board later, according to the statement.

The proceeds of the bond issue will be used to buy large locomotives as well as wagons, the statement said. The company will buy 8,000 wagons for 4.4 billion yuan (US$628 million), it said. If the capital raised exceeds the amount of the proposed purchases, the remaining money will be used to replenish working capital, according to the statement.

''The debt issue is part of Daqin's fund-raising plan to finance expansion,'' said Wu Zhiguo, a Guohai Securities Co analyst. ''The railway industry has rosy prospects and Daqin is the leading player to benefit from that.''

Daqin said in April that it plans to spend 17.3 billion yuan (US$2.5 billion) to expand its capacity at Daqin line.

The company wants to buy 3,000 open-goods wagons for 1.65 billion yuan (US$235 million) and 360 electric locomotives for 15.61 billion yuan ($US2.2 billion).

It will apply for a credit line of 15 billion yuan from financial institutions to fund the purchases.


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## ANR

*Ningbo - Wenzhou high speed rail construction*

Pictures taken 6/7/08 approximately 40 km south of Ningbo from the Ningbo - Wenzhou expressway showing ongoing construction of the new high speed railway from Ningbo to Wenzhou:


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## Knuddel Knutsch

^^^^whats the maximum speed on this line? 

300 kmh? 350 kmh?


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## UD2

If it is anything like the Beijing - Tianjin line, it'll be 350 design and 300 operational speed.


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## ChinaHighspeedRail

*Beijing To TianJin Railway Bridges*

The new highspeed railway distance between BeiJing to TianJin is 120KM long and train will at running at least 350km/h.









































































*Wuhan Double Bridge*
new bridge design for 6 lanes for cars above and 2 high speed railway tracks and 2 normal railway tracks below.
Cars will be running at 80km/h and trains will travel at 250km/h


























*NanJing Bridge*
train will be travel at 300km/h 

































*Zhengzhou double bridge*



















*GuangZhou to ZhuHai bridges*

V shape bridge


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## ChinaHighspeedRail

*WuHan To GuangZhou HighSpeed Railway Constructions in HuBei Province Hen Moutain *

From GuangZhou to WuHan total distances is approximately 998 KM and the train will be travel at 350km/h.




































































































*Laying New rail tracks call RHEDA 2000 design for speed 300km/h and above* 














































*Take a close look and you can see 350 writing on track which is design for 350km/h*


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## hkskyline

*Beijing new railway station to start service in August *

BEIJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Beijing's newest railway station will most probably open on Aug. 1 -- in time for the 2008 Olympic Games, a Beijing Railway Bureau official said on Wednesday.

The official, who declined to be identified, told Xinhua the exact date of operation would be announced by the Ministry of Railways.

Construction on the Beijing South Railway Station, in Chongwen District, began at the end of 2005 with an estimated investment of 6.3 billion yuan (910 million U.S. dollars).

The new station will serve as the terminal for the inter-city express rail between Beijing and Tianjin, a port city about 120 kilometers southeast of Beijing, and a high-speed link between Beijing and the eastern financial hub of Shanghai.

The 115-km Beijing-Tianjin railway, which was scheduled to be in use ahead of the Olympics, can allow trains to run at a speed of 350 km per hour. The train travel time between the two cities will be cut to only 30 minutes from more than an hour currently.

Work on the 1,318-km Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway line started in April and was expected to be completed in five years. With a designed speed of 350 km per hour, the line will cut the journey time by half to five hours.

The new south station is 500 meters from the old south station which was built in 1897 and underwent a major renovation in 1958. The old was closed in May 2006 and then demolished.

The new station's main building has five floors, including three underground. It can hold more than 10,000 people.

The roof of the central building has been installed with more than 3,000 solar boards which have a total capacity of 245 kilowatts.

Beijing has three major railway stations already in use. The new south station is also connected to Beijing's bus and subway systems.


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## Songoten2554

i seen the new bejing station its huge man its amazing how china can build these wonderful stations and such i wonder about america's state in this?


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## amirtaheri

The only problem I have found is that in many areas, Chinese architecture tends to involve making a building look absolutely beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, they tend to skrimp and save. The inside, decorative and aesthetically speaking are mediocre at best. However, some buildings aren't like this. I've found that the huge national pride buildings are invested heavily in, both on the exterior and on the interior. Beijing Terminal 3 is an example I can think of. The interior is absolutely magnificent, but then some train stations and buildings I have been in, the interior is absolutely shoddy.


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## snow is red

Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail








Workers prepare to install the last section of the Ganhe Super Bridge along the Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail in Xianning, Hubei province on June 18, 2008. The 3.42 km-long Ganhe Super Bridge is the most difficult part of the railway construction project. With an investment of 108 billion yuan ($15.69 billion), the 968-km Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which is expected to be completed in 2010, can allow trains to run at speed of 350 km per hour. The train travel time between the two cities will be cut to only 4 hours from more than 11 hours currently. [Xinhua] 











The last 900-ton section is installed to connect the Ganhe Super Bridge along the Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail in Xianning, Hubei province on June 18, 2008. The 3.42 km-long Ganhe Super Bridge is the most difficult part of the railway construction project. With an investment of 108 billion yuan ($15.69 billion), the 968-km Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which is expected to be completed in 2010, can allow trains to run at speed of 350 km per hour. The train travel time between the two cities will be cut to only 4 hours from more than 11 hours currently. [Xinhua]










Workers are busy planting trees and grass along the Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail in Xianning, Hubei province on June 18, 2008. With an investment of 108 billion yuan ($15.69 billion), the 968-km Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which is expected to be completed in 2010, can allow trains to run at speed of 350 km per hour. The train travel time between the two cities will be cut to only 4 hours from more than 11 hours currently. [Xinhua]


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## binhai

^^They always have such nice landscaping on transportation corridors in China. I love the attention to detail, the new railways are just perfect. Hopefully other countries can emulate the nice landscaping.


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## Wallaroo

I see they are using a concrete layer under the tracks everywhere instead of stones. Whats the idea/advantage of that?


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## UD2

Wallaroo said:


> I see they are using a concrete layer under the tracks everywhere instead of stones. Whats the idea/advantage of that?


more stable subjects less to weathering and chances in grade level and passing high speed trains will not beable to toss up waves of rocks everytime it passes by. 

It is a requirement for very high speed operation.


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## AR1182

UD2 said:


> more stable subjects less to weathering and chances in grade level and passing high speed trains will not beable to toss up waves of rocks everytime it passes by.


It also requires much less maintenance and is therefore significantly cheaper to maintain, which I guess is the main reason it's being used.


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## asahi

UD2 said:


> more stable subjects less to weathering and chances in grade level and passing high speed trains will not beable to toss up waves of rocks everytime it passes by.
> 
> It is a requirement for very high speed operation.


It is not. Look at the high speed lines in Europe (France, Spain, UK). The trains don't toss up any stones, at least not waves of stones. 

As AR1182 said, it does require less maintenance, but is in fact much more expensive to build than the "traditional" track.


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## hoosier

China is going to reap the benefits of its investment in infrastructure and in particular, high speed rail.

The U.S. is suffering from a lack of investment in its transportation infrastructure, instead pissing trillions away into wars and tax cuts.


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## snow is red

*Chinese insurers to invest $2.35 bln in Beijing-Shanghai express railway* 


www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-21 14:31:36 

BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Four of China's insurance companies have been given green light by the country's insurance regulator to invest 16 billion yuan (2.35 bln U.S. dollars) in the Beijing-Shanghai express railway. 

Sources from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said that four asset management companies under the Ping'an Insurance, Pacific Insurance, Taikang Life and Taiping Life will jointly set up a Beijing-Shanghai express railway equity investment project to raise the planned amount of capital. 

In addition to the four insurers, the China Reinsurance (Group) Company, Generali China Life Insurance Company and PICC will also act as partakers and beneficiaries of the project, with the China Construction Bank as the trustee and the China Development Bank as an independent supervisor. 

The CIRC demanded all parties involved in the project to strictly abide by related laws and regulations and prevent credit, operation, moral and legal risks. It also requested the project to submit timely report on its operation or events of significance. 

On Dec. 27, 2007, the Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway Co. Ltd was unveiled in Beijing for the construction of the 1,318-km high-speed railway between China's top two cities.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/21/content_8412469.htm


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## ANR

*Shanghai - Nanjing high speed railway*

From Shanghai Daily on 6/20/08

*Link to Nanjing is right on track*
Created: 2008-6-20
Author:Yang Lifei and Dong Zhen


CONSTRUCTION will begin next month on an express railway line for passenger service linking Shanghai to Nanjing City in Jiangsu Province.

It will run parallel to the present tracks which will be used for cargo transport.

Thirty-one stations are planned, but only 21 will be built initially along the 300-kilometer route that has a designed speed of 200 to 250 kilometers per hour.

The Shanghai stops on the express line will include Shanghai Railway Station, West Railway Station, Nanxiang Station as well as the Hongqiao Hub Station, according to railway blueprint.

The line will be divided at local Anting area in Jiading District. The major access will lead to stops at Nanxiang and two local railway stations while a branch line will end at the Hongqiao station.

According to Jiangsu railway authority officials, the other 10 stations will be added once passenger flow is determined. "These additional stations are in some counties or small towns. Construction will start when there are more passengers," a Jiangsu railway official said.


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## staff

Anyone got a map of current and future HSR lines in China?


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## hzkiller

国产动车组创世界运营铁路纪录 时速394.3公里2008年06月26日05:54 [我来说两句(70)] [字号：大 中 小] 来源：中国青年报 　　本报北京6月25日电（记者周伟）6月24日上午，国产“和谐号”CRH3型动车组在京津城际铁路运行试验中创出394.3公里的时速。这是目前世界运营铁路的最高速度。

　　24日早上8时55分，“和谐号”动车组“起步”驶出站台，列车启动时就像飞机在跑道上快速滑行一样。 



加速！仅仅用了5分钟左右，速度就提到了300公里／小时。

　　9时05分，时速370公里；9时10分，时速390公里；9时13分，时速393公里……列车高速行使，记者坐在列车中的座位上却并没有觉得晕眩。在车厢间穿行时，会有轻微的左右摇晃的感觉，不时需要扶一下两旁的座椅。车内的噪音明显要比普通列车小，隔三五米不用大声说话对方也能听清。

　　9时20分左右，列车停稳。“全程共用时25分10秒。”驾驶员向铁道部部长刘志军汇报说。参与试验的铁路专家告诉记者，动车组列车各系统运行十分正常，这意味着京津城际铁路线桥质量、动车组性能、各系统间的配合已达到世界一流高速铁路标准。

　　在天津站停留不到5分钟，“和谐号”动车组车尾变车头，又驶回北京南站。

　　7月1日起，京津城际铁路进入试运行阶段，8月1日起正式运营。

　　连日来，为确保京津城际铁路——我国第一条具有自主知识产权、国际一流水平的高速城际铁路在北京奥运会前顺利开通运营，铁路部门争分夺秒地完成了近百项测试，进行了10万公里左右的动车组运行试验，确保各项准备工作万无一失。

　　京津城际铁路连接北京、天津两大直辖市，全长120公里，其中87％为桥梁工程，沿途设北京南、亦庄、武清、天津4个车站，预留永乐站。铁路设计最高时速为350公里。铁道部新闻发言人王勇平称，投入运营后，该线将采用公交化城际列车和跨线列车混合开行的运输组织模式，目前票价仍然没有确定。“大量开行国产时速300公里的CRH2型动车组列车和时速350公里的CRH3型动车组列车，京津间全程直达运行时间控制在30分钟内，列车最小行车间隔为3分钟。”王勇平说。

　　京津城际铁路工程于2005年7月4日开工建设，2007年12月16日全线铺通。如今，动车组型式试验、集成试验、综合试验、联调联试工作已进入尾声，各项运营准备工作扎实推进。北京南站、天津站的改扩建工程也进入了收尾阶段。

　　京津城际铁路不仅使北京和天津这两个人口过千万的特大城市间形成“半小时经济圈”，实现了“同城化”，还使中国铁路大步迈进“高速时代”。再过3至5年，随着京哈、京广、京沪、陇海、哈大、东南沿海等一大批时速250公里以上客运专线的全线贯通，广大人民群众将拥有更加安全、快捷、舒适、方便的铁路运输服务，人们的旅行生活质量将得到显著提升。


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

^^^^^^


that means in englisch?


----------



## dopeman1

hzkiller said:


> ，人们的旅行生活质量将得到显著提升。


OK OK but when china bulid this track??


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

^^^^^^


that means in englisch?


----------



## big-dog

hey HZkiller, this is an international forum. please only post English news to this thread.

^^ translation


> The Chinese-made MU (Multiple Unit) Hexie CRH3 ran at a record speed of 394.3 km during a Beijing-Tianjin inter-city railway test. This is the fastest among the world's railways. During the test, all the systems in the Multiple Unit trains operated normally; and passengers experienced a smooth and comfortable ride. This means that the line bridge quality, MU's performance, and the co-ordination between systems have met world-class high-speed railway standards on the Beijing-Tianjin inter-city railway.
> 
> The 120-kilometer stretch of the Beijing-Tianjin inter-city railway will open to passengers on August 1st. It is designed to run at a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour; and has so far achieved a record of 394.3 kilometers per hour.
> 
> The Chinese-made CRH2, travelling at 300 kilometers per hour; and the CRH3, with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, will be widely used. Moreover, the travel time from Beijing to Tianjin will be fixed at 30 minutes.


----------



## urbanfan89

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> ^^^^^^
> 
> 
> that means in englisch?


On June 26 at 05:54 the test train on the Beijing-Tianjin new HSR reached a record of 394.3 km/h. It will enter service on August 1, just in time for the Olympics. Construction started on July 4, 2005 and ended December 16, 2007. The length is 120 km of which 87% is elevated. In 3 to 5 years a while network of HSR will be formed all across the country.

That's it, really.


----------



## ANR

*China South Locomotive*

From Bloomberg on 6/27/08

*China South Locomotive May Sell 30% Stake in IPO*

By Bei Hu

June 27 (Bloomberg) -- China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp., the nation's largest maker of rail vehicles, may sell a 30 percent stake in a Shanghai initial public offering to help fund nearly 9 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) of projects, it said in a draft prospectus.

The Beijing-based company plans to offer as many as 3 billion shares in Shanghai, it said in the document posted on the Web site of the China Securities Regulatory Commission late yesterday. The commission's listing panel will meet June 30 to vet its share sale application, it said in a separate statement.

South Locomotive may also offer as many as 2 billion shares, or a 16.7 percent stake, in Hong Kong, it said in the document. The size of the Hong Kong sale may be boosted to 2.3 billion shares to meet excess demand, it said.

South Locomotive is raising capital for research and to upgrade and expand production as the world's fourth-largest economy improves its rail system. The country may build more than 7,000 kilometers (4350 miles) of high-speed passenger rail lines in the five years to 2010, which will enable trains to travel above 200 kilometers an hour, the document said.

South Locomotive supplied 47 of the 52 high-speed trains put into use after the country raised national train speed for the sixth time in April 2007, allowing some trains to travel up to 200 kilometers an hour, it added.

The company also exported its products to more than 30 countries worldwide last year, it said in the draft prospectus.

South Locomotive booked profit of 807.4 million yuan last year, a 53 percent increase from 2006, said the document.


----------



## snow is red

hzkiller said:


> 国产动车组创世界运营铁路纪录 时速394.3公里2008年06月26日05:54 [我来说两句(70)] [字号：大 中 小] 来源：中国青年报 　　本报北京6月25日电（记者周伟）6月24日上午，国产“和谐号”CRH3型动车组在京津城际铁路运行试验中创出394.3公里的时速。这是目前世界运营铁路的最高速度。
> 
> 24日早上8时55分，“和谐号”动车组“起步”驶出站台，列车启动时就像飞机在跑道上快速滑行一样。
> 
> 
> 
> 加速！仅仅用了5分钟左右，速度就提到了300公里／小时。
> 
> 9时05分，时速370公里；9时10分，时速390公里；9时13分，时速393公里……列车高速行使，记者坐在列车中的座位上却并没有觉得晕眩。在车厢间穿行时，会有轻微的左右摇晃的感觉，不时需要扶一下两旁的座椅。车内的噪音明显要比普通列车小，隔三五米不用大声说话对方也能听清。
> 
> 9时20分左右，列车停稳。“全程共用时25分10秒。”驾驶员向铁道部部长刘志军汇报说。参与试验的铁路专家告诉记者，动车组列车各系统运行十分正常，这意味着京津城际铁路线桥质量、动车组性能、各系统间的配合已达到世界一流高速铁路标准。
> 
> 在天津站停留不到5分钟，“和谐号”动车组车尾变车头，又驶回北京南站。
> 
> 7月1日起，京津城际铁路进入试运行阶段，8月1日起正式运营。
> 
> 连日来，为确保京津城际铁路——我国第一条具有自主知识产权、国际一流水平的高速城际铁路在北京奥运会前顺利开通运营，铁路部门争分夺秒地完成了近百项测试，进行了10万公里左右的动车组运行试验，确保各项准备工作万无一失。
> 
> 京津城际铁路连接北京、天津两大直辖市，全长120公里，其中87％为桥梁工程，沿途设北京南、亦庄、武清、天津4个车站，预留永乐站。铁路设计最高时速为350公里。铁道部新闻发言人王勇平称，投入运营后，该线将采用公交化城际列车和跨线列车混合开行的运输组织模式，目前票价仍然没有确定。“大量开行国产时速300公里的CRH2型动车组列车和时速350公里的CRH3型动车组列车，京津间全程直达运行时间控制在30分钟内，列车最小行车间隔为3分钟。”王勇平说。
> 
> 京津城际铁路工程于2005年7月4日开工建设，2007年12月16日全线铺通。如今，动车组型式试验、集成试验、综合试验、联调联试工作已进入尾声，各项运营准备工作扎实推进。北京南站、天津站的改扩建工程也进入了收尾阶段。
> 
> 京津城际铁路不仅使北京和天津这两个人口过千万的特大城市间形成“半小时经济圈”，实现了“同城化”，还使中国铁路大步迈进“高速时代”。再过3至5年，随着京哈、京广、京沪、陇海、哈大、东南沿海等一大批时速250公里以上客运专线的全线贯通，广大人民群众将拥有更加安全、快捷、舒适、方便的铁路运输服务，人们的旅行生活质量将得到显著提升。


*New Beijing-Tianjing train sets record*

http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20080627/104624.shtml
WATCH VIDEO in the link
06-27-2008 14:42

A new Beijing-Tianjin suburban railway line was put through its paces on Tuesday. A China-made high-speed train was tested on the new rail line, *hitting a record speed of 394.5 kilometers an hour. * 









A CRH3 train in Beijing Railway Station South

It took only five minutes for the train to go from zero to 300 kilometers an hour. The express hit a maximum speed of 394.5 kilometers per hour during the test, setting a world speed record for railway transport.

Beijing and Tianjin are 120 kilometers apart, and the train finished the journey in only 25 minutes and 20 seconds.

The train runs smoothly, so that passengers don't need to wear safety belts.

China developed the technology for high-speed trains with speeds of 200 kilometers an hour in 2004. Then the country developed its own trains with speeds of 300 kilometers and 350 kilometers per hour, becoming one of the few countries to have mastered the technology.

*The Beijing-Tianjin inter-city express line is scheduled to open on August 1st, ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games.*

Video : http://www.cctv.com/video/bizchina/2008/06/bizchina_300_20080627_6.shtml


----------



## snow is red

hzkiller said:


> 国产动车组创世界运营铁路纪录 时速394.3公里2008年06月26日05:54 [我来说两句(70)] [字号：大 中 小] 来源：中国青年报 　　本报北京6月25日电（记者周伟）6月24日上午，国产“和谐号”CRH3型动车组在京津城际铁路运行试验中创出394.3公里的时速。这是目前世界运营铁路的最高速度。
> 
> 24日早上8时55分，“和谐号”动车组“起步”驶出站台，列车启动时就像飞机在跑道上快速滑行一样。
> 
> 
> 
> 加速！仅仅用了5分钟左右，速度就提到了300公里／小时。
> 
> 9时05分，时速370公里；9时10分，时速390公里；9时13分，时速393公里……列车高速行使，记者坐在列车中的座位上却并没有觉得晕眩。在车厢间穿行时，会有轻微的左右摇晃的感觉，不时需要扶一下两旁的座椅。车内的噪音明显要比普通列车小，隔三五米不用大声说话对方也能听清。
> 
> 9时20分左右，列车停稳。“全程共用时25分10秒。”驾驶员向铁道部部长刘志军汇报说。参与试验的铁路专家告诉记者，动车组列车各系统运行十分正常，这意味着京津城际铁路线桥质量、动车组性能、各系统间的配合已达到世界一流高速铁路标准。
> 
> 在天津站停留不到5分钟，“和谐号”动车组车尾变车头，又驶回北京南站。
> 
> 7月1日起，京津城际铁路进入试运行阶段，8月1日起正式运营。
> 
> 连日来，为确保京津城际铁路——我国第一条具有自主知识产权、国际一流水平的高速城际铁路在北京奥运会前顺利开通运营，铁路部门争分夺秒地完成了近百项测试，进行了10万公里左右的动车组运行试验，确保各项准备工作万无一失。
> 
> 京津城际铁路连接北京、天津两大直辖市，全长120公里，其中87％为桥梁工程，沿途设北京南、亦庄、武清、天津4个车站，预留永乐站。铁路设计最高时速为350公里。铁道部新闻发言人王勇平称，投入运营后，该线将采用公交化城际列车和跨线列车混合开行的运输组织模式，目前票价仍然没有确定。“大量开行国产时速300公里的CRH2型动车组列车和时速350公里的CRH3型动车组列车，京津间全程直达运行时间控制在30分钟内，列车最小行车间隔为3分钟。”王勇平说。
> 
> 京津城际铁路工程于2005年7月4日开工建设，2007年12月16日全线铺通。如今，动车组型式试验、集成试验、综合试验、联调联试工作已进入尾声，各项运营准备工作扎实推进。北京南站、天津站的改扩建工程也进入了收尾阶段。
> 
> 京津城际铁路不仅使北京和天津这两个人口过千万的特大城市间形成“半小时经济圈”，实现了“同城化”，还使中国铁路大步迈进“高速时代”。再过3至5年，随着京哈、京广、京沪、陇海、哈大、东南沿海等一大批时速250公里以上客运专线的全线贯通，广大人民群众将拥有更加安全、快捷、舒适、方便的铁路运输服务，人们的旅行生活质量将得到显著提升。


*New Beijing-Tianjing train sets record*

http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20080627/104624.shtml
WATCH VIDEO in the link
06-27-2008 14:42

A new Beijing-Tianjin suburban railway line was put through its paces on Tuesday. A China-made high-speed train was tested on the new rail line, *hitting a record speed of 394.5 kilometers an hour. * 









A CRH3 train in Beijing Railway Station South

It took only five minutes for the train to go from zero to 300 kilometers an hour. The express hit a maximum speed of 394.5 kilometers per hour during the test, setting a world speed record for railway transport.

Beijing and Tianjin are 120 kilometers apart, and the train finished the journey in only 25 minutes and 20 seconds.

The train runs smoothly, so that passengers don't need to wear safety belts.

China developed the technology for high-speed trains with speeds of 200 kilometers an hour in 2004. Then the country developed its own trains with speeds of 300 kilometers and 350 kilometers per hour, becoming one of the few countries to have mastered the technology.

*The Beijing-Tianjin inter-city express line is scheduled to open on August 1st, ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games.*

Video : http://www.cctv.com/video/bizchina/2008/06/bizchina_300_20080627_6.shtml


----------



## X38

Cool.^^


----------



## Momo1435

I wonder what kind of world speed record they broke, the fastest regular train with passengers?

Anyway, nice German technology!  You got to love these Chinese press releases! :cheers:


----------



## staff

^^
What about "these Chinese press releases"?


----------



## zergcerebrates

Momo1435 said:


> I wonder what kind of world speed record they broke, the fastest regular train with passengers?
> 
> Anyway, nice German technology!  You got to love these Chinese press releases! :cheers:



I know what you mean, technically this train is from Siemens, but they are right about its China made since the Germans gave the rights and the technologies to built this thing in China thus making it Chinese produced. As for the self high speed technology the Chinese did managed to built its own, but just not on this Siemens Velaro since its a total German transfer of technology.


----------



## zergcerebrates

Check this video out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zms-B1HRkjo&feature=related


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

@all the chinese guys here in that forum:

Would it be possible, that someone makes a vidoe of a complete ride with a CRH3 Train from Bejing to Tianjin and upload it to youtube?

Of course it would be best, if that video would be made from the drivers cab.

The whole video would be 25-30 minutes long...and I would enjoy to watch it. :cheers:

Look up youtube, you will find a bunch of videos from the drivers cab of other High speed trains, like the ones in Europe.

So, if you have the chance to make such a video, I think that I am not the only one who would appreciate it very very very much


----------



## X38

You chould have to cut it in pieces, because on YouTube, a video may be maximum 10 minutes long.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

well, ok, then you have 3 videos...that shouldnt be the problem..... 


(off topic: Why do I sometimes see videos that are longer than 10 minutes on youtube? )


----------



## Momo1435

staff said:


> ^^
> What about "these Chinese press releases"?


I like the positive attitude of making everything look a little bit better then the actual truth. Go for it!


zergcerebrates said:


> I know what you mean, technically this train is from Siemens, but they are right about its China made since the Germans gave the rights and the technologies to built this thing in China thus making it Chinese produced. As for the self high speed technology the Chinese did managed to built its own, but just not on this Siemens Velaro since its a total German transfer of technology.


But for the actual orders of High Speed Trains they still shopped around and didn't buy the Chinese train. But with all these technology transfers I have no doubt that we will see a new Chinese developed HST very soon.


----------



## ANR

*Zhengzhou-Xi'an high speed rail line*

From Railway Age on 6/30/08:

*Ansaldo lands China high speed rail contract*

Ansaldo STS, in partnership with Beijing HollySys Co. Ltd., has won a $97.2 million contract to design, build, and begin operating signaling equipment for China's Zhengzhou-Xi'an high speed rail line, one of three high speed lines in the nation being equipped with European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTMS) technology. Alstom will receive $75.6 million for its work in the joint venture. Ansaldo's previous work in China included upgrades on the Qin-Shen and Shi-Tail rail lines, as well as work on the Shanghai Line 2 in China's largest city.


----------



## ANR

*Zhengzhou-Xi'an high speed rail line*

From Railway Age on 6/30/08:
*
Ansaldo lands China high speed rail contract*

Ansaldo STS, in partnership with Beijing HollySys Co. Ltd., has won a $97.2 million contract to design, build, and begin operating signaling equipment for China's Zhengzhou-Xi'an high speed rail line, one of three high speed lines in the nation being equipped with European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTMS) technology. Alstom will receive $75.6 million for its work in the joint venture. Ansaldo's previous work in China included upgrades on the Qin-Shen and Shi-Tail rail lines, as well as work on the Shanghai Line 2 in China's largest city.


----------



## big-dog

recent high-speed rail construction news



02tonyl said:


> *Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Workers prepare to install the last section of the Ganhe Super Bridge along the Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail in Xianning, Hubei province on June 18, 2008. The 3.42 km-long Ganhe Super Bridge is the most difficult part of the railway construction project. With an investment of 108 billion yuan ($15.69 billion), the 968-km Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which is expected to be completed in 2010, can allow trains to run at speed of 350 km per hour. The train travel time between the two cities will be cut to only 4 hours from more than 11 hours currently. [Xinhua]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The last 900-ton section is installed to connect the Ganhe Super Bridge along the Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail in Xianning, Hubei province on June 18, 2008. The 3.42 km-long Ganhe Super Bridge is the most difficult part of the railway construction project. With an investment of 108 billion yuan ($15.69 billion), the 968-km Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which is expected to be completed in 2010, can allow trains to run at speed of 350 km per hour. The train travel time between the two cities will be cut to only 4 hours from more than 11 hours currently. [Xinhua]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Workers are busy planting trees and grass along the Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail in Xianning, Hubei province on June 18, 2008. With an investment of 108 billion yuan ($15.69 billion), the 968-km Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which is expected to be completed in 2010, can allow trains to run at speed of 350 km per hour. The train travel time between the two cities will be cut to only 4 hours from more than 11 hours currently. [Xinhua]





02tonyl said:


> *China starts work on Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed rail*
> 
> 2008-07-02
> 
> China broke ground on Tuesday for a 300 km high-speed passenger rail line between Shanghai and Nanjing, two cities in the populous, affluent Yangtze River Delta region of east China.
> 
> The new line, costing 39.45 billion yuan ($5.7 billion), is to be completed in four years.
> 
> It will run around the clock and offer services at three-minute intervals during peak hours. It will cut the travel time from two hours to 72 minutes.
> 
> "The new line is expected to boost the economy of the cities along it," said an unidentified railway official.
> 
> The route will have 21 stations and is forecast to carry up to 26.35 million people by 2020 and 38.44 million by 2030.
> 
> The delta area, one of the country's most economically robust, currently contributes more than 20 percent of the national gross domestic product.
> 
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008...ent_6811923.htm


http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=117039&page=6


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai - Hangzhou high speed rail*

*It's a super-fast track for city-Hangzhou line*
Created: 2008-7-16
Author:Lydia Chen and Yang Lifei
Shanghai Daily 7/16/08


IMAGINE traveling by rail between Shanghai and Hangzhou in just over 30 minutes ... this is no dream, as the wheels are in motion.

Construction of the high-speed link between the two cities will start next year, the Hangzhou-based Metropolis Express reported yesterday, citing the Ministry of Railways.

The 158-kilometer line, which would start at the Hangzhou Eastern Railway Station in the provincial capital of Zhejiang and end in Shanghai's Hongqiao International Airport area, would reduce traveling time by nearly 90 minutes.

Trains would travel up to 300 kilometers an hour on the 27.6-billion-yuan (US$4.03-billion) line.

There would be five stops along the line at stations in Zhejiang's Yuhang, Tongxiang and Jiaxing cities and at Shanghai's Songjiang District and Fengjing Town.

The report did not say when construction would be completed.

The Shanghai-Hangzhou link would connect to the Shanghai-Beijing high-speed railway at Shanghai's Hongqiao Transport Hub and passengers could also transfer to the Hangzhou-Ningbo railway link at the Hangzhou Eastern Station.

The Hongqiao Transport Hub will serve as a transfer station for the city's Hongqiao International Airport, a Maglev station, at least three Metro stations and bus stations.

China also plans to start construction on the 42-billion-yuan Nanjing-Hangzhou intercity railway this year.


----------



## foxmulder

ANR said:


>


Does anybody have a larger and more clear version of this?


----------



## ANR

*Breakdown causes passengers to swelter in 50-degree heat*

From Shanghai Daily:

Created: 2008-7-18
Authorong Zhen


TWO passengers were taken to hospital after a Shanghai-Nanjing bullet train broke down near Nanjing Station in Jiangsu Province yesterday morning. The Shanghai Railway Administration said both had been released from hospital after emergency treatment.

The pair became ill in the sweltering heat inside the stranded train.

The D406 bullet train pulled to a sudden stop when its power supply failed on route to Qixia Station, close to the terminus in Nanjing at 9:57am, officials said. The train was due to arrive in Nanjing at 10:11am.

Police officers on duty on the train said temperatures inside the cabins reached more than 50 degrees Celsius as the air-conditioning was out of service and the windows couldn't be opened.

Passengers were stuck on board for more than two hours until another bullet train, the D472 heading for Hangzhou, stopped to pick them up. Passengers were taken to Nanjing Station. Police said one of the two people rushed to hospital was an elderly woman who was thought to have a heart condition.

The railway authority said repairs to the train were completed by 12:33pm and it finally pulled into Nanjing Station at 12:51pm.

Police said unless train crew received orders from the railway management, the doors could not be opened before the trains arrived at a station.

Police said the passengers left for the other train through designated escape passages instead of the train doors, which had not been opened during the breakdown.

Media reports that some passengers were injured when they broke windows to jump out have not been confirmed by the railway authority.

Officials said the breakdown caused a 36-minute delay to another bullet train, the D415, which was due to leave from Nanjing Station. No other lines were affected, they said. It was the second bullet-train breakdown in recent months in this region.


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai new Hongqiao rail station*

From Shanghai Daily on 7/21/08
*
City's hub poised for fast-track treatment*
Created: 2008-7-21
Authorong Zhen


THE first piece of earth was turned yesterday - and now it's the fast track all the way for construction on the Hongqiao rail station, part of the Shanghai-Beijing express that will be a major part of a massive and multi-purpose city transport hub. Top Shanghai officials attended the ground-breaking ceremony just to the west of the Hongqiao airport.

The Hongqiao Transport Hub will centralize and simplify the link between long-distance trains and buses, the Metro network and airline services. The railway authority said building of the Hongqiao station would progress in coordination with construction of the Shanghai-Beijing line. The Hongqiao station will cover an area of 240,000 square meters that will contain facilities for both high-speed and normal trains and will be in service before the 2010 World Expo opens in Shanghai. The Hongqiao express rail station is expected to reach an annual turnover of 52.72 million people by 2020. This would increase to 78.38 million people by 2030, planners said.

Overall, the Hongqiao Transport Hub is expected to cater to an average of 650,000 passengers daily, with the capability of handling a maximum of 1.1 million people each 24 hours. The Hongqiao stop will be one of 21 stations on the Shanghai-Beijing express line.

A train trip between Shanghai and the capital is expected to be reduced by half to just five hours when the express line is completed in 2013. Ten years was spent on researching and preparation of the line before the project was approved by national authorities in 2006.

During the early years of service, trains on the line would travel at 300 kilometers an hour, planners said. However, the trains will be capable of a maximum speed of 350kmh. The fastest Chinese bullet trains in service now reach 250kmh. The new Shanghai-Beijing express is expected to handle nearly 160 million passengers each year.

It will also free up cargo transport between the two cities. More than 130 million tons of goods are expected to be moved annually once the passenger express line is completed.


----------



## khoojyh

how about the meglev train in China?

any news for this???


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## ANR

*Nanjing - Hefei high speed*

From Shanghai Daily on 7/23/08:

*Hefei trip to be cut to 3 hours*
Created: 2008-7-23
Author:Chen Qian


BULLET trains will be added to the Hefei-Nanjing line from August 1, shortening the journey time between Hefei and Shanghai from over six hours to just under three hours. The journey time from Hefei, capital of Anhui Province, to Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, will be cut from 85 minutesto 59 minutes.

The Shanghai Railway Bureau said four bullet trains will run between Hefei and Nanjing, with six between Hefei and Shanghai. The price between Hefei and Nanjing will be 67 yuan (US$10) for ordinary seats and 80 yuan for better seats. Tickets between Hefei to Shanghai will cost from 160 yuan to 192 yuan, according to Jianghuai Morning News.

Of the trains between Hefei and Nanjing, one will stop at Feidong and Quanjiao for a total of four minutes and the others will be express route. Two of the trains between Hefei and Shanghai will stop at several stations while two will only stop at Nanjing, the Xin'an Evening News said.

The Hefei-Nanjing railway is the first line designed to cope with a maximum speed of 250 kilometers an hour in east China. The 166 kilometer line opened on April 18. Currently Bombardier trains are used, traveling at 160kph. After the bullet trains are introduced, they will be removed.

The lines are a key part of the national express railway network connecting the Xi'an-Hefei, the Wuhan-Chongqing-Chengdu and the Beijing-Shanghai lines. Before the Hefei-Nanjing railway line opened, trains from Hefei had to travel up to four hours to reach Nanjing and up to eight to Shanghai.


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## ANR

*Bejing - Tainjin high speed*

From Scientific American on 7/22/08 Technology section:

*China shows off new high-speed train for Olympics*

By Ben Blanchard
July 22, 2008

BEIJING/TIANJIN, China (Reuters) - With its swivel seats, spacious, plush interiors and the largest railway station in Asia, China has high hopes for a new express link from Beijing to nearby Tianjin, the fastest rail service on the planet. The railway will open next Friday, in time for next month's Beijing Olympics, and will shuttle people to soccer events in Tianjin, one of the Games' co-host cities. It will chop one hour off the current rail journey, reducing it to a 30-minute hop, taking passengers at a top speed of 350 kmph (220 mph) on special sleek trains with interiors that look more like aircraft cabins.

Reporters were given a sneak preview of the ultra-modern trains on a government-organized trip on Tuesday, zipping through the lush countryside past massive housing developments and deserted highways. "This is a revolution in terms of ramping up the speed of Chinese railways," Railway Ministry spokesman Wang Yongping told reporters at the cavernous new Beijing South railway station, which he said was the largest in Asia.
Trains can run on the 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) new Tianjin line every three minutes, and each train can carry around 600 people between landlocked Beijing and its port city neighbor. Ticket prices have yet to be set, though Wang said it would be "within the limits of what the masses can accept."

Planners have thought big. The Beijing South railway station will eventually connect to two subway lines -- the Tianjin terminus will connect to three -- and there are enough platforms for the future high-speed railway to Shanghai, expected to open within the next five years. The Beijing South station has solar panels on the roof and 24 platforms to cope with what officials see as massive future demand for travel in the rapidly developing country. Even airports have been included in the master plan, with one of the Shanghai stations planned next to the city's Hongqiao airport, and space included for a station at Tianjin's recently expanded Binhai international airport. "We are planning for the future with this new station," Wang said.

The new, Chinese-built trains have seats that swivel to face in the direction of travel, and are much wider than equivalent European express trains, said Zhang Shuguang, head of the Railway Ministry's Transport Bureau.
They have hit speeds of 394 kmph in tests, although they will only run at 350 kmph during normal operations, he added. "Its operational speed is the fastest in the world. It's very comfortable and quiet," Zhang said. "There's a French train that has gone 500 kmph in tests, but only in tests."

($1=6.819 Yuan)









_China shows off new high-speed train for Olympics A security guard keeps watch near a CRH train at the Beijing South Railway Station July 22, 2008. Swivel seats, spacious, plush interiors, the largest railway station in Asia and the fastest rail service on the planet -- China has high hopes for a new express link from Beijing to nearby Tianjin. Opening next Friday, the line will chop one hour off the current rail journey, reducing it to a 30 minute hop, taking passengers at a top speed of 350 kmph on special sleek trains whose interiors look more like aircraft cabins. The railway is opening in time for next month's Beijing Olympics, and it will shuttle people to soccer events in Tianjin, one of the Games' co-host cities.
_​


----------



## snow is red

*High-speed railway ready to roll*

2008-07-24 

The country is set to enter the high-speed railway club, with its first 350kmh-passenger train traveling between Beijing and Tianjin scheduled for launch on Aug 1.


The new service is expected to cut travel time between the 120-km route by half, to less than 30 minutes.


"From now on, China will possess one of the world's fastest high-speed rail services," Zhang Shuguang, deputy chief engineer of the Ministry of Railways, said on Tuesday.


In comparison, high-speed trains in Spain and Japan run at 320kmh, while those in France, Germany and Italy travel at 300kmh, Zhang said.


And for the passengers who were invited to experience the service during a trial, riding the trains were "just as comfortable" as being on slower ones.

Sitting in one of the swivel seats on board a sleek carriage of the new service, Beijinger Zhang Tao said she did not feel dizzy or uncomfortable.


The pleasant interior of the carriage, similar to a passenger aircraft's, helped.


"I didn't even notice that the train was already going that fast, until somebody announced the speed - 350 kmh - in about 10 minutes after the train left the railway station," she said.


"If there was any detectable difference, it would be that the cars running on the freeways beside the railway looked even slower," she said.


With traveling time between the two cities shortened by the new rail, many say couples who cannot afford apartments in the capital can now consider those in Tianjin.


"Young people may think about working in Beijing and living in Tianjin, because commuting between the capital and Tianjin will soon be as easy as taking the bus," Zhang Shuguang said.


As for the ticket price of the new service, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) yesterday said the rail's company will decide on one for the yearlong trial, after which the final price will be announced following legal procedures.


Zhang said a first-class ticket for the trip will be about 70 yuan ($10) and a second-class one, 60 yuan.


The NDRC also said that other rail services between Beijing and Tianjin should not be reduced, to keep up with various demands of commuters.

*Technical know-how*


For the Chinese engineers behind the new rail, rolling out the transport marvel goes beyond the basic requirements of speed, comfort and convenience.


"To provide the high-speed rail service, we have had to conquer at least three obstacles," the ministry's Zhang Shuguang said.


The trains' operation control system is one of the core technologies that needs mastering, he said.


Its difficulty lies in getting the trains to keep a safe distance between one another and preventing them from colliding with each other or slower trains, he said, a challenge that may not seem like a big one for slower rail.


"Trains running at 350kmh can equal the speed of airplanes taking off, or at 100m per second," Zhang said.


Only four countries have mastered such technology, he said.


Such expertise has made it possible for the 350-kmh trains to leave the railway station every five minutes during peak hours, and every 10 minutes during non-peak hours, Zhang said.


The second core technology is in synthesizing up to seven rail coordination systems, each with up to 70,000 parts, and making them work as one to maintain track performance, he said. It is something China has also acquired on its own after years of research and experience, he said.


The third core technology of high-speed railways involves the design and manufacture of high-speed trains themselves.


"When a train runs at 350kmh, it will produce an environment of 'negative air pressure'. Designing the high-speed train's air-conditioning system becomes a difficult task, since the train can draw objects into the carriage through any opening, like a big vacuum," he said.


The authorities chose to cooperate with foreign companies that had the necessary expertise, like Germany-based Siemens, to meet such challenges. Under a joint project between the Tangshan Railway Transportation Equipment Company and Siemens, Chinese engineers completed the requisite designs and submitted it to Siemens, who were involved in the industrial certification of the project, Zhang said.

*Rail completion*

The final product, the CRH-3 (China Railway High-speed) train, is unique to China.


"The entire design is made to suit our needs. As agreed, we own the intellectual property rights of this type of high-speed train," the ministry's Zhang Shuguang said.


Except for three trains manufactured in Germany, the rest of the 57 trains were all produced locally, in Tangshan. Each costs 200 million yuan, Zhang said.


The trains on the Beijing-Tianjin line are also upgrades carried out by Chinese engineers based on the 200-250kmh bullet trains, under a cooperation program between China and Japan.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-07/24/content_6872981.htm


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## elfabyanos

02tonyl said:


> In comparison, high-speed trains in Spain and Japan run at 320kmh, while those in France, Germany and Italy travel at 300kmh, Zhang said.


Nearly everything he says is slightly wrong or slightly exaggerated. Not enough to be a serious crime, but funny nonetheless.

Spain = 320km/h?, Japan = 300km/h, France = 320 km/h, Germany + Italy = 300 km/h


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## ANR

*Ningbo - Wenzhou high speed railway*

A couple of pictures taken 7/25 near Ninghai, Zhejiang province:


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## ANR

*West Shanghai railway station*

From Shanghai Daily on 7/26:

*West rail station to reopen*
Created: 2008-7-26
Authorong Zhen


SHANGHAI'S West Railway Station will reopen to passengers and connect to three new Metro lines, local urban planners announced this week. The station will also become one of two city stops along the Shanghai-Nanjing Express Railway due to be completed in July 2010. The station is now used only for cargo.

Planners unveiled a blueprint to connect the station to the planned Metro Lines 11, 15 and 16. Two squares will be built to the south and north of the station hall and a two-story corridor will connect the two. Passengers can walk to the future Metro hub through an underground tunnel from the railway station.

Construction of the Shanghai-Nanjing rail link began earlier this month. There will be one stop every 15 kilometers along the 300-kilometer line. In its first year, the track is expected to carry 30 million passengers, said railway officials.


----------



## General Huo

Four new railways approved for constructionBy Shangguan Zhoudong (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-07-25 15:17 Comments(0) PrintMailFour new railways, including one dedicated passenger line, have been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, for construction, said the commission in statements released on its website yesterday.


The 261.3-km dedicated passenger line, linking Tianjin Municipality and Qinhuangdao in neighboring Hebei province, will begin from the Tianjin Railway Station and pass through Tianjin's Binhai New Area, Tangshan and Beidaihe in Hebei province.


The second one is the Lijiang-Shangri La Railway with a total length of 161km. The interprovincial railway starts from the Lijiang Railway Station and will route through Tiger Leaping Gorge and Xiaozhongdian, scenic spots in Yunnan province.


The longest one among the four newly-approved railways is the Xinjiang Kashi-Xinjiang Hetian Railway. Located in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the 487 km-line will pass through counties like Yingjisha, Shache, Yecheng and Pishan.


The last one is the Xi'an-Pingliang Railway that starts from Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi province and goes through Liquan, Qianxian, Yongshou, Binxian and Changwu counties in the province and Jingchuan county in Gansu province. Finally, the railway will link up with the Baoji-Zhongwei Railway at the Pingliang South Railway Station.


China's railway construction is in full swing in recent years. The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, the most expensive construction project with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour, started construction in April this year.


Additionally, the country's first 350kmh-passenger line between Beijing and Tianjin, which is now under trial operation, is scheduled for launch on August 1 this year.


China plans to build a total of 7,820 km rail lines this year and foreign investment shall be introduced in the construction of railways, according to the Ministry of Railways. The ministry also said a total of 300 billion yuan ($42 billion) will be invested in China's railway construction this year.


China now has more than 76,000 km of railways, ranking third in the world by length after the United States and Russia.


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## elfabyanos

General Huo said:


> China plans to build a total of 7,820 km rail lines *this year*....


:uh:


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## Songoten2554

wow i am pretty amazed its alot of construction going at once how cool is that.

also well i think its a great idea i am thinking the USA will look into that with their CHSR and also the HSR in the United states as well.


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## oriental_horizon

China needs high speed rail because it has a huge population. As the economy grows, more people moves up the social and economic ladder, more people will buy cars. But the cost of petrol / fuel has increased. Therefore it makes sense to develop more rail infrastructure to move masses of people between cities using rail.

But from all the plans, seems like Central and Coastal China gets the biggest projects. Good signs that Guangzhou will soon have a link to Guiyang and Wuhan. Guangzhou as the manufacturing capital of southern China should have good infrastructure with its neighboring provinces and other poorer regions like Sichuan, Guizhou, Tibet, Gansu...etc.


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## Songoten2554

thats why i want the USA to take notes about this and start implanting it to our Rail network.


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## foxmulder_ms

elfabyanos said:


> Nearly everything he says is slightly wrong or slightly exaggerated. Not enough to be a serious crime, but funny nonetheless.
> 
> Spain = 320km/h?, Japan = 300km/h, France = 320 km/h, Germany + Italy = 300 km/h


As far as I know, if China operates the comercial trains at 350km/h, they will be really the fastest ones. I guess speed limits are correct for for most of the countries mentioned above. Germany should have a lower speed limit tough, smt like 260km/h.


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## Knuddel Knutsch

Are there more pictures of the new bejing south railway station available?

Its supposed to be done by the olympics, right?

I would like to see it finished, until now, I only saw construction pix


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## elfabyanos

foxmulder_ms said:


> As far as I know, if China operates the comercial trains at 350km/h, they will be really the fastest ones. I guess speed limits are correct for for most of the countries mentioned above. Germany should have a lower speed limit tough, smt like 260km/h.


Germany = 300km/h, the only one I'm unsure of is Spain which is either 300km/h or a little more, soon to be 350km/h. But I'm certainly more accurate than Zheng - who I assume is paid to do his job and should get his research right.


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## ANR

*Rapid Beijing-Tianjin train link opens on Friday*

From China Daily on 7/31:

By Xin Dingding
China Daily Staff Writer
Updated: 2008-07-31

The Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway will open tomorrow, as scheduled, a railway official said Wednesday.

Tickets for the route linking the capital to the Olympic soccer city, will go on sale today at West Beijing and Beijing railway stations, and from tomorrow at the new Beijing South railway station, from which the new trains will depart, reported the Beijing News.

Tickets to ride the new 350 kph trains will be 69 yuan ($10) for first class and 58 yuan for second class, Zhang Shuguang, deputy chief engineer with the Ministry of Railways, told a press conference at the Beijing International Media Center.

While these are 18 yuan and 16 yuan more expensive than those for the existing bullet trains, which reach a top speed of 250 kph, the journey time will be reduced from about an hour to just 30 minutes, he said.

Forty-seven pairs of trains will run between the two cities each day, Wang Zhiguo, vice-minister of railways, said.

According to a document released last week by the National Development and Reform Committee, some of the slower bullet trains will also use the new line, and ticket prices for those will remain unchanged.

Also, 13 pairs of the slower trains that currently link Beijing to Shanghai, Qingdao and Jinan will, from Friday, leave from Beijing South.

The new railway station will be the biggest in Beijing, but passengers need not be put off by its size, officials have said.

Zheng Jian, deputy chief engineer with the railways ministry, said: "Passengers will never have to walk more than 200 m to get from one train to another."

As well as opening the Beijing-Tianjin intercity rail link, the ministry has added 60 pairs of passenger trains to transport people from Beijing to each of the other five Olympic co-host cities, Zhang said.

A number of trains will also be held in reserve to carry athletes and officials between the cities in the event of bad weather keeping airplanes grounded, Wang said.

Also, the new ticket offices that opened on July 25 to make it easier for passengers to buy Olympic train tickets will remain open until Aug 29.


----------



## snow is red

Video from BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7537047.stm

*China launches high-speed train* 

week before the Olympic Games, China has launched its first super high-speed intercity rail route. 

The 120-km (75-mile) line will shuttle athletes and spectators between Beijing and neighbouring Tianjin, where Olympic football matches will be held. 

Trains will reach speeds of 350 km/h, cutting journey times between the cities from 70 to 30 minutes. 

The railway is part of the new infrastructure that China has put in place for the Games. 

Rail enthusiasts began queuing on Thursday for tickets for the train's inaugural run, China's Xinhua news agency reported. 

Twin ceremonies were held in Beijing and Tianjin on Friday, with the first trains set to depart shortly afterwards. 

The high-tech trains, which feature swivel seats and smart interiors, can accommodate about 600 people. 

Construction began on the new line in July 2005. It has cost a total of 21.5bn yuan ($3.1bn, £1.55bn), Railway Minister Wang Zhiguo said. 

A first class ticket will cost 69 yuan ($10), while a second-class ticket is 58 yuan. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7536576.stm


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## snow is red

The first intercity train between Beijng and Tianjin departs from Beijing South Railway Station for Tianjin, Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 1, 2008. The intercity rail line between Beijing and Tianjin is a high-speed rail. The new train service would cut the 120-km journey from the current 70 minutes to about 30 minutes.


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## Chafford1

I understand the initial maximum speed will be 300 km/h with potential to updgrade to 350 km/h - but very impressive nevertheless.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news_...anjin_high_speed_line_opens_for_business.html


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## clkgtr

quote a picture from Hasea bbs,thanks to author 31803181
346km/h on a CRH3 trainset


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## foxmulder_ms

So, now China officially has the highest speed limit for trains, I guess.


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## Chafford1

clkgtr said:


> quote a picture from Hasea bbs,thanks to author 31803181
> 346km/h on a CRH3 trainset


On a regular service??


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## clkgtr

Chafford1 said:


> On a regular service??


Yes


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## staff

That's awesome!


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## Wallaroo

02tonyl said:


> Video from BBC
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7537047.stm
> 
> *China launches high-speed train*
> 
> week before the Olympic Games, China has launched its first super high-speed intercity rail route.
> 
> The 120-km (75-mile) line will shuttle athletes and spectators between Beijing and neighbouring Tianjin, where Olympic football matches will be held.
> 
> Trains will reach speeds of 350 km/h, cutting journey times between the cities from 70 to 30 minutes.
> 
> The railway is part of the new infrastructure that China has put in place for the Games.
> 
> Rail enthusiasts began queuing on Thursday for tickets for the train's inaugural run, China's Xinhua news agency reported.
> 
> Twin ceremonies were held in Beijing and Tianjin on Friday, with the first trains set to depart shortly afterwards.
> 
> The high-tech trains, which feature swivel seats and smart interiors, can accommodate about 600 people.
> 
> Construction began on the new line in July 2005. It has cost a total of 21.5bn yuan ($3.1bn, £1.55bn), Railway Minister Wang Zhiguo said.
> 
> A first class ticket will cost 69 yuan ($10), while a second-class ticket is 58 yuan.
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7536576.stm


What kinda trains is this? They look like ICE 3, but they are much wider inside.


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## Chafford1

Wallaroo said:


> What kinda trains is this? They look like ICE 3, but they are much wider inside.



It's known as the CRH3 and is a wider bodied version of the Velaro/ICE3.

There's an article on this train in July's International Railway Journal

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/irj0708/#/40:

Click on the page to read, click on bottom right to turn page.


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## Wallaroo

Chafford1 said:


> It's known as the CRH3 and is a wider bodied version of the Velaro/ICE3.
> 
> There's an article on this train in July's International Railway Journal
> 
> http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/irj0708/#/40:
> 
> Click on the page to read, click on bottom right to turn page.


Im a little confused about all these new HST lines and trains in China. So the CRH3 will run with 350km/h at the brand new 120 km long line from Beijiing, but will it also drive on other chinese railway lines?

I would appreciate a complete picture list of all HST trains in China, and a map of the lines where they drive now.


----------



## Chafford1

Wallaroo said:


> Im a little confused about all these new HST lines and trains in China. So the CRH3 will run with 350km/h at the brand new 120 km long line from Beijiing, but will it also drive on other chinese railway lines?
> 
> I would appreciate a complete picture list of all HST trains in China, and a map of the lines where they drive now.


You could also try asking on the Mainland China, Infrastructure forum:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=804


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## Wallaroo

Whats the name of this train, and was it developed by china alone, or with help from other countries? Does it accelerate and brake automatically like japanese bullet trains, or does the driver have to control that?


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## Momo1435

Wallaroo said:


> Whats the name of this train, and was it developed by china alone, or with help from other countries? Does it accelerate and brake automatically like japanese bullet trains, or does the driver have to control that?


This is the 300 km/h fast CRH2C and was build by the Chines builder "Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock" as an upgrade of the 250 km/h fast CRH2 that was build by "Kawasaki Heavy Industries" from Japan and Sifang. The upgrade was done by replacing two intermediate cars with powered cars, giving the trains a significant increase in power output. 

But both versions of the CRH2 are based on the JR East Shinkansen E2. I don't know if these trains are automatic like in Japan, especially since they don't operate on a completely segregated system like the Shinkansen.


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## binhai

I think the CRH and CRH2 are for Shanghai-Hangzhou, and CRH3 is for Beijing-Tianjin. I may be mistaken, but I would think the newest trains go on the newest lines.


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## Wallaroo

So is CRH3 the only train to operate at 350 km/h? 

Is CRH2 the train where the seats can be turned around to face driving direction?


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## clkgtr

Wallaroo said:


> So is CRH3 the only train to operate at 350 km/h?
> 
> Is CRH2 the train where the seats can be turned around to face driving direction?


Both CRH2C and CRH3 are running at 350kph.
Seats on all of CRH2 ,CRH2B,CRH2C and CRH3 can be turned to the driving direction:lol:


----------



## big-dog

*New Qingdao railway station starts operation on August 1*













































(http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6461118.html)


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## staff

Why didn't I see that building when I visited Qingdao some weeks ago?


----------



## Momo1435

clkgtr said:


> Both CRH2C and CRH3 are running at 350kph


I think the operational speed of the CRH2C is only 300km/h, but they tested it with higher speeds.


----------



## UD2

Momo1435 said:


> I think the operational speed of the CRH2C is only 300km/h, but they tested it with higher speeds.


there's a video of it running at 343 km/h in this forum. With commercial passangers on board ofcourse.


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## elfabyanos

Wallaroo said:


> I would appreciate a complete picture list of all HST trains in China


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Railway_High-speed is a good starting point, and there are liks to the manufacturers like Siemens to get more info. RE maps - I'd like that too. I think ther are some but they may as well be pictures of spaghetti to me because its all in Chinese!


----------



## ANR

*Beijing - Tainjin High Speed rail start up*

From China Daily on 8/2:

*High-speed rail link opens for business*

The Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway went into service on Friday with the departure of inaugural train C2001 at 10:40 am from Beijing South Railway Station. The bullet train, which arrived in Tianjin 29 minutes later, carried more than 50 passengers, journalists, officials and workers who participated in the line's construction.

Dong Zhiguo, a Beijinger in his 30s, said he waited hours on Thursday afternoon in order to buy a ticket for the train. "Riding the 350-kph train is totally different from past experiences. No loud noises. It's more like flying," he said. When the train arrived, he expressed regret that his return train left at noon. "I should have bought a ticket for the train leaving at 3 pm, so I could enjoy some seafood here in Tianjin," he said.

The comfortable ride on the high-speed train is made possible thanks to some cutting-edge designs.Train designers said the windows are specially made to change the light refraction and reduce dizziness caused by its high speed.
Also, wind monitoring equipment can inform the train driver to slow down when the crosswind blows at 15 m per second, and stop when it exceeds 35 m per second.

The same traveler-friendly concept is embodied in the new Beijing South Railway Station, the largest in Asia. Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping said it has more than 100 ticket windows and 36 self-service ticket machines to make life easier for passengers. People arriving by taxi will have to walk only about around 150 m to get to their trains, he added.








​
_A new Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway train is pictured at the station in Beijing August 1, 2008.​_







_Passengers take their seats in the new Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway in Beijing August 1, 2008.​_


----------



## foxmulder_ms

China's railway projects are mind blowing. Trains look very nice, railways and stations are incredible. Just wanted to add a googleearth image of huge South Station, can you look how big this is. Lenght is around 500m.


----------



## japanese001

urbanfan89 said:


> Maybe in 50 years we'll see those high speed trains:
> 
> Nanning - Hanoi
> Shenyang - Pyongyang - Seoul
> Fuzhou - Taoyuan - Taipei
> Harbin - Vladivostok
> Kunming - Ruili - Mandalay
> 
> We can always wish...


If North Korea is not liberalized, the rail plan of east Asia cannot be 
achieved. 
China should persuade people's free trades to North Korea.


----------



## Wallaroo

Why are they using both CRH2 and CRH3 on the Beijing - Tianjin line? 

Anybody knows what curve radius that are used on the line?


----------



## Adam2707

foxmulder_ms said:


> China's railway projects are mind blowing. Trains look very nice, railways and stations are incredible. Just wanted to add a googleearth image of huge South Station, can you look how big this is. Lenght is around 500m.


I know, the shere scale of Beijing south station is mind bogaling.
if you zoom out and compare it to the the China grand theater, it looks like its little brother. 

You can still make out this building from over 300km in the air (on Google Earth)


----------



## Letniczka

staff said:


> Why didn't I see that building when I visited Qingdao some weeks ago?


Qingdao's old RS is very famous, same the brewery, two churches, governor's house and a few other old German buildings.

Why you didn't? Hmmmmm .... maybe because you were searching only for skyscrapers, so now, after your 4,445 postings here it's time to go for a cure, otherwise next time in Beijing, you'll miss even the forbidden city 

I remember QD as only one tall building was there, a real cosy and sleepy town, just a better village. I have been there maybe 10-12 times, but what I miss today is QD of 1990, when it was impossible to ... miss the railway station.


----------



## staff

^^
Actually I've seen pretty much everything there is to see in terms of classic architecture in QD, I just managed to overlook the train station for some reason.


----------



## elfabyanos

Letniczka said:


> Why you didn't? Hmmmmm .... maybe because you were searching only for skyscrapers, so now, after your 4,445 postings here it's time to go for a cure, otherwise next time in Beijing, you'll miss even the forbidden city


Was that supposed to be funny or just patronising?


----------



## staff

I took it as a joke, perhaps I shouldn't have?


----------



## elfabyanos

Dunno, that's why I asked!


----------



## hoosier

japanese001 said:


> If North Korea is not liberalized, the rail plan of east Asia cannot be
> achieved.
> China should persuade people's free trades to North Korea.


North Korea does not have to change its economic system to have HSR, just its political system.


----------



## japanese001

hoosier said:


> North Korea does not have to change its economic system to have HSR, just its political system.


...


----------



## elfabyanos

The discussion of North Korea is wildly off-topic and everyone is misunderstanding what everyone else is saying. I suggest its avoided in this thread.


----------



## hkskyline

_Wording seems a bit weird, as Beijing-Tianjin should not be China's first HSR : _

*China's first high speed railway moves 20,000 passengers daily in past week *

BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway, China's first high speed rail line, has transported an average of 20,000 passengers daily since its Aug. 1 opening.

On busy days, an average of 22,000 people took the new service to Beijing, two times the previous volume from Tianjin to Beijing, according to Tianjin municipal railway department statistics on Friday.

The new service cut the 120-km journey from 70 minutes to about 30 minutes with five stops at Yizhuang, Yongle and Wuqing.

The service is shuttling spectators, athletes, media people as well as other passengers between Beijing and Tianjin, one of the Olympic co-host cities for 12 football matches from Aug. 6 to Aug. 15.

In total, 47 trains are scheduled to run daily from each city.

The railway is the world's fastest with trains running at an operational speed of 350 km per hour, according to the Ministry of Railways (MOR). It claimed high-speed trains in Japan and Spain ran at 320 km per hour, and those in France and Germany at 300 km per hour.

About 26 million people travel between the two cities annually. The MOR predicts the new line will help raise the figure to 32 million this year.


----------



## elfabyanos

hkskyline said:


> The railway is the world's fastest with trains running at an operational speed of 350 km per hour, according to the Ministry of Railways (MOR). It claimed high-speed trains in Japan and Spain ran at 320 km per hour, and those in France and Germany at 300 km per hour.


The inaccuracy is driving me mad!!!


----------



## foxmulder_ms

Can you share the accurate figures then?


----------



## snow is red

foxmulder_ms said:


> Can you share the accurate figures then?


i think he already did 

Post No.696 page 35


----------



## hkskyline

*All aboard for the "Great Wall Express" *

BADALING, China, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Beijing on Tuesday unveiled the "Great Wall Express", a sleek new train service that will whisk visitors to the foot of the World Heritage Site in Olympic record time.

The Great Wall winds across more than 6,400 km (4,000 miles) and receives an estimated 10 million visitors a year, mostly to the mere 10 km opened to tourists at Badaling, the nearest stretch to Beijing.

The train will cut in half, to one hour, the time it generally takes to get to Badaling. More importantly, it will avoid the traffic jams visitors routinely face on their return into the city.

"You look at Europe, for example Switzerland, they have their own famous sightseeing trains," Zhou Zhengyu, vice head of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communication, told reporters aboard the train.

"We want to make this into Beijing's own tourist train."

Hoping to finish the project in time for the Olympics, workers took just four months to renovate an existing rail link and touch up the historic stations along what was the first railway line China designed and built on its own, Zhou said.

"We have what we call 'China speed', 'Beijing speed'," he said, asked whether four months was perhaps a bit rushed.

The train service was formally launched ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony last week, but regular services will only begin later this week after cycling events in the area are finished.

Visitors will like the ticket prices: just 17 yuan ($2.50) for first class and 14 yuan for regular seats.

However, Zhou admitted authorities were still working out some kinks. For one, visitors will have to walk about 15 minutes from the station to the wall, at least for now.

The project is part of a massive upgrade of Beijing's infrastructure that the Olympics have helped accelerate, and that analysts say will transform the city to be based more around suburbs much like many Western cities.

The number of subway lines has already risen to eight from two over the past several years and a high-speed train now carries visitors to the nearby city of Tianjin in just half an hour.

The government aims to roughly double the length of urban rail track in the capital to 560 km (350 miles) by 2015, Zhou said.

The United Nations listed the wall as a World Heritage Site in 1987. (Editing by Nick Macfie)


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai - Hangzhou - Ningbo high speed railway*

From Shanghai Daily on 8/13:

*Comment sought on high-speed train line*
Created: 2008-8-13 
Authorong Zhen

CITY authorities began soliciting public opinion this week in connection with a planned express railway linking Shanghai with Hangzhou, Ningbo and other cities in Zhejiang Province. 

The public comment phase is usually the last planning step before ground is broken on a major infrastructure project. Construction on the planned 160-kilometer railway is scheduled to start around the end of this year.

The rail link will carry only passengers, and trains will run at short intervals to improve travel times between Shanghai and five cities in Zhejiang Province. 

Trains will travel at about 300 kilometers per hour, exceeding the maximum speed of 250 kph on China's current rail services. 

The line will also connect with the Shanghai-Beijing Express Railway, which will be completed by 2010. 

The Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo rail line will have its own terminal at the Hongqiao Transport Hub, which is under construction. Another local stop will be built in Songjiang District.


----------



## hoosier

hkskyline said:


> [
> The project is part of a massive upgrade of Beijing's infrastructure that the Olympics have helped accelerate, and that analysts say will transform the city to be based more around suburbs much like many Western cities.


Errr.....that isn't a good thing Beijing.


----------



## urbanfan89

hoosier said:


> Errr.....that isn't a good thing Beijing.


20 years ago most of the city was within the old city walls. This was then paved over into the Second Ring Road.

10 years ago there was a Third Ring Road, with the Fourth Ring Road half-done.

Now there's the 4, 5, and 6 Ring Roads, as well as eight radial highways. Thankfully most of them have exorbitant tolls to dissuade driver commuters.


----------



## LtBk

hoosier said:


> Errr.....that isn't a good thing Beijing.


Not all Western suburbs are the same like the US model.


----------



## ANR

*Zhengzhou - Xian high speed rail*

*ERTMS order for China high-speed line*
Published on 25 July 2008 

A consortium formed by Ansaldo STS and Chinese firm HollySys has won the signalling and control systems contract for a new high-speed railway line in China, incorporating European-standard ERTMS Level 2 technology.
The 300km/h passenger line will be 460km long, linking Zhengzhou in Henan province and Xi’an in Shaanxi province. It is one of three high-speed train projects for which the Chinese Ministry of Railways has decided to use ERTMS (European Railway Traffic Management System).

The contract to design, build and operate the signalling and control system is worth RMB660m (£49m), of which the HollySys share is RMB151m (£11m). The work is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. Ansaldo STS is the technology leader on the project. A partnership agreement with HollySys covers local production of components and equipment, and the two companies will also create a joint venture for the future supply of ERTMS for high-speed rail links throughout China.

Earlier this year Nortel announced that it had been chosen to provide a highly secure GSM-R wireless network for communications between trains and ground staff along the line.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

> By Lydia Chen | 2008-8-18 |
> 
> THE construction of the high-speed magnetic-levitation train linking Shanghai and Hangzhou has finally been given the go-ahead after more than a year of hold-ups.
> 
> While it was originally hoped that the line would be completed in time for Shanghai World Expo in 2010, that is now the year that construction is scheduled to begin.
> 
> The project was suspended amid widespread concerns among local residents that their health may be adversely affected by radiation from passing trains.
> 
> The provincial government of Zhejiang announced the decision in a 2008-2012 major construction-project plan, which included the building of a 13.42-billion-yuan (US$1.935-billion) Shanghai-Hangzhou passenger railway from 2009 to 2013, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
> 
> The Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev line is expected to be completed by 2014 at a cost of 22 billion yuan, according to the Zhejiang plan.
> 
> However, the plan did not specify an exact route.
> 
> From 2008 to 2012, 6.5 billion yuan of the cost should be allocated, and the provincial office supervising the Maglev project should finish preliminary work of site selection of the Zhejiang section and environment evaluation this year, the plan said.
> 
> Total length of the Maglev line will be extended to 199.434 kilometers from 175 kilometers, including a section that connects the two cities and a minor section that links Shanghai's two international airports.
> 
> Trains on the Maglev track are expected to hit speeds of 450kmh, meaning a one-way trip will take only 30 minutes. At present bullet trains take 90 minutes.
> 
> The new Maglev route willbe separated from communities along its course in Shanghai by a greenbelt22.5 meters wide each side.


http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=370753&type=Metro


----------



## staff

That's, what, the 12th time that maglev line is approved? I won't believe it's going down until I see some cranes working it...


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

its about the 100th time that is approved....  and nothing happened, so far.

I also dont believe it any more...

Dont know why Shanghai-Daily brings this news every 6 months, time and again....


----------



## hkth

Xinhua News:
Qinghai-Tibet railway to get six new lines


----------



## hoosier

China gets these big infrastructure projects approved and built quickly. I wish it was the same in the U.S. HSR helps the environment so there shouldn't be much opposition from the environmental community.

We can have democracy and good infrastructure that isn't delayed too much.


----------



## ANR

*HXn30001 or JT56ACe locomotive*

From Railway Age on August 19 & other sources:
*
For EMD, a Chinese first*

Electro-Motive Diesel’s first locomotive for China, an EMD-designed JT56ACe diesel-electric manufactured jointly with CNR Dalian Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co. (DLoco), left the factory in Dalian China, last month. The locomotive is China’s first 6,000-hp diesel-electric. DLoco and EMD will manufacture 300 JT56ACes for the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MoR).

“The JT56Ace was built with the needs of the Chinese market in mind,” EMD said. It is equipped with several EMD technologies, among which are dual isolated driver’s cabs, EMD’s type 265H 6,000-hp diesel engine, electronic fuel injection, a.c. traction, microcomputer control, and the ability to function in three-unit consists. Starting tractive effort is 69,700 pounds; continuous tractive effort is 65,000 pounds. The JT56ACe also includes EMD’s collision protection package, which EMD says “improves locomotive durability and driver safety.” With a 23.7-tons axle load, EMD says the JT56ACe “is the most powerful diesel-electric locomotive in the world at such a low axle load.” It can pull up to 4,900 tons at a maximum speed of 75 mph. Crew comfort was also taken into account with a microwave oven, air conditioning, refrigerator, and toilet.

EMD’s participation in the Chinese railway market began in 2001 with the licensing of radial truck technology. “With the localization of the JT56ACe, EMD looks forward to a long and fruitful relationship with the MoR, Chinese suppliers, and other Chinese customers,” EMD said.

In September 2005 EMD signed an agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MoR) and Dalian Locomotive Works (DLoco) for the supply of three hundred 6,000 horsepower locomotives, EMD's most powerful diesel-electric locomotive. The locomotives feature the latest heavy haul traction systems used on North America's major Class l railways and are being jointly designed and manufactured with DLoco under a technology license in Dalian, China.


----------



## ANR

*CML 50001 or HXn 50001*

From Railway Age on 8/21:
*
GE power en route to China*

In October 2005, GE Transportation signed a $450 million contract with the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) for 300 6,000-hp Evolution® Series CMLs (“China Mainline Locomotives”). The first of two fully assembled pilot locomotives, CML 50001, is on its way to Tianjin Port in Tianjin, China, and is expected to arrive on Aug. 30. After being transferred to the Tanggu Depot for inspection, CML 50001 will make its way to Beijing. 

The CML series is configured a bit differently than GE’s North American Evolution Series locomotive. With a peak output of 6,250 hp, the locomotive produces about 40% more power (compared to 4,400 hp) and weighs 30% less than its western cousin. “The lighter weight design increases the eco-friendly properties of the locomotive,” GE says. “The Ecomagination-certified GEVO 16-cylinder engine generates 84% fewer emissions and increases fuel efficiency by 3-5%,” compared to a non-Evolution Series locomotive. 

The balance of the CML order will be assembled in China at Qishuyan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works (QSY) in Changzhou, using kits manufactured in Erie. Kits began shipping on May 18, 2008; delivery is expected to be completed by year-end 2009. QSY is to begin assembling locomotives in October, with all 300 CMLs delivered by June 2010. GE established three onsite teams in Changzhou, Chengdu, and Zhuzhou consisting of 20 local Chinese manufacturing and quality engineers to provide technical support for assembling the 298 kits.

“The MOR sought a product that would significantly improve hauling capability and running speed on China’s main lines, while at the same time reducing emissions to meet increasingly rigorous Chinese environmental requirements,” said GE Transportation China President Tim Schweikert. “The locomotive they will receive will meet and exceed those requirements.” He noted that GE is three months ahead of the original contract schedule.

From Erie Times-News on 8/21:

*GE train engine China- bound*
By Jim Martin

They're waiting for a train to arrive in Beijing.

Officials from Erie-based GE Transportation held a joint press conference Thursday with officials from the Chinese Ministry of Rail to announce the impending arrival of the first of 300 locomotives. The Chinese government placed the $450 million order in 2005.

The locomotive, which was loaded on a ship in the Port of Philadelphia, is one of just two that will be shipped whole and fully assembled. The remaining 298 locomotives will be shipped as kits, with the Chinese contributing more parts as the process moves along.

"It's on a boat right now. It's going to be here in days, and it's the first of 300 locomotives we are going to deliver," said Stephan Koller, a spokesman for the General Electric Co. unit.

The China Mainline Locomotive that will be arriving soon in China is based on the Evolution series, designed to reduce fuel costs and emissions. But it might not look familiar to Erie residents accustomed to seeing GE locomotives on local tracks. That's because this one was built specifically for the needs of the Chinese. "This is a newly designed and engineered heavy-hauling locomotive," Koller said. "It's more than 6,000 horsepower. The ones we use in North America are 4,400 horsepower. It's a 40 percent increase in power, but a 30 percent reduction in weight."

GE officials are hinting that more business from China could be on the way. GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said earlier this week that he expects GE's China business to double to $10 billion by 2010. "We've seen great growth in China," Immelt said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune in Beijing. "I think the whole focus on water and the environment, that's going to offer, we think, big opportunities for us as time goes on." That could also bode well for sales of the CML 50001, the Evolution-based locomotive being built for use in China. Koller stressed that no contracts have been signed and no deals struck, but that strong possibilities exist for both.

Koller said the Ministry of Rail has an aging fleet of 5,000 to 6,000 locomotives. "They will need to be replaced in years to come," Koller said. "The 300 locomotives we are delivering now, if they perform as we expect they will perform, it will position us well to be considered for replacing the aging locomotive fleet." That wouldn't necessarily translate into selling new locomotives. "If you have older locomotives, you have two choices," Koller said. "You can buy a brand-new locomotive or you take a locomotive that has been in service for many years and you can modernize it. It's the ultimate form of recycling."

Among the locomotives that might be considered for modernizing are Erie-built GE locomotives shipped to China in the 1980s, Koller said. There's reason to believe the Chinese might not wait 20 years before placing their next locomotive order. Koller said the government says it plans to invest $160 billion to upgrade the country's rail infrastructure between now and 2011. "There is huge potential," Koller said.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

^^^^great locomotives, great development.

But why do they have to be so fu**** ugly?


----------



## snow is red

^^ Aren't locomotive supposed to be ugly ?


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

not necessarily.

I think there are quite some beautyfull locomotives around. Electric- as well as Diesel locomotives. Passenger-, as well as Freight locomotives.

I know that this becomes off topic, so I stop at this point, but I post links to some pics:
Maybe, if one of the chinese bureaucrats reads this thread: Pleas build some beautyfull locomotives next time. They dont cost more, just beacause the look better.

Taurus

V200-One of the most beautfyfull diesels I know

Eurorunner Diesel-loco. At least with a little bit of industrial design-attempts

Bombaridier Electro-Cargo-Loco

not beautyfill but at least all-right-looking.


----------



## Matchut

delete


----------



## foxmulder_ms

Raw power, cost, and efficiency is important here not the look   But really they look like 20 years old already


----------



## binhai

Matchut said:


> How's the service on Chinese trains these days?


Mostly, it's you get what you pay for. The low-class tickets are not so bad, and the high-class tickets are not so good. Of course, you'd probably get restless in a "hard seat" (lowest class seat) in a 40 hour train ride, so the service is mostly subjective.


----------



## crazymummyboy

I like steam trains


----------



## UD2

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> ^^^^great locomotives, great development.
> 
> But why do they have to be so fu**** ugly?


freight train locos... nobody's gonna look at them unless they're are real fans. And most real fans will find them pleasing to the eye no matter how they look =-)))


----------



## ANR

*Zhengzhou - Xi'an high speed rail*

*HLS Systems International Announces Signing of a $22 Million High Speed Railway Control Systems Contract*

Wed Jul 16, 2008 

BEIJING
HLS Systems International, Ltd. today announced that the Company, along with its partner
Ansaldo STS, has been awarded a contract by the People's Republic of
China (PRC) Ministry of Railways for the design, construction,
implementation, and maintenance of a new 300 kilometer per hour high
speed rail line. When completed, this rail line will span 459
kilometers, or approximately 285 miles, and link Zhengzhou in Henan
province and Xi'an in Shaanxi province.

The project was awarded to a consortium formed by HLS and Ansaldo
STS, a leading technology company listed on the Milan Stock Exchange
that operates in the global Railway and Mass Transit Transportation
Systems business. The total contract value amounts to RMB660 million,
or approximately US$97 million, with HLS' portion for the control
system amounting to RMB151 million, or approximately US$22 million.
HLS will begin recognizing revenues upon the commencement of the
project in the current quarter. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2009.

Dr. Wang Changli, HLS' Chief Executive Officer commented, "The 300
kilometer per hour high speed train will be one of the fastest
passenger trains in China and we are very excited to announce that HLS
has been awarded the automation control system contract for this
prestigious project. We have been successful in implementing our
control systems in the current 200 kilometer per hour high speed rail
lines in China and this new contract for the more advanced 300
kilometer per hour rail line is a testament to our high quality system
design and performance.

HLS is one of only five companies authorized by China's Ministry
of Railways to provide automation control systems for its railway
systems, one of only three companies that have the capability to
provide control systems for high speed rail networks and one of only
two companies able to provide automation systems for trains with
speeds of 300 kilometers per hour or greater. Based on our track
record and close cooperation with the Ministry of Railways, we believe
that HLS is well positioned to receive additional contracts in this
300 kilometer per hour rail category."

HLS Systems International has become one of the leading automation
systems providers in the PRC, developing a number of core technologies
and completing numerous projects utilizing a wide array of automation
products.


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai-Nanjing high speed rail*

*China Railway Group Units Win Share of Shanghai-Nanjing High-speed Rail Projects*

7/8/2008 

China Railway Group Ltd said four units have won a share in the construction of the new Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed rail line. The units are China Railway Erju Co Ltd, China Railway No.3 Engineering Group, China Railway No.4 Engineering Group and China Railway No.10 Engineering Group, Xinhua reports.

The company did not give a total contract value in a statement filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange, but it noted that the four contract awards represent the equivalent of 3.82 pct of the company's operating revenue last year. China Railway Group booked operating revenue of 180.51 bln yuan under Chinese accounting standards in 2007.

In a separate statement filed by listed unit China Railway Erju to the Shanghai bourse, Erju disclosed that its contract is worth 2.55 bln yuan with a completion time of 533 days.


----------



## henrypan123

*Some photos about China Railway Highspeed (CRH)*

Beijing - Tainjin High Speed rail


BEIJING SOUTH RAILWAY STATION


----------



## henrypan123

*Some photos about China Railway Highspeed (CRH)*

Photos taken on the CRH trains


----------



## staff

344 km/h! I didn't know they were operating at such high speed in commercial use.


----------



## snow is red

*Work on city's high-speed rail lines moves at full steam*

2008-8-28 

HIGH-SPEED passenger rail lines are being built in Shanghai and three nearby provinces with investment on the new projects to reach 196.3 billion yuan (US$28.7 billion) this year, the Shanghai Railway Administration said yesterday.

SRA manages rail transport in Shanghai, neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces and part of nearby Anhui Province.

SRA officials said the national authority planned to start building 18 new rail lines in the region this year, most of which would be for passenger transport. The lines would be designed with improved capacity and speed.

Of the total budget for railway construction this year, about 181 billion yuan has been earmarked to set up new lines and about 15.3 billion yuan allocated to upgrade and extend existing lines.

Of the new projects, the Shanghai-Nanjing passenger express has been praised by authorities for its efficiency and capacity. The new train shuttles on the line are expected to arrive at stops at three-minute intervals between Shanghai and Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu Province. 

Bullet trains traveling at 220 kilometers an hour will serve the new passenger line.

Officials said the last of the residents living on the railway route in Jiangsu Province would be relocated by the end of the month and their houses demolished. Construction of the railway began on July 1. It is scheduled to open for service before July 1, 2010. 

The project of Shanghai-Beijing express line was also launched in July.

When completed in 2010, the high-speed line will reduce train travel between Shanghai and Beijing from 12 hours to five hours.

Railway officials said new projects in the region likely to start before the end of the year included the passenger line between Hangzhou and Ningbo, both in Zhejiang Province, a line between Nanjing and Hangzhou, and another line between Nanjing and Anqing in Anhui Province.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=371761&type=Metro


----------



## henrypan123

*More photos about China Railway Highspeed (CRH)*

Tianjin Railway Station


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai Maglev*

From Shanghai Daily on 8/29:

*Maglev link eyed to Lingang*
Created: 2008-8-29
Authorong Hui


THE Shanghai magnetic-levitation train line will be extended south into Nanhui District from Pudong International Airport, according to an urban planning blueprint published on a government Website yesterday.

The high-speed line that powers trains on a bed of magnetic energy, will extend south from the airport to Lingang New City, then turn west and terminate in Fengxian District. The plan was disclosed by the Shanghai Urban Planning Administrative Bureau.

The Maglev track is part of a plan to integrate the newly developed Nanhui District with the shipping economy. Nanhui is about 27.5 kilometers from Yangshan Deep-Water Port, and the Maglev service will be a big help for residents and businesses located in the area.

Industries here will be able to tap advanced manufacturing and port logistics.

Lingang New City in Nanhui District is a township that stretches across 55.3 square kilometers and can accommodate 830,000 residents.

"The line extension will definitely be a boost for Lingang New City," said a Nanhui District official who declined to be named.

In addition to the new Maglev track, Metro Line 11 will lead directly to Lingang New City by 2012. Route planning for Metro Lines 2, 18 and 21 has also been done, according to Xu Ming with the urban planning bureau.

However, the Maglev extension plan is still in its nascent stage.

"Further studies are needed on the Maglev line," the planning document said.

An environmental impact study will have to be conducted and public opinion will be solicited.

According to the city's planning blueprint, the Maglev line will eventually link Shanghai's two airports with east Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, a connection that would cut commuting time between the two cities to 30 minutes.
________________________________________

I have seen some recent comments indicating their dis-belief that Shanghai may extend the current Maglev system. The following from the Shanghai Daily on 11/22/08 makes me believe that eventually Shanghai will expand their Maglev system:

*Green light for maglev factory in Shanghai*
Updated：2007-11-22 


Shanghai is planning to build a low-speed Maglev train-manufacturing factory in suburban Nanhui District. The factory, which will cover an area of 230,000 square meters, is designed to generate 60 Maglevs and 300 levitation frames each year.

Each train will have a maximum speed of about 100 kilometers per hour, compared with the Maglev that runs between Longyang Road and Pudong International Airport and hits 430kmh. Xu Jianguo, president of the Shanghai Electric Co Ltd, the train manufacturer, said the lower-speed models will be quieter and more eco-friendly. Preliminary scientific research has been completed and the firm will start construction of the train and frame-production plant with a fixed-asset investment of 310 million yuan (US$42 million).

The information came after the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference yesterday held a seminar about the planning of Lingang New City in Nanhui. The small city, close to the Yangshan Deep-Water Port, will cover a total area of 296.5 square kilometers and have an estimated population of 800,000 by 2020.


----------



## :jax:

*Chinese HSR map*

Is there any map over Chinese high-speed railways, like the one made for Europe?


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

@ANR Everyone whos into the topic knows that right now, there is aboslutely nothing going on concerning any kind of possible maglev extension.

They are only producing on press release after another, but not one single meter of maglev extension was built over the last 5 years (yes, its already 5 years, that the maglev in Shanghai is in operation---unbelievable.)

The first time, that an extension to Lingang was proposed was back in 2005.

I dont see any progress over the last years---especially compared to the size and speed that other projects in China are being realized. This shows that there is in fact no real political will.

Are there any maps showing the possible extension to Lingang btw?


----------



## foxmulder_ms

It is wonderful to see top nutch bullet trains of both Europe and Japan next to each other. They look awsome..


----------



## snow is red

*China plans to beat own fastest train service record*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/7765688
Reuters, Monday September 1 2008 

BEIJING, Sept 1 (Reuters) - China plans to beat its own record for the world's fastest train service when a new link between Beijing and Shanghai opens by 2012, a state newspaper reported on Monday. The domestically developed train would run at 380 kpk (236 mph), slicing five or more hours off the current journey to just four hours, the official China Daily quoted Zhang Shuguang, the Ministry of Railways' deputy chief engineer, as saying.

China already claims the record for the fastest train service in the world, for the Beijing-Tianjin line, though there are trains in France which have higher operational speeds.

"We have mastered core technologies in terms of manufacturing high-speed trains and made innovative achievements in the process," he said.

"It is possible that we can start to manufacture 380-kph trains in two years' time, and put them into service on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway," Zhang added.

That line was expected to open in 2012, one year ahead of schedule, the newspaper said.

The new trains would also provide a stiff challenge to airlines, which put on dozens of 1-1/2-hour flights between the two cities a day.

China has invested billions of dollars upgrading its rail network, rolling out sleek new trains and extending the line even as far as the remote Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

A new express line from Beijing to its neighbouring city of Tianjin which opened last month in time for the Olympics reaches top speeds of 350 kmp. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard)


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## Knuddel Knutsch

:applause::applause::applause:

380 km/h vmax and a total travel time between Beijing and Shanghai of 4 hours (!)

Somehow this high-speed rail development in China starts scaring me  (cant wait to ride it)


----------



## 33Hz

Not sure how we are getting a journey time of 4h at 380 km/h when the journey time was 5h at 350km/h, but if China can get to this speed in public service I wish them well.


----------



## Andrew

Those pictures look great, I'm really impressed with the progress that China has made with high speed rail.


----------



## snow is red

*Full steam ahead for rail plan *

2008-09-02 


BEIJING, Sept. 2 -- The development of China's railway network will include the construction of 548 railway stations within the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-10), a senior official from the Ministry of Railways, said yesterday.

"Twenty-eight new stations have already been completed, 58 are under construction and 210 are in the design stage," Zheng Jian, the ministry's deputy chief engineer, told China Daily. 

Last month, Beijing South - the largest in the country - and Tianjin railway stations opened for business at the two ends of a new high-speed intercity service, he said. 

In the coming years, as more high-speed routes are added, the ministry plans to develop six passenger transport hubs - Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xi'an and Chengdu - and 10 regional hubs, with local railway stations upgraded to deal with the increased numbers of travelers, he said. 

But it is not only the hubs that are looking to upgrade their facilities, Zheng said. 

In Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, for example, plans have been drawn up to build a station with 30 platforms, more than at Beijing South, he said. 

Local governments have realized that their existing railway stations are too small to satisfy the demands brought about by rapid economic development, he said. 

"Cities like Hangzhou and Nanjing know that being linked to the high-speed rail network will have a hugely positive impact on their economies, and that is why they want to build big stations, Zheng said. 

"However, we will continue to stress that while the construction of large railway stations is fine, they must adhere to the basic principles of economy and not be overly lavish in their decoration," he said. 

One Beijing woman said he was pleased to see all the new railway stations being built in the capital. 

"Railway stations are no longer shabby or overcrowded like they used to be," commuter Zhang Tao said yesterday. 

"They are more like airports," she said. 

Under the Ministry of Railways' mid- to long-term plan, the nationwide, high-speed rail network will be extended to 12,000 km by 2020. 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/02/content_9752737.htm


----------



## snow is red

*China's railway investment hits $19.6 bln in first 7 months* 

2008-09-08 


BEIJING, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's railway investment soared 37.5 percent from January to July. The numbers are attributed to a building boom of high-speed lines and the country's desire to link together poor regions. 

The investment reached 133.78 billion yuan (19.6 billion U.S. dollars), the Ministry of Railways (MOR) said on Monday. 

More people than ever are using railways. In the first 7 months of the year trains carried 855.3 million passengers, up 12.6 percent from the same period last year. Cargo volume was 1.94 billion tons, up 6.8 percent from a 2007. 

The MOR had planned to invest 1.25 trillion yuan (182.6 billion U.S. dollars) in railway building and renovation through 2010 extending the train network by 17,000 kilometers. 

China started construction on the 1,318-km-long Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway on April 18. The train is designed to run 350km per hour. The total project cost 220.9 billion yuan (32.3 billion U.S. dollars). 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/08/content_9856674.htm


----------



## snow is red

*New highway-railway bridge sets world records*

2008-09-10 

The middle section of China's longest road and rail bridge is now complete. The Tianxingzhou Bridge, with it's combined four railroad tracks and six traffic lanes, crosses the Yangtze River in Wuhan, capital of the central Hubei province.

As the world's first bridge with four rail lines, the main span over water extends 504 meters, surpassing the Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden, said general designer Gao Zongquan.

Built at a cost of 11 billion yuan ($1.61 billion), the 4,657-meter cable suspension bridge will open to traffic in the first half of next year after the completion of road surfacing and laying rail tracks.

Tianxingzhou Bridge has a designed load capacity of 20,000 tons, holding more weight than any other rail-road bridge in the world. Trains can pass over it at speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour, said Gao.

The bridge will be a key part of China's major rail transport network and will make Wuhan a leading railway transport hub following Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Wuhan is the largest industrial city on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-09/10/content_7015973.htm


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## zergcerebrates

*Chinese CRH at South Beijing Station*




























from flickr


----------



## hoosier

I wished the U.S. cared as much about investing in rail as China.

Chinese rail>>>>U.S. rail


----------



## UD2

big-dog said:


> ^^ Most of the 820 km are moutainous areas. Plus the cost to build a rail is moe expensive now than 5 years ago.
> 
> i.e. the building of 1km subway costs Beijing about 100 mln yuan in year 2000 but costs 800 mln now.


what's behind the jump.


----------



## big-dog

^^ I assume the soaring land cost and labor cost are the major factors.


----------



## amirtaheri

The pictures of Beijing South Station are cool, but I've been to Chinese railway stations before and I've had to wait for trains at the station sometimes and the worst thing about them is not the surroundings, architecture etc, it was the pure boredom of being in some of the stations. Aside from a couple of stations, Beijing West being one of them I think, there are very few stores or restaurants in the station itself, very few facilities for us to chip away at the time.

I really hope that after they've built the basic infrastructure, that they start looking at doing something about that. Not a priority now, but something for the future.

Another thing they should also look at dealing with is the unavoidable 'surge' when gates open. It is ridiculous being squashed and pushed by a crowd because they want to board 'faster'. Even the police don't have control half the time of what I can only kindly term a mob! Chinese railways need more crowd control and instill an understanding that pushing won't cause tickets to be checked faster or boarding to be done any quicker.

That being said, I will still be looking forward to doing Beijing to Wuhan in Soft Sleeper 

Does anyone know if Beijing to Wuhan has a Deluxe Soft Sleeper with only two beds?


----------



## zergcerebrates

Isnt this the platform of the new Tianjin Train station?


----------



## zergcerebrates

Oh when riding on these CRH do different train types go to different cities or they basically serve the same route?


----------



## binhai

zergcerebrates said:


> Isnt this the platform of the new Tianjin Train station?


Yes, good eye, took me a few minutes to realize it. Beijing South station has recessed doors, but Tianjin station has doors right at the wall.

Here's a few of my pics of Tianjin Station, very modernist Soviet-style station:




















































































zergcerebrates said:


> Oh when riding on these CRH do different train types go to different cities or they basically serve the same route?


CRH1 is in use in Guangzhou-Shenzhen line, CRH2 is in use for Shanghai-Hangzhou and Shanghai-Nanjing lines, along with Beijing-Tianjin, CRH3 is exclusively Beijing-Tianjin, and CRH5 is under development, rumored to be used for Beijing-Harbin.


----------



## UD2

BarbaricManchurian said:


> CRH1 is in use in Guangzhou-Shenzhen line, CRH2 is in use for Shanghai-Hangzhou and Shanghai-Nanjing lines, along with Beijing-Tianjin, CRH3 is exclusively Beijing-Tianjin, and CRH5 is under development, rumored to be used for Beijing-Harbin.



Almost completely untrue.

The CRH1 and CRH2 runs in hundreds of routes all across China. Although you're right about the Guangzhou-Shenzhen line operating mainly CRH1s for its commuter transit featured design. 

CRH5 was introduced in the same time as the CRH1 and CRH2 and it runs mainly in northern China due to its superior ability to operate in colder and harsher weather. The CRH5 family was plagued with problems at its introduction, so it'll most likely stay in northern China until it proves its worthiness to other regions. 

The CRH3 is not exclusively for the Beijing-Tianjin line; the Beijing-Tianjin line just happens to be the first line to use this family of trains. CRH3 will most likely be also used on other 300-350km/h high-speed passenger only lines that are currently under constructions; that is unless the CRH3 proves to be a complete failure and the railway ministry decides to drop the family out of service completely. 

A bit more information, although the CRH2s all look alike, there are at least 5 sub models to the family. The CRH2-XXXA is the original 8 carriage trains designed in Japan. There are also CRH2-XXXB, XXXC, XXXD and XXXE that designates other models such as ones with 16 carriages instead of the original 8, 8 carriage models with sleeper cars, 16 carriage models with sleeper cars and models capable of operating at 350km/h, instead of the original designed 250km/h. The 350km/h models currently operate on the Beijing-Tianjin line along side of the CRH3.


----------



## foxmulder_ms

Thanks for detailed information.


----------



## henrypan123

*The CRH-1 train*

The CRH1 electric multiple units is a Chinese high-speed train based on Bombardier technology and built by a Chinese-Canadian joint venture between Bombardier and Sifang at Bombardier Sifang Power Transportation factory in Qingdao, Shandong Province, People's Republic of China. 
Its highest speed reaches 250km/h.


----------



## Railfan

China Development maglev sistem? When begin the construction of maglev sistem?


----------



## urbanfan89

^^ There was a proposal to build a Beijing-Shanghai maglev line with Transrapid technology, but that was changed to regular steel wheels HSR. A proposal to build Shanghai-Hangzhou Transrapid has been cancelled, reinstated, cancelled, reinstated, and cancelled. No one know what will happen, but a regular HSR is already under construction so it may never be built.


----------



## UD2

Railfan said:


> China Development maglev sistem? When begin the construction of maglev sistem?


A long ranged one will probably be delayed indefinately for the foreseeable future. 

The extention of a current Shanghai line to the city's other airport/transit hub may still have a chance of coming into existance.

This, ofcourse, rest almost solely onto good politics played and practiced by the German leaders, whom until recently have showned uncontrolled rudeness towards the Chinese; especially during the Olympics.


----------



## Tri-ring

UD2 said:


> This, ofcourse, rest almost solely onto good politics played and practiced by the German leaders, whom until recently have showned uncontrolled rudeness towards the Chinese; especially during the Olympics.


I don't follow, what are you talking about in particular. 
Please elaborate.


----------



## UD2

Tri-ring said:


> I don't follow, what are you talking about in particular.
> Please elaborate.


----------



## goschio

DL is friend of Germany. China should accept that.


----------



## z0rg

Please don't ruin this thread with politics.


----------



## big-dog

China to invest 120 bln yuan in second railway for Xinjiang



> www.chinaview.cn 2008-11-25 13:55:09
> 
> URUMQI, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- China will spend 120 billion yuan (17.6 billion U.S. dollars) to build a second railway linking the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with inland cities, according to information from a meeting of the Xinjiang committee of the Communist Party of China on Tuesday.
> 
> Construction is expected to begin next year, with investment from the central and local governments and other sources.
> 
> The new line will be parallel to the existing Lanxin Railway linking Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang. Only passenger trains will run on it.
> 
> When the new line is completed, the old Lanxin railway, running1,892 kilometers, will be used by cargo trains only.
> 
> Xinjiang, a vast region in China's far west, boasts rich oil, coal and other resources and is the country's major cotton producer. Lanxin is currently the only railway linking Xinjiang and other parts of China.
> 
> Railway officials said the new rail line will break the bottleneck of transport for Xinjiang in its economic development, ease the pressure on the Euro-Asian continental bridge and facilitate exchanges between China and its west neighbors.
> 
> Another 100 billion yuan would be injected to improve Xinjiang's highway network between 2009 and 2013, according to information from the meeting.


(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/25/content_10410141.htm)


----------



## UD2

goschio said:


> DL is friend of Germany. China should accept that.


not gonna go into anything. But the acceptence of the fact that German busineses will miss out on potential contracts should be mutual. That mentioned, I feel very sad that the Transrapid Maglev may become a victum of this. 

i'll stop it here on my part.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

so you put your view of politics into this thread, expect us to accept it and just "stop on your part".

Really funny.....and the Transrapid Maglev deal failed, because the germans didnt want to hand out the core technology, not because of a monk.


----------



## binhai

UD2 said:


> Almost completely untrue.
> 
> The CRH1 and CRH2 runs in hundreds of routes all across China. Although you're right about the Guangzhou-Shenzhen line operating mainly CRH1s for its commuter transit featured design.
> 
> CRH5 was introduced in the same time as the CRH1 and CRH2 and it runs mainly in northern China due to its superior ability to operate in colder and harsher weather. The CRH5 family was plagued with problems at its introduction, so it'll most likely stay in northern China until it proves its worthiness to other regions.
> 
> The CRH3 is not exclusively for the Beijing-Tianjin line; the Beijing-Tianjin line just happens to be the first line to use this family of trains. CRH3 will most likely be also used on other 300-350km/h high-speed passenger only lines that are currently under constructions; that is unless the CRH3 proves to be a complete failure and the railway ministry decides to drop the family out of service completely.
> 
> A bit more information, although the CRH2s all look alike, there are at least 5 sub models to the family. The CRH2-XXXA is the original 8 carriage trains designed in Japan. There are also CRH2-XXXB, XXXC, XXXD and XXXE that designates other models such as ones with 16 carriages instead of the original 8, 8 carriage models with sleeper cars, 16 carriage models with sleeper cars and models capable of operating at 350km/h, instead of the original designed 250km/h. The 350km/h models currently operate on the Beijing-Tianjin line along side of the CRH3.


Thanks, however, I've been in a CRH2 at 350km/h, so even though they travel on regular rail, they have a higher top speed than 200km/h CRH1. And I meant CRH3 is only at Beijing Tianjin for now, of course it will be placed in other lines later. Anyway, it's obvious that you're the expert, thanks for the info.


----------



## UD2

BarbaricManchurian said:


> Thanks, however, I've been in a CRH2 at 350km/h, so even though they travel on regular rail, they have a higher top speed than 200km/h CRH1. And I meant CRH3 is only at Beijing Tianjin for now, of course it will be placed in other lines later. Anyway, it's obvious that you're the expert, thanks for the info.


They're a different CRH2s. The ones that travel on regular rail only look similar to the 350km/h ones, but they are configurated differently. The ones that you're talking about are the CRH2-XXXC.

The 250KM/h ones are configured DT+M+M+T+T+M+M+DT. 

The 350KM/h ones are I believe configured as DT+M+M+M+M+M+M+DT.


----------



## UD2

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> so you put your view of politics into this thread, expect us to accept it and just "stop on your part".
> 
> Really funny.....and the Transrapid Maglev deal failed, because the germans didnt want to hand out the core technology, not because of a monk.


they brought the first line without tech transfer didn't they? Believe what you will, but everything always have everything to do with everything else. Be it politics, economics, social structure or just plain not paying enough under the table.

The technology transfer is but one of the issues out standing. But if you think this is the only reason that's stopping them from buying the line, then you're underestimating both the Chinese and Transrapid. 

And for your information Shanghai have, until now, approved the Transrapid Maglev extention (as far as I counted) at least 3 times, neither of which had Transrapid agreed to transfer technology. Shanghai do care about the technology, they also want the line. They even included the Maglev in the design of the Hongqiao Transit Hub, currently under construction. But the construction of the Maglev line still hasn't started. Can you tell me why?


----------



## UMSHK

Is there a map of China's vision of how the railway system will be like in 10 or 15 years? Which parts of the country is planning to build HSR?


----------



## diting

UMSHK said:


> Is there a map of China's vision of how the railway system will be like in 10 or 15 years? Which parts of the country is planning to build HSR?


here it is :lastest version
Bold blue lines and bold red lines are all high speed railway


----------



## UMSHK

Great map! Thanks! What are the stippled lines? Are they visions?


----------



## snow is red

*$730b plan to expand railways*

2008-11-28 


The national rail network is set to grow by 41,000 km by 2020, thanks to a 5 trillion yuan ($730 billion) government spending plan, a senior railways official said on Thursday.

By 2020, the country's rail network will stretch 120,000 km, Lu Dongfu, vice-minister of railways, said at a press conference in Beijing.










The large-scale projects will be good news for passengers, as journey times between capital cities will be "cut in half", he said.

The increased spending is part of the country's mid- to long-term railway plan, revisions to which were approved by the State Council on Oct 31, but announced only yesterday.

The project will include the construction of new rail lines, "doubling" existing ones, and the electrification of certain other sections, Lu said.

"By 2020, 41,000 km of new lines will be in place, up from the original plan to build 16,000 km of track," he said.

The massive plan will include the construction of routes linking China to Russia, Mongolia and other neighboring countries, and the expansion of cross-country routes, he said.

The high-speed rail network will also be extended by 16,000 km, rather than 12,000 km as originally planned, he said.

By 2020, the length of railways on which passenger trains can run at up to 200 kph will be 50,000 km, up from the planned 30,000 km, Lu said.

By linking all provincial capitals and cities with more than 500,000 residents, the network will be accessible to 90 percent of the population, he said.










The changes to the railway plan were made partly in response to the need to boost domestic demand, he said.

Yang Zhongmin, director of the railway ministry's planning department, said the project will create 6 million jobs, and consume 20 million tons of steel and 120 million tons of cement.

A number of rail projects, valued at 1 trillion yuan, are already under construction across the country, he said.

Next year, 600 billion yuan will be spent on the construction of track and 100 billion yuan on buying rolling stock, Yang said.

Also on Thursday, Zheng Jian, deputy chief engineer with the ministry, responded to recent suggestions in the media that China has a shortage of skilled manpower.

"We have about 30,000 professionals in railway design and geological surveying, which is more than enough to meet our requirements," he said.

Also, stringent control mechanisms have been developed to monitor construction quality and the use of funds, he said.

By the end of this year, the country's rail network will have grown to 79,000 km.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/28/content_7249032.htm


----------



## Whiteeclipse

I hope China speeds up the development plan for the railways. They still need to catch up to European Union (236,436 km) and United states (226,612 km).


----------



## big-dog

China´s railway projects to boost GDP by 1.5%



> 11-28-2008 09:12
> Railway authorities in China say they expect massive investment in the sector to boost GDP growth by as much as 1-and-a-half percent.
> 
> Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, the Ministry of Railways announced plans to build 40,000 kilometers of new lines over the next 12 years.
> 
> Total investment is expected to hit 5 trillion yuan. But 15 billion yuan is likely to be spend by the end of this year alone on 25 new projects, including several express links.
> 
> The Ministry also confirmed it had got government approval for mid-and-long term construction plans, and that it expects to sell at least 100 billion yuan of construction bonds next year.
> 
> Expanding railways is one of the key parts of China's recently announced plan to spend up to 4 trillion yuan on developing infrastructure and boosting domestic demand.


(CCTV.com)


----------



## big-dog

China to operate 16,000-km passenger-dedicated lines by 2020



> www.chinaview.cn 2008-11-27
> 
> BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) on Thursday increased the mileage of passenger-dedicated lines planned to be in service by 2020 to 16,000 km in a revised Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan.
> 
> According to the revised plan, announced officially on Thursday, China plans to have more than 120,000 km of rail lines by 2020, about 60 percent of which are to be electrified.
> 
> This is an increase on a 2004 plan for about 100,000 km of railways and 12,000 km passenger-dedicated lines by 2020. The old plan had only 50 percent of the country's railways electrified.
> 
> At a press conference held to announce the plan, MOR vice minister Lu Dongfu said the plan was approved by the State Council, or the Cabinet, on Oct. 31.
> 
> "The 16,000-km express passenger rail network (capable of speeds of more than 200 km/hour) is designed to link provincial cities with a population of more than 500,000. The network will significantly cut journey times," Lu said.
> 
> "Construction of all railway projects in the revised Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan will need a total investment of some 5 trillion yuan (732 billion U.S. dollars)," Lu said.
> 
> This revised Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan covers the years 2004-2020, and so includes money already spent and lines already built.
> 
> In addition some of the funding for the Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan money will come from the 4 trillion yuan economic stimulus package announced earlier this month (which covers the period 2009-2010), but the vice minister did not elaborate on which projects they were or how much money was involved.
> 
> New lines revealed in the plan, and not part of the economic stimulus package, include a line in Liaoning Province linking Shenyang to Dandong, and a line in Henan Province linking Zhengzhou (the provincial capital) and Luoyang.
> 
> "The revised plan is set to modernize the network and help the economy achieve sound and rapid development," said Lu.
> 
> "Railway has been the weakest chain in the country's infrastructure with insufficient capacity. Railway transportation has long lagged behind the economic development," Lu said.
> 
> China's laggard railway system has been having a hard time keeping up with the huge mobility needs and booming economy, Yang said. With many trains running near or above capacity, the country's rail network is strained, but the demands on it are increasing.
> 
> By the end of this year, Lu said China would have over 79,000-km rail lines in operation, about 6,000 km more than that at the end of 2003.
> 
> China currently only has one high-speed rail line in operation - the Beijing-Tianjin link, which is 120 km in length.


(Chinaview.cn)


----------



## snow is red

*Shanghai-Beijing high-speed trains on track for next month*

2008-11-24


A BEIJING-Shanghai high-speed night train is expected to debut next month, reducing travel time by more than 2 hours, a local newspaper reported today.

The Youth Daily report said railway authorities haven’t decided ticket prices or departure times yet for the approximate 9h15m trip. However, tickets are likely to be more than 500 yuan (US$73) considering the price of existing trains. 

The highest current price for sleeper tickets between the two cities is 499 yuan.

One train will likely depart about 9:45pm in each city and arrive at their destinations about 7am the next day, according to the report. The shortest travel time for other trains between the two cities is 11.5 hours.

The trains are likely to be attractive to business passengers as they are comfortable and cheaper than flights, the report said. 

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200811/20081124/article_381851.htm


----------



## henrypan123

*CRH-2 Highspeed Trains*

The CRH2 is one of the high-speed train models in China. The CRH2 is a modified E2-1000 Series Shinkansen design. Each train consists of 8 cars. The first 3 sets (numbers 2001-2003) were built in Japan, the next 6 sets (2004-2009) were delivered in complete knock down form and assembled by CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock. The remaining 51 sets (2010-2060) were built by Sifang through technology transfer from Japan.
These trains have a maximum operation speed 250 km/h.


----------



## henrypan123

*CRH-2c Highspeed Trains*

Sifang designed a variant of CRH2, also known as CRH2C, which has maximum operating speed up to 300 km/h by replacing two intermediate trailer cars with motored cars. The first batch of 300 km/h trains were rolled out from Sifang plant on December 2007, and expected to be running on Beijing-Tianjin Intercity line, along with German CRH3 trains.

During the test on 22 April 2008, CRH2C reached a top speed over 370 km/h on Beijing-Tianjin high-speed rail.


----------



## foxmulder_ms

Great pictures and info, thanks


----------



## goschio

henrypan123 said:


>


Nice view. Looks like busy high speed rail traffic.


----------



## UD2

goschio said:


> Nice view. Looks like busy high speed rail traffic.


Most Chinese mainlines are at capacity. Taffic is usually very busy.


----------



## SimFox

CRH2C runs between Beijing and Tianjin with top speed of 342 km/h


----------



## snow is red

SimFox said:


> CRH2C runs between Beijing and Tianjin with top speed of 342 km/h


This is the report in Chinese that the train reached over 370 kmph in a test in April

http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2008-04/25/content_8049113.htm


----------



## snow is red

*Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railroad nears completion*

2008-12-07 


BEIJING -- The Ministry of Railways (MOR) said here on Sunday that the world's longest high-speed rail line, connecting the capital and Shanghai, is nearing completion.

MOR spokesman Wang Yongping said 91 percent of the track length, or 1,203 km, has been completed. Remaining major tasks include bridges over the Huaihe and Yangtze rivers and the main terminal in Shanghai, he said. More than 110,000 workers are busy with the remainder of the project. 
Trains will take less than five hours to make the run, which is now at least 11 hours.

The MOR has said it plans to have 120,000 km of rail lines in service by 2020, of which 16,000 km would be dedicated to only passenger services.

By the end of this year, China will have more than 79,000 km of rail lines. To meet the 2020 target will require about 5 trillion yuan (US$732 billion), the MOR said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/07/content_7279166.htm


----------



## zergcerebrates

^ what trains will be used? Is it those CRH?


----------



## UD2

zergcerebrates said:


> ^ what trains will be used? Is it those CRH?


Very likely to be CRH2-XXXE (or if it is not then it'll be something close like D) which is the sleeper train version of the 350km/h CRH2-XXXC.


CRH-2XXXC


----------



## snow is red

*China to Invest 150 Bln Yuan in Railways in Shanxi Province*


2008-12-07 


China plans to invest more than 150 billion yuan (21.9 billion U.S. dollars) in its northern coal-rich Shanxi Province *by 2015*, according to officials from the Ministry of Railways and the province.

Shanxi, accounting for one-third of China's coal output, is expected to have 5,300 km of railways by 2015, up from 3,300 km at present, said Yang Zhongmin, head of the ministry's department of development and planning, at a meeting here in the capital of Shanxi on Saturday evening. 

Construction will start in the first half of 2009 on at least three new rail lines, according to the meeting. 

Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun pledged the ministry's support for the projects. 

Zhang Baoshun, Secretary of the Shanxi provincial committee of the Communist Party of China, said the projects would play a positive role in boosting domestic demand amid the global financial crisis.

Zhang said the province's coal could be shipped directly to coastal ports in Shandong Province with the construction of a railway in the mid-southern part of Shanxi.

http://english.cri.cn/3130/2008/12/07/1601s430597.htm


----------



## aquablue

02tonyl said:


> *Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railroad nears completion*
> 
> 2008-12-07
> 
> 
> BEIJING -- The Ministry of Railways (MOR) said here on Sunday that the world's longest high-speed rail line, connecting the capital and Shanghai, is nearing completion.
> 
> MOR spokesman Wang Yongping said 91 percent of the track length, or 1,203 km, has been completed. Remaining major tasks include bridges over the Huaihe and Yangtze rivers and the main terminal in Shanghai, he said. More than 110,000 workers are busy with the remainder of the project.
> Trains will take less than five hours to make the run, which is now at least 11 hours.
> 
> The MOR has said it plans to have 120,000 km of rail lines in service by 2020, of which 16,000 km would be dedicated to only passenger services.
> 
> By the end of this year, China will have more than 79,000 km of rail lines. To meet the 2020 target will require about 5 trillion yuan (US$732 billion), the MOR said.
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/07/content_7279166.htm


I thought news articles said that this broke ground only this year...how could it be nearly done already? 1200km HSR done in 1 year? :nuts:


----------



## foxmulder_ms

I had the same question. Is this news correct?


----------



## snow is red

^^ Around 24th of November, Shanghai Daily reported about the debut of this Shanghai-Beijing line around this month or early next year, so for the time being, we suppose that this news is correct. And plus I think Shanghai want to have everything in place and ready for the Expo 2010.


----------



## foxmulder_ms

what can I say? This must be a record. 1200km high speed, passenger dedicated railway in a year... wow!


----------



## big-dog

I still can not believe it, it's the same 350kmh Shanghai-Beijing rail? isn't it supposed to finish by 2012-2013? I remember the project starting ceremony was held only a couple of month ago.


----------



## 33Hz

Already? No way.

Just a few days ago we had reports of a new 9 hour sleeper, not 350km/h HSR.


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## snow is red

big-dog said:


> I still can not believe it, it's the same 350kmh Shanghai-Beijing rail? isn't it supposed to finish by 2012-2013? I remember the project starting ceremony was held only a couple of month ago.


In September, 80% of the track was completed that is 1,059 km within 5 months. 

Nearly 100,000 workers and engineers are involved in the US$31.6 billion project, and they will use 21,000 pieces of machinery, according to the leading group of the project.

http://en.chinagate.com.cn/news/2008-09/19/content_16502982.htm

There were many changes regarding to this project, 2006, the planned operation speed for this line was just 200kmph and the construction was meant to start in 2006 .

In 2007, the intended completion year was forecasted to be in 2013 and not in time for the Expo 2010.

Ground-breaking ceremony of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway was on April 18, 2008.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/18/content_8002058.htm
The whole railway is said to be completed in 5 years, but it seems like everything will be fully operational by next year. 

Trains would run at speeds of 350 km per hour. China's first domestically produced train, able to reach 350 kilometers per hour.All the technological equipments for the self-designed line was produced by domestic companies.


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## UD2

33Hz said:


> Already? No way.
> 
> Just a few days ago we had reports of a new 9 hour sleeper, not 350km/h HSR.


it's a sleeper. you heard right.


----------



## big-dog

@02tonyl. Thanks for the info.

Hope everything works fine. It'll be a miracle is it can be in opertaion by 2010.


----------



## 33Hz

The linked story says construction has started on 80% of the line, not that it is completed.

In light of things like http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-09/02/content_6988059.htm it seems too far fetched to me.


----------



## Andrew

They're not true, here's another article that clears up the confusion:

*Beijing-Shanghai HSR: 91% Done (Well, Almost, That Is)*

91% of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway done! (If you take just the cursory-est glances at the headlines, you sure feel that way.) Wow-ee, now that was fast. 

We certainly hope it was the case. Actually, word's out that works have just begun at the 91% stretch. That means that work is but merely beginning. It'll take quite a while for the whole thing to be built -- bridges, tracks, the whole thingamajig. 

We hope works begin on the remaining 9% real soon. By the way, when the Beijing-Shanghai HSR is finally done in 2012-2013-ish, rail travel between the Jing and Shanghai will be cut down to 5 hours or less at speeds exceeding 350 km/h. The Beijing-Shanghai HSR will join its Beijing-Tianjin brethren at the Beijing South Railway Station. 

What a difference it'll make once you hop off Subway Line 4 and jump on the HSR... 

http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beiji...ing-shanghai-hsr-91-done-well-almost-that-is/


----------



## staff

^^
I would hardly use City Weekend as a source for these kinds of news though (rather, entertainment related news, like Shanghaiist etc.).


----------



## hoosier

Great job China. YOu are smart to invest in high speed and conventional passenger rail. In America, we are nearly incapable of investing in such projects because we think trains are communist and that God loves to burn oil and coal and drive on roads.hno:


----------



## 33Hz

So 91% of the work is done but some complex bridges etc means it won't be ready until 2013? WTF?

Why would they throw 100,000 people at it with associated cost, only for those sections to sit around idle for 4 or 5 years?

Let's see some pics.


----------



## snow is red

staff said:


> ^^
> I would hardly use City Weekend as a source for these kinds of news though (rather, entertainment related news, like Shanghaiist etc.).


I agree, such news source only give me headaches with all the satire and sarcasm sometimes and hard to tell if they are being serious or not.


----------



## staff

^^
Plus they don't always have their facts straight about these kinds of things. Not that "normal media" by any extent is very reliable either, but City Weekend/Shanghaiist etc. don't even have to pretend to be doing any research...


----------



## henrypan123

*CRH-5 Highspeed Trains*

The China Railways CRH5 is an electric multiple unit high-speed train in use by China Railway High-speed. China Railways has contracted Alstom to assemble 60 sets, which are based on Pendolino trains used in Finland. The CRH5 are non-tilting trains.


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## hkskyline

*China Railway Signs 5 Construction Contracts Worth CNY5.84B *
9 December 2008

HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--China Railway Group Ltd. (0390.HK) said Tuesday it recently signed five rail construction projects worth a total of CNY5.84 billion.

China Railway, the world's third-largest construction contractor by revenue, said it signed construction contracts for rail links in Chinese cities including Chongqing, Xian and Wuhan.

It said the contracts are equivalent to 3.24% of its 2007 core revenue.

China Railway Group, which is listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong, has built over two-thirds of China's more than 75,000 kilometers of railway links and 95% of the country's electrified railway lines. It also builds expressways, bridges and tunnels.


----------



## snow is red

*Railway construction project in south China to link region* 

2008-12-14 

NANNING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) --Work on a massive transportation project in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is underway. 

Construction on four railroads got underway this October. Sunday, the Office for Railway Construction said work will begin on another 12 lines at the beginning of 2009. 

Combined all 16 railroads will stretch 4,262 kilometers. Of that, 2,802 kilometers will be in Guangxi. 

The estimated cost of the infrastructure project is placed at 196.2 billion yuan (about 28.85 billion U.S. dollars), said Li Hongqing, deputy chief of the regional office for railway construction. 

"A modernized railway network will be in place by the year 2016,with Nanning, the regional capital of Guangxi, as the center," said Li. "The lines will link up to southwestern and central China, and to ASEAN member states." 

Not only will there be more destinations for travelers it will also take them less time to get places. 

A single journey from Nanning to Beijing will only take nine hours instead of the current 28 hours, according to Ma Biao, chairman of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional Government. 

Inter-city train services will also help shorten travel time from the regional capital to three coastal cities on Beibu Gulf --Qinzhou, Beihai and Fangchenggang-- to all within one hour's journey, said Ma. 

Currently, it takes one and a half hours for a single journey by train from Nanning to Qinzhou, or three hours from Nanning to Beihai. There is no direct train service from Nanning to Fangchenggang. 

By 2007, there were only 2,750 kilometers of railway roads in service across Guangxi and 1,879 kilometers of freeways. 

"The existing railroads were backward and fell far behind from meeting the growing demand in Guangxi, which has put our region at a disadvantageous position," said Chairman Ma. 

Guangxi will invest more than 400 billion yuan (58 billion U.S. dollars) on transportation infrastructure over the next five years, Ma said at a specially convened press conference held in Beijing early this month. 

Industry observers say the transportation construction boom will help Guangxi improve its potential appeal and win over more investors. 

Guangxi Autonomous Regional Office for Railway Construction is a new agency created late last month under the regional government to oversee railway construction work. 

Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, one of China's five minority autonomous regions, borders Vietnam. 

It was founded on Dec. 11, 1958 and has 12 ethnic groups. The total population in Guangxi by the end of 2007 was more than 50 million, a third are of the Zhuang ethnic minority. 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/14/content_10503524.htm


----------



## hkskyline

*S. China region, Vietnam to start regular rail service in January *

NANNING, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- Passenger trains between south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Vietnam will have regular daily service starting on January 1, China's railway authorities said on Thursday.

The train will leave Nanning, Guangxi's capital, at 6:15 p.m. and arrive in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, at 7 a.m. the next day. There will also be a train departing Hanoi at 8:30 p.m.. It reaches Nanning at 10:05 a.m. the next day.

The trains, which run daily, are operated by the Nanning Railway Bureau, said Chen Boshi, the bureau's director.

Chen said a regular passenger route would alleviate high demand from Vietnam's businessmen, laborers and students in Guangxi.

Currently, temporary passenger rail service from Nanning to Hanoi only runs on Tuesday and Saturday.


----------



## UD2

henrypan123 said:


> The China Railways CRH5 is an electric multiple unit high-speed train in use by China Railway High-speed. China Railways has contracted Alstom to assemble 60 sets, which are based on Pendolino trains used in Finland. The CRH5 are non-tilting trains.



If you ask me. The CRH5 are the best looking family of trains in the entire ranks of high-speed trains in China.

Too bad they had such so many problems during its rough start. I really expected Alstom to put more efforts into building their trains. Especially for a customer such as China, which carry potentials of endless follow-on orders.

Bombardier got a huge follow-on order already, Hitachi is in an even better position than Bombardier and even Siemens, which completely pissed the Chinese off during the first round bid process have secured some orders in their 300km/h class of trains. To date, I haven't heard of any large follow-on orders being placed for Alstoms, have anyone else?


----------



## foxmulder_ms

Yeah.. Alstom is the worst one among those four as far as i have red.


----------



## diting

*Insane guangzhou new railwaystation model(currently U/C)*


----------



## diting

*some interesting stuff*

1.shanghai hongqiao hub(上海虹桥站)








2.new guangzhou railway station(新广州站)








3.hangzhou east railway station(杭州东站)








4.nanjing south railway station(南京南站)








5.wuhan new railway station(武汉站)


----------



## diting

6.xuzhou new railway station(新徐州站)








7.zhengzhou new railway station(郑州东站)









there are dozens to come :banana:


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## foxmulder_ms

model looks fantastic!


----------



## staff

Great maps too. China's railway infrastructure will be fantastic in a not too distant future!


----------



## big-dog

*Beijing-Hangzhou Sleeper HSR debut on Dec 21 '08*

Duration: 11 hours 22 minutes
Max speed: 250km/h
Sleeper one-way price: 730 - 840 Yuan





































(from 东方网)


----------



## hkskyline

*Get your head down for a trip to Beijing *
17 December 2008
Shanghai Daily

The express trains offering sleepers will not only run faster than normal express trains between Shanghai and Beijing but ensure a more comfortable ride because of their improved design, the Shanghai railway administration said yesterday.

The country's first bullet trains to offer sleeping compartments will come into service on Sunday between Shanghai and Beijing and between Beijing and Hangzhou in neighboring Zhejiang Province. A trip from Shanghai to Beijing will take 9 hours and 59 minutes, 1 hour and 29 minutes shorter than the previous fastest non-stop express.

The new trains will each have 16 carriages with a total capacity of 630 passengers.

Thirteen of the carriages will offer sleeping berths for 520 passengers, while the other two carriages will provide normal seating for 110 people.

Each sleeper carriage will have 10 separate compartments.

One carriage will be used as a restaurant and pub.

Touch control panels and reading lamps are installed at each berth and each sleeper will also have an LCD TV installed with passengers able to use headphones to watch TV without disturbing others.

Sockets on all carriages allow recharging of electronic appliances while mothers will find a baby-care table in each of the toilets on board.

There will be service-call buttons available inside the toilets and each sleeper compartment.

Two trains, the D306 and D302, will leave Shanghai for Beijing every day starting on Sunday at 9:41pm and 9:46pm. Their counterpart trains, the D301 and D305, head for Shanghai from Beijing at 9:39pm and 9:44pm daily, officials said.

The trains will be less noisy and run much more smoothly than previous trains, the railway officials said.

An upper berth costs 655 yuan and a lower sleeper 730 yuan for a single journey, said the railway operators.


----------



## hoosier

250 km/h is not true HSR. Speeds of at least 300 km/h are needed, especially on a trip from Beijing to Shanghai. 9 1/2 hours is too long.


----------



## ANR

*China to spend $731b on railways by 2020*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-21

China will spend 5 trillion yuan ($730.6 billion) until 2020 to add 41,000 km (25,480 miles) to its already big rail network, state media said, as the government tries to boost domestic demand and ease strains on a jammed system.

The latest edition of Outlook Weekly, published by Xinhua news agency, cited Deputy Railway Minister Lu Dongfu as saying the new railways would help promote economic growth, ease transport bottlenecks and provide at least six million jobs. It did not say how much of the investment was new, and how much had already been approved by the central government, although some of the projects have already begun, such as a high-speed link from Beijing to the commercial capital Shanghai. "Over the next two years these projects will satisfy urgent transport needs, ease bottlenecks on the railways, promote regional economic development and economic growth," Outlook Weekly paraphrased Lu as saying.

New railways would be built linking major cities, and others would be dedicated to transporting coal in inland provinces and regions including Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, the report said. Last month China announced a sweeping 4 trillion yuan economic stimulus package of spending over the next two years, with a large portion of the funds targeting infrastructure projects such as roads and railways. Beijing wants to boost domestic demand to help offset a slowdown in key export markets in Europe and North America, hoping to generate enough jobs to keep a lid on labour unrest and social instability.

While China has an extensive and increasingly efficient rail network, it is still beset by problems, and many parts of the country have poor or non-existent connections. Every year during the Lunar New Year, millions of Chinese pack the railways to go home, many standing for hours as seats are so hard to get hold of. Even at normal times it can be hard to obtain a ticket.

The railways are also important haulers of freight and energy supplies such as coal around the country, but sheer volume of traffic can lead to delays and slow delivery. The government has been spending billions of dollars on transport over the past few decades, and hopes to improve access especially to China's vast and underdeveloped inland regions.

"Once the railways are open, conditions will improve and more trains will be able to run, leading to lower transport costs, shorter travel times for passengers and freight and other direct economic benefits," the report quoted railway planning chief Yang Zhongmin as saying. "It will also ease communication restrictions, improve the investment environment and have an enormous effect on industrial development," Yang added.


----------



## ANR

*China Railway Construction Wins $3.6 Billion New-Line Contract*

From China Daily on 12/23/08:

China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC), a major railway builder in China, has won contracts worth 24.97 billion yuan ($3.65 billion) for rail construction projects in southern China through its six subsidiaries, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Dec 23.

The value of the contracts is equivalent to 14.07 percent of the company's 2007 sales under domestic accounting standards.

Included in the contracts is the new railway from Guiyang, capital city of Southwest China's Guizhou province, to Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong province, which is among China's massive stimulus package to develop infrastructures.

China Railway Group, the country's largest railway and highway builder, said its subsidiaries had won 7.91 billion yuan in rail construction contracts, equivalent to 4.38 percent of its 2007 sales.

Another construction contractor, China Railway Erju Co Ltd, won contracts worth 5.36 billion yuan.

China will spend 5 trillion yuan by 2020 to add another 41,000 km to its rail network, Xinhua news agency reported over the weekend.


----------



## foxmulder_ms

hoosier said:


> 250 km/h is not true HSR. Speeds of at least 300 km/h are needed, especially on a trip from Beijing to Shanghai. 9 1/2 hours is too long.


patience may friend...


----------



## henrypan123

*The CRH3 Highspeed Trains*

The CRH3 is now a high-speed train used on the Beijing-Tianjin high-speed rail line in China. It is capable of service speed of 350 km/h.

The first three were built in Germany by Siemens, and the rest are being built partly by Tangshan Railway Vehicle and in Germany.

On July 27, 2006, the joint project office was opened at Tangshan, Hebei Province. Of the German trains, the first one was shipped from Bremerhaven on December 19, 2007. The first Chinese-built CRH3 was unveiled on April 11, 2008.


----------



## RSG

I really like the look of these trains. Take note Australian Government.


----------



## staff

http://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/it...peed_rail_to_connect_shanghai_kunming_by_2015


> Official: High-speed rail to connect Shanghai, Kunming by 2015
> 
> Thursday, 18th December 2008 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (3)
> 
> A feasibility study is underway for a new high-speed rail line between Shanghai and Kunming, construction of which is expected to begin in 2009, according to Kunming media reports.
> 
> The new rail line, which is scheduled to be completed in 2015 – around the same time that the rail network linking Kunming and Singapore is hoped to be completed – *will shorten the travel time between Shanghai and Kunming from 37 hours to less than nine hours.*
> 
> The Shanghai-Kunming passenger line (沪昆客运专线) will connect Shanghai and Kunming via the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan, passing through the major cities of Hangzhou, Nanchang and Changsha. *Its target speed is reportedly 350 km/hr* – compare to France's TGV and Japan's Shinkansen aka 'Bullet Train' which currently operate at 320 and 300 km/hr, respectively.
> 
> The cross-country line is part of a nationwide rail upgrade that has allocated 500 million yuan (US$73.2 million) in funds for Yunnan province alone.
> 
> According to China Rail Ministry plans, Yunnan will not only be on the receiving end of improved rail connectivity with central and eastern China over the next six to seven years, it will also improve its regional and internal rail network. Kunming Rail Ministry officials told local media that the following projects have also been approved:
> 
> 
> • Lijiang to Shangri-la (Zhongdian): schedule yet to be made public
> 
> • Yunnan to Guilin – construction to start next year and finish in 2015
> 
> • A rail line around Dianchi Lake: scheduled for completion in 2010
> 
> • Guangtong to Dali: schedule yet to be made public
> 
> • Kunming to Yuxi: construction to start next year and finish in 2015


----------



## hoosier

The Chinese government gets it when it comes to the connection between infrastructure investment and economic growth and prosperity.

I get so excited reading about all of the new rail construction in CHina!


----------



## nachalnik

hoosier said:


> 250 km/h is not true HSR. Speeds of at least 300 km/h are needed, especially on a trip from Beijing to Shanghai. 9 1/2 hours is too long.



9,5 hours is perfect - consider that it is an overnight-train. Boarding at 2230, going to bed at 2300, sleeping 8 hrs till 0700, arrival at 0800 - what can be better?


----------



## ANR

*China's Great Railway Expansion*

*Beijing is ramping up its shipping and passenger network--but may need to cede control to attract investors*

October 23, 2008 from Business Week
By Chi-Chu Tschang 

Beijing - Two or three times a year, Cargill's joint-venture fertilizer plant in China's remote Yunnan province has to shut down, usually for weeks at a stretch. That's when there aren't any railcars available for shipping its fertilizer to customers across China. Without railcars, the factory's warehouse fills to overflowing, and production has to halt. "There's a huge demand for shipping, but the railroads can only meet 30% of the demand," says Zhang Hong, sales manager of the plant, which shut down yet again in October.

For decades, China has neglected investment in railroads in favor of building highways. With less than 49,000 miles of rails, China has roughly a third of America's track for an area of similar size. The nation's rails carry a quarter of global train cargo and passenger traffic on only 6% of the world's track, making its system the busiest on the planet. "China's strained railroads have already become a bottleneck for the economy," says Yu Tengqun, secretary of the board of state-owned China Railway Group, which has built two-thirds of China's railroad network since 1949.

*CRISSCROSSING THE MAP*
China is now undertaking the world's biggest railway expansion since the U.S. laid its transcontinental line in the 1860s. Beijing plans to spend $248 billion through 2020 on 75,000 miles of new track, for both freight and high-speed passenger lines. At that point, China's high-speed passenger network will likely be the biggest on earth.

Despite these colossal ambitions, a nagging question remains: Can anyone make money from all this? Equipment suppliers, such as China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp. and multinationals like Siemens, certainly can. But it's hard to profit from running a railroad on the mainland. Analysts at UBS estimate China's Ministry of Railways, which operates the railroads, has a net profit margin of less than one percent on revenues of about $35 billion. The Ministry maintains majority control over all rail lines and sets freight rates for farm products and ticket prices for migrant workers at artificially low levels. It wouldn't comment for this article. 
That pricing policy is politically smart but commercially ruinous. Only 16 of China's 26 joint-venture railway companies―each of which involve the Ministry and often local governments as well―are marginally profitable, according to UBS. The rest chug along in the red. In June, China's first private enterprise to invest in a railway project, Guangyu Group, decided to reduce its stake in the Quchang Railway to 19%, from 34%. The company was unwilling to comment.

Pressure on the Ministry of Railways to find the billions needed for all this expansion may eventually force it to loosen its grip on pricing and cede control of at least some of the railroads. "There is a lot of capital now that is very interested in building railroads," says Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University who researches railway reforms. Until that happens, China's rail industry will continue to attract more business than it can handle and fewer investors than it needs.


----------



## henrypan123

*CRH Sleeper Trains from Shanghai to Beijing*

CRH is short for China Railway Highspeed.
Please visit this website to see the report and video：
http://news.163.com/08/1222/08/4TOL5IAL0001124J.html


----------



## SimFox

At these prices (650-750RMB) how could they compete with planes that are at about 350 RMB for the same BJ-SH / BJ -HZ routes??


----------



## Whiteeclipse

SimFox said:


> At these prices (650-750RMB) how could they compete with planes that are at about 350 RMB for the same BJ-SH / BJ -HZ routes??


Good question.

I myself think people think it's safer to use rail then air.


----------



## Whiteeclipse

ANR said:


> For decades, China has neglected investment in railroads in favor of building highways.


I think the reason for that is because using highways to move cargo with trucks provides more jobs which is why maybe China is investing alot more into highways for now.


----------



## Andrew

Whiteeclipse said:


> I think the reason for that is because using highways to move cargo with trucks provides more jobs which is why maybe China is investing alot more into highways for now.


I think there is also the fact that even though it was not high-tech or fast, one legacy of China's communist period was a very extensive railway network. I think in comparison, roads didn't receive anything like as much investment under Mao as rail did.

Now that they've mostly brought the road network up to scratch, they can focus on supplementing China's already very comprehensive and successful railway network by providing direct high capacity, high speed services to key cities in order to encourage further economic development. I think as far as infrastructure goes, China's government has its priorities right.


----------



## antovador

SimFox said:


> At these prices (650-750RMB) how could they compete with planes that are at about 350 RMB for the same BJ-SH / BJ -HZ routes??





Whiteeclipse said:


> Good question.
> 
> I myself think people think it's safer to use rail then air.


More than that, China need an efficient network transportation to not use vast quantity of oil but China, for now, has coal to use in electricity plants. Then high speed train is an answer to help China not depend much to oil. In planes, oil prices influences more directly the price of plane travel , 350 rmb can be more expensive rapidly without talking about fees and procedures more complicates than in trains. However, high speed train or not, the train transportation can use many types of energy supply not only oil but electricity too by coal plants, dams, nuclear plants and renewables energies of course to reduce pollutants. For now, planes use only kerosen from oil and takes decades for another energy supply for mass plane transportation.


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## henrypan123

I have just updated the post on #947. So the photos are available now.


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## hoosier

Why should rail lines make money? Transportation is a public good and should be funded by the government.


----------



## ANR

*Rail steel demand booms in China*

From: www.chinamining.org
Updated: 2008-11-25


Chinese government's stimulus package will bring a demand of 245 billion to 350 billion yuan for rail steel, according to Haitong Securities.

Earlier, the government announced the stimulus package that includes a 3,500-billion-yuan investment into the railway industry in the next three years, 7~10 percent of which will go to the rail construction.

Currently, the four major rail steel producers in China are Angang Steel, Baogang Steel, Panzhihua New Steel & Vanadium and Wuhan Iron and Steel. Among them, Panzhihua New Steel & Vanadium enjoys the largest output volume, with an expected heavy rail steel production of over one million tons this year.

Railway investment plan for 2009 alone will reach 600 billion yuan, up 70 percent from this year, according to Yang Zhongmin from China Railway Ministry. And railway infrastructure construction will increase the steel demand by eight million tons to 20 million tons next year, of which the rail steel demand alone grows by 3.5 million tons.

The current total output of the above four steel producers is around 4.5 million tons per year. Thus, expanding their production capacity will be necessary.

Rail steel production of Wuhan Iron and Steel can reach 250,000 tons this year. And the company will enter the high-speed railway market next year if its products for 350-km/h railways pass related technical tests at the end of this year. By then, its annual production will rise to 1.05 million tons.

Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway, the only high-speed railway under construction in China presently, will need rail steel of around 300,000 tons, almost 1/12 of the country's total production capacity. The project will probably start to invite bids for rail steel (mainly for 350-km/h railways) at the end of 2009, according to market insiders.

Panzhihua Steel covers 40-percent shares on China's heavy rail steel market. On the current huge investment from the government, Panzhihua Steel Group and Vanadium have determined to increase the output of heavy steel to over 100,000 tons per month.


----------



## test0012

ANR said:


> From: www.chinamining.org
> Updated: 2008-11-25
> 
> Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway, *the only high-speed railway under construction in China presently*, will need rail steel of around 300,000 tons, almost 1/12 of the country's total production capacity. The project will probably start to invite bids for rail steel (mainly for 350-km/h railways) at the end of 2009, according to market insiders.


Dozens of HSRL is under construction in China presently.


----------



## snow is red

*China completes 1st high-speed railway in central region*

2008-12-30

WUHAN - Construction of the Hefei-Wuhan Railway, the first high-speed line in central China, has been completed after three years, the government of Wuhan City said on Tuesday.

The 350-km line cost 16.8 billion yuan (US$2.46 billion). It will reduce travel time from eight and a half hours to two hours. Trains will run at 200 km per hour, the Wuhan government said.

The line is the middle part of China's first east-west high-speed rail link, the Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu Railway.

The Ministry of Railways plans to have 120,000 km of lines in service by 2020, of which 16,000 km would be exclusively for passenger services. At present, China has more than 79,000 km of rail lines. To meet the 2020 target will cost about 5 trillion yuan, the ministry said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/30/content_7354906.htm


----------



## binhai

test0012 said:


> Dozens of HSRL is under construction in China presently.


lol, the article just got pwnd by the post right after yours, what inaccurate information, surprising since it's actually a Chinese news source that should know better!


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## snow is red

^^ Good news source to quote like Xinhua and China Daily regarding to stuff like this, they have rather accurate information.....well if you don't mind a few typos sometimes.


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## snow is red

*China to double railway investment in 2009*

2008-12-31 

BEIJING - Amid a surge in planned infrastructure projects next year aimed at boosting domestic demand, China plans to almost double its investment in railways to about 600 billion yuan (US$87.9 billion).

The money is part of the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package announced by the government earlier this year.

In 2008, China spent 330 billion yuan on railways, according to a national conference on railway construction held here Wednesday.

Part of next year's 600 billion yuan would be used to build a total of 5,148 km of new rails, said Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun at the meeting.

The money will also help put five passenger-dedicated, high-speed lines into operation next year, according to Liu. These rails will link the central city of Wuhan to the southern city of Guangzhou; Zhengzhou in central Henan Province to Xi'an in northwest Shaanxi Province; Ningbo to Wenzhou, both in east China's Zhejiang Province; Wenzhou to Fuzhou in southern Fujian Province; and Fuzhou to Xiamen, also in Fujian.

The ministry also planned to start 70 new projects next year with part of the money. Those projects will need a total investment of 1.5 trillion yuan to be completed, Liu said.

Rail transport strain to be eased

Liu also predicted railway travel would be much easier by 2012. Currently, there are not enough seats for all the people who want to travel, especially during the Spring Festival every year, when millions are on the move.

"There could be a historical change in the country's railway transport by 2012. The bottle-neck restraints both in passenger and cargo transportation could be removed," he said.

Railways inside the country would reach 110,000 km by 2012. About 13,000 km of passenger lines, which allow trains to travel between 200 to 350 km per hour, would be put into use.

"Such coverage of passenger rails should be able to ensure that passenger needs are satisfied," he said

Rail lines across the country added up to 78,000 km at the end of 2007.

The ministry also plans to add more rails to busy routes and to provide separate rails for passenger and cargo transport. This should also help boost transport capacity and efficiency by 2012.

Liu envisioned inter-city rail systems would be put into place by 2012 in populous regions, such as the Shanghai-led Yangtze River Delta, Guangzhou-centered Pearl River Delta and Beijing-led Bohai areas.

Construction on railways began to boom in China after the country initiated a mid- and long-term plan in 2004. Liu said the country revised the plan this year so the distance of rail lines would increase to 120,000 km by 2020, from the original goal of 100,000 km.

The country also raised rail speeds to help with passenger flow. The latest change came in April last year.

About 1.46 billion people traveled by rail this year, up 10.9 percent from last year. Both transport capacity and efficiency had improved after train speeds increased, Liu said.

In addition, 3.3 billion tonnes of cargo had been delivered by rail, up 4.9 percent year on year.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-12/31/content_7358177.htm


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## zaphod

Are there stations in between the cities?

Even though city-to-city it might be quicker to fly, if you want to go to a town in between fast but there aren't regular flights the high speed train is better.

I live in a town in Texas with 150,000 people. To go by air there are only 2 daily flights to Dallas. But we are on a planned(yeah right...) high-speed line and someday you could just take the train at any time you want to another city with better airline options(like Southwest at Austin).


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## big-dog

Andrew said:


> I think there is also the fact that even though it was not high-tech or fast, one legacy of China's communist period was a very extensive railway network. I think in comparison, roads didn't receive anything like as much investment under Mao as rail did.
> 
> Now that they've mostly brought the road network up to scratch, they can focus on supplementing China's already very comprehensive and successful railway network by providing direct high capacity, high speed services to key cities in order to encourage further economic development. I think as far as infrastructure goes, China's government has its priorities right.


Road construction is mutual beneficial with automoble industry development. China's 10-million auto production might be the main reason for recent rapid highway development (vice versa).


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## SimFox

zaphod said:


> Are there stations in between the cities?
> 
> Even though city-to-city it might be quicker to fly, if you want to go to a town in between fast but there aren't regular flights the high speed train is better.
> 
> I live in a town in Texas with 150,000 people. To go by air there are only 2 daily flights to Dallas. But we are on a planned(yeah right...) high-speed line and someday you could just take the train at any time you want to another city with better airline options(like Southwest at Austin).


normally those highspeed lines are direct eg Tianjin-Beijing trains don't stop anywhere in between. And as far as I know those new highspeed sleeper train between Beijing and Shanghai are also non-stop. In a way this is sort of penalty people residing in the small towns have to pay. Taxes they pay help building that infrastructure, but they don't really benefit much from it. It mostly servicing major metropolises (of which in China are plenty)


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## test0012

SimFox said:


> normally those highspeed lines are direct eg Tianjin-Beijing trains don't stop anywhere in between. And as far as I know those new highspeed sleeper train between Beijing and Shanghai are also non-stop. In a way this is sort of penalty people residing in the small towns have to pay. Taxes they pay help building that infrastructure, but they don't really benefit much from it. It mostly servicing major metropolises (of which in China are plenty)


Incorrect.

Train C2201, C2201, C2202, ... C2212 between Beijing South Station and Tianjin Station stop at Wuqing Station.

Train D301 and D302 Beijing-Shanghai sleeper EMU stop at Wuxi (before 2009-01-02) or Changzhou (after 2009-01-02); Train D305 and D306 sleeper EMU between Beijing and Shanghai stop at Nanjing; Train D309 from Beijing to Hangzhou stop at Wuxi after 2009-01-02, and D310 from Hangzhou to Beijing will stop at Changzhou after 2009-01-01.


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## snow is red

*China's northern passenger railway on trial run*

2009-01-01 


A 250 km-per-hour passenger railway between the coal-rich Shanxi province and neighboring Hebei province went into trial operation on Thursday.

The 190 kilometer rail line links Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan, cities of the northern provinces. It is estimated to carry 15 million one-way passengers a year in 2020 and more than 25 million a year in 2030.

The railway would distribute the passenger flow and let the original passenger-goods mixed lines carry more coal from Shanxi.

The 12.64-billion-yuan project ($1.8 billion) began construction in 2005. The line runs through 94 bridges and 32 tunnels, including China's longest mountain tunnel with a length of 27.8 km.

Another five high-speed passenger lines, mostly in southern China, will go into operation in 2009, according to the Ministry of Railways (MOR).

The MOR plans to have 120,000 km of lines in service by 2020, of which 16,000 km would be exclusively for passenger services. At present, China has more than 79,000 km of rail lines. To meet the 2020 target will cost about 5 trillion yuan, the ministry said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-01/01/content_7359679.htm


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## snow is red

*China forecasts 188 million rail passengers over Lunar New Year*

18 hours ago

BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese authorities are expecting 188 million people to travel by train over the Lunar New Year holiday, an important annual family get-together, a railways spokesman said Saturday.

"We predict that across the nation the railway network will receive 188 million passengers, a rise of eight per cent on the same period last year, with a daily average of 4.7 million people," Wang Yongping of the Rail Ministry told a press conference.

The Lunar New Year falls this year on January 26, but for the Chinese rail network the period between departures and returns lasts 40 days, with passenger numbers expected to peak between January 21 and 24.

Many Chinese have decided to combine their annual holidays with the festival because it falls this year in January, a month that includes three of the annual 14 national holidays.

In recent weeks official state media have frequently reported on mass movements of migrant workers from the south of China as factories close early because of a drop in demand for the good they produce.

The government in December asked provincial authorities to ensure these often exploited workers receives their wages in time for the New Year getaway. According to the official figures, China has some 210 million migrant workers. 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j1yl6LqKa8ka4Zj-pusCyTnuERDA


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## gramercy

does anyone know anything about the supposed 380 kph train? i read about it somewhere but i cant find it anywhere


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## hkskyline

*China forecasts 188 million rail passengers over Lunar New Year *
10 January 2009
Agence France Presse

Chinese authorities are expecting 188 million people to travel by train over the Lunar New Year holiday, an important annual family get-together, a railways spokesman said Saturday.

"We predict that across the nation the railway network will receive 188 million passengers, a rise of eight per cent on the same period last year, with a daily average of 4.7 million people," Wang Yongping of the Rail Ministry told a press conference.

The Lunar New Year falls this year on January 26, but for the Chinese rail network the period between departures and returns lasts 40 days, with passenger numbers expected to peak between January 21 and 24.

Many Chinese have decided to combine their annual holidays with the festival because it falls this year in January, a month that includes three of the annual 14 national holidays.

In recent weeks official state media have frequently reported on mass movements of migrant workers from the south of China as factories close early because of a drop in demand for the good they produce.

The government in December asked provincial authorities to ensure these often exploited workers receives their wages in time for the New Year getaway. According to the official figures, China has some 210 million migrant workers.


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## hkskyline

*China denies closing rail industry to foreign manufacturers *
10 January 2009
Agence France Presse

China Saturday denied allegations that it wanted to close its rail industry to foreign manufacturers and that it had profited from stealing their technology.

It was responding to comments made by Philippe Mellier, chief executive of French firm Alstom Transport, in a recent interview in the Financial Times newspaper.

Mellier called for a boycott of Chinese-made trains, claiming China blocked bids from foreign manufacturers.

"The (Chinese) market is gradually shutting down to let the Chinese companies prosper," Mellier said in the interview. "We're starting to see Chinese companies answering tenders around the world with Chinese freight locomotives, some of them being based on transferred technology," he said.

China's Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping responded at a press conference by calling Mellier's remarks "irresponsible."

Wang said China had developed its own high-speed train technology by co-operating with foreign firms such as Alstom.

"Foreign companies gained commercial benefits from the cooperation and we gained our own technologies. The property rights belong to Chinese companies," Wang said.

Wang said the accusation of closing China's market to foreign manufacturers was baseless.

Mellier said China was increasingly showing favouritism to its own companies when awarding contracts for big railway and underground projects such as the Shanghai-Beijing high speed line.

Meanwhile, Chinese train manufacturers were increasingly trying to beat sector giants Bombardier, Alstom and Siemens to contracts, particularly in the field of freight, Mellier said.

"If the (Chinese) market closes today, we do not think it is a good idea that other countries open their markets to such a technology because there is no longer any reciprocity," he said.


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## nineth

中國的買辦官員對外只會軟棉棉無力的辯護. 不明白最好的辯護, 是針鋒相對地進行反指控.

法國佬若攻擊中國, 要外國不要賣買中國的車. 就要針鋒相對進行反攻. 如鼓勵相應方, 不

要當水魚, 買超高價, 在技術上無甚過人之處的法國佬車, 而應選擇價廉, 超值的中國車.

法國佬若攻擊中國偷他們的技術, 就問法國佬的技術是偷誰的? 偷日本的? 偷得國的? 偷中

國的?

法國佬若攻擊中國關閉本國市場, 不開放給他們. 就問法國佬為什麼在其本國不用得國車, 

不用日本車? 日本為什麼什麼在其本國不用法國佬車, 不用得國佬車; 得國佬為什麼在其本

國不用日本車和法國佬車? 這三國是不是自封市場, 只選本國車?


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## JoKo65

gramercy said:


> does anyone know anything about the supposed 380 kph train? i read about it somewhere but i cant find it anywhere


I know something about a spanish 380 km/h train:

http://www.altavelocidad.org/tecnica/515-lo-nuevo-de-talgo-se-llama-avril


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## gramercy

thx!

this is a _very_ interesting read about the why china possibly wont go to 380 maybe not even above 350

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/9/3/174412/0350


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## derekf1974

*China to double railway investment in 2009*

Amid a surge in planned infrastructure projects next year aimed at boosting domestic demand, China plans to almost double its investment in railways to about 600 billion yuan ($87.9 billion).

The money is part of the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package announced by the government earlier this year.

In 2008, China spent 330 billion yuan on railways, according to a national conference on railway construction held on Wednesday.

Part of next year's 600 billion yuan would be used to build a total of 5,148 km of new rails, said Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun at the meeting.

The money will also help put five passenger-dedicated, high-speed lines into operation next year, according to Liu. These rails will link the central city of Wuhan to the southern city of Guangzhou; Zhengzhou in central Henan province to Xi'an in northwest Shaanxi province; Ningbo to Wenzhou, both in eastern China's Zhejiang province; Wenzhou to Fuzhou in southern Fujian province; and Fuzhou to Xiamen, also in Fujian.

The ministry also planned to start 70 new projects next year with part of the money. Those projects will need a total investment of 1.5 trillion yuan to be completed, Liu said.

Rail transport strain to be eased

Liu also predicted railway travel would be much easier by 2012. Currently, there are not enough seats for all the people who want to travel, especially during the Spring Festival every year, when millions are on the move.

"There could be a historical change in the country's railway transport by 2012. The bottleneck restraints both in passenger and cargo transportation could be removed," he said.

Railways in the country would reach 110,000 km by 2012. About 13,000 km of passenger lines, which allow trains to travel between 200 to 350 km per hour, would be put into use.

"Such coverage of passenger rails should be able to ensure that passenger needs are satisfied," he said.


(Xinhua)


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## Taipei Walker

Shenzhen Futian Station (part of Hong Kong - Guangzhou High Speed Rail line) 

Jan.17


renderings and drawings






it will be connected with metro line 2 (also under construction) and future line 11




some info


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## diting

why shenzhen new railway station is so small? it isn't in top 40 among china new railstation(u/c & planned)


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## foxmulder_ms

I think it is not that small. Also, It is not a terminal destination like Beijing or Shanghai, it is more like a transit one.


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## UD2

diting said:


> why shenzhen new railway station is so small? it isn't in top 40 among china new railstation(u/c & planned)


it's a station serving an almost commuter line. Shenzhen and Hongkong are directly adjecent to each other and the train will most likely run every 10 minutes. Don't need a huge terminal for an above ground "subway station". 

For a better comparasion, think Beijing South Station vs Beijing West. Beijing South, although much newer, is much smaller than West. 

On the other hand, Shenzhen's Main Station. Thank wikipedia.


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## Taipei Walker

There will be another station in Shenzhen on this line - Longhua Station, I think it will be much larger as it will also include costal line, here is the map:









Except for being transit station, this station will also be completely underground (first underground station in China) and it will be in the very heart of Shenzhen main CBD - in China stations are usually far from main CBD.


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## big-dog

^^ nice map. FYI Shibi is where the new Guangzhou Railway Station, the largest in Asia, is being built.


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## hkskyline

*China Railway Group Expects 2008 Net Profit To Fall Over 50% *
22 January 2009

HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--China Railway Group Ltd. (0390.HK), the country's largest railway operator, said Thursday it expects its 2008 net profit to fall by more than 50%, as foreign-exchange losses offset revenue growth from new contracts.

The company said in October it incurred CNY1.94 billion worth of foreign-exchange losses on structured deposits as of Sept. 30. because of a sharp decline in the Australian dollar.

China Railway Group, which is listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong, has built over two-thirds of China's more than 75,000 kilometers of railway links and 95% of the country's electrified railway lines. It also builds expressways, bridges and tunnels.


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## hkskyline

*China's nightmare train journeys have dream New Year destination *
21 January 2009
Agence France Presse

Si Yuefeng was exhausted as he stumbled off a decrepit train after 28 hours of standing up, yet he was happy as the nightmare journey had finally brought him home for the Chinese New Year.

"No food, no hot water. I'm starving to death," the 24-year-old construction engineer said at the bustling railway station in Zhengzhou, a transport hub in central China.

Si paid just under 100 yuan (14 dollars) to make the 1,700-kilometre (1,050-mile) trip from his workplace in southwest China and arguably did not get his money's worth as there was no air-conditioning and no seat.

"It was overcrowded, the conductor even had to push some people off at the start. Otherwise the train would not be allowed to set off," he said.

Si had to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of other people in one carriage and could not even get to the toilet for a long spell as someone had fallen asleep drunk in the lavatory.

Nevertheless, Si was all smiles as he left the Zhengzhou railway station to be picked up by his brother and return home for a once-a-year family reunion.

Si's travails are typical among the tens of millions of Chinese passengers travelling by train for the Chinese New Year, the nation's most important holiday and a time for family get-togethers that this year falls on January 26.

The government is expecting a record 188 million people to travel by train and another 24 million to fly over the 40 days before and after the New Year, in what is regarded as the biggest annual movement of people in the world.

Although China's rail network is already one of the world's biggest, it simply cannot cope with the massive demand and each year the phenomenal migration draws global headlines for the horrendous travelling conditions.

Rampant scalping is also a problem.

Zhang Ziwei, a pharmaceuticals salesman, said he had to pay a scalper a 20-percent commission for his ticket home from Zhengzhou to Guizhou province in the southwest, after days of fruitless ticket-hunting.

"It was expensive but I didn't have any other way to get a ticket," said the 22-year-old.

"Going home during the Lunar New Year is always so troublesome. But after spending a whole year away from home, I really want to go back and get together with my family.

"Speaking to them on the telephone or chatting on the Internet is not the same as being at home."

A regular train traveller for business, Zhang had a number of tactics to overcome the on-board inconveniences, including the most pressing problem of little access to toilets.

"Usually there will be long queues outside the toilets. So I'll try not to eat or drink too much on the train," he said.

"Also with the crowds squatting in the corridor, they get impatient if you pass through too often to go to the toilet."

Zhang did not resort to one of the more bizarre and humiliating tactics others adopt -- wearing nappies. Chinese companies have previously reported huge spikes in sales of large nappies during the Lunar New Year travel peak.

The government has said it expects to ease the train strains by 2012, when the country's railway lines will have been extended to 110,000 kilometres from 79,000 kilometres in 2007.

But before that, passengers will continue to have to put up with temporary fixes such as more frequent but poorly scheduled train services and the conversion of sleeper carriages into ones only with seats.

"We got on board at 2:00 am and just got off the train," said Su Xiaoqin, 27, who with her husband spent 16 hours sitting on hard seats in one of the converted carriages.

The couple had returned from their jobs in a shipyard in the eastern metropolis of Shanghai.

"My back is breaking and I just want to sleep," Su said, her arms resting on the handles of her suitcase. "But I should be grateful, at least we were able to get tickets."


----------



## SimFox

I think this is a very telling article...
Not sure how accurate all the facts as 100RMB for 1700km journey sound too low, but this isn't the most important or interesting point here.
What is more interesting is a philosophy behind the whole story/situation. Western journalist doesn't spare colors of horror describing the hardship of the journey. The clear goal is to assure readers in the West how Good have they got it and how better they are off than people in the communist dictatorship. 
To be fair he mentions that the main character in the story was in the end happy. but the whole tone of the article leads to believe that this is a case because he is some how not "normal" form western point of view.
What should be actually the main point in this story is gets mentioned only briefly - the way country and system is trying to deal with this extraordinary even - namely sales of standing tickets (although the practice to charge for them a full fee is a questionable one), conversion of sleeper cars into a sitting one etc. So the point is to make sure that as much people as possible will get there - basically understanding the need of people and preparedness to do whatever it takes to satisfy it. And also the fact that that particular society is accepting this type of solution.
In the west they would simply stop selling tickets when train sitting/sleeping capacity is fully booked and that's it. No matter how much you want to get home it's your problem... Society is not prepared to pay price of seeing "ugly" scenes of overcrowded train in order to make the desire of an individual come through. It is actually quite inserting reverse side of the medal that on the face declares supremacy of an individual.

Also I wouldn't be all that hopefull that this problem will be resolved by year 2012 or anytime in teh forseable future.
It is a bit odd how extension of the railways is expected to fix this condition. This is an extraordinary situation with travel patterns significantly differing from those during the rest of the year. So, you either have to built special "new year" tracks, maintain huge number of excess rolling stock and personnel through out the year, or simply accept this as a force of nature (there is another way - to deal with it in "western style" - to simply turn the "excess" passenger off). 
Alternative is to wait when tradition will , under the pressure of "modern living" subside...


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## SimFox

sorry Double posting..


----------



## yaohua2000

SimFox said:


> I think this is a very telling article...
> Not sure how accurate all the facts as 100RMB for 1700km journey sound too low.


For the "normal fast" (pukuai) hard seat class without an air-conditioner, 1700 km cost ¥98.00

You can calculate price by simply giving rail distance and travel class using this software from a hobbyist:

http://www.ticketcalc.com/


----------



## foxmulder_ms

SimFox said:


> I think this is a very telling article...
> Not sure how accurate all the facts as 100RMB for 1700km journey sound too low, but this isn't the most important or interesting point here.
> What is more interesting is a philosophy behind the whole story/situation. Western journalist doesn't spare colors of horror describing the hardship of the journey. The clear goal is to assure readers in the West how Good have they got it and how better they are off than people in the communist dictatorship.
> To be fair he mentions that the main character in the story was in the end happy. but the whole tone of the article leads to believe that this is a case because he is some how not "normal" form western point of view.
> What should be actually the main point in this story is gets mentioned only briefly - the way country and system is trying to deal with this extraordinary even - namely sales of standing tickets (although the practice to charge for them a full fee is a questionable one), conversion of sleeper cars into a sitting one etc. So the point is to make sure that as much people as possible will get there - basically understanding the need of people and preparedness to do whatever it takes to satisfy it. And also the fact that that particular society is accepting this type of solution.
> In the west they would simply stop selling tickets when train sitting/sleeping capacity is fully booked and that's it. No matter how much you want to get home it's your problem... Society is not prepared to pay price of seeing "ugly" scenes of overcrowded train in order to make the desire of an individual come through. It is actually quite inserting reverse side of the medal that on the face declares supremacy of an individual.
> 
> Also I wouldn't be all that hopefull that this problem will be resolved by year 2012 or anytime in teh forseable future.
> It is a bit odd how extension of the railways is expected to fix this condition. This is an extraordinary situation with travel patterns significantly differing from those during the rest of the year. So, you either have to built special "new year" tracks, maintain huge number of excess rolling stock and personnel through out the year, or simply accept this as a force of nature (there is another way - to deal with it in "western style" - to simply turn the "excess" passenger off).
> Alternative is to wait when tradition will , under the pressure of "modern living" subside...


I am totally agree with you. Generally, West has a biased view of China. You can see it clearly at bbc.com. Probably, some of you guys have already red some the stuff written by James Reynolds. He has a blog on the web site called James Reynolds' China. He writes about China and almost exclusively write about how China fails over and over on every subject. Even stories like Chinese space studies or Olympics written in a way that China is the biggest loser on Earth. 

I hope one day CCTV hire a guy who writes about how Britain still has a Queen bla bla every day...


----------



## honwai1983

foxmulder_ms said:


> I am totally agree with you. Generally, West has a biased view of China. You can see it clearly at bbc.com. Probably, some of you guys have already red some the stuff written by James Reynolds. He has a blog on the web site called James Reynolds' China. He writes about China and almost exclusively write about how China fails over and over on every subject. Even stories like Chinese space studies or Olympics written in a way that China is the biggest loser on Earth.
> 
> I hope one day CCTV hire a guy who writes about how Britain still has a Queen bla bla every day...


I think you can watch Hong Kong's News write about Mainland China. (eg. Southa China Morining Post), or watching like TVB Pearl, they have neutral view of Mainland China.

I heard many people in Pearl River Delta District like to watch HK News than CCTV because HK News is more reality to show Mainland China. (Although many news is cut by local transfer TV stations).


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## maldini

Just let these western racists write whatever they want. Their own countries are the ones that are going bankrupt.


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## UD2

it's written by the French. they have a right to whine. Their country is being boycotted by China, right from the head of state level.


----------



## ANR

*Thyssen to Explore Selling Transrapid Technology to China*

From Bloomberg:

By Tony Czuczka

Jan. 29, 2009 (Bloomberg) -- ThyssenKrupp AG agreed to explore selling its Transrapid rail technology to China to expand the only commercial operation of the high-speed magnetic train. Executives of ThyssenKrupp Technologies AG and Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co. signed the letter of intent today in Berlin during a visit by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. The goal is to license some Transrapid technology for use in China. “Worldwide rights for the core technology will remain with ThyssenKrupp,” company spokeswoman Cosima Rauner said in a telephone interview. 

China is considering extending a 30-kilometer (19-mile) Transrapid line that links Shanghai and its Pudong International Airport in less than eight minutes. Plans call for adding a 31- kilometer stretch in another part of the city, Rauner said. “This is a strategic step to improve our global marketing chances,” she said of the license talks. She declined to speculate on how much China might pay or how long talks may take.

The magnetically propelled train floats 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) above the track and travels at up to 500 kilometers (310 miles) per hour.


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## urbanfan89

ThyssenKrupp is just wasting their time and money trying to market snake oil...uh...I mean magnetic trains.

There's a reason why China decided not to build the Beijing/Shanghai HSR as maglev but as steel wheel trains.


----------



## snow is red

*East China province to boost railway construction *

2009-01-30

NANCHANG, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- East China's Jiangxi Province is planning to kick off 14 railway projects by 2012 to improve transportation conditions, the local railway authority said Friday. 

The projects, involving an estimated investment of 116.52 billion yuan (17 billion U.S. dollars), will bring Jiangxi's total rail length to 3,500 kilometers upon completion. 

According to a railway construction plan compiled by the provincial development and reform commission late last year, the province is expected to have 4,000 km of railway by 2015 and more than 4,500 km by 2020. 

According to the plan, railways are expected to reach all the province's counties, main tourist destinations and key industrial and mining zones as well as economically-developed towns by 2020. 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/30/content_10736135.htm


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## hkskyline

*China to hike '09 local steel rail orders -paper *

BEIJING, Jan 24 (Reuters) - China's railway ministry will nearly double this year the amount of rails it orders from four big domestic steel makers, as part of an infrastructure drive to shore up industry, an industry newspaper reported on Saturday.

The Ministry of Railways sent requests for a total of 3.25 million tonnes of steel rail to units under Baoshan Iron and Steel Co Ltd , Angang Steel Co Ltd , PZH Steel , and Wuhan Iron & Steel (Group) Co, the report in the China Metallurgical News said.

The orders would be a big jump on 2008, when the ministry called for 1.88 million tons, said the paper.

"According to industry estimates, railway infrastructure investment in 2009 will require 20 million tonnes of steel," including the rails, the report said.

The four makers would have to use much of their rail-making capacity to fill the order, it added.

"There are limits to increasing production capacity for steel rails," an unidentified sales manager under PZH Steel told the paper.

The report said the unit under PZH Steel expects 750,000 tonnes of the planned rail orders, and Angang Steel expects 700,000 tonnes. But it did not give details for the other producers.

Nor did it say how much the ministry would pay, noting that in 2008 prices it set were about 1,000 yuan ($146) per tonne less than general market prices.

The Ministry of Railways is one of the big beneficiaries of Beijing's plans to boost flagging growth by pumping state investment into transport and other infrastructure.

It has said it plans to invest 600 billion yuan ($88 billion) in 2009, up from 350 billion yuan ($51 billion). The Ministry is now building 150 key projects, the report said.

Another official newspaper, the Economic Daily, reported that the government had already approved projects amounting to 23,000 kilometres (14,292 miles) of railway.

The biggest of the Chinese steel makers in the order, Baoshan Iron and Steel, can produce 1.4 million tonnes of rail a year, the report said. ($1=6.83 yuan)


----------



## foxmulder_ms

urbanfan89 said:


> ThyssenKrupp is just wasting their time and money trying to market snake oil...uh...I mean magnetic trains.
> 
> There's a reason why China decided not to build the Beijing/Shanghai HSR as maglev but as steel wheel trains.



I still think it is the fastest way for transport on land. I believe it will find use in not far future. 

If China buys this tech, I think the possibility of them using it for building longer routes is high.


----------



## urbanfan89

foxmulder_ms said:


> I still think it is the fastest way for transport on land. I believe it will find use in not far future.


It's the fastest land transport method, but there is very little marginal benefit over just steel and rails.

The technology is 40 years old now, and there is still nothing in commercial use apart from the white elephant tonka train in Pudong.



> If China buys this tech, I think the possibility of them using it for building longer routes is high.


If China experiences problems of NIMBYism with this technology, then it won't fly anywhere else in the world.


----------



## hkskyline

I don't foresee China adapting maglev technology much further until the costs go down. It's just not worth spending the extra tens of billions for the speed benefit. I think that was a major driver behind the decision to use conventional HSR for Beijing - Shanghai.


----------



## city_thing

hkskyline said:


> *China to hike '09 local steel rail orders -paper *
> 
> BEIJING, Jan 24 (Reuters) - China's railway ministry will nearly double this year the amount of rails it orders from four big domestic steel makers, as part of an infrastructure drive to shore up industry, an industry newspaper reported on Saturday.
> 
> The Ministry of Railways sent requests for a total of 3.25 million tonnes of steel rail to units under Baoshan Iron and Steel Co Ltd , Angang Steel Co Ltd , PZH Steel , and Wuhan Iron & Steel (Group) Co, the report in the China Metallurgical News said.
> 
> The orders would be a big jump on 2008, when the ministry called for 1.88 million tons, said the paper.
> 
> "According to industry estimates, railway infrastructure investment in 2009 will require 20 million tonnes of steel," including the rails, the report said.
> 
> The four makers would have to use much of their rail-making capacity to fill the order, it added.
> 
> "There are limits to increasing production capacity for steel rails," an unidentified sales manager under PZH Steel told the paper.
> 
> The report said the unit under PZH Steel expects 750,000 tonnes of the planned rail orders, and Angang Steel expects 700,000 tonnes. But it did not give details for the other producers.
> 
> Nor did it say how much the ministry would pay, noting that in 2008 prices it set were about 1,000 yuan ($146) per tonne less than general market prices.
> 
> The Ministry of Railways is one of the big beneficiaries of Beijing's plans to boost flagging growth by pumping state investment into transport and other infrastructure.
> 
> It has said it plans to invest 600 billion yuan ($88 billion) in 2009, up from 350 billion yuan ($51 billion). The Ministry is now building 150 key projects, the report said.
> 
> Another official newspaper, the Economic Daily, reported that the government had already approved projects amounting to 23,000 kilometres (14,292 miles) of railway.
> 
> The biggest of the Chinese steel makers in the order, Baoshan Iron and Steel, can produce 1.4 million tonnes of rail a year, the report said. ($1=6.83 yuan)


Good news for the Australian economy.


----------



## hkskyline

*HEILONGJIANG TO SPEND US$3 BLN ON RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION IN 2009 *

HARBIN, Feb 2 Asia Pulse - Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China plans to invest 22 billion yuan (US$3.216 billion) in railway construction this year.

Covered in the plan will be continued construction of the Harbin-Dalian passenger railway, construction of new railways from Harbin-Qiqihar, from Mudanjiang to Suifenhe, from Qianjin Town to Fuyuan and from Gulian to Luoguhe, totaling 630 km, as well as such key projects as Harbin West Station and Harbin Container Terminal.

Meanwhile, pre-stage preparations will be made for the Harbin-Jiamusi-Tongjiang and Harbin-Mudanjiang express railways.


----------



## aab7772003

What is so racist about that article? I have traveled in Germany during peak holiday periods and in China to the Canton Fair. The supposedly very comfortable trip to the Canton Fair in fact is less comfortable than commuting in Hong Kong and in Germany. Yes, you may have to stand for the entire rail trip during the peak travel seaons in Germany, but the whole experience that involves standing is just very civilized. If you cannot buy a train ticket in Germany for travel during the peak travel seaons, you drive, car pool, fly or whatever. The whole transport system in Germany allows the entire traveling population to travel with a comparatively high level of comfort and dignity even during the busiest time of the year.


----------



## hkskyline

*Railways brace for post-festival travel peak *

BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- China's railways will see the first post-Spring Festival travel peak on Saturday, as millions ride back to work or study after days of family reunions or sightseeing, said the Ministry of Railways (MOR) on Friday.

Railways carried 4.24 million passengers on Thursday, 11.2 percent more than Wednesday, with mid- and long-distance trips rising 23 percent, said the MOR office in charge of Spring Festival transport.

To meet the growing travel demand, the MOR would arrange more trains for busy hubs in such provinces as Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi, said the office.

Altogether 562 temporary trains were put to use on Thursday, 190 more than the previous day.

The MOR also urged railway officials to better organize transport and ticket selling in order not to get passengers stranded.

In the first 19 days of the 40-day festival rush period starting from Jan. 11, 83.1 million trips were made on the country's railways, said the office.

That was 4.37 million on average every day, or 16 percent more than the same period of last year.

The Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, is the most important traditional festival in China. It falls on Jan. 26 this year.


----------



## chris_liu_1112

*China Railway Group Expects 2008 Net Profit To Fall Over 50% *
22 January 2009

HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--China Railway Group Ltd. (0390.HK), the country's largest railway operator, said Thursday it expects its 2008 net profit to fall by more than 50%, as foreign-exchange losses offset revenue growth from new contracts.

The company said in October it incurred CNY1.94 billion worth of foreign-exchange losses on structured deposits as of Sept. 30. because of a sharp decline in the Australian dollar.

China Railway Group, which is listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong, has built over two-thirds of China's more than 75,000 kilometers of railway links and 95% of the country's electrified railway lines. It also builds expressways, bridges and tunnels.


----------



## gramercy

what % of the chinese lines is electrified?


----------



## big-dog

gramercy said:


> what % of the chinese lines is electrified?


By October 2008, China has built 26,000km electrified lines, *32.7%* of total rail length.

The target is to reach 50% by 2012.



> In 2008, the National Railway completed capital construction investment of RMB 3,300 billion yuan, the new line of track-laying 3,370 km, 2,860 km double track to complete 2,630 km of electrified railway. The beginning of this year has just been completed in accordance with the national railway work conference in 2009 plans to complete infrastructure investment of RMB 6,000 billion, laying 5,150 kilometers of new lines, 3,460 km double track to complete 5,610 km of electrified railway.
> 
> In 2009 for railway investment growth is expected to peak, and from 2010 to 2012 the average annual investment will be RMB 6,000 billion yuan. Is expected that in 2012, the national railway business mileage will reach 110,000 kilometers, the railway needs are basically met. In addition, the electrification rate will reach more than 50 percent, rail transport will be to upgrade the quality of service.


google translation from here


----------



## gramercy

awesome


----------



## UD2

big-dog said:


> By October 2008, China has built 26,000km electrified lines, *32.7%* of total rail length.
> 
> The target is to reach 50% by 2012.
> 
> 
> 
> google translation from here


hmmm.. i thought it was higher.

I must be wrong.


----------



## snow is red

*Work to start on Shanghai-Hangzhou rail line by late March*

2009-02-06 

Construction will start by late March on a new passenger rail line between Shanghai and Hangzhou, a scenic city in east China's Zhejiang Province, a rail official said Friday.

The exact starting date for construction work won't be known until the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's chief planning agency, approves a report on the project, according to Yu Jian'er, chairman of the board and general manager of Zhejiang Provincial Railway Investment Group Co Ltd.

The report was submitted on Dec 15, 2008, said Yu, and approval was likely in mid-February this year. Construction is forecast to take two years.

The line will be 159 km long, with 105 km in Zhejiang. Trains on the line will be able to run up to 350 km per hour, shortening the trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou to 38 minutes from more than one hour at present.

Yu confirmed that the Ministry of Railways, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Baosteel Group would invest in the project, which will cost 29.68 billion yuan ($4.37 billion).

Baosteel will invest about 2 billion yuan, with the ministry, Shanghai and Zhejiang sharing the rest of the cost equally.

Zhejiang Provincial Railway owns all railways in the province and will take charge of related operations.

A notice on the website of the company said the ministries of Environmental Protection and Land and Resources had approved the environmental impact and land use plans for the project on Jan 21.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-02/06/content_7452808.htm


----------



## snow is red

*Work starts on Beijing-Shenyang high speed railway*

2009-2-5

CONSTRUCTION of a high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shenyang in Liaoning Province, worth 70 billion yuan (US$10.22 billion), will start in June.

When it is completed, expected to be 2012, passengers will be able to travel the 687 kilometers in two hours and 18 minutes, the Huashang Morning Post reported today.

The 350 km/h trains will take one and a half hours less than the current fast train.

Meanwhile, the high-speed rail line between Shanghai and Hangzhou has been approved by central government and construction will start in about a month. 

And 1,200 kilometers, more than 90 per cent, of what will be the world's longest high-speed rail line, connecting Shanghai and Beijing, has been completed. More than 110,000 people are working on the project.

When the railway is completed, trains will reach Beijing in five hours instead of the current 11.

The ministry has said it plans to have 120,000km of rail lines in service by 2020, of which 16,000km would be dedicated passenger lines.

By the end of this year, China will have more than 79,000km of rail lines. To meet the 2020 target will require investment of about 5 trillion yuan (US$727 billion), the ministry said.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200902/20090205/article_389971.htm


----------



## ANR

snow is red said:


> *Work starts on Beijing-Shenyang high speed railway*
> 
> And 1,200 kilometers, more than 90 per cent, of what will be the world's longest high-speed rail line, connecting Shanghai and Beijing, has been completed. More than 110,000 people are working on the project.
> 
> 
> http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2009/200902/20090205/article_389971.htm


I continue to believe that it is not possible to have 90% of the line completed between Shanghai & Beijing. Does anyone have any pictures or information that would support this statement?


----------



## hoosier

Very impressive how China gets stuff done and things built.

America's infrastructure is literally crumbling before its very eyes and the politicians don't do anything about it.


----------



## G5man

I think it is time that we the citizens have a say in national politics. The politicians I feel are so ignorant to constituents and do not really know what is going on. If they actually cared about what is going on and had some balls, they would have gotten this stimulus for total infrastructure and nothing else. Instead, we bailed out banks just for them to burn money on our watch. 

I think this just calls for political reform in the United States if the politicians are stubborn.


----------



## urbanfan89

I hate to state this, but sometimes the best things happen in the absence of democracy.

Paris is renowned for its boulevards, but they were designed by Haussmann when France was ruled by Napoleon the Third. The straight boulevards would make it easier to send troops to crush revolts.

Same thing with the vast amount of building ongoing in China.


----------



## Huhu

^^ German Autobahns and American Interstates were designed with the military in mind. I guess it's just the way it's gotta be.


----------



## city_thing

^^ Nothin' stimulates an economy and crushes pesky democracy quite like a war!


----------



## yaohua2000

ANR said:


> I continue to believe that it is not possible to have 90% of the line completed between Shanghai & Beijing. Does anyone have any pictures or information that would support this statement?


It was from some very stupid reporter. Initially, someone write a report says construction of 90% of the railway had began, while another reporter simplified the phrase "had began" (完成开工) to "completed" (完工). This had been discussed as a joke in China.


----------



## gramercy

hoosier said:


> Very impressive how China gets stuff done and things built.
> 
> America's infrastructure is literally crumbling before its very eyes and the politicians don't do anything about it.


wrong
they filibuster it


----------



## gramercy

urbanfan89 said:


> I hate to state this, but sometimes the best things happen in the absence of democracy.
> 
> Paris is renowned for its boulevards, but they were designed by Haussmann when France was ruled by Napoleon the Third. The straight boulevards would make it easier to send troops to crush revolts.
> 
> Same thing with the vast amount of building ongoing in China.



thats a really warped perception
the french and the spanish are building high speed lines at least as fast and much as the chinese, if you account for population, and they are both democracies

having said that, the gop should probably get the china treatment: find an empty warehouse and paint it red


----------



## particlez

urbanfan has a point. if it's doing things properly, an authoritarian regime can do things much more efficiently than a liberal democracy. that doesn't mean authoritarian regimes are by definition more efficient (one only needs to look at the basket case dictatorships). 

what's worse, many liberal democracies function more like feudal states, especially when it comes to infrastructure. in local politics, developers and landowners lobby the system effectively for their own vested interests. unfortunately the interests of the lobbying group are often at odds with the greater good. it accounts for a good deal of the car-based, greenfield development based urbanism we suffer through.


----------



## hkskyline

*China pulls through first post-festival travel peak *

BEIJING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's railways and roads underwent the first travel peak after the Lunar New Year festival, with larger passenger flows than the same period last year.

The railways carried more than 5 million travelers each day from Jan. 31 to Friday, a record high in both duration and passenger number, said the Ministry of Railways (MOR) spokesman Wang Yongping on Saturday.

Altogether 5.02 million took trains on Friday, increasing 170,000 year-on-year, MOR figures show.

Wang predicted lighter traffic on Saturday and Sunday and a second peak after Monday, when the Lantern Festival falls and wraps up the Chinese New Year celebration.

About 55.8 million hit the road on Saturday, up 4 percent from a year earlier, said the Ministry of Transport spokesman He Jianzhong.

The number was down from previous days as most people had returned from family visits, but there were more college students and migrant workers making trips back to study or city work, said He.

He said 800,000 traveled by water on Saturday, 6 percent more than the same period last year.

China's Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, came on Jan. 26 this year. It's the country's most important traditional festival, creating the world's largest population migration in a year.


----------



## chris_1112

ANR said:


> I continue to believe that it is not possible to have 90% of the line completed between Shanghai & Beijing. Does anyone have any pictures or information that would support this statement?


Did not complete 90%, about 40 percent completed.

January 2008 started, in July 2010 completed, in December 2010 the completion of debugging. January 2011 the opening and operation.

Now everything is proceeding as planned.


----------



## foxmulder_ms

Even three years is relatively fast for ~1200km track.


----------



## Facial

hoosier said:


> America's infrastructure is literally crumbling before its very eyes and the politicians don't do anything about it.


The Interstate Highway System is excellent. Well, maybe not if you ignore the I35W collapse, but in general the freeway system is in pretty good shape. (some irony there). Meanwhile, 18 billion dollars of taxpayer money goes into "compensation" for the bank executives.

Railroad infrastructure is crumbling.

And now, in the stimulus package, the politicians choose the freeways, and want to excise other infrastructure improvements including Amtrak and bicycle paths. :bash::bash::bash:hno:hno:hno:


----------



## hoosier

Facial said:


> The Interstate Highway System is excellent. Well, maybe not if you ignore the I35W collapse, but in general the freeway system is in pretty good shape. (some irony there). Meanwhile, 18 billion dollars of taxpayer money goes into "compensation" for the bank executives.
> 
> Railroad infrastructure is crumbling.
> 
> And now, in the stimulus package, the politicians choose the freeways, and want to excise other infrastructure improvements including Amtrak and bicycle paths. :bash::bash::bash:hno:hno:hno:


Maybe the highways are nice where you live, but not where I live.

The Chinese stimulus bill focused heavily on infrastructure. China isn't prefect, but the government is totally correct in supporting infrastructure construction as a way to grow the economy and improve the welfare of its people.

I am resigned to the fact that it will take more bridge collapses for the politicians to wake up and spend more on infrastructure.


----------



## Facial

Or a few dozen derailments.

Few politicians besides our state's senators even mentioned the Metrolink collision in LA. That was due to a single lane of railway being shared between freight and passenger trains.

Last I heard, there are supposed to be four lanes - bidirectional freight, and bidirectional passenger.

But anyway, back to the topic - 
1. China is awesome
2. China is leaps and bounds ahead of the US in forward thinking infrastructure


----------



## hoosier

Facial said:


> Or a few dozen derailments.
> 
> Few politicians besides our state's senators even mentioned the Metrolink collision in LA. That was due to a single lane of railway being shared between freight and passenger trains.
> 
> Last I heard, there are supposed to be four lanes - bidirectional freight, and bidirectional passenger.
> 
> But anyway, back to the topic -
> 1. China is awesome
> 2. China is leaps and bounds ahead of the US in forward thinking infrastructure


Yes, I forgot about that accident. Totally unacceptable.

I agree with the last part of your post too.


----------



## chris_1112

foxmulder_ms said:


> Even three years is relatively fast for ~1200km track.


More than these, for a total of 3,150 km of 350 km/h lines（Beijing-ShiJiazhuang-Wuhan 1120 km, Tianjin-Qinhuangdao 270 km, Haerbin-Dalian 900 km, NanJing-Shanghai-Hangzhou 460 km, NanJing-Hangzhou-Ningbo 400 km）, in the 3 years must be completed, that is, to the opening and operation in 2012.


In these high-speed lines in 2012 put into operation at the same time, it will form a high-speed passenger network, connecting the eastern part of densely populated areas of many large and medium cities.


----------



## nachalnik

SimFox said:


> I think this is a very telling article...
> Not sure how accurate all the facts as 100RMB for 1700km journey sound too low,


In 2005 I payed 135 RMB (13-14 EUR) for ~2600 km from Xian to Urumchi...


----------



## gramercy

holy [email protected]


----------



## zergcerebrates

I don't understand why it must all be elevated into the station. Isnt that like more expensive?


----------



## diting

Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail
new changsha railway station(u/c)
1.








2.








3.








4








5.








compare two pics below
6.








7.


----------



## gramercy

zergcerebrates said:


> I don't understand why it must all be elevated into the station. Isnt that like more expensive?


Caton (Guangzhou) lies in the delta of the Pearl river, which makes the soil very unstable

at least thats what i think


----------



## toddhubert

gramercy said:


> Caton (Guangzhou) lies in the delta of the Pearl river, which makes the soil very unstable
> 
> at least thats what i think


yeah,exactly


----------



## foxmulder_ms

awesome updates, great pictures...


----------



## davsot

Wonderful, simply exciting. :applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:

I'm glad China is so pro-rail. I hope they convince Hillary Clinton that rail is the way to go. Guangzhou Rail Station is just so cool!


----------



## G5man

davsot said:


> . I hope they convince Hillary Clinton that rail is the way to go.


:lol: Now that would be a Hallelujah and a big I WISH or I Hope


----------



## ANR

*Construction on new railway bridge starts in Fujian*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-01

Chinese workers began building the first pier on Sunday of a massive bridge that will span across the Minjiang River in eastern China's Fujian province. The two-way railway bridge, with a length of 7,637.32 meters, is a key part of Xiangtang-Putian Railway. The project is designed to bring Jiangxi, an old revolutionary inland province, closer to east China's seaboard, according to Xiangtang-Putian Railway Co Ltd.

The bridge will connect a tunnel exit with Daode Mountain in Minhou near Fuzhou, the provincial capital of Fujian, and the Fuzhou Railway Station. It will span over the Beijing-Fuzhou Freeway, 316 National Highway, Minjiang River and a local flood control embankment. The bridge will cost 590 million yuan (about $86.77 million) and will take 30 months to complete because of its complexity, said an engineer with China's Zhongtie Major Bridge Engineering Group Co Ltd.

The Xiangtang-Putian railway will start in Xiangtang in Nanchang, capital of eastern China's Jiangxi province, extend southeast and zigzag among mountains. It will then branch to Fuzhou and Putian via Yongtai, Fujian province. With a budget of 51.8 billion yuan (about $7.62 billion), the railway project spans 603.6 kilometers. More than half that distance is inside Fujian.

Construction started on Xiangtang-Putian railway in November 2008. The entire railway project is expected to be finished and put into service in 2012.


----------



## Whiteeclipse

wow great updates, this is just impressive 

the fast rail system will be a great benefit for the business people for meetings in cities to avoid flying with those extra delays


----------



## city_thing

As much as I love the designs of China's new generation of 'central stations' - they always look so detached from the surrounding areas. They seem like they'd be near-impossible to reach by foot, and like they're more for interchanging rather than accessing the area nearby. 

Feel free to prove me wrong. The designs are still amazing when all is said and done.


----------



## staff

^^
Actually it's the renderings that are "cleaned up" of surrounding buildings (so that they don't "cover" any parts of the station). It would be absolutely out of the question to leave land undeveloped in the middle of a city in the most populated country on the planet..


----------



## ANR

*High speed rail construction pictures*



big-dog said:


> *Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail* construction in Guangdong province


These are great pictures - thanks.

Does anyone have pictures of the construction in progress of the Shanghai - Beijing high speed line? I don't believe any have been published.


----------



## davsot

So, is the first floor of the terminal reserved for drop-offs or something? Sure would like to know what the first level is used for...


EDIT: Woops, just read the soil comment. Very ingenious! There's a hotel nearby that's taking cues from Asia (at least that's what I read) and they're building the whole thing on stilts. Same concept right?


----------



## Ganis

this has toy train collectors drooling.


----------



## nineth

北京-上海高鐵建築工地圖


----------



## big-dog

Hefei-Wuhan high speed rail

Length: 350km
Speed: 200kmh - 250kmh










(www.chinaequip.gov.cn)


----------



## ANR

*Guangdong to sink 30b yuan into rail projects in 2009*

By Zheng Lifei (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-03-07

South China's Guangdong province is expected to pour *30 billion yuan ($4.38 billion)* into railway projects this year, a provincial rail official said.
Fourteen railway projects are currently under construction and the province will kick off seven new projects this year, Caijing Magazine reported on its website, citing He Yuhua, chairman of Guangzhou Rail Group. 

Total investment in the 21 projects would amount to *230 billion yuan ($33.6 billion)*, He said on the sidelines of the annual sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The massive investment, he said, is expected to create 1 million tons of steel, 6 million tons of cement and 300,000 jobs.

The length of the railway in the province will increase from the current 1,880 km to 4,200 km once all the projects are complete, said He, an NPC deputy.
The province is also planning another six rail projects, but He did not reveal financial details.


----------



## ANR

*China to have world's fastest train by 2012*

Last Updated:2009-03-07

Trains on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railroad under construction will run at 350 km per hour, the fastest in the world, said Li Heping, a researcher at the China Academy of Railway Sciences on Friday. The 1,318-km-long railway line, with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour, will beat the fastest rails in the world at present, which has a designed speed of 320 kilometers per hour, he said. Trains will take less than five hours to make the run from the capital to Shanghai, which is now at least 11 hours. The new rail line would be used for passenger service, while the existing one for cargo transportation, according to Li.

"The railway traffic strain will be greatly eased by 2012 as the country will increase investment and build faster rails and trains," he said. The Ministry of Railways has said it planned to invest 1.2 trillion yuan ($175.44 billion) to improve the railway system, aiming to have 13,000 km of passenger lines by 2012. According to Li, 8,000 km of the lines would allow trains to travel between 200 to 350 km per hour, and 5,000 km for trains with a speed from 200 to 250 km. The money is part of the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package announced by the government late last year, the ministry said. Currently, there are not enough seats for all the people who want to travel, especially during the Lunar New Year every year, when millions are on the move for family reunion.

"Research on high-speed trains are going on smoothly," he said. The new trains would be batch-produced after trial operations in 2012. China was developing trains that would run at a designed speed of 350 km per hour, and the speed for test might exceed 380 kilometers, according to Li.

China aimed to put 120,000 km of rail lines in service by 2020, of which 16,000 km would be dedicated to only passenger services, according to the Ministry of Railways. To meet the 2020 target will require about 5 trillion yuan, the ministry said.

Source:Xinhuanet


----------



## JoKo65

ANR said:


> Last Updated:2009-03-07
> […]
> the fastest in the world,
> […]


I don't think so.


----------



## gincan

snow is red said:


> *China to purchase 350km/h high-speed trains for 39.2b yuan*
> 
> 2009-03-16
> 
> BEIJING - China's Ministry of Railways (MOR) signed a deal with state-owned vehicle producer CNR Corporation Limited (CNR) here Monday to purchase 100 high-speed CRH trains for 39.2 billion yuan (US$5.74 billion).
> 
> CRH, an abbreviation for China Railway High-speed, refers to trains with speeds above 200 km per hour. With a designed speed of 350km/h, the new CRH trains will travel between Beijing and Shanghai in 2011, when the construction of the 1318-km, high-speed railway between the capital city and the country's financial hub is expected to complete.
> 
> "The contract does not include any foreign parties, as Chinese companies possess core technologies for the high-speed trains and have complete intellectual rights over the 350km/h CRH type," said Zhang Shuguang, director of the transport department under the MOR.
> 
> The MOR had introduced railway technologies from Japan, France, Germany and Canada in the development and production of the 200km/h CRH trains already in operation at present.
> 
> According to the agreement between the ministry and CNR, all 100 trains will be self-developed and manufactured under the CNR group. Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co. and Changchun Railway Vehicle Co., two CNR subsidiaries, will be in charge of the production of 60 sets and 40 sets, respectively.
> 
> Zhang said China would see "large purchases" of CRH trains in the coming years upon the completion of more passenger railway lines across the country.
> 
> The MOR has planned to spend 500 billion yuan to buy trains over the next four years.
> 
> "The purchases will provide strong support for related industries," Zhang said.
> 
> The manufacturing of a CRH train requires nearly 100,000 parts from a wide range of industries such as mechanics, metallurgy, electrics, chemical, and materials.
> 
> "We will buy more CRH trains this year as a move to help stimulate domestic demand," said Zhang without giving further details on the purchasing plan.
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/16/content_7584281.htm


This is a bit odd, since I just read that China agreed with Siemens to construct 100 additional Velaros. 70 of the trains would be built in Tangshan and 30 in Changchun. 

The entire trainsets would be built in China with the exception of the boggies and some electrical components that will be built in German and Austria. The contract is supposedly worth 750 million euros for Siemens.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news_view/article/2009/03/9445/china_orders_100_high_speed_trains.html


----------



## foxmulder_ms

I think they might be independent from each other.


----------



## davsot

I'm just glad China picked rail over highway. 

_More efficient!_


----------



## ANR

*Siemens Announces Lucrative Chinese Train Contract*

20.03.2009
DW-WORLD.DE

German industrial company Siemens AG has received a 750 million euro (US$1 billion) order for its share of a contract to deliver 100 high-speed trains to China. "Siemens has secured five of the last six contracts on the high speed rail market over 300 kmh (188 mph)" in China, the Munich-based conglomerate said in a statement on Friday, March 20.

Siemens said it signed a deal with Tangshan Railway Vehicles Co. Ltd., Changchun Railway Vehicles Co. Ltd., and the Chinese Academy of Railways to supply components like electrical equipment and chassis to the project. The German part of production will take place in Krefeld-Uerdingen and Nuremberg, Germany; Graz, Austria; and Shanghai, Tianjin and Jinan, China. 

The first trains for the new Bejing-Shanghai route will be operational by late 2010. "The deal strengthens our long-term partnerships in what will be the biggest high-speed train market in the world," said Siemens executive Hans-Jörg Grundmann in Erlangen on Friday.

The company will supply components for the Velaro trains, which will be assembled in China. The Velaro is a development of Siemens' successful ICE model used in Germany and has a total length of 400 meters, making it world's longest single train used in high-speed transportation. The trains would run at 350 kmh (218 mph) and make the 1318-kilometer (825 mile) run from Beijing to Shanghai in four hours. The Chinese trains will comprise 16 cars and carry around 1060 passengers each.

According to Hans-Jörg Grundmann the order was especially important because it meant supplying the first trains for a line from Beijing to Shanghai. "This is the most important high speed line in the country," he said.

China plans to create the largest high-speed network in the world, Siemens added, and future connections between Wuhan and Guangzhou, and Wuhan and Shijazhuang would also use Siemens' Valero trains. "Altogether, the network of these lines will cover a total distance of approximately 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) by the year 2020," the statement said.

Siemens has already delivered 11 high-speed trains to China out of an earlier order in 2004 for 60.









_Siemens will adapt its ICE model for China _


----------



## Rail1435

*China Star*

What's the actual state of DJJ2 powerheads also called "China Star"?
Is a "son" of this powerheads as new development of these both prototypes?


----------



## chris_liu_1112

Rail1435 said:


> What's the actual state of DJJ2 powerheads also called "China Star"?
> Is a "son" of this powerheads as new development of these both prototypes?


ChinaStar several years ago has been to stop development. ChinaStar are power concentrated EMU, with the different order. The ordering of a new generation of trains are power scattered EMU, before a lot of design is based on the introduction of Siemens VelaroCN technology, with no ChinaStar kinship.


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## AlexS2000

chris_liu_1112 said:


> ChinaStar several years ago has been to stop development. ChinaStar are power concentrated EMU, with the different order. The ordering of a new generation of trains are power scattered EMU, before a lot of design is based on the introduction of Siemens VelaroCN technology, with no ChinaStar kinship.


What about other Chinese high speed rail development?


----------



## 395003

How many coaches has the NDJ3 got?


----------



## chris_liu_1112

395003 said:


> How many coaches has the NDJ3 got?


total 7 coaches: 3 first-class + 1 dining car + 3 second-class.


----------



## chris_liu_1112

China is developing two high-speed train platform: one, CRH3 represented, and the other, CRH2 represented. In 2004-2005, China introduced Siemens's Velaro technology, formed the original version of CRH3 platform, and introduced Kawasaki's E2-1000 technology, formed the original version of CRH2 platform. Next, in order to meet the traveling needs of Chinese passenger and the technical demands of Chinese Railway(CR), local Chinese factories improved both two native platforms, spawned a series of new versions. 

In the future, Chinese high-speed trains will be targeted to meet the future requirements and continue to develop. These requirments include: maximum continuous speed is divided into two types——350km/h and 250km/h——respectively, for the passenger dedicated lines and passenger freight shared lines. In order to cope with the peak of large passenger transport, 80% of the trains will be composed of 16 coaches. Trains can run very long-distance, routing usually is more than 4000km one day. Trains can non-stop high-speed run for 4-8 hours. Thus, compared with high-speed trains usually in Europe and Japan, Chinese hight-speed trains must be equiped with large drinking water tanks, large sewage water tanks, large dining facilities, and even beds to meet the requirments of night-time operations.


----------



## chris_liu_1112

AlexS2000 said:


> What about other Chinese high speed rail development?


You say "other Chinese high speed rail" What does this mean? other old trains like ChinaStar? They entered the tomb together. In the future, continue to develop only CRHx. (x = 1, 2, 3)


----------



## UD2

chris_liu_1112 said:


> China is developing two high-speed train platform: one, CRH3 represented, and the other, CRH2 represented. In 2004-2005, China introduced Siemens's Velaro technology, formed the original version of CRH3 platform, and introduced Kawasaki's E2-1000 technology, formed the original version of CRH2 platform. Next, in order to meet the traveling needs of Chinese passenger and the technical demands of Chinese Railway(CR), local Chinese factories improved both two native platforms, spawned a series of new versions.
> 
> In the future, Chinese high-speed trains will be targeted to meet the future requirements and continue to develop. These requirments include: maximum continuous speed is divided into two types——350km/h and 250km/h——respectively, for the passenger dedicated lines and passenger freight shared lines. In order to cope with the peak of large passenger transport, 80% of the trains will be composed of 16 coaches. Trains can run very long-distance, routing usually is more than 4000km one day. Trains can non-stop high-speed run for 4-8 hours. Thus, compared with high-speed trains usually in Europe and Japan, Chinese hight-speed trains must be equiped with large drinking water tanks, large sewage water tanks, large dining facilities, and even beds to meet the requirments of night-time operations.


Incorrect. 

There is also a third 350km/h platform being developed in co with Bombardier. Orders for 40 ZEFIRO series trains have already been placed.


----------



## mgk920

davsot said:


> I'm just glad China picked rail over highway.
> 
> _More efficient!_


Ahh, if you'll go and check the 'Highways & Autobahns' section of this sub-forvm, you'll find that the Chinese are also in the midst of doing with roads NOW what the USA was doing in the 1950s through the early 1980s - building the interstates. In addition to new rails, they are going COMPLETELY HOG WILD on new major highways.

Mike


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## derekf1974

davsot said:


> I'm just glad China picked rail over highway.
> 
> _More efficient!_


Ah, China actually picked everthing. It currently have the second biggest expressway network, after the USA, and it is still rapidly expanding. By the time its grand plans are done in about a decade and a half, it's expressway network will be comparable to the USA's in terms of total miles. There is a major difference between China's expressway system vs the US. In the US, it's mostly free. In China, it's all toll roads with VERY expensive tolls.

With all the big high speed rail projects being constructed in China, it will have the biggest HSR network in the world in a matter of years, not decades. It'll be fun to take a high speed train from southern China to northern China, and from eastern China to western China. Initially, trains running on this network will be foreign models assembled in China, but eventually China will be able to design and produce it's own high speed trains. Part of their current strategy is to exchange market share for technology from the foreign high speed train makers.

Airports, China has a lot of them. Many of them are big, modern, and efficient. Most were built/expanded/renovated in the last decade of so. Construction pace has slow downed recently but there are still a lot of projects going on. Being the second biggest aviation market in the world, China isn't content on buying foreign aircrafts forever. It's home grown regional jet, the ARJ21, is in test flight stages. It's 737 class big jet should make initial flight in a few years (<4).

Seaports, China has some of the biggest and best in the world for all the trade she does with the rest of the world. It's amazing how she was able to build handling capacity to cope with the explosion in foreign trade over the past two decades. China is also one of the top three shipbuiding countries in the world.

China is crazy when it comes to infrastructure building. I, being in California, only wish for a high speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. But, that's just wishful thinking.


----------



## derekf1974

*Some statistics I found on the Internet*

350 km/h PDL line
Beijing - Tianjin 120 km, opend in 2008
Wuhan - Guangzhou 989 km, will open in 2009
Zhengzhou - Xi'an 484.518 km, will open in 2009
Beijing - Shijiazhuang 269.65 km, will open in 2010
Nanjing - Hangzhou 249 km, will open in 2011
Guangzhou - Hongkong 142 km, will open in 2011
Shanghai - Hangzhou 160 km, will open in 2012
Beijing - Shenyang 687 km, will open in 2012
Shijiazhuang - Wuhan 840.7 km, will open in 2012
Tianjin - Qinhuangdao 258 km, will open in 2012
Chengdu - Chongqing 294 km, will Open in 2013
Beijing - Shanghai 1318 km, will open in 2013
Harbin - Dalian 904 km, will open in 2013

300 km/h PDL line
Ningbo -Wenzhou 268 km, will open in 2009
Fuzhou - Xiamen 273 km, will open in 2009
Shanghai - Nanjing 296 km, will open in 2010
Qingdao - Rongcheng 296 km, will open in 2013

250 km/h PDL line
Qinhuangdao - Shenyang 404 km, opened in 2003
Jinan - Qingdao 360 km, opened in 2008
Hefei - Ningbo 119 km, opened in 2008
Hefei - Wuhan 357 km, Opened in 2008
Shijiazhuang - Taiyuan 189 km, will open in 2009
Haikou - Sanya 296.7 km, will open in 2009
Wenzhou - Fuzhou 298.4 km will open in 2009
Chongqing - Wanzhou 255 km, will open in 2010
Hangzhou - Ningbo 150 km, will open in 2011
Hefei - Bengbu 130.67 km, will open in 2012
Nanning - Guangzhou 559 km, will open in 2012

200 km/h PDL line
Hefei - Ningbo 156 km, opened in 2008
Nanjing - Anqing 250.169 km, will open in 2009
Changchun - Jilin 109 km, will open in 2009
Nanchang - Jiujiang 131.27 km, will open in 2010
Xiamen -Shenzhen 495.25 km, will open in 2011
Jiangyou - Leshan 323 km, will open in 2012
Nanning - Liuzhou 223.3 km, will open in 2012
Harbin - Qiqihar 284.89 km, will open in 2012
Wuhan - Yichang 291.83 km, will open in 2012
Chongqing - Lichuan 264 km, will open in 2012
Fuzhou - Putian 603.6, will open in 2012
Guiyang - Guangzhou 857 km, will open in 2015

200 km/h UCR line
Guangzhou - Shenzhen 147 km, opened in 2007
Beijing - Harbin 1388 km, opened in 2007
Beijing - Shanghai 1463 km, opened in 2007
Beijing - Guangzhou 2294 km, opened in 2007
Jinan - Qingdao 393 km, Opened in 2007 

Source: http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=958110


----------



## derekf1974

Designed speed 160 km/h. Top speed 200 km/h.


----------



## Nozumi 300

Here are some data on the Bombardier Zefiro ^.^b 
http://www.superscooper.com/en/1_0/pdf/Bombardier_Zefiro_Technical_Description_en.pdf


----------



## chris_liu_1112

UD2 said:


> Incorrect.
> 
> There is also a third 350km/h platform being developed in co with Bombardier. Orders for 40 ZEFIRO series trains have already been placed.


I did not put Bombardior included because it is as an independent supplier of rail vehicles in the Chinese high-speed railway market. Strictly speaking, only CRH2 platform, CRH3 platform for the future design and development led by the Chinese local enterprises(CSR and CNR), CRH1 future design and development will be led by Bombardior, so do not put it into Chinese design.

40 trains order Bombardior obtained include two types: 20 normal(seat) EMU, based on the existing CRH1A. Another 20 sleeper EMU, based on the new platform Zefiro. Two types of trains are all 16 coaches per train, the maximum speed is 250km/h.

You say "There is also a third 350km/h platform being developed in co with Bombardier", I have never heard. I just heard about the recent new orders of 100 trains, originally intended to integrate Bombardior‘s products in traction subsystem, but after opening, Bombardior was replaced by Hitachi. However, I believe the future Bombardior is still possible to obtain more order that supply some components which will be integreted into new version of CRH3 and CRH2, but should not be a new platform.

Bombardior want to sell 350km/h Zefiro to China, I am afraid there is difficult, because this speed level of Zefiro trains did not been to a sell.


----------



## UD2

chris_liu_1112 said:


> I did not put Bombardior included because it is as an independent supplier of rail vehicles in the Chinese high-speed railway market. Strictly speaking, only CRH2 platform, CRH3 platform for the future design and development led by the Chinese local enterprises(CSR and CNR), CRH1 future design and development will be led by Bombardior, so do not put it into Chinese design.
> 
> 40 trains order Bombardior obtained include two types: 20 normal(seat) EMU, based on the existing CRH1A. Another 20 sleeper EMU, based on the new platform Zefiro. Two types of trains are all 16 coaches per train, the maximum speed is 250km/h.
> 
> You say "There is also a third 350km/h platform being developed in co with Bombardier", I have never heard. I just heard about the recent new orders of 100 trains, originally intended to integrate Bombardior‘s products in traction subsystem, but after opening, Bombardior was replaced by Hitachi. However, I believe the future Bombardior is still possible to obtain more order that supply some components which will be integreted into new version of CRH3 and CRH2, but should not be a new platform.
> 
> Bombardior want to sell 350km/h Zefiro to China, I am afraid there is difficult, because this speed level of Zefiro trains did not been to a sell.



Sifang Coach Works, I believe, is the local enterprise working with Bombardier on the ZEFIRO project. 

Please refer to Bombarider's website for more information. It states that 40 sets have already been ordered.


----------



## ANR

*High-speed rails to slash travel time*

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-25 










Two high-speed railways opening on April 1 will dramatically slash travel time between the hinterland and the coastal regions, a senior railway official said yesterday.

Stretching more than 350 km, the Hefei-Wuhan passenger railway, along with the Hefei-Nanjing lines opened last year, will provide the shortest link between Central China and East China's Yangtze River Delta region. "Riding a bullet train at 250 kph from Wuhan to Nanjing will need less than three hours, almost eight hours less than now," said Zhang Shuguang, chief of the transportation department of the Ministry of Railways. Passengers traveling from Wuhan to Shanghai will also benefit, with travel time cut in half to only four hours and 45 minutes, he said.

The other new high-speed railway is the 190-km Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan railway linking the north and the west. Zhang said the travel time between the capital cities of Hebei and Shanxi provinces will be cut from five hours to only one. Passengers traveling between Taiyuan and Beijing will need only three hours, a saving of more than five hours.

Airlines and bus companies, feeling the pinch from the new railways, are cutting prices. Wuhan-based Chutian Metropolis News reported that discounts of up to 70 percent will be given to flights from Wuhan to Shanghai starting April 1. The cost of a bus ticket will be reduced from 185 yuan ($27) to 90 yuan tomorrow. Starting next month, the ministry will add 89 pairs of passenger trains on a number of popular routes, increasing passenger capacity by 10.6 percent, Zhang said. The ministry is also considering selling train tickets by phone and via the Internet, with regions such as Guangdong and Chongqing piloting the practices, he said. China opened its first high-speed railway, the 350-kph Beijing-Tianjin route, last year.

At present, 200 bullet trains are zipping through major cities in China, Zhang said, with 600 more expected to be on the tracks by 2012, when China's high-speed rail network takes shape and securing a train ticket in peak travel seasons will no longer be a problem. Some of the bullet trains will have sleepers for travelers. In December, the ministry put such trains on the Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Hangzhou railways, charging a record 600 to 700 yuan for a sleeper ticket. While many doubted the popularity of such trains, Zhang said an average occupancy rate of 70 percent is good enough. "Passengers will see more half-empty trains than crowded ones in the future, thanks to the progress of longer railways and better and faster trains," he said.


----------



## Jaroslaw

Appreciate the extensive info from Derek in post #1180, that's exactly what I was looking for.


----------



## chris_liu_1112

derekf1974 said:


> 350 km/h PDL line
> Beijing - Tianjin 120 km, opend in 2008
> Wuhan - Guangzhou 989 km, will open in 2009
> Zhengzhou - Xi'an 484.518 km, will open in 2009
> Beijing - Shijiazhuang 269.65 km, will open in 2010
> 
> Source: http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=958110


Accurate version:

350 km/h PDL line
Beijing - Tianjin 118 km, opend in 2008
Wuhan - Guangzhou 968 km, will open in 2009
Zhengzhou - Xi'an 456 km, will open in 2009
Guangzhou - Shenzhen 105 km, will open in 2010
Shanghai - Hangzhou 160 km, will open in 2010
Beijing - Shanghai 1318 km, will open in 2011
Nanjing - Hangzhou 249 km, will open in 2011
Hangzhou - Ningbo 150 km, will open in 2011
Harbin - Dalian 904 km, will open in 2011
Beijing - Shijiazhuang 278 km, will open in 2012
Shijiazhuang - Zhengzhou - Wuhan 838 km, will open in 2012
Tianjin - Qinhuangdao 258 km, will open in 2012

250 km/h line
Qinhuangdao - Shenyang 404 km, opened in 2003
Hefei - Nanjing 156 km, opened in 2008
Hefei - Wuhan 357 km, opened in 2009
Shijiazhuang - Taiyuan 189 km, opened in 2009
Ningbo - Wenzhou 282 km, will open in 2009
Wenzhou - Fuzhou 298 km will open in 2009
Fuzhou - Xiamen 273 km, will open in 2009
Jinan - Qingdao 366 km, will open in in 2009
Nanchang - Jiujiang 131 km, will open in 2010
Shanghai - Nanjing 300 km, will open in 2010
Haikou - Sanya 297 km, will open in 2010
Changchun - Jilin 109 km, will open in 2011
Xiamen -Shenzhen 501 km, will open in 2011
Wuhan - Yichang 292 km, will open in 2011
Nanjing - Anqing 250 km, will open in 2012
Nanning - Guangzhou 577 km, will open in 2012
Nanning - Hengyang 724 km, will open in 2012
Chongqing - Lichuan 244 km, will open in 2012
Fuzhou - Putian 604, will open in 2012
Guiyang - Guangzhou 857 km, will open in 2012

200 km/h line
Lichuan - Yichang 288 km, will open in 2010


----------



## chornedsnorkack

chris_liu_1112 said:


> Accurate version:
> 
> 350 km/h PDL line
> Beijing - Tianjin 118 km, opend in 2008
> Wuhan - Guangzhou 968 km, will open in 2009
> Zhengzhou - Xi'an 456 km, will open in 2009
> Guangzhou - Shenzhen 105 km, will open in 2010
> Shanghai - Hangzhou 160 km, will open in 2010
> Beijing - Shanghai 1318 km, will open in 2011
> Nanjing - Hangzhou 249 km, will open in 2011
> Hangzhou - Ningbo 150 km, will open in 2011
> Harbin - Dalian 904 km, will open in 2011
> Beijing - Shijiazhuang 278 km, will open in 2012
> Shijiazhuang - Zhengzhou - Wuhan 838 km, will open in 2012
> Tianjin - Qinhuangdao 258 km, will open in 2012


Seeing that the inaccurate version had been:


> 350 km/h PDL line
> Beijing - Tianjin 120 km, opend in 2008
> Wuhan - Guangzhou 989 km, will open in 2009
> Zhengzhou - Xi'an 484.518 km, will open in 2009
> Beijing - Shijiazhuang 269.65 km, will open in 2010
> Nanjing - Hangzhou 249 km, will open in 2011
> Guangzhou - Hongkong 142 km, will open in 2011
> Shanghai - Hangzhou 160 km, will open in 2012
> Beijing - Shenyang 687 km, will open in 2012
> Shijiazhuang - Wuhan 840.7 km, will open in 2012
> Tianjin - Qinhuangdao 258 km, will open in 2012
> Chengdu - Chongqing 294 km, will Open in 2013
> Beijing - Shanghai 1318 km, will open in 2013
> Harbin - Dalian 904 km, will open in 2013


can anyone confirm cancellation of Beijing-Shenyang?


----------



## chris_liu_1112

chornedsnorkack said:


> Seeing that the inaccurate version had been:
> 
> 
> can anyone confirm cancellation of Beijing-Shenyang?


In China, those who have already started the construction of railway projects usually identified, usually will not be delayed, so can easily be estimated from the start date of completion date. But those who are in the preparation phase of the project, in general preparation period are of varying lengths, probably a few months, but also probably in two or three years, no one can predict what time to start, and therefore can not predict when will be completed. So that I have listed projects are already started. Those who are in the preparation stage, the project has not yet been started are not listed. Beijing-Shenyang HSL is.


----------



## joseph1951

Nozumi 300 said:


> Here are some data on the Bombardier Zefiro ^.^b
> http://www.superscooper.com/en/1_0/pdf/Bombardier_Zefiro_Technical_Description_en.pdf


Compared to its competitors (the French/German Japanese/Korean HSTs, etc) it seems outdated and under-perfoming).


----------



## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> Seeing that the inaccurate version had been:
> 
> 
> can anyone confirm cancellation of Beijing-Shenyang?


here's some recent Chinese news: (pretty positive)

On 3/9/2009

Beijing-Shenyang express rail to start construction in 2009

(http://content.caixun.com/NE/01/7f/NE017fm8.shtmhttp)


On 3/19/2009

Harbin-Dalian express rail construction will speed up. 

The project may be finished 1.5 years ahead of schedule, mainly due to the early finish of some tunnel work.
(http://travel.runsky.com/2009-03/20/content_2907497.htm)


----------



## snow is red

*High-speed rails to slash travel time*

2009-03-25

Two high-speed railways opening on April 1 will dramatically slash travel time between the hinterland and the coastal regions, a senior railway official said yesterday.

Stretching more than 350 km, the Hefei-Wuhan passenger railway, along with the Hefei-Nanjing lines opened last year, will provide the shortest link between Central China and East China's Yangtze River Delta region.










"Riding a bullet train at 250 kph from Wuhan to Nanjing will need less than three hours, almost eight hours less than now," said Zhang Shuguang, chief of the transportation department of the Ministry of Railways.

Passengers traveling from Wuhan to Shanghai will also benefit, with travel time cut in half to only four hours and 45 minutes, he said.

The other new high-speed railway is the 190-km Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan railway linking the north and the west.

Zhang said the travel time between the capital cities of Hebei and Shanxi provinces will be cut from five hours to only one. Passengers traveling between Taiyuan and Beijing will need only three hours, a saving of more than five hours.

Airlines and bus companies, feeling the pinch from the new railways, are cutting prices.

Wuhan-based Chutian Metropolis News reported that discounts of up to 70 percent will be given to flights from Wuhan to Shanghai starting April 1. The cost of a bus ticket will be reduced from 185 yuan ($27) to 90 yuan tomorrow.

Starting next month, the ministry will add 89 pairs of passenger trains on a number of popular routes, increasing passenger capacity by 10.6 percent, Zhang said.

The ministry is also considering selling train tickets by phone and via the Internet, with regions such as Guangdong and Chongqing piloting the practices, he said.

China opened its first high-speed railway, the 350-kph Beijing-Tianjin route, last year.

At present, 200 bullet trains are zipping through major cities in China, Zhang said, with 600 more expected to be on the tracks by 2012, when China's high-speed rail network takes shape and securing a train ticket in peak travel seasons will no longer be a problem.

Some of the bullet trains will have sleepers for travelers.

In December, the ministry put such trains on the Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Hangzhou railways, charging a record 600 to 700 yuan for a sleeper ticket.

While many doubted the popularity of such trains, Zhang said an average occupancy rate of 70 percent is good enough.

"Passengers will see more half-empty trains than crowded ones in the future, thanks to the progress of longer railways and better and faster trains," he said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/25/content_7615623.htm


----------



## Sen

UD2 said:


> It's complete. Just around 6 months out of date.
> 
> Most of the 300 km/h blues should be U/C. Additional line from Shijiazhuang to Tianjin. And I refuse to believe that every training coming into Bejing from Dongbei (north eastern provinces) must pass through Tianjin to get to Beijing. If there isn't something planned for Qinghuangdao to Beijing, I really hope there will be.


it's probably because of the terrain, they cannot really make a fast Qinghuangdao-Beijing HSR.


----------



## chris_liu_1112

big-dog said:


> here's some recent Chinese news: (pretty positive)
> 
> On 3/9/2009
> 
> Beijing-Shenyang express rail to start construction in 2009
> 
> (http://content.caixun.com/NE/01/7f/NE017fm8.shtmhttp)
> 
> 
> On 3/19/2009
> 
> Harbin-Dalian express rail construction will speed up.
> 
> The project may be finished 1.5 years ahead of schedule, mainly due to the early finish of some tunnel work.
> (http://travel.runsky.com/2009-03/20/content_2907497.htm)


Original Writing is "strive to start construction in 2009"(力争09年全面开工), pay attention to the word "strive", indicating the date of construction is not determined. The media and leaders usually enjoy bragging, do not trust them, unless the construction teams have been selected through tender.


----------



## altuzarra27

In recognition of the role of railway development in promoting economic growth and reducing poverty, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has provided 14 loans in the sector since 1989 covering 15 provinces for a total of about $3.0 billion. Of these projects, eight are complete, two are operating commercially and four are under construction. These projects have had positive impacts in terms of increasing personal incomes, creating jobs, industrializing rural areas, generating local government revenue, developing tourism, improving housing, protecting the environment, and increasing the participation of women and ethnic minorities in economic activities.

casas rurales en huesca |casas rurales en madrid |casas rurales en lerida |casas rurales en zaragoza


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## yaohua2000

chris_liu_1112 said:


> Accurate version:
> 
> 350 km/h PDL line
> Beijing - Tianjin 118 km, opend in 2008
> Wuhan - Guangzhou 968 km, will open in 2009
> Zhengzhou - Xi'an 456 km, will open in 2009


The Zhengzhou-Xi'an PDL will be opened on December 28, 2009. This line includes the longest bridge in the world, the Wei River Grand Bridge, which is 79.7 km long, over twice longer than the Hangzhou Bay Bridge.


----------



## 7freedom7

yaohua2000 said:


> The Zhengzhou-Xi'an PDL will be opened on December 28, 2009. This line includes the longest bridge in the world, the Wei River Grand Bridge, which is 79.7 km long, over twice longer than the Hangzhou Bay Bridge.


are you serious? any photos?


----------



## yaohua2000

7freedom7 said:


> are you serious? any photos?


Here's some:

http://www.moobol.com/ms/2699/live269925.shtml


----------



## ina555

omg
there are high-speed railways everywhere...

but my mind has just been staying at that it's just some privilege for Beijing and Tianjin...cant believe it


----------



## tiger

ANR said:


> 20.03.2009
> DW-WORLD.DE
> 
> German industrial company Siemens AG has received a 750 million euro (US$1 billion) order for its share of a contract to deliver 100 high-speed trains to China. "Siemens has secured five of the last six contracts on the high speed rail market over 300 kmh (188 mph)" in China, the Munich-based conglomerate said in a statement on Friday, March 20.
> 
> Siemens said it signed a deal with Tangshan Railway Vehicles Co. Ltd., Changchun Railway Vehicles Co. Ltd., and the Chinese Academy of Railways to supply components like electrical equipment and chassis to the project. The German part of production will take place in Krefeld-Uerdingen and Nuremberg, Germany; Graz, Austria; and Shanghai, Tianjin and Jinan, China.
> 
> The first trains for the new Bejing-Shanghai route will be operational by late 2010. "The deal strengthens our long-term partnerships in what will be the biggest high-speed train market in the world," said Siemens executive Hans-Jörg Grundmann in Erlangen on Friday.
> 
> The company will supply components for the Velaro trains, which will be assembled in China. The Velaro is a development of Siemens' successful ICE model used in Germany and has a total length of 400 meters, making it world's longest single train used in high-speed transportation. The trains would run at 350 kmh (218 mph) and make the 1318-kilometer (825 mile) run from Beijing to Shanghai in four hours. The Chinese trains will comprise 16 cars and carry around 1060 passengers each.
> 
> According to Hans-Jörg Grundmann the order was especially important because it meant supplying the first trains for a line from Beijing to Shanghai. "This is the most important high speed line in the country," he said.
> 
> China plans to create the largest high-speed network in the world, Siemens added, and future connections between Wuhan and Guangzhou, and Wuhan and Shijazhuang would also use Siemens' Valero trains. "Altogether, the network of these lines will cover a total distance of approximately 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) by the year 2020," the statement said.
> 
> Siemens has already delivered 11 high-speed trains to China out of an earlier order in 2004 for 60.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Siemens will adapt its ICE model for China _


Chinese Railway department unveiled that this news was fabricated. There was on contract with Siemens but maybe CNR will import some parts from Siemens.

Source: http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2009-03-26/145215372153s.shtml


----------



## foxmulder_ms

I think it might be more appropriate to say elevated railway instead of a bridge. But anyway, it looks great.


----------



## ANR

*Deutsche Bahn to build railroad to China from Mongolia*

Friday, March 27, 2009

Deutsche Bahn AG, Germany's state- owned railway, is planning to build a 260-kilometer railroad for coal transport from southern Mongolia to China, according to an agreement signed with Mongolia-based Energy Resources LLC on Thursday, Bloomberg reported.

Deutsche Bahn will start constructing the railroad this year, with the first trains due to run by 2011, the company said in a statement.

Investment in the project is estimated to $800 million, Bloomberg said.

The agreement was signed in Berlin Thursday during a visit by Mongolian Prime Minister Sanjaa Bayar.

Global mining companies are keen to secure rights to mineral deposits in Mongolia. Earlier reports say leading mining companies, including CVRD, BHP, Rio and China Shenhua Energy, submitted bids for the Tavan Tolgoi, which is estimated to have 6.5 billion tonnes of metallurgical coal, the biggest untapped deposit of its kind in the world.

China's top coal producer Shenhua Group started building a 4.7 billion yuan ($690 million) cross-border railway to transport coal and copper from Mongolia, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said in a Jan. 20 statement.

(Source:en.sxcoal.com)


----------



## zergcerebrates

Hmm from the Bombardier website it states that Zefiro would be introduced in 2009 in China. Any updates on that? I wonder which rails this train will travel on.

Zefiro:


----------



## chris_liu_1112

zergcerebrates said:


> Hmm from the Bombardier website it states that Zefiro would be introduced in 2009 in China. Any updates on that? I wonder which rails this train will travel on.
> 
> Zefiro:


Yes, Zefiro will be put into operation during the year, possible routes are from Beijing to Shanghai or Beijing to Guangzhou. 

Since this group of 20 Zefiro trains are all sleeper EMU, so will be put into some longer routes, run evening-to-morning train.

Trains are being produced, photographed locations are at the workshop BST


----------



## chris_liu_1112

yaohua2000 said:


> The Zhengzhou-Xi'an PDL will be opened on December 28, 2009. This line includes the longest bridge in the world, the Wei River Grand Bridge, which is 79.7 km long, over twice longer than the Hangzhou Bay Bridge.





foxmulder_ms said:


> I think it might be more appropriate to say elevated railway instead of a bridge. But anyway, it looks great.


Yes, the elevated railway has been widely used in the 350km/h high-speed railway, because this can reduce the foundation settlement as far as possible.

In the plains, only stations use embankment foundation. All the track between two stations built on viaduct, although only large areas of farmland and roads under bridges.

And even some stations are all at the bridge. Known the longest bridge is the Dan-Kun-Grand-Bridge(under construction, completed later than Wei-River-Grand-Bridge). The bridge is located in the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, between Danyang station and Kunshan station, a total length of 164km, including three elevated stations: Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou.



> *Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway Schedules (Adjust in 2009)*
> 
> Beijing-Grand-Bridge(48.2km), 2010.11 completion
> Tianjin-Grand-Bridge(113.7km), 2010.11 completion
> Qingxian-Cangzhou-Grand-Bridge(27.9km), 2010.11 completion
> Cangzhou-Dezhou-Grand-Bridge(105.9km), 2010.11 completion
> Dezhou-Yucheng-Grand-Bridge(22.1km), 2010.8 completion
> Yellow-River-Grand-Bridge(5.1km), 2010.6 completion
> Across-Jinan-Yanzhou-Road-Grand-Bridge(6.6km), 2010.5 completion
> Across-Beijing-Shanghai-Railway-Grand-Bridge(14.1km), 2009.12 completion
> Big-Wen-River-Grand-Bridge(21.1km), 2010.5 completion
> Si-River-Grand-Bridge(17.2km), 2010.5 completion
> Across-Jinan-Zaozhuang-High-way-Grand-Bridge(2.3km), 2009.8 completion
> Hanzhuang-Canal-Grand-Bridge(12.5km), 2009.12 completion
> Panlong-River-Grand-Bridge(4.2km), 2009.12 completion
> Xikema-NO1-Tunnel(2.8km), 2010.4 completion
> Houbading-Grand-Bridge(7.7km), 2009.12 completion
> Chen-Mountain-Grand-Bridge(6.6km), 2009.12 completion
> Beijing-Hangzhou-Canal-Grand-Bridge(5.4km), 2009.10 completion
> Sui-River-Grand-Bridge(65.6km), 2009.10 completion
> Huai-River-Grand-Bridge(85.4km), 2010.5 completion
> ZhangXiang-Grand-Bridge(3.0km), 2010.7 completion
> Huainan-Fengzhou-Overpass-Grand-Bridge(3.0km), 2009.11 completion
> Lianggang-Grand-Bridge(15.8km), 2010.10 completion
> "DK950-DK992"-Bridge-Roadbed-Tunnel-Composite(119km), 2010.06 completion
> Dashengguan-Long-River-Bridge(9.3km), 2009.11 completion
> Wanshou-River-Grand-Bridge(Nanjing-Hub 2.3km), 2010.5 completion
> Qinhuai-River-Grand-Bridge(Nanjing-Hub 5.1km), 2010.5 completion
> Qinhuai-New-River-Grand-Bridge-Group(Nanjing-Hub), 2010.5 completion
> Qinhuai-River-Grand-Bridge(12.6km), 2010.11 completion
> "DK1032-DK1102"-Bridge-Roadbed-Tunnel-Composite(70.2km), 2010.06 completion
> Dongshitan-Grand-Bridge(6.6km), 2010.06 completion
> Danyang-Kunshan-Grand-Bridge(163.8km), 2010.11 completion
> Yunzaobin-Grand-Bridge(23.3km), 2010.5 completion
> Shanghai EMU Maintenance Base, 2010.11 completion
> SHanghai Hongqiao Station House, 2010.4 completion
> Track 2009.8 start
> Signal And Electrification 2010.1 start


----------



## urbanfan89

I wonder if any vehicles will be named 河蟹 instead.


----------



## UD2

urbanfan89 said:


> I wonder if any vehicles will be named 河蟹 instead.


喝血？


----------



## Rail1435

The Chemist said:


> Wow, that's quite a locomotive - 12800 horsepower!
> 
> I like the name (和谐 = harmonious).


Same power as HXD1b, but I am still searching for pictures outside of locomotive works. Their are probably to be found on Hasea or other blogs, but difficult to be found by non-chinese (language barrier)!


----------



## UD2

Rail1435 said:


> Same power as HXD1b, but I am still searching for pictures outside of locomotive works. Their are probably to be found on Hasea or other blogs, but difficult to be found by non-chinese (language barrier)!


Pictures of the 1X Co-Co HXD1? 

I didn't know it was ready for production yet. Let me check.

But no, I haven't seen anything in the forums lately.

But then i think they should just keep the HXD1 as a 2X Bo-Bo. Having 16 wheels have much more traction than the 12 wheels 1X Co-Co configuration.


----------



## ANR

*Second railway from Lanzhou to Xinjiang*

*Xinjiang Hami to build 100-million-ton coal base * 
Wednesday, April 01, 2009


China is planning to build a 100-million-ton coal-producing base in Hami region, as the east gate of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to the statement of administration of Hami regions.

Hami region, with estimated reserve of 570 billion tonnes, will be an important coal-producing base in West China, supplying and transporting coal to east areas from west.

Xinjiang plans to conduct further exploration in Turpan-Hami coal base covering 130,000 square kilometers with expected newly added coal reserve amounting to 80 billion tons.

According to development plan for coal industry of Hami region, the annual coal production capacity in Hami is expected to reach 197 million tonnes in 2013, 300 million tonnes in 2015 and 500 million tonnes in 2020.

Meanwhile, Chinese government has clearly announced to *start constructing on the second railway from Lanzhou to Xinjiang* in this June, in a move of promoting coal transportation.

The first railway from Lanzhou to Xinjiang will become the line for transporting coal as the second railway is finished, which will take the place of the first line for passenger traffic.

The construction of the railroad, with a total investment of 120 billion yuan, is expected to be finished in three years, realizing annual coal transportation capacity of 300 million tonnes.

(Source:en.sxcoal.com)


----------



## spacetweek

chris_liu_1112 said:


> Accurate version:
> 
> 350 km/h PDL line
> Beijing - Tianjin 118 km, opend in 2008
> Wuhan - Guangzhou 968 km, will open in 2009
> Zhengzhou - Xi'an 456 km, will open in 2009
> Guangzhou - Shenzhen 105 km, will open in 2010
> Shanghai - Hangzhou 160 km, will open in 2010
> Beijing - Shanghai 1318 km, will open in 2011
> Nanjing - Hangzhou 249 km, will open in 2011
> Hangzhou - Ningbo 150 km, will open in 2011
> Harbin - Dalian 904 km, will open in 2011
> Beijing - Shijiazhuang 278 km, will open in 2012
> Shijiazhuang - Zhengzhou - Wuhan 838 km, will open in 2012
> Tianjin - Qinhuangdao 258 km, will open in 2012
> 
> 250 km/h line
> Qinhuangdao - Shenyang 404 km, opened in 2003
> Hefei - Nanjing 156 km, opened in 2008
> Hefei - Wuhan 357 km, opened in 2009
> Shijiazhuang - Taiyuan 189 km, opened in 2009
> Ningbo - Wenzhou 282 km, will open in 2009
> Wenzhou - Fuzhou 298 km will open in 2009
> Fuzhou - Xiamen 273 km, will open in 2009
> Jinan - Qingdao 366 km, will open in in 2009
> Nanchang - Jiujiang 131 km, will open in 2010
> Shanghai - Nanjing 300 km, will open in 2010
> Haikou - Sanya 297 km, will open in 2010
> Changchun - Jilin 109 km, will open in 2011
> Xiamen -Shenzhen 501 km, will open in 2011
> Wuhan - Yichang 292 km, will open in 2011
> Nanjing - Anqing 250 km, will open in 2012
> Nanning - Guangzhou 577 km, will open in 2012
> Nanning - Hengyang 724 km, will open in 2012
> Chongqing - Lichuan 244 km, will open in 2012
> Fuzhou - Putian 604, will open in 2012
> Guiyang - Guangzhou 857 km, will open in 2012
> 
> 200 km/h line
> Lichuan - Yichang 288 km, will open in 2010


I'm confused; there is a project to link Beijing-Nanjing-Shanghai by 2011 but there is also another project to link Nanjing-Shanghai by 2010. Will there be 2 high speed lines between Nanjing and Shanghai then?

Also I've drawn a Google map. Click here


----------



## Rail1435

Finally, I found myself.
The second 9600 kW CoCo (HXD1b):
http://img.bimg.126.net/photo/L8AkOSQHy80p43nJD6lTGQ==/2576903411787350235.jpg








Previous disappeared!!! New link:
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/4872/2576903411787350235.jpg








For the third (HXD2b), please wait until May '09.


----------



## The Chemist

UD2 said:


> 喝血？


The Vampire train?


----------



## UD2

HXD1B Co-Co Siemens


----------



## chris_liu_1112

spacetweek said:


> I'm confused; there is a project to link Beijing-Nanjing-Shanghai by 2011 but there is also another project to link Nanjing-Shanghai by 2010. Will there be 2 high speed lines between Nanjing and Shanghai then?
> 
> Also I've drawn a Google map. Click here


Yes, the are two parallel high-speed railway, because the traffic in that region is too large.(Five of the 10 million population city and a lot of small and medium-sized cities and towns located along the Shanghai-Nanjing 300km line)

Shanghai to Nanjing high-speed rail service to those passengers who travel inner-region(short distance), the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail service to those passengers who travel inter-regional(long distance).


----------



## yaohua2000

Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan Passenger Railway, 250 km/h, opened on April 1, 2009

This line cut the travel time between Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan from 04h59m to 01h13m.


----------



## foxmulder_ms

Arent there too many legs of that bridge?  Nice pictures, tnx.


----------



## zergcerebrates

Oh cool they are using the CRH5. Don't see it in action quite often


----------



## Rail1435

Similar non-tilting trains as CRH5 are ordered by RENFE (Spain)


----------



## baidu

good!:banana:


----------



## baidu

Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan Passenger Railway: video:http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/euLFtNoB6OU/


----------



## binhai

repost so link works:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/euLFtNoB6OU/

awesome video! it's really quite some rough terrain.


----------



## baidu

^^ THX 
another one 
beijing ~tianjing: car Vs high speed rail http://bbs.hasea.com/viewthread.php?tid=326033&extra=&page=1:cheers:


----------



## binhai

Hefei-Wuhan HSR, 250km/h opened April 1.

video: 

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/bH8_z9erdRk/


----------



## Papagei

baidu said:


> ^^ THX
> another one
> beijing ~tianjing: car Vs high speed rail http://bbs.hasea.com/viewthread.php?tid=326033&extra=&page=1:cheers:


Jesus this car is running nearly 300km/h! Can anyone read in the thread and tell us how fast it is?


----------



## zergcerebrates

Railfan said:


> ICE?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ORIGINAL GERMANY DESIGN!




No that is not ICE. Its obivoulsy a copied version. China has that before the actual imports of the Velaro. This is the actual ICE/Velaro in China:


----------



## zergcerebrates

I just saw a video online of someone taking the CRH2 from Beijing to Shanghai. I thought the Chinese just started constructing a HS line between the two cities? Or is it because the current HSR running between Beijing and Shanghai are not in true HIGH Speed rails and running below the operating speed?


----------



## yaohua2000

zergcerebrates said:


> I just saw a video online of someone taking the CRH2 from Beijing to Shanghai. I thought the Chinese just started constructing a HS line between the two cities? Or is it because the current HSR running between Beijing and Shanghai are not in true HIGH Speed rails and running below the operating speed?


CRH2 currently run from Beijing to Shanghai on conventional tracks. It takes the fastest train 09h59m from Beijing to Shanghai or 09h44m from Beijing South to Shanghai. The maximum speed is 250 km/h. The average speed is 150 km/h.


----------



## yaohua2000

octopusop said:


> No, this is an unsuccessful DMU called Mountain Changbai. Max speed is below 200km/h, so only 1 or 2 were producted.


No. Changbai is EMU, not DMU.


----------



## mrmoopt

YelloPerilo said:


> Yes, because China has the money to buy tons of them and also tons of TGV and Shinkansen. And China is also going to build even more of them, in co-operation with the respective companies.  :cheers:



I think that post was in reference to the Changbai Mtn train which resembles an ICE. No, it is not an ICE, but rather a 200km/h+ trainset developed using local technology.


----------



## JoKo65

zergcerebrates said:


> No that is not ICE. Its obivoulsy a copied version. China has that before the actual imports of the Velaro. This is the actual ICE/Velaro in China:
> 
> […]


To be correct, ICE 3 and Velaro are not the same. ICE 3 has been manufactured by Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens, Velaro is a product of Siemens.
The first Velaro for Germany will be the Velaro D which is ordered now by DB:


----------



## octopusop

yaohua2000 said:


> CRH2 currently run from Beijing to Shanghai on conventional tracks. It takes the fastest train 09h59m from Beijing to Shanghai or 09h44m from Beijing South to Shanghai. The maximum speed is 250 km/h. The average speed is 150 km/h.



In timetable, CRH from beijing to shanghai without stop are running a little above 10 hours, so the average speed is 130 km/h. 
I can not believe that the CRH2 could run 250 km/h on conventional tracks.
As I known, on mixed passenger and freight conventional tracks, the speed limit is 160km/h.


----------



## yaohua2000

octopusop said:


> In timetable, CRH from beijing to shanghai without stop are running a little above 10 hours, so the average speed is 130 km/h.
> I can not believe that the CRH2 could run 250 km/h on conventional tracks.
> As I known, on mixed passenger and freight conventional tracks, the speed limit is 160km/h.


Where did you get your "timetable"?

D31 leaves Beijing South at 11:05, arrives Shanghai at 20:49, 09h44m
D313 leaves Beijing at 21:20, arrives Shanghai at 07:19 the next day, 09h59m

The 22-km long Anting-Shanghai West section is currently the only section that is capable for 250 km/h service along the 1463-km long Beijing-Shanghai line, however when CRH trains run on this section, its speed could reach 250 km/h, no problem.

Furthermore, train D31 departs from Beijing South and run on the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Rail, it could reach 250 km/h in this section too. However, D313 does not run on the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Rail.


----------



## baidu

*one nice picture*

from crccg.com


----------



## octopusop

yaohua2000 said:


> Where did you get your "timetable"?
> 
> D31 leaves Beijing South at 11:05, arrives Shanghai at 20:49, 09h44m
> D313 leaves Beijing at 21:20, arrives Shanghai at 07:19 the next day, 09h59m
> 
> The 22-km long Anting-Shanghai West section is currently the only section that is capable for 250 km/h service along the 1463-km long Beijing-Shanghai line, however when CRH trains run on this section, its speed could reach 250 km/h, no problem.
> 
> Furthermore, train D31 departs from Beijing South and run on the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Rail, it could reach 250 km/h in this section too. However, D313 does not run on the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Rail.


there are passenger special line between beijing and tianjin.
are you sure that in anting-shanghai west, 5000 tons freight train are running?


----------



## yaohua2000

octopusop said:


> there are passenger special line between beijing and tianjin.
> are you sure that in anting-shanghai west, 5000 tons freight train are running?


During the "6th large-scale railway speed-up" on April 18, 2007. The ministry of railway announced 6003 km of conventional railway had been upgraded to 200 km/h, and 846 km of conventional railway had been upgraded to 250 km/h. The Anting-ShanghaiWest section is among the 250 km/h upgraded railways. I suppose the 250 km/h upgraded railway should be longer than then since it had been two years.

I have a GPS trace recorded last December, you can find it at:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/wangchun/traces/318200


----------



## nineth

I think there are so many stops in between Beijing and Shanghai, than it takes time to from over 100 km/h to 0, then it takes time to unload and upload passengers, then takes time to accelerate. then, maybe it can maintain at the speed of over 200 km/h at some straight rail condition only, therefore, in average, speed is not that high.


----------



## UD2

.....


----------



## yaohua2000

nineth said:


> I think there are so many stops in between Beijing and Shanghai, than it takes time to from over 100 km/h to 0, then it takes time to unload and upload passengers, then takes time to accelerate. then, maybe it can maintain at the speed of over 200 km/h at some straight rail condition only, therefore, in average, speed is not that high.


D313 does not stop anywhere from Beijing to Shanghai.


----------



## big-dog

nineth said:


> I think there are so many stops in between Beijing and Shanghai, than it takes time to from over 100 km/h to 0, then it takes time to unload and upload passengers, then takes time to accelerate. then, maybe it can maintain at the speed of over 200 km/h at some straight rail condition only, therefore, in average, speed is not that high.


if you talk on the new 350kmph express rail, it's all about interval scheduling. even on high speed rail, some CRH trains stop at every station and some do not stop in between. 

the HSR is being built to serve the whole area's economy not only the city of Beijing and Shanghai. the frequent stopping trains definitely can not reach 300kmph but still faster than normal trains.


----------



## gramercy

exactly

there are HS trains in france that have 2 stops: Paris Lyon ..... and Marseilles. Nothing in between..


----------



## UD2

yaohua2000 said:


> D313 does not stop anywhere from Beijing to Shanghai.


Very rare. Especially in case of the D313, which is a complete waste of money. The Z13 (is that the number?) train that it replaced was a waaay better deal. Yes i'm crying for it once again.


----------



## big-dog

gramercy said:


> exactly
> 
> there are HS trains in france that have 2 stops: Paris Lyon ..... and Marseilles. Nothing in between..


considering the hugh population along this HSR line, there's no other choices.


----------



## UD2

big-dog said:


> considering the hugh population along this HSR line, there's no other choices.


Or rather, the population density along the line is the reason why it's built.


----------



## big-dog

*Chinese railway pictures*




























(pics taken Feb in Dalian, hasea.com)


----------



## gramercy

big-dog said:


> considering the hugh population along this HSR line, there's no other choices.


you are of course wrong

there are stations 80-100 kms from each other , like Lyon Avignon or Provance


----------



## big-dog

^^ 
Sorry I was talking about the population along the Beijing-Shanghai line makes frequent stops the only option.


----------



## gramercy

big-dog said:


> ^^
> Sorry I was talking about the population along the Beijing-Shanghai line makes frequent stops the only option.


well, take a look at some HSR stations: they allow for trains to pass through the middle at 350 kph as well as have platforms and separate tracks for stopping trains

there will be trains that
- only stop at beijing and shanghai
- that stop at 100-120 km intervals (every station)
- that stop at selected stations (not just the ends but not at every station)

the benefit of a completely 350kph, completely passenger-oriented line on such long distances, is that:
- once these extremely long distance trains accelerate to 350kph, they will be able to do that speed for 1000-1500-2000 kms (in case of Beijing-Hong Kong, this will be true!!!), so the average speed will be very very close to the max speed
- you dont have the limiting factors (speed, capacity etc.) of accounting for freight or slower passenger trains
- trains that do stop regularly can pull over while the non-stop train passes by in the middle


i have a nasty feeling that when the chinese are done with their 20-30.000 km project, they will have to modernize the old lines because still they will need more capacity
the numbers are staggering


----------



## gramercy

also, with ETCS the headway between trains travelling at 350 kph will be down to a few minutes!!! they will be able to move 15-20 trains hourly per direction....at this speed


----------



## Chrisel

yaohua2000 said:


> Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan Passenger Railway, 250 km/h, opened on April 1, 2009
> 
> This line cut the travel time between Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan from 04h59m to 01h13m.





foxmulder_ms said:


> Arent there too many legs of that bridge?  Nice pictures, tnx.


^^ My thoughts exactly...they should have used less materials with a better truss design. What a waste.


----------



## foxmulder_ms

I am sure there is a reason but I dont know what it is. It looks really weird. May be it is because of the angle we look but still it looks excessive.


----------



## superchan7

You can see one arched section where the span is longer. It's in the foreground.


----------



## big-dog

Chrisel said:


> ^^ My thoughts exactly...they should have used less materials with a better truss design. What a waste.


This is Yehe Bridge (冶河特大桥), 1688.8m, 52 holes, one of the 94 bridges on this HSR route.

The multi-hole bridge design is to resist the rare flood from the plain underneath.

here's one construction pic.









(baidu.com)


----------



## zergcerebrates

Chrisel said:


> ^^ My thoughts exactly...they should have used less materials with a better truss design. What a waste.



These are professionals that designed and built the bridge. I'm sure the civil engineer had a reason to implement this design. We shouldn't criticize the type of bridge use without knowing the true facts. It could be many factors such as weather, soil, wind, earthquakes, and floods. It could also be the cost of upkeeping this bridge it could be a cheaper alternative means maybe due to its location.


----------



## gramercy

bravo, great


----------



## chornedsnorkack

gramercy said:


> well, take a look at some HSR stations: they allow for trains to pass through the middle at 350 kph as well as have platforms and separate tracks for stopping trains
> 
> there will be trains that
> - only stop at beijing and shanghai
> - that stop at 100-120 km intervals (every station)
> - that stop at selected stations (not just the ends but not at every station)
> 
> the benefit of a completely 350kph, completely passenger-oriented line on such long distances, is that:
> - once these extremely long distance trains accelerate to 350kph, they will be able to do that speed for 1000-1500-2000 kms (in case of Beijing-Hong Kong, this will be true!!!), so the average speed will be very very close to the max speed
> - you dont have the limiting factors (speed, capacity etc.) of accounting for freight or slower passenger trains
> - trains that do stop regularly can pull over while the non-stop train passes by in the middle


Have a look at Tokaido Shinkansen of Japan.

515 km long. Maximum speed of some 300 km/h.

The fastest trains, named Nozomi, cover the distance in 2:25. With 4 intermediate stops: Nagoya, Kyoto and two stations on Tokyo suburbs (Shinagawa and Yokohama).

Japanese might have express trains on Shinkansen, and skip even those stops. They don´t.

They do have a lot of Hikari and Kodama services - Kodama has 17 stops and takes 4 hours, and Hikari is intermediate. This means that a lot of Nozomi and Hikari trains must somehow get past the slower trains. They do.

How many stops do you think should Beijing-Shanghai trains have at the very minimum? And how many should the slower trains have?


----------



## New York Morning

big-dog said:


> (pics taken Feb in Dalian, hasea.com)


Amazing!!! Is there so cool winters in China? :scouserd:


----------



## gramercy

chornedsnorkack said:


> Have a look at Tokaido Shinkansen of Japan.
> 
> 515 km long. Maximum speed of some 300 km/h.
> 
> The fastest trains, named Nozomi, cover the distance in 2:25. With 4 intermediate stops: Nagoya, Kyoto and two stations on Tokyo suburbs (Shinagawa and Yokohama).
> 
> Japanese might have express trains on Shinkansen, and skip even those stops. They don´t.


The french do. The distance between Paris Gare de Lyon and Marseille Saint-Charles is ~720 kms and the travel time is ~3 hrs. I think there are non-stop trains.



> ow many stops do you think should Beijing-Shanghai trains have at the very minimum? And how many should the slower trains have?


I dont know. But I have read earlier that they will have non-stop service.

Finding the optimum is a complex mathematical modelling, which I'm sure they'll calculate. 

However, you have two cities with rougly 20 million (!) people in both of them within a few hrs from each other. I BET you can fill even the non-stop trains with people.


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## UD2

gramercy said:


> The french do. The distance between Paris Gare de Lyon and Marseille Saint-Charles is ~720 kms and the travel time is ~3 hrs. I think there are non-stop trains.
> 
> 
> 
> I dont know. But I have read earlier that they will have non-stop service.
> 
> Finding the optimum is a complex mathematical modelling, which I'm sure they'll calculate.
> 
> However, you have two cities with rougly 20 million (!) people in both of them within a few hrs from each other. I BET you can fill even the non-stop trains with people.


^^

The cities are 11 hours away from each other. And between them there are many other cities with population over 5 million and countless municipalities with over 1 million people. 

How many stops a minimum? 

The answer is none. A non-stopping train is rightfully justified in this situation and the demand has been proven to be there with already functioning conventional non-stopping trains. But will there be high speed trains running on the Beijing-Shanghai lane that stops at stations? Certainly yes. There will be many stations (someone with actual time can try to count them) along the high-speed line and all of them are meant to be serviced. 

There will be some trains with fewer stops and some trains with more stops. And similarly to the rest of the Chinese network, the trains with fewer stops will most likely have higher priority to the ones that stops more often.


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## big-dog

zergcerebrates said:


> These are professionals that designed and built the bridge. I'm sure the civil engineer had a reason to implement this design. We shouldn't criticize the type of bridge use without knowing the true facts. It could be many factors such as weather, soil, wind, earthquakes, and floods. It could also be the cost of upkeeping this bridge it could be a cheaper alternative means maybe due to its location.


I have mentioned the reason for this design in my post: flood resisting.



New York Morning said:


> Amazing!!! Is there so cool winters in China? :scouserd:


China's weather is almost the same with US: cold north, warm south, dry west, humid east.


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## New York Morning

I believe its northern China on the pics? Where that pics were taken?


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## snow is red

big-dog said:


> (pics taken Feb in Dalian, hasea.com)





New York Morning said:


> I believe its northern China on the pics? Where that pics were taken?


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## big-dog

New York Morning said:


> I believe its northern China on the pics? Where that pics were taken?


Yes those pictures were taken in Dalian, 2nd largest city in Liaoning Province. Liaoning Province is located in the Northeast of China.


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## octopusop

big-dog said:


> (pics taken Feb in Dalian, hasea.com)


A sad message is that the Department of Railway had quit buying
DF series and SS series locomotives last year. Factories had ceased production of SSs that time, and DFs are produced with small quantities for big enterpnises and mines which have private railways. The two series had been produced for almost 50 years.

SS 韶山 means electric locomotive, which was replaced by HXD 河蟹电. HXD means electric locomotive AC transmission.
DF 东风 means diesel locomotive DC transmission., which was replaced by HXN 河蟹内. HXN means diesel locomotive AC transmission.
Another popular locomotive series is DFH 东方红,which means diesel locomotive hydrodynamic transmission, production had been ceased last century.


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## clkgtr

> SS 韶山 means electric locomotive, which was replaced by HXD 河蟹电. HXD means electric locomotive AC transmission.
> DF 东风 means diesel locomotive DC transmission., which was replaced by HXN 河蟹内. HXN means diesel locomotive AC transmission.
> Another popular locomotive series is DFH 东方红,which means diesel locomotive hydrodynamic transmission, production had been ceased last century.


You really have a sense of HUMOR!:lol::lol:


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## amirtaheri

I wonder why they didn't utilise double decker train models like the TGV Duplex as the basis for their high speed network. Having travelled on China Railways, what they need is capacity. The larger volume of passengers they can fit onto the train, the cheaper the tickets ought to be per passenger.... theoretically.


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## mrmoopt

I think the Chinese want to steer away from push pull models for their HSR, if Deckers were chosen, they'd surely choose the E series from the Japanese.


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## UD2

amirtaheri said:


> I wonder why they didn't utilise double decker train models like the TGV Duplex as the basis for their high speed network. Having travelled on China Railways, what they need is capacity. The larger volume of passengers they can fit onto the train, the cheaper the tickets ought to be per passenger.... theoretically.


Double decker trains are larger, taller and heavier than their single level counterparts and thus, require a higher level of technical knowhow to operate effectively. 

As the knowhow for the technology mature, I'm certain double decker EMUs will considered with definition.

But even if it is considered, the design that will most likely be tabled would be the Japanese style double decker EMUs, rather than the French style push/pull technology.


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## snapdragon

UD2 said:


> Double decker trains are larger, taller and heavier than their single level counterparts and thus, require a higher level of technical knowhow to operate effectively.
> 
> As the knowhow for the technology mature, I'm certain double decker EMUs will considered with definition.
> 
> But even if it is considered, the design that will most likely be tabled would be the Japanese style double decker EMUs, rather than the French style push/pull technology.


I have travelled extensively on those double deckers when i was in germany .Trust me none of them ever cross 200 kmph mark and all of them hover around the 190 Kmph mark (no matter what u hear on news  ) .Also China is a much much larger country and having trains at 300 kmph is kind of necessary as still many cities even with 300 kmph trains are projected to be 5 to 7 hours apart .While incase of germany and most of europe 190 kmph was more than enough to travel the distance. So they can easily go for double decker trains while comprimising speed with same power. 

At 300 Kmph on the top double decker A person would be very unstable as the centre of gravity of that person is high .So another reason why such high speed trains prefer only one level.

Actually China has a much more powerful electric grids. Which is what fuels these trains and lets be frank the core motors that drive all these trains are more or less similar.So it only makes sense to assume Chinese CRH are far more powerful  Already research on high speed motors is more or less 40 years old now .The only reason why most countries don't start laying is because .They simply can't afford the infrastructure investment to sustain it and the cost to build this infrastructure to support it and make it economically viable . Japan was testing such super fast trains inthe start of 70's  just 20 years after total collapse so motors have been well developed long back.


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## yaohua2000

And double-deck takes longer time to load / unload passengers. Most CRH trains only stop for 1 minute in small stations and 2 minutes in larger stations in China.


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## UD2

how fast do they operate in Japan?


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## big-dog

*Chinese Railway photos*

add some pictures to this page 




























(hasea.com)


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## UD2

big-dog said:


> add some pictures to this page
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (hasea.com)


OMG I love that. I find it much better to look at than HSR.

Where is the KD? I thought the SS9G didn't have HEP. And I've seen many SS9G towed trains stacked with a KD. So it does have HEP?


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## chornedsnorkack

snapdragon said:


> I have travelled extensively on those double deckers when i was in germany .Trust me none of them ever cross 200 kmph mark and all of them hover around the 190 Kmph mark (no matter what u hear on news  ) .Also China is a much much larger country and having trains at 300 kmph is kind of necessary as still many cities even with 300 kmph trains are projected to be 5 to 7 hours apart .While incase of germany and most of europe 190 kmph was more than enough to travel the distance. So they can easily go for double decker trains while comprimising speed with same power.


TGV Duplex in France travels at 320 km/h, however. Faster than Japanese double deck Shinkansen.

Unloading times at stations is a problem, of course; but many railways have doubledecker trains on shorthaul commuter trains!


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## snapdragon

big-dog said:


> add some pictures to this page
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (hasea.com)



Looks seriously awesome


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## octopusop

UD2 said:


> OMG I love that. I find it much better to look at than HSR.
> 
> Where is the KD? I thought the SS9G didn't have HEP. And I've seen many SS9G towed trains stacked with a KD. So it does have HEP?


SS9G have HEP.
All of KD25Ts are running on Qinghai-Tibet railway, green painted.
One and only 25T painted KD is KD25K 998713, belonging to minister special.
http://bbs.hasea.com/viewthread.php?tid=274564&extra=&page=3


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## k.k.jetcar

UD2 said:


> OMG I love that. I find it much better to look at than HSR.


Yes, locomotive-hauled passenger trains have a certain "something" that multiple unit HSR trains lack. Perhaps they appeal to our traditional sense of a train- some people even call them "REAL trains"!


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## UD2

octopusop said:


> SS9G have HEP.
> All of KD25Ts are running on Qinghai-Tibet railway, green painted.
> One and only 25T painted KD is KD25K 998713, belonging to minister special.
> http://bbs.hasea.com/viewthread.php?tid=274564&extra=&page=3


I've seen some 25Ts matched with KD25K and haulted by the 9G. And even more 9G hauled SXX25Ks with KDs. 9G's HEP not powerful enough for double deckers?


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## octopusop

UD2 said:


> I've seen some 25Ts matched with KD25K and haulted by the 9G. And even more 9G hauled SXX25Ks with KDs. 9G's HEP not powerful enough for double deckers?


Air-conductors need 300kW AC380V power supply, for electrified locos, just add a transformer, HEP is not needed. Some HXD3s added these transformers in the position of former toilet, similar transformation were done for SS9s.


----------



## :jax:

yaohua2000 said:


> And double-deck takes longer time to load / unload passengers. Most CRH trains only stop for 1 minute in small stations and 2 minutes in larger stations in China.


One solution to that could of course be to have elevated platforms at the stations to allow entrance/exit on both levels simultaneously. An expensive solution, but these are expensive trains.


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## zergcerebrates

*CRH*

Some pics from the China forum thought more people would see it here instead. I think its kinda cool to see a highspeed train in such remote places.


----------



## ChinaHighspeedRail

WoW I like these photos, its amazing, wondering how tall are the bridge in the last pic.


----------



## big-dog

*Chinese railway pictures*



















(hasea.com)


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## yaohua2000

http://news.xinmin.cn/domestic/2009/06/01/2030913.html

Four railway technicians accidently fall off when driving on the constructing bridge of Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway near Zhenjiang city, 3 killed, 1 severely injured.


----------



## Facial

snapdragon said:


> that is why capitalism rocks .


Not when the government builds all the new HSR to satisfy projected demand and subsidizes some costs in rural areas for lower income farmers.


----------



## hkskyline

*INTERVIEW-IBM opens China rail centre, eyes $731 bln in spending *

BEIJING, June 11 (Reuters) -IBM's first rail innovation centre will help it tap into China's 5 trillion yuan ($731 billion) spending in the sector, the firm said on Thursday at the centre's official opening.

The products and services developed at the centre for China also could be applied to markets around the world, said Keith Dierkx, the director of the Global Rail Innovation Centre, which opened in Beijing on Thursday.

"If you can build them for China, everything else is easier," Dierkx told Reuters in an interview.

IBM is working extensively with China's Ministry of Railways on projects dealing with system optimisation, digital video surveillance and asset management programs, he said, adding that IBM hopes the initial advisory role will develop into other commercial opportunities.

"There are potentially joint-venture types of things that could be done," he said.

China's planned investment over the next two years could make up more than half of the world's total railway equipment market, consisting of mostly rolling stock and wagons, according to consultancy McKinsey & Co.

The rising populations of the world's major cities are straining transportation networks and energy resources, forcing state planners to consider building smart and efficient infrastructure to cope with the challenges, Dierkx said.

IBM commissioned a report two years ago on railroads as investors such as Warren Buffett took big stakes in Northern Santa Fe Corp and Union Pacific Corp , and knew that "something was going to happen" in the industry, Dierkx said.

"Rail obviously has a high level of focus for IBM," he said, without detailing the sector's contribution to IBM's business.

Railroads were not good investments for a long time, but now investors realise railways can ease urban traffic congestion, improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, he said.

IBM said in March that Netherlands Railways was using IBM products to match schedules of more than 4,800 trains per day with forecasts of passenger traffic across its system.

For its part, China plans to spend $731 billion until 2020, adding 41,000 km (25,480 miles) to its already massive rail network, as the government tries to boost domestic demand and ease strains on a jammed system. 

Beijing has also been spending billions to build out its air and water transport networks, hoping to improve access to China's vast and underdeveloped inland regions.

"In terms of their commitment and in terms of their vision, they intend to be a global leader," said Dierkx, referring to Beijing's ambitious plans to modernise its rail network.

IBM will be looking at a broad range of collaborative efforts with China in the rail sector, starting with the new centre and a focus, at least initially, as an adviser.

McKinsey said the railroad industry is the heart and soul of China's economic development, and the severe winter storms last year that paralysed a large swath of the country's rail system was a wakeup call.

"China needs greater efficiency and reliability in its railway system," said Evan Auyang, an associate partner at McKinsey.

About half of China's railway system is dedicated to hauling coal -- the source of about 75 percent of the country's electricity -- while 90 percent transports bulk cargo.

McKinsey reckons that foreign commercial participation in China's railway system is only about 1.5 percent currently and even domestic private investment is only 5 percent, percentages that could rise sharply as Beijing modernises its rail network.

($=6.83 yuan)


----------



## maldini

baidu said:


> you are right:cheers:
> 
> 
> NEW guangzhou RAILWAY STATION U/C


The new station looks better than the model. But when they build the pillars of the railways, did they actually do a lot of piling? From the pics some times it looks like they stack concrete blocks on top of one another when they build the pillars.


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## gramercy

stop obsessing with the pilons

first of all, soil would have needed time to consolidate, which is significant in cost and prestige..
second, this is a very densely populated area, so the ground underneath it is probably gonna be put to good use (from park to parkinglot)


----------



## rmcee

Polish transport minister and the head of PKP (Polish Railways) Group are visiting China. The plan is not only to promote China - Europe rail transport, but also invite Chinese companies to participate in Polish infrastructure tenders and - interestingly - promote the Polish way of restructuring the railway sector, mainly the Cargo company. PKP Cargo lost 35% in freight volumes Q1 08 to Q1 09. The company's IPO is postponed since 2005. It is overstaffed. Let's hope the Chinese don't take this lesson.


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## sotavento

maldini said:


> why are the tracks elevated? Even if the soil is soft, the support is still standing on soft grounds. Could they just compact the ground first?


The tracks are embedded in a concrete foundation anyway ... it's way easier and cheaper to just build a proper viaduct than to create a massive earthwork and then put things in a concrete trackbed on top. :dunno:


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## rmcee

This is why I wondered if Chinese companies are penetrating European rolling stock opportunities: http://www.railwaymarket.eu/7471/Poland++Warsaw+Metro+plans+a+huge+rolling+stock+tender.htm


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## sotavento

amirtaheri said:


> I wonder why they didn't utilise double decker train models like the TGV Duplex as the basis for their high speed network. Having travelled on China Railways, what they need is capacity. The larger volume of passengers they can fit onto the train, the cheaper the tickets ought to be per passenger.... theoretically.


That's because the Duplex use some expensive advanced technologies in those double deck cars. :lol:



cal_t said:


> I think the Chinese want to steer away from push pull models for their HSR, if Deckers were chosen, they'd surely choose the E series from the Japanese.





UD2 said:


> Double decker trains are larger, taller and heavier than their single level counterparts and thus, require a higher level of technical knowhow to operate effectively.
> 
> As the knowhow for the technology mature, I'm certain double decker EMUs will considered with definition.
> 
> But even if it is considered, the design that will most likely be tabled would be the Japanese style double decker EMUs, rather than the French style push/pull technology.


That depends ... in wich century do you live??? 

push-pull is so 80's ... and didn't you meant top'n'tailing ??? 

People are still _biased-to-the-core_ when diferentiating between french and japanese high speed trains ???? :bash:

^^ the duplex from SNCF is a very lightweight aluminium honeycomb trainset ... just forget about the actual traction package in those trains (it can be equiped with traction equipment from any manufacturer ... even kawasaki/mitsubishi traction) 


Theres nothing stoping the Duplex cars to use distributed power ... it has already been done in the V150. :dunno:

Back to the discussion ... people always take a little piece and make it sound as if it's the entire package:

What "E series" would be eligible ??? 

E1 are 300m long 240km/h double deckers 
E2 are 200/250m long 275km/h single deckers
E3 are 150m long 275km/h "mini" single deckers
E4 are 200m long 240km/h double deckers
E5 will be 300m long 320km/h single deckers 
Duplex are 200m long 320km/h double deckers ... 

A double decker train based on the fasteck concept is still to be seen. hno:
A duplex version of the AVG would only need to use currently avaible technologies ... and that means 360km/h and fully distributed traction since the only thing that would need to be changed from the _V150 record train_ would be the end-cars. :dunno:

Another thing worth mentioning is that the 1995 Duplex are "evolutionary" Reseau/Atlantique motor-heads coupled with "revolutionary" passenger cars. (the head locomotives are in fact a remnant of the 80's technologic limitations) ... a new "duplex" developed in 2009 would be entirely based on AGV asincronous technology. 
Notice: a 400m long "AGV duplex" in 2+2 seating would have a capacity of 1200/1300 pax ... a similar CRH based on the japanese loading gauge would have 2+3 seating or even 3+3 wich means that it could have 25/50% increased capacity. 
Notice2: as I said up there ... theres nothing stoping anyone from making a similar train ... be it alstom , bombardier , siemens , kawasaki , hyunday , mitsubishi , EMD or anyone else in the railway business. hno:


----------



## ANR

*China sees 120% rise in rail investment in first five months*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-18 

China saw a surge of investment in railway construction as the country pledged to increase spending as an effort to buoy the world's third largest economy. In the first five months, China pumped 168.9 billion yuan ($24.7 billion) in fixed-asset investment in railways, up 120 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Railways said in a statement Wednesday. The money included 149 billion yuan for railway infrastructure construction, up 161.8 percent from a year ago, 3.328 billion yuan for railway upgrading, and 16.55 billion yuan for purchasing trains, according to the ministry. The country built a total of 1,942.5km of new rail lines in the first five months.

China unveiled a four-trillion-yuan stimulus package in November to boost the slowing economy amid the global economic downturn. Public infrastructure development took up 1.5 trillion yuan, the biggest share, of the total package. The projects cover railways, roads, irrigation and airport construction


----------



## toddhubert

new Guangzhou station


----------



## ANR

*China’s first north-to-south coal railway to start construction*

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
(Source:en.sxcoal.com)

China’s first north-south coal transmission project is expected to start by the end of this year.

The project, called Yingshi railway, will transport the coal that produced in Shanxi, Gansu and Xinjiang to Hubei province, resolving the coal resource deficiency, said an officer with Hubei Development and Reform Commission. The total investment of this project is predicted to hit 100 billion yuan.

Started from Yingcheng of coal-rich Shanxi province and ended at Shimen of Hunan province, the railway measures 800 kilometres.


----------



## ANR

*High-speed trains to take the strain*

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-24 









_Workers put their backs into laying rail track in Changsha,Hunan province.[China Daily]_

Thirty-five high-speed rail lines, measuring 11,000 km, are being rolled out throughout China, a railway ministry official said yesterday. With China's railways among the main beneficiaries of the government's 4-trillion-yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package, around 13,000 km of high-speed railways capable of handling trains traveling at more than 200 kph could be completed and put into service by 2012, said Zheng Jian, chief planner with the Ministry of Railways. The construction of an additional 5,000-km of high-speed railways will be begun soon, he said.

At least five railway routes will be able to accommodate trains traveling at speeds of 350 kph, Zheng said. The five lines include three north-south routes: Beijing-Shanghai; Beijing-Guangzhou (Hong Kong); and Beijing-Harbin (Dalian). The two east-west high-speed lines are Xuzhou-Lanzhou and Shanghai-Kunming. The five lines along with three other lines with a designed speed of between 200 and 350 kph, will become the trunk lines of China's future high-speed passenger rail network.

A ministry spokesman declined to say how many kilometers China's high-speed rail network may end up covering. So far, China has built 185 km of rail track capable of handling the 350-kph trains, including the country's first such rail link, between Beijing and Tianjin, which opened last August. The Beijing-Shanghai rail line may end up being the fastest - the ministry said in a news release that the trip will take four hours, which means trains will likely exceed 350 kph.

The ministry said in January that 600 billion yuan will be invested in railway infrastructure this year. The high-speed passenger train network will end up extending to all cities with a population of more than 200,000. Experts believe high-speed railways will become a major transportation option in tomorrow's China.

Yang Hao, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, said China has a population that is six times that of the United States but it only has one-50th of the US' airports. "The future transport pattern should be a comprehensive one that incorporates multiple transport means," he said.


----------



## z0rg

Does anybody know if the lines planned to run at 200-250km/h will be easily upgradable to 300-400km/h?


----------



## hkskyline

*China mulls listing Beijing-Shanghai rail line: state media *
25 June 2009
Agence France Presse

China is considering a stock market listing for its valuable Beijing-Shanghai railway line to raise funds for the nation's massive rail construction plans, state media said Thursday.

The Ministry of Railways is mulling restructuring the line linking the country's two richest cities into a holding company before floating it, the China Daily reported.

The report said the line was China's most valuable, with assets of 44 billion dollars.

The ministry may also merge the assets of the separate Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line, which is valued at 220 billion yuan (32.2 billion dollars), into the holding company after it goes public, the report said.

The main Beijing-Shanghai rail line is an existing link, while the separate high-speed line is due to become operational next year.

No timetable was given for the plan, which was said to be in its very early stages.

It could prove to be China's largest railway financing programme ever and help raise capital for rail construction in the nation's impoverished western areas, Chinese press reports said.

The Beijing-Shanghai railway is the busiest line in China, accounting for around 10 percent of the country's total rail passenger traffic, the China Daily said.

The high-speed line between the two cities is expected to double the capacity the current regular line carries to 80 million passengers a year and cut travel time to about five hours from 12 hours, it said.

Analysts said the listing plan could help alleviate the capital shortage faced by China in its ambitious rail network expansion.

The government has said it planned to add 41,000 kilometres (25,400 miles) of rail lines to its existing network at a cost of 731 billion dollars by 2020, bringing the total length of the system to 120,000 kilometres.

The plan has been fuelled by rising demand for rail travel and touted by the government as part of its plans to stimulate economic growth, which has slowed due to the global downturn.


----------



## hkskyline

*China Vows to Improve Railway Network Further *

SHENZHEN, June 25, SinoCast -- China's long-term strategy gives an indication that by 2012 it will take less than eight hours for a passenger to get to a provincial capital from another by train save for Hainan, Lhasa, and Urumqi, according to an official at the Ministry of Railways.

Under the country's long-term railway network construction plan, the ministry discloses, China's total railway operation mileage will top 120,000 kilometers by 2020. And by 2012, the country will have 13,000 kilometers of passenger dedicated lines and intracity express railways.

In line with the long-term plan, China will also build up a cascade of modern railway stations. It has set a goal of building, rebuilding, and expanding 1,066 railway stations before 2020, 804 of which are scheduled to come into operation by 2012.

The ministry has vowed to enlarge the nation's railway network to above 110,000 kilometers by 2012, brining the country's railway transportation capacity to a new high.


----------



## dodge321

hkskyline said:


> *China Vows to Improve Railway Network Further *
> 
> SHENZHEN, June 25, SinoCast -- China's long-term strategy gives an indication that by 2012 it will take less than eight hours for a passenger to get to a provincial capital from another by train save for Hainan, Lhasa, and Urumqi, according to an official at the Ministry of Railways.


That seems rather unbelievable, thats saying you can get from Harbin to Kunming or Nanning in 8 hours, which is more that twice the distance from Beijing and Shanghai, and Beijing to Shanghai takes 5 hours going at 350kph.


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## chornedsnorkack

dodge321 said:


> That seems rather unbelievable, thats saying you can get from Harbin to Kunming or Nanning in 8 hours, which is more that twice the distance from Beijing and Shanghai, and Beijing to Shanghai takes 5 hours going at 350kph.


No, it is not ;-)

It is saying that you can get from Harbin to Changchun in 8 hours. And Kunming to Nanning or Guizhou or Chengdu.


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## dodge321

^^ Oh I see, it means that you can get to the provincial capital of any neighbouring province, thanks for clarifying.


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## baidu

chornedsnorkack said:


> No, it is not ;-)
> 
> It is saying that you can get from Harbin to Changchun in 8 hours. And Kunming to Nanning or Guizhou or Chengdu.


No,it means you can get from central china (changsha,zhenzhou,wuhan) to any provincial capital in 8 hours

PS: the railway minister is from wuhan:lol:


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## yaohua2000

test run had begun on wuhan-guangzhou high-speed rail today. it took 2 hours for a test train run from xianning to changsha in the early morning. 22 test run is planned today. rumor says the speed will reach 350 km/h in the afternoon.

http://bbs.hasea.com/thread-359146-1-1.html (in Chinese)


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## yaohua2000

schedule of test trains this morning (2009-06-27):

Train number / Origin / Destination / Max speed
D55002, New Xianning @ 05:00 -> North Origin Point @ 05:50, 80 km/h
D55003, North Origin Point @ 06:00 -> New Xianning (Track II) @ 06:20, 300 km/h
D55004, New Xianning @ 06:30 -> North Origin Point @ 06:50, 310 km/h
D55005, North Origin Point @ 07:00 -> New Xianning (Track II) @ 07:20, 320 km/h
D55006, New Xianning @ 07:30 -> North Origin Point @ 07:50, 330 km/h
D55007, North Origin Point @ 08:00 -> New Xianning (Track II) @ 08:20, 340 km/h
D55006, New Xianning @ 08:30 -> North Origin Point @ 08:50, 350 km/h
D55007, North Origin Point @ 09:00 -> New Xianning (Track II) @ 09:20, 350 km/h

stand by, reinspection, lunch at 11:10, wait for people from the ministry to get on the train


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## chornedsnorkack

*Haian*

What is the distance by rail from Haian to Guangzhou? To Nanning?

What is the trip time?


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## baidu

how china construct HSR


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## baidu

900T Girder Carrie


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## gramercy

thx for posting these
ive seen pix but not a video of this mode of construction

i'd say the west has a lot to learn from this
the speed of the construction must be fast


----------



## ANR

*Chaimu railway to come fully on-stream by the end-Aug*

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Chaimu railway, a special railway lines for carrying coal from Chaidaer to Muli, is expected to officially go into operation by the end of August, ahead with its originally plan.

From Chaidaer Station in Gangcha county of Qinghai province to Muli coal field, Chaimu railway is a freight-only railway connecting north and west of Qinghai, also providing coal for the industrial centers along the line to promote economic development, local newspaper reported.

Started the construction in April of 2006, this 142.04-kilometer-long railway is designed to be able to transport cargo about 14 million tonnes per year.

Muli coal field is the major coking coal reserves field of Qinghai province. And the total coal reserve in Qinghai was 767 million tonnes by the end of 2006.

(Source:en.sxcoal.com)









_General area of the Chaimu Railway_


----------



## hkskyline

*Three killed, 60 injured in China train collision: official *
29 June 2009
Agence France Presse









_Xinhua_

At least three people were killed and over 60 injured when two passenger trains collided early Monday in central China, a local government official said.

The accident happened at 2:34 am (1834 GMT Sunday) at the railway station in Chenzhou city, Hunan province, an official at the provincial work safety bureau, who refused to be named, told AFP.

Seven carriages were derailed in the collision between the two trains, which were both headed for the city of Shenzhen just north of Hong Kong, according to a report by the official Xinhua news agency.

Two neighbouring houses collapsed when one of the trains crashed into them, the agency added.

"Part of the railway station has been sealed off, and the cause of the accident is being investigated," the official said.

Thousands of passengers were stranded at the station as a result of the accident, and over 50 buses had been dispatched to transport some of them to their destinations, according to the news report.

Services on one side of the line started again late Monday morning, but the other side was still blocked.

The agency said Railway Minister Liu Zhijun had gone to Chenzhou to oversee rescue work.


----------



## hkskyline

*Trials start on first high-speed railway in China's mountainous Fujian Province*

FUZHOU, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The first high-speed railway in China's coastal mountainous Fujian Province began trials Tuesday, local authorities said.

The railway, linking Fujian's capital Fuzhou and Wenzhou City in neighbouring Zhejiang Province, began trials at 8:36 a.m. in Fuzhou. This is the first railway linking the two provinces, said an official with the Fujian Development and Reform Commission.

The railway will be formally put into use in October, the official said.

The 298.4-kilometer-long railway costs 12.66 billion yuan (1.85 billion U.S. dollars) to build. Nearly 230 kilometers are in Fujian.

The railway has a design speed of 200 to 250 kilometers per hour for passenger trains, and the journey between the two cities will be shortened from five hours to two hours. Construction began in August 2005.

The new line will be an important section of China's coastal railway artery. The other two railway lines in the project, including one rail linking Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province and Xiamen City in Fujian, and the other linking Fuzhou and Xiamen, are still under construction and are expected to be finished in 2010 and 2009 respectively.

"By then, the railways will stretch along China's booming southeast coast, linking the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas, China's two biggest economic powerhouses," said Yu Xuanming, deputy general manager of the Southeast Coast Railway Fujian Co. Ltd., the railway operator.


----------



## hkskyline

*China to Roll out Faster Trains in 2010 *

QINGDAO, June 29, SinoCast -- China's new generation of high-speed train, with a designed maximum speed of 380 kilometers per hour, is scheduled to get down the production line at the end of 2010 and will be put into massive commercial use in 2011.

The Beijing-Shanghai Railway will use these new trains, namely, multiple units to cut the runtime to four hours from five hours.

China's homemade high-speed train CRH3, which claims with a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour, is already running on the intracity high-speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin. The 380km/h high-speed train is scheduled to be rolled out the production line in the city of Qingdao, Shandong Province, in 2010.

Industry experts say that the new generation of multiple units will be adopted by some special passenger lines such as the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway, and the Harbin-Dalian Railway, as well as by some highs-speed railways.


----------



## hkskyline

* China's train of thought for privatisation *
25 June 2009
Financial Times 

A decade ago, China considered its railway sector an essential strategic industry that must never fall into the hands of foreigners, lest they use it to invade and conquer the country.

But today, Beijing has ambitious plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on improving and expanding the nation's creaky rail network but is only prepared to put up a fraction of the required amount.

Now foreign companies are ostensibly welcome to participate as the state begins to cautiously privatise parts of its rail assets.

A state media report on Thursday suggested the ministry of railways may fold assets worth around Rmb300bn ($44bn) into a company that would then raise money through an initial public offering.

The plan would inject the assets of government departments that operate railway lines between Beijing, Shanghai and Jinan into the new company and would eventually also include a new Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line.

The Beijing-Shanghai line is China's most profitable rail route and is one of a number of prime assets the government has considered for partial privatisation in the past.

The Chinese report gave no timetable for the listing but said an alternative plan under consideration would see the assets injected into an investment vehicle owned jointly by the national pension fund, local governments and Ping An Insurance, with the railway ministry retaining a majority stake.


----------



## binhai

hkskyline said:


> *China to Roll out Faster Trains in 2010 *
> 
> QINGDAO, June 29, SinoCast -- China's new generation of high-speed train, with a designed maximum speed of 380 kilometers per hour, is scheduled to get down the production line at the end of 2010 and will be put into massive commercial use in 2011.
> 
> The Beijing-Shanghai Railway will use these new trains, namely, multiple units to cut the runtime to four hours from five hours.
> 
> China's homemade high-speed train CRH3, which claims with a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour, is already running on the intracity high-speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin. The 380km/h high-speed train is scheduled to be rolled out the production line in the city of Qingdao, Shandong Province, in 2010.
> 
> Industry experts say that the new generation of multiple units will be adopted by some special passenger lines such as the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, the Wuhan-Guangzhou Railway, and the Harbin-Dalian Railway, as well as by some highs-speed railways.


Wow!


----------



## gramercy

im very sceptical about this 380 kph announcement

they keep announcing it, but ill only believe it when i see it

read this sceptics views
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/9/3/174412/0350


----------



## rmcee

who is supposed to produce the 380 kph train? on what basis?


----------



## staff

gramercy said:


> read this sceptics views
> http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/9/3/174412/0350


What a shit article. Who is this clown? It's one thing to be skeptical about railway technology reaching 380 km/h within a short time, but this guy clearly has a problem with China.

Apparently when the Chinese clean their train it is to "show the best image for the Olympics" and not because the trains need to be cleaned like in all countries. 

What a joke.


----------



## gramercy

staff said:


> What a shit article. Who is this clown? It's one thing to be skeptical about railway technology reaching 380 km/h within a short time, but this guy *clearly* has a problem with China.
> 
> Apparently when the Chinese clean their train it is to "show the best image for the Olympics" and not because the trains need to be cleaned like in all countries.
> 
> What a joke.


clearly..


----------



## z0rg

Don't feed the trolls


----------



## joseph1951

rmcee said:


> who is supposed to produce the 380 kph train? on what basis?


Wel,l for one the Talgo AVRIL is supposed to have a maximum commercial speed of 380km/h. The Spaniards are having a go at it.
Some of their new lines could, at least theorethycally, sustain speeds up to 500km/h.

The Talgo AVRIL is lighter than the Talgo Pato, the latter limited on commercial speed to 330km/h.

Also with the new generations of motors (such as those mounted on the AGV) things appear to be quite promising.

It is not possibile to ascertain for sure if - or _when_ we will have trains travelling at 380-400km/h.
Certainly China, given the long distances, seems to be a probable candidate.


----------



## natarajan1986

to what extent the bullet trains run through


----------



## hkskyline

*Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway to Debut on SEHK *

BEIJING, July 3, SinoCast -- Beijing-Shanghai Railway Co., Ltd. (transliterated), the operator of railways between the two cities, will go public on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) in the second quarter of 2010 at earliest, said sources.

The company plans to raise up to USD 5 billion from the IPO to expand its railway projects, and the central government has engaged China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC), JP Morgan, and Macquarie Group to assist the listing, they assed.

Moreover, Beijing-Shanghai Railway Co. will possibly conduct a listing in a stock exchange in Mainland China, disclosed a person with the direct knowledge of the matter.

The company will be mainly responsible for the railway network between Beijing and Shanghai; however, its assets will not cover Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway under construction, because the company needs to make money in the three years prior to the listing, he stressed.

Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway broke earth on April 18, 2008 with a total investment of CNY 220.94 billion, and is scheduled for completion in 2012.


----------



## baidu

*below are some Wuhan-Guangzhou hsr pics*

first the rail line:
1. 








2. 








3.


----------



## baidu

*two of the three major stations on wuhan-guangzhou hsr*

1. Wuhan new railway station(U/C)








above is rendering
















































left side


----------



## baidu

*and more Wuhan ...*


----------



## baidu

*more wuhan...*


----------



## baidu

*new Changsha railway stataion(U/C)*

rendering


----------



## baidu

*and more changsha..*

left part of the station


----------



## baidu

*and more changsha....*


----------



## baidu

*more changsha....*


----------



## baidu

*and more changsha...*


----------



## baidu

*huhhot new railway station east!*

this is also a damn large rail staion, but i just found two pics :wallbash:
corner of the station


----------



## gramercy

the dragon is awakening


----------



## Max BGF

Great :applause: Those projects are expensive enough even without amazing architecture. Fortunately the Chinese don´t forget the latter. Like such ambitious projects.


----------



## hoosier

I've said it before and I will say it again, China is amazing in its commitment to top quality rail infrastructure- from metro to high speed rail.

America needs to learn from the Chinese in this regard.


----------



## Andrew

Wuhan's new station is absolutely incredible!! The interior space is just spectacular.


----------



## gramercy

hoosier said:


> I've said it before and I will say it again, China is amazing in its commitment to top quality rail infrastructure- from metro to high speed rail.
> 
> America needs to learn from the Chinese in this regard.


that requires that the retardLicans die off first
give it a good 30-60 years


----------



## foxmulder

Epic updates... Thanks!


----------



## natarajan1986

wuhan looks good


----------



## 33Hz

This thread never ceases to amaze me. Awesome.


----------



## baidu

beijing south video shot by a japanese:




new guangzhou railway station video


----------



## rmcee

Who designed the station? is it an entirely Chinese project?


----------



## big-dog

*Hefei-Wuhan express rail (Anhui and Hubei province)*

Taken in Jinzhai, Anhui province, April 2009



























(hasea.com)


----------



## General Huo

guangzhou new railway station u/c


----------



## zergcerebrates

^ So massive


----------



## rmcee

giantic... Poland is now having a Chinese governmental visit. They are discussing business opportunities, also in the rail infrastructure and rail freight sectors.


----------



## davsot

Gaspos. I want. Hopefully the chinese will finally prove HSR is cost-effective!


----------



## Falubaz

Is the Guangzhou building this new station on the east side of the city?


----------



## urbanfan89

Falubaz said:


> Is the Guangzhou building this new station on the east side of the city?


The station is being built in Shibi, which is in the countryside south west of the city. A metro line is being built to connect with Guangzhou itself. I don't know of any other metropolis in the world where the high speed rail station is in the middle of nowhere. Bad move on their part, but understandable given the congestion on existing lines.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=23.004856,113.251362&spn=0.054513,0.100851&t=k&z=14


----------



## rmcee

what are the prognosed passenger numbers to go through the station? The metro line will supposedly be as impressive as the station?


----------



## snow is red

*Beijing-Shanghai express rails to be complete by 2011*

2009-07-28 

Sections of a Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway will be linked together by the end of this year, the Beijing News reported Tuesday. The railway will be completed before 2011, in time to begin operations by 2012.

"The Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway project is going smoothly and the railway lines under construction [in different areas] will be linked up together by the end of 2010," Zhang Shuguang, chief of the transportation department at the Ministry of Railway (MOR) was quoted as saying Monday.

The train has a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour (kph), and it will only take about four hours to travel the 1,318 kilometers rail line between Beijing and Shanghai. Currently, it takes about 10 hours on the fastest train and one ticket costs about 500 yuan ($73).

China opened its first high-speed railway, the 350-kph Beijing-Tianjin route, last year. Zhang said over 70% of tickets of this high speed route have been sold out and the cost of building this railway will be recovered in about 16 years.

Construction of the new Beijing-Shanghai railway began on April 18, 2008 with a total investment of 220.9 billion yuan ($32.3 billion).

Zhang did not reveal how long it would take before the railway would make a profit, but he was confident it would.

"This [high speed] railway line runs through the most prosperous populous area in China and in the future it may become the most profitable railway line in the world,” he said.

"All high-speed railways around the world are profitable," he added.

Last year, experts estimated that the ticket price of the new Beijing-Shanghai railway will be between 600-800 yuan ($88-$117), according to a report from chinanews.com. The full price of an airline ticket between the two cities is roughly 1,130 yuan ($165) now.

Around 13,000 km of high-speed railways capable of handling trains traveling at more than 200 kph could be completed and put into service by 2012, according to an earlier China Daily report.

At least five new railway routes, including the Beijing-Shanghai line, will be able to accommodate trains traveling at speeds of 350 kph by 2012 as well, the report said.

In addition, construction of Beijing-Zhang Jiakou and Beijing-Tangshan high speed railways are expected to begin in August and October separately, deputy director of Beijing Railway Bureau Liu Ruiyang said on Monday.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/28/content_8482473.htm


----------



## rmcee

Shanghai subway to be world's longest by 2010

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/28/content_8482535.htm


----------



## zergcerebrates

urbanfan89 said:


> The station is being built in Shibi, which is in the countryside south west of the city. A metro line is being built to connect with Guangzhou itself. I don't know of any other metropolis in the world where the high speed rail station is in the middle of nowhere. Bad move on their part, but understandable given the congestion on existing lines.
> 
> http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=23.004856,113.251362&spn=0.054513,0.100851&t=k&z=14



Well I think building a huge railway station outside of the city itself is a good idea. Because of this huge station I'm pretty sure new developments will pop up around there.


----------



## hackmanjkk

WOW from Thailand


----------



## davsot

zergcerebrates said:


> Well I think building a huge railway station outside of the city itself is a good idea. Because of this huge station I'm pretty sure new developments will pop up around there.


It's like a humongous airport away from the middle of the city. Sure, it goes against one of the advantages of rail (stations located in the center of the city), but as long as there's a good link to the city, it'll do fine. This is probably a superregion station.


----------



## gramercy

people will arrive there from *Wuhan, Beijing* etc.
i dont think it matters...


----------



## hoosier

Is this new Guangzhou HSR station going to be served by the line going to Shenzhen and Hong Kong?

What about the current large rail terminal in Guangzhou? It would have made sense to have it be the main intercity rail hub even if building the HSR tracks into it would have been more expensive.


----------



## hoosier

davsot said:


> Gaspos. I want. Hopefully the chinese will finally prove HSR is cost-effective!


Hopefully all of the new highways and airports will be cost effective too. And China has one of, if not the most, heavily traveled passenger rail networks in the world, so I think the new HSR system will be well used.


----------



## rmcee

davsot said:


> It's like a humongous airport away from the middle of the city. Sure, it goes against one of the advantages of rail (stations located in the center of the city), but as long as there's a good link to the city, it'll do fine. This is probably a superregion station.



Which makes it even more innovative. This may be the concept for all mega-cities.


----------



## rmcee

*100-year-old inter-city railway given new life in NE China*_
(Xinhua)

SHENYANG: An inter-city railway that has been carrying trains for more than 100 years was opened again to traffic on Thursday after restoration in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

The 66.1-km railway, linking the provincial capital city of Shenyang and Fushun, was based on an old line built in 1904.

The 8-month restoration project shortens travel between the two cities to 49 minutes from the original 1.5 hours.

"The railway is expected to facilitate inter-city transportation," said Liaoning governor Chen Zhenggao at the opening ceremony.
_


----------



## urbanfan89

davsot said:


> It's like a humongous airport away from the middle of the city. Sure, it goes against one of the advantages of rail (stations located in the center of the city), but as long as there's a good link to the city, it'll do fine. This is probably a superregion station.


I don't think so. Currently Hung Hom to Guangzhou East is 90 minutes. This is in a relatively central location in Guangzhou.

West Kowloon to Shibi (or New Guangzhou Station) is planned at 48 minutes once the entire line is complete. Once at Shibi you're looking at 30 minutes by metro into the central areas, which massively reduces time saving.


----------



## davsot

Yeah, I'm sorry, I was talking without... thinking. I guess it's just the impression I got from such a... BIG station haha.


----------



## pearl_river

Someone posted an extremely well organized construction schedule for HSR on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_speed_rail_in_China#Passenger_Dedicated_Line_Network

There were supposed to be 2 line openings on 30/6. Someone posted Wenzhou entering trials last month. Have these projects fallen months behind?


----------



## General Huo

more new Guangzhou station constraction


----------



## 3737

toddhubert said:


> just got a pic of Guangzhou new railway station from local media


That's a huge station :nuts:


----------



## big-dog

mgk920 said:


> I'd love to see this in map form so that I can tell where it is in relation to the rest of the city.
> 
> :|
> 
> Mike













located in Shibi, Guangzhou Fanyu, 14km from city center.

Cost: 4.1b ~ 5.1b yuan

Daily capacity: 310,000 passengers

There'll be 4 subway lines connecting the new station: Guangzhou Subway Line 2, 7, 12 and Foshan Line 2.

Wuhan-Guangzhou expressrail will use the new station.

Area: 580m x 475m. Its size, 565,827 sq meters is larger than Guangzhou Baiyun airport T1.

It uses 1.7 times of steel than Bird Nest.

15 platforms, 28 rail tracks

1808 parking lot.

The new station will be completed by 2010, after 5 years of construction.

It will be the 4th largest transportation hub of China


----------



## baidu

New WuHan railway station Video



Click Here--->> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzc3NDIzMTI=.html




Enjoy!!


----------



## baidu

new NanJing south railstation vedio(u/c)


Click Here-->>http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTA5NDI0MzQ4.html



Enjoy!!!


----------



## baidu

*china future largest railway station list*

Station Name; number of platform; number of tracks; floor area 
南京南站(New Nanjing South)：15座站台、28股道；占地面积一千亩（66.7万平方米），建筑面积40万平方米(400 000m^2)。

新广州站(New guangzhou)：15座站台、28股道；占地面积40万平方米，建筑面积37.76万平方米(377 600m^2)。

新武汉站(New Wuhan)：11座站台、20股道；建筑面积35.5万平方米(355 000m^2)。

新郑州站(New ZhengZhou)：16座站台、34股道；建筑面积35万平方米(350 000m^2)。

西安北站(New Xi'an North)：18座站台、34股道；建筑面积33.1万平方米(331 000m^2)。

北京南站(New Beijing South)：13座站台、24股道；占地面积49.92万平方米，建筑面积31万平方米(310 000m^2)。

上海虹桥(New shanghai hongqiao hub)：16座站台、30股道；建筑面积约24万平方米(240 000m^2)。


----------



## baidu

*some one pls do me a favor translates stuff below into english*

北京西站： 10台18线
北京南站： 13台24线
天津站： 10台18线
天津西站： 13台24线
哈尔滨西站：10台18线
新石家庄站：13台24线
郑州东站： 16台34线
西安北站： 18台34线
成都东站： 14台26线
重庆西站： 13台25线
武汉站： 11台20线
南京南站： 15台28线
上海虹桥站：16台30线
杭州东站： 15台30线
南昌西站： 12台26线
新长沙站： 11台24线
贵阳北站： 13台28线
昆明南站： 16台30线
广州南站： 15台28线
深圳北站： 11台20线
Thank you!


----------



## baidu

huhhot east railway station(u/c)



Click here-->>http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/MXQVtxLcOYU/



Enjoy!!!


----------



## staff

Number of platforms (台) and tracks (线) for the stations listed. For example Beijing West Station has 10 platforms and 18 tracks, and so on..



baidu said:


> 北京西站： 10台18线
> 北京南站： 13台24线
> 天津站： 10台18线
> 天津西站： 13台24线
> 哈尔滨西站：10台18线
> 新石家庄站：13台24线
> 郑州东站： 16台34线
> 西安北站： 18台34线
> 成都东站： 14台26线
> 重庆西站： 13台25线
> 武汉站： 11台20线
> 南京南站： 15台28线
> 上海虹桥站：16台30线
> 杭州东站： 15台30线
> 南昌西站： 12台26线
> 新长沙站： 11台24线
> 贵阳北站： 13台28线
> 昆明南站： 16台30线
> 广州南站： 15台28线
> 深圳北站： 11台20线
> Thank you!


----------



## The Chemist

baidu said:


> 北京西站： 10台18线
> 北京南站： 13台24线
> 天津站： 10台18线
> 天津西站： 13台24线
> 哈尔滨西站：10台18线
> 新石家庄站：13台24线
> 郑州东站： 16台34线
> 西安北站： 18台34线
> 成都东站： 14台26线
> 重庆西站： 13台25线
> 武汉站： 11台20线
> 南京南站： 15台28线
> 上海虹桥站：16台30线
> 杭州东站： 15台30线
> 南昌西站： 12台26线
> 新长沙站： 11台24线
> 贵阳北站： 13台28线
> 昆明南站： 16台30线
> 广州南站： 15台28线
> 深圳北站： 11台20线
> Thank you!


Staff's already listed the meaning of the right column (platforms and number of tracks) - the names of the stations on the left, from top to bottom is as follows: Beijing South, Tianjin, Tianjin West, Harbin West, New Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou East, Xi'an North, Chengdu East, Chongqing West, Wuhan, Nanjing South, Shanghai Hongqiao, Hangzhou East, Nanchang West, New Changsha, Guiyang West, Kunming South, Guangzhou South, Shenzhen North.


----------



## staff

^^
I thought he could look up the names of the cities by himself.


----------



## big-dog

here's some Guangzhou New Railway Station construction pics in July that I originally posted to Chinese forum.

by courtesy of loufaan, Ditiezu.com


----------



## hoosier

:master::drool:

America used to be able to build megaprojects, not anymore I'm afraid. Oh well, China has ambition and that's why it will surpass America in the next 20 years economically.


----------



## ANR

*Stimulus spending in China versus the US*



big-dog said:


> here's some Guangzhou New Railway Station construction pics in July that I originally posted to Chinese forum.


Thanks for posting these pictures. 

The many pictures shown in the various Skyscraper threads plus what I saw in China in May of this year convince me that China's stimulus spending is far more effective than the stimulus spending in the US. About the only result seen in the US is a few re-pavements of highways & little else.

Anyone with other comments?


----------



## urbanfan89

^^ The difference is that before the recession, China already had detailed plans for more megaprojects and could simply order them to be moved up (e.g. completing the 4X4 high speed rail grid by 2015 instead of 2020). In this case the US has to spend the years on the proposal, design, planning, EA, etc process.


----------



## bluemeansgo

China can take advantage of its massive supply of cheap labour before that dries up.


----------



## urbanfan89

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-08-19/034518462773.shtml

On a side note, a rainstorm in early July caused sections of the Shijiazhuang - Taiyuan HSR to sink into the mud, some by over 60 cm. This caused emergency repairs and travel delays.

Goes to show that faster isn't always better.


----------



## ANR

*4 workers die at local rail site in crane slam*

From: Shanghai Daily
By Dong Zhen and Zha Minjie
2009-8-20 

FOUR workers were crushed to death and two others were injured yesterday evening after a 10-ton crane crashed into another crane during a heavy rainstorm at a construction site for the Shanghai-Beijing express rail project in Shanghai's Jiading District.

Firefighters who took part in the rescue said the mishap occurred around 6pm near the intersection of Jinshajiang and Xinghua roads. The four workers were pronounced dead at the scene; the others were rushed to a hospital with non-critical injuries, rescuers said. Colleagues of the victims told Shanghai Daily that there were nearly 300 workers on the project, mostly from Jiangsu Province. There was no official report from authorities explaining what caused the fatal mishap last night, though construction officials said the storm may have played a part.

Witnesses said the mishap involved two gantry-type cranes. During heavy rain and wind, a 13-meter-tall crane slid 20 meters along its tracks, apparently out of control, and crashed into the driver's compartment of a 16-meter-tall crane, where the six workers were sheltering from the storm. The two who were injured managed to escape the major impact. The smaller crane toppled after the crash.

Some workers told Shanghai Daily that construction had not been suspended at the time of the accident, even though the site was being buffeted by the wind. A government team was set up last night to investigate the accident. The construction site was being run by China Communications Construction Third Harbor Engineering Co Ltd.

The 1,318-kilometer Shanghai-Beijing express railway is expected to become the primary rail artery between the capital city and Shanghai, featuring speeds of 350 kilometers per hour. A trip between Shanghai and Beijing will take only about five hours on the future link. The project's first phase is scheduled to open next year. The under-construction Hongqiao Integrated Traffic Hub, connected to Hongqiao Airport, will serve as host station for the express railway as well as for future high-speed railways from Shanghai to Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.

The Ministry of Railways said earlier that the Shanghai-Beijing line will become the country's first high-speed railway to feature the world's top technologies, services and transportation efficiency. The railway construction will cost about 220.9 billion yuan (US$32.3 billion), becoming the country's biggest investment in a single construction project. The Ministry of Railways said the project must be completed with state-of-the-art technologies and must have "zero quality flaws."









_Police check the scene near a 10-ton gantry crane that collapsed at a construction site for the Shanghai-Beijing high-speed railway line last night in Shanghai's Jiading District. 
Four workers were killed. The victims were in a crane cab when another crane slammed into it. _


----------



## UD2

urbanfan89 said:


> http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-08-19/034518462773.shtml
> 
> On a side note, a rainstorm in early July caused sections of the Shijiazhuang - Taiyuan HSR to sink into the mud, some by over 60 cm. This caused emergency repairs and travel delays.
> 
> Goes to show that faster isn't always better.


that streched was only opened within the last year. Errr? Somebody's head is gonna roll.


----------



## octopusop

UD2 said:


> that streched was only opened within the last year. Errr? Somebody's head is gonna roll.


Ministry of Railway internalfile one month ago.


7月7~8日，石太客专沿线普降暴雨，部分地段路基严重下沉，晃车严重，其中k178+910、k158+300、k106+300三处路基下沉病害严重，最大下沉分别达到64.2cm、16cm、9.7cm，造成列车限速运行，严重影响铁路正常运输秩序、危及行车安全。认定k178+910质量事故为铁路建设工程质量大事故，k158+300、k106+300质量事故为铁路建设工程质量一般事故。

中铁三局施工区段k178+910，设计单位铁道第三勘察设计院，监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，建设单位石太客运专线公司
中铁12局施工区段k158+300，设计单位铁道第三勘察设计院，监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，建设单位石太客运专线公司
中铁13局施工区段k106+300，设计单位铁道第三勘察设计院，监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，建设单位石太客运专线公司

处理结果

中铁三局，取消10次铁路大中型项目施工投标资格，赔偿损失70%，设计和监理单位赔偿损失各15%
中铁12局，取消5次铁路大中型项目施工投标资格，赔偿损失90%，监理单位赔偿损失10%
中铁13局，取消5次铁路大中型项目施工投标资格，赔偿损失90%，监理单位赔偿损失10%
铁道第三勘察设计院，取消2次铁路大中型项目设计方案投标资格
监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，取消10次铁路大中型项目监理投标资格


----------



## UD2

octopusop said:


> Ministry of Railway internalfile one month ago.
> 
> 
> 7月7~8日，石太客专沿线普降暴雨，部分地段路基严重下沉，晃车严重，其中k178+910、k158+300、k106+300三处路基下沉病害严重，最大下沉分别达到64.2cm、16cm、9.7cm，造成列车限速运行，严重影响铁路正常运输秩序、危及行车安全。认定k178+910质量事故为铁路建设工程质量大事故，k158+300、k106+300质量事故为铁路建设工程质量一般事故。
> 
> 中铁三局施工区段k178+910，设计单位铁道第三勘察设计院，监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，建设单位石太客运专线公司
> 中铁12局施工区段k158+300，设计单位铁道第三勘察设计院，监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，建设单位石太客运专线公司
> 中铁13局施工区段k106+300，设计单位铁道第三勘察设计院，监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，建设单位石太客运专线公司
> 
> 处理结果
> 
> 中铁三局，取消10次铁路大中型项目施工投标资格，赔偿损失70%，设计和监理单位赔偿损失各15%
> 中铁12局，取消5次铁路大中型项目施工投标资格，赔偿损失90%，监理单位赔偿损失10%
> 中铁13局，取消5次铁路大中型项目施工投标资格，赔偿损失90%，监理单位赔偿损失10%
> 铁道第三勘察设计院，取消2次铁路大中型项目设计方案投标资格
> 监理单位乌鲁木齐铁建监理有限公司，取消10次铁路大中型项目监理投标资格


I can already hear the sound of heads rolling...


----------



## laotang80

*Heavy rainstorms and subsidings (re. ShiTai)*

Personally I would doubt that a major quality concern is at hand here.
If I would count every case where a rainstorm or heavy rain causes train delays or subsidings even on trunk lines back here in Germany, I'd going insane for sure. Sometimes natural phenomenae that you simply can't avoid are occuring, you just can't help it but to clean up the mess afterwards.
From what I can extract from these internal damage report from the ministry, subsiding of the track base occured at the three stretches at km 178.910 (64.2 cm), km 158.300 (16 cm) and km 106.300 (9.2 cm) respectively, resulting in forced speed limitations and massive disturbance in order of train service and safety. These subsidings where in order classified as one severe railway construction quality failure and two common quality failures officially.
Also the punishments for the contractors involved in the planning, construction and monitoring of these stretches are rather severe, considering the "minor" nature of these subsidings: withdrawal of tender bidding rights concerning big and medium projects for the Railway Construction Bureaus No. 3, 12, 13 (10, 5 and 5 projects), including compensations for the fiscal and material losses etc..


----------



## Scion

*Sichuan-Tibet railway to start construction in September*

2009-09-01










Construction of the Sichuan-Tibet railway will begin this month, scol.com.cn, a Sichuan-based news portal reported Tuesday, with details on the railway's scale, direction and number of stops recently released by the China Railway No 2 Bureau in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The train will have a designed speed of 200 kilometers per hour, taking about eight hours to travel the 1,629 kilometers-long rail line between Chengdu and Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region.

There are currently two ways to get from Chengdu to Lhasa—driving the No 318 national highway which takes three days and rail travel from Chengdu, Shaanxi and Qinghai to Lhasa, which takes about 45 hours.
The railway's construction will have to overcome quite a few complicated geographic conditions, such as frozen earth, landslides, cold weather and lack of oxygen due to high-altitude in some parts, and rock slides.

The railway was delayed once before due to construction difficulties and lack of investment.

However, an unnamed person in charge of the project said those factors aren't an issue this time around. "We don't have such problems now in terms of construction technology and investment."

China's existing railway to the Tibet Autonomous Region is the Qinghai-Tibet railway which runs 1,956 km across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from Xining, capital of neighboring Qinghai province, to Lhasa. It went into operation on July 1, 2006.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-09/01/content_8641571.htm


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## hoosier

urbanfan89 said:


> http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-08-19/034518462773.shtml
> 
> On a side note, a rainstorm in early July caused sections of the Shijiazhuang - Taiyuan HSR to sink into the mud, some by over 60 cm. This caused emergency repairs and travel delays.
> 
> Goes to show that faster isn't always better.


The fact that this was a high speed track means nothing. This sinking would have occurred if the tracks carried trains at conventional speeds.


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## urbanfan89

I'm referring to the speed to construction, not the speed of the trains. Something gets compromised at the speed and price the Chinese are building mega-projects.


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## Maggern2k

Dammit, I spent two days on the Chengdu-Qinghai-Lhasa railway, and now people can soon take the trip in eight hours?
But yeah, I guess it will take a loong time to build that one. The railway I took had been built over decades, and it moved around eastern Xizang for a reason...


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## 1772

Maggern2k said:


> Dammit, I spent two days on the Chengdu-Qinghai-Lhasa railway, and now people can soon take the trip in eight hours?
> But yeah, I guess it will take a loong time to build that one. The railway I took had been built over decades, and it moved around eastern Xizang for a reason...


I was just going to ask about that, how was it?


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## urbanfan89

Scion said:


> *Sichuan-Tibet railway to start construction in September*


This has been denied by the Ministry of Railways. An Environmental Impact Assessment will be released in September, which is entirely different. Construction is not yet set.

川藏铁路将于９月开工传闻不实

新华网北京９月２日电（齐中熙　范超）近日，中国有媒体报道称川藏铁路将于９月开工。记者从中国铁道部核实，该传闻不属实，川藏线正式开工时间尚未确定。 

铁道部有关负责人表示，川藏铁路是列入全国铁路网中长期规划的一条重要线路。沿线地质环境复杂，正在开展前期工作。一些勘察工作还未开始，目前还不能确定具体开工日期。 

此前有媒体报道称，“川藏铁路９月底开工”“《新建铁路川藏线成都至朝阳湖段环境影响报告书（简本）》正式对外公布，首次披露了该铁路的建设规模、线路走向、站点设置等”。 

这位负责人称，这只是成都市一小段工程，没有代表性，不能代表川藏铁路开工。 

据悉，目前成都到拉萨主要有两条路：一是公路国道３１８线，全程耗时３天；二是Ｔ２２次列车经宝成线、青藏线到达拉萨，单边耗时近４５个小时。


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## Scion

I thought too that it would be too difficult for trains to climb the steep slopes from Sichuan to Tibet.



> *Sichuan-Tibet railway project delayed*
> 
> 2009-09-03
> 
> Construction on a highly anticipated rail line linking Chengdu in Sichuan province to Lhasa in Tibet will not start this month, according to the Ministry of Railway, contradicting recent media reports.
> 
> The railway's planners are still examining intricate and difficult geological conditions along the proposed lines, according to the ministry spokesman, who was quoted by Xinhua News Agency.
> 
> A new start date has not been set, the spokesman said.
> 
> The railway's construction will have to overcome frozen earth, landslides, rock slides, cold weather and a lack of oxygen due to high altitude in some places.
> 
> The proposed railway will span 1,629 km, 650 km of which will be in Sichuan. Trains will travel at a maximum speed of 200 km per hour and will take only eight hours to reach Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet autonomous region, according to Wang Minghui, deputy chief of the Chengdu railway administration.
> 
> The rail line is expected to be finished in eight years with an investment of nearly 54 billion yuan ($7.9 billion) in State funds.
> 
> Travelers now have two ways to reach Lhasa from Chengdu: by National Highway No 318, which takes three days, and via Train T22, which takes nearly 45 hours.
> 
> "Because only one train leaves Chengdu for Lhasa every other day, and vice versa, it is quite difficult to get tickets," said Chen Zhuo, an official with the Chengdu railway station.
> 
> Construction of the Sichuan-Tibet railway is expected to propel economic and tourism development along the line.
> 
> The Hengduan Mountains near the line have an abundance of natural resources, including water, vegetation and minerals, said Li Changping, chief of the Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Sichuan.
> 
> The Yulong Copper Mine near the mountain in Tibet has a proven reserve of 6.5 million tons of copper, first among the country's copper mines.
> 
> Eighty-two counties and districts along the line in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces and Tibet boast snow-capped mountains, grasslands, and Tibetan and Buddhist cultures.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-09/03/content_8651239.htm


----------



## ANR

*Update on Daqin Railway*

*Daqin Railway records world's largest annual freight volume* 
June 24, 2009

Daqin Railway's coal transport volume totaled 340 million tons in 2008, and is expected to reach 380 million tons this year, which is 3.8 times as much as its originally designed capacity. This is according to the 9th International Heavy Haul Conference held in Shanghai on June 22.

Therefore Daqin Railway has become the world's largest railway in terms of annual freight volume. China's railway industry, represented by Daqin Railway, has made significant innovative achievements in heavy-haul transportation technologies, ranking among the world's top level and winning widespread recognition from peers around the world. 

Pictures of Daqin Railway from RailPictures.net:



By People's Daily Online

----------------------------------------------------------------- 
*Jiaoda Microunion CTC System Safely Increases the Efficiency of Daqin Railway*
04 August 2009

FZj-CTC independently researched and developed by Beijing Jiaoda Microunion Tech. Co., Ltd. was formerly and successfully applied on 1 August 2009 to Daqin Railway, which centralizes the traffic control of the whole line by its control center and at the same time ensures maximum transportation efficiency of the line. This sets an example for China’s heavy-load railway.

Brief information of Daqin Railway
Daqin Railway, from Datong in Shanxi Province to Qinhuangdao in Hebei Province with a total length of 653 km, is the first double-track electrified heavy-load railway of China to transport coal. The upstream of the line connects Shanxi, Shannxi and western Inner-Mongolia, whose coal reserve amounts to 60% of the total coal reserve of China. The downstream of the railway line reaches 26 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions as well as 15 countries and regions. As China’s strategic artery which “transports coal from the west to the east”, Daqin Railway transports nearly 18% of the coal transported by all the railways of China. A great number of 20,000-ton and 10,000-ton heavy-load trains run on it. With high density and high quality heavy-load trains, its transportation capacity is increasing year by year. In 2008, its targeted transportation capacity was 350,000,000 tons.

Due to complexity of the technical work of the stations, shunting operation, density of the trains, and the many types of traction engines of different performance, such as 10,000-ton and 20,000-ton ones, all these increase the work load of the dispatch staff and make it more difficult to ensure safety and transportation efficiency. The key to increase the transportation capacity of Daqin Railway, reduce redundancy and improve returns is to centralize and automate the traffic control, that is, to adopt CTC System.
Microunion Tech. Co., Ltd. independently researched and developed the CTC System

In 2004, Beijing Jiaoda Microunion Tech. Co., Ltd. set up its CTC department, which gathered a group of elites led by Dr. Wang Xiujuan, a member of the “CTC Group” of China’s Ministry of Railways. After one year’s research and hard work, they successfully developed FZj-CTC, the centralized dispatching system, in 2005. And the system has passed preliminary technical examination of experts of the Ministry of Railways.

Successful application of FZj-CTC to Daqin Railway
Daqin Railway is the first CTC project of Beijing Jiaoda Microunion Tech. Co., Ltd., which involves the construction of CTC system for 46 stations of the whole line including 11 large stations and 9 unattended stations. The project was initially commissioned at 3 stations and the testing section of Daqin Railway in June 2007, which was successful and got technical approval of the Ministry of Railways. In the second half of 2007, construction of CTC system for the whole Daqin Railway started.

In June 2008, construction of CTC system for the whole line was completed and CTC was tested to centralize traffic control of the whole line. During the period, the company made many modifications and improvements to the system in order to be consistent with the progress of the construction of Daqin Line and the owner’s actual demands. On 1 June 2009 FZj-CTC was formally commissioned for Daqin Line.

Successful running of CTC makes it possible for the traffic control of Daqin Railway to be done by computers so that such information as dispatch order, shunting list, running permit and receiving route forecast, etc. can be conveyed through the network of the system and wireless communication. It sends out orders to run the trains rapidly and accurately, monitor the stations’ signaling system and the running state of the train, track the location of the train and the departure and arrival time of the train in a real-time manner. The successful application of CTC system reduces many procedures for the traffic control of Daqin Railway and provides convenient, fast and accurate services for the operation of the trains.

Following the Daqin Line, Beijing Jiaoda Microunion Tech. Co., Ltd. undertook the construction of CTC for the entire Qiancao (Qian’an – Caofeidian) Line in early 2008. The system had been successfully put into operation at 12 stations by 1 April 2009. The successful application of CTC system to these two heavy-load transportation lines provides convenience for heavy load transportation. It relieves the intensity of traffic control when 20,000-ton and 10,000-ton heavy-load trains are running in high density. And it improves transportation efficiency, ensures safety, and realizes the target of “reducing redundancy and increasing efficiency” for railway industry.


















Map of Daqin railway (from IRJ)

More information on the Daqin Railway can be found at:
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/irj0809/#/0 starting on page 24

Pictures of Daqin Railway from Railpictures.net:


----------



## binhai

China unveils high-speed railways 
By Shirong Chen 
BBC News, China analyst 

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/2/hi/asia-pacific/8246600.stm


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## SqueezeDog

^^ Wow! 

SuperChina!


----------



## hkskyline

*China CNR sells 20 locomotives to New Zealand *

BEIJING, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- China CNR Corporation Limited, one of the country's top two train makers, agreed Friday to export 20 diesel locomotives to New Zealand.

This will be the first time that China-made locomotives will be exported in batches to a developed country.

The contract was signed Friday between LORIC Import & Export Corp. Ltd., CNR's foreign trade arm, and New Zealand's KiwiRail, a state-operated railway company.

The first six locomotives will be delivered on May 19, 2010, and the remaining 14 locomotives on Aug. 19, 2010.

KiwiRail manages more than 90 percent of the railway operation in New Zealand, which currently has 4,700-km track lines. New Zealand has been a traditional market for U.S. locomotives for years.

CNR president Cui Dianguo said the project would help the company to develop new markets among developed countries, as this project demonstrated the firm's "ability to provide locomotives with up-to-date technology for developed countries".

CNR is reorganized from China northern Locomotive and rolling Stock Industry (Group) in June, 2008.

New Zealand is the first developed country to recognize China's market economy status, and also the first developed country to negotiate a free trade agreement with China.


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## foxmulder

I like the heavy-load railway pictures. Is there more where it comes from ?


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## ANR

*Heavy-load railway pictures*



foxmulder said:


> I like the heavy-load railway pictures. Is there more where it comes from ?


Try http://www.railpictures.net/ & then sort on China - this site has a growing collection of rail pictures from China.


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## ANR

*8 builders hurt as scaffold collapses (Shanghai - Beijing express railway)*

Shanghai Daily
By Dong Zhen
2009-9-18

EIGHT migrant workers were injured after a scaffold collapsed yesterday at a Shanghai-Beijing express railway construction site in Minhang District. It was the second collapse on the project's construction sites in a month. On August 19 a crane collapse killed four workers at a site in Jiading District.

In yesterday's accident, the workers, all from central China's Hunan Province, fell from the 7-meter unfinished scaffold about 7:55am in Beidi Road of Minhang's Huacao Town. The men mostly suffered bone breaks and bruises. Last night, six were still under medical observation in hospital while the others have been released. "A steel bar hit my chest and knocked me down," said Huang Kuncheng, 52, who was working on the ground. The man most seriously hurt suffered a broken pelvis and had blood in his urine but remained in stable condition, Changning District Hospital said. Workers said they were pulling up steel bars to complete the scaffold structure to be used for molding concrete pillars for the railway.









_EIGHT migrant workers were injured after a scaffold collapsed yesterday at a Shanghai-Beijing express railway construction site in Minhang District. _


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## big-dog

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










(hasea.com)


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## foxmulder

This picture summarizes why i like infrastructure


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## rmcee

big-dog said:


> Beijing West 4th Ring road and CRH, picture taken Aug 12 2009
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (hasea.com)



I wonder what is the occupancy of this train..?


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## superchan7

Wow, 2-EMU coupled CRH5! Never seen that before.


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## baidu

*high speed rail(tianjing)*

high speed rail(tianjing)
























enjoy!!

:cheers:


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## baidu

*high speed rail(beijing)*


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## xXFallenXx

your pictures aren't showing up for me baidu.


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## baidu

xXFallenXx said:


> your pictures aren't showing up for me baidu.


fixed^^


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## foxmulder

great pictures. tnx for sharing. South station is great looking.


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## xXFallenXx

baidu said:


> fixed^^


Thank you. :cheers:


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## zaphod

Does the new Tibet lines haul freight as well as passengers or only passengers?

It would make sense for it to one day go across Nepal to India someday I think. Then cargo from the interior of China could get to port in Calcutta or Bangladesh in a day


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## foxmulder

It should be for both. It is not high speed anyway.


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## urbanfan89

http://news.gd.sina.com.cn/news/2009/09/25/671571.html

When the HSR to Hong Kong is opened in 2015, there will be 33 trains from HK. Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing will be within 10 hours of Hong Kong, and more importantly, HK - Shanghai by train will only be 2 hours longer than by air (including the check-in, security, ground transportation, etc).

http://www.bvehk.net/viewthread.php?tid=12655&extra=page=1

There will be direct trains from Hong Kong to Beijing, Changsha, Wuhan, Xian, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanchang, Kunming, Nanning, Chengdu, Shantou, Fuzhou, and Xiamen. This is in addition to the rail services in the PRD region.


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## binhai

zaphod said:


> Does the new Tibet lines haul freight as well as passengers or only passengers?
> 
> It would make sense for it to one day go across Nepal to India someday I think. Then cargo from the interior of China could get to port in Calcutta or Bangladesh in a day


Yes, in fact I think it's mostly freight. Tibet-India is too steep and has different gauges, it would be difficult to build a railway using that route (especially a freight one, which requires shallower grades).


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## Nozumi 300

Does anyone have any updated pictures of the new high speed train Zefiro designed by Bombardier?


----------



## 395003

There are photo's of it
Here is the link http://www.bombardier.com/en/corporate/media-centre/press-releases/details?docID=0901260d800acfd9


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## Nozumi 300

It seems like that the MOR is ordering both the Zefiro 250 and the Zefiro 380, am I correct?

The Zefiro 380 looks pretty cool, it seems like its a hybrid between the Hitachi 800 Shinkansen and Alstom's AGV


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## pearl_river

Two continuous high speed lines (250km/h; 580 km total distance) opened yesterday. 



-----
The Fuzhou-Wenzhou line shortens the travel time from 15 hours to 100 minutes. Trains can run at 250 km per hour on the line, said Gao An'gang, official with Nanchang Railway Bureau, which is responsible for the construction.

The other line links Wenzhou with Ningbo cities, both in Zhejiang.

The two lines, about 580 km in total, began construction in 2004 and 2005 respectively. The railways, linked with lines to Shanghai, also cut the travel time from Fuzhou to Shanghai from 11hours to about five hours. 

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/28/content_12120945.htm


----------



## ANR

*Bombardier Sifang Wins US$4B Contract to Build 80 Very High Speed Trains for China*

28 September 2009
From: GreenCarCongress

Bombardier Transportation’s Chinese joint venture, Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd., has been selected by the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) to supply 80 ZEFIRO 380 very high speed trains (1,120 cars) for the country’s rapidly growing high speed rail network. The contract, including 20 eight-car trainsets and 60 sixteen-car trainsets, is valued at an estimated 27.4 billion Chinese Renminbis (US$4 billion, €2.7 billion). Bombardier’s share of the contract is estimated at 13.5 billion Chinese Renminbis, (US$2 billion, €1.3 billion).The first train is scheduled for delivery in 2012 with final deliveries expected in 2014.
The new trainsets will be an integral part of an evolving high speed rail capability in China, which is developing more than 6,000 km of new high speed lines. The trains, with maximum operating speeds of 380 km/h (236 mph), are based on Bombardier’s next-generation ZEFIRO high speed rail technology, and are powered by a Bombardier MITRAC propulsion and control system.

A ZEFIRO train is built up using three types of cars: motorized end cars; intermediate trailer cars with and without pantograph; and intermediate motorized cars. Each train base unit has its own complete system for propulsion, 400 V AC auxiliary supply and 110V battery supply. The high voltage supply is connected between the train base units; one pantograph at a time feeds all the main transformers in an ZEFIRO EMU.

The ZEFIRO 380 trainsets incorporate elements of Bombardier’s ECO4 energy-saving technologies. Introduced in 2008, Bombardier’s modular suite of ECO4 technologies for the range of its train products includes:
•	EnerGplan Simulation Tool
•	AeroEfficient Optimized Train Shaping
•	EBI Drive50 Driver Assistance System
•	MITRAC Energy Saver
•	PRIMOVE Catenary-Free Operation
•	C.L.E.A.N. Diesel Power Pack
•	MITRAC Permanent Magnet Motor
•	ThermoEfficient Climatization System
•	Energy Management Control System
•	FLEXX Tronic Technology
•	FLEXX Eco Bogie
•	MITRAC Hybrid Technology

The ZEFIRO 380 trains will be manufactured at Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation production facilities in Qingdao, China. Engineering will take place in Qingdao and at Bombardier centers in Europe with project management and components provided from sites in Europe and China.
Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation is currently building the world’s fastest sleeper trains for the MOR: twenty 16-car trainsets capable of speeds up to 250 km/h (155 mph). It is also building another 20 high speed trains with conventional seating capable of similar speeds, delivering the first of these trains just 18 months after Notice to Proceed from the MOR.









One page from the Bombardier specification. More details can be found at http://www.superscooper.com/en/1_0/pdf/Bombardier_Zefiro_Technical_Description_en.pdf


----------



## big-dog

*9.28 Ningbo-Taizhou-Wenzhou and Wenzhou-Fuzhou HSR opens*

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


----------



## ANR

*'Lifeline' railway completed in mountainous Yunnan*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-29 

A railway connecting Dali to Lijiang, two well-known tourist cities in Southwest China's Yunnan province, went into operation Monday. Bai Enpei, secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), heralded the newly-completed line as the "lifeline of the people in western Yunnan" while addressing a function organized Monday to mark completion of the railway.

Line construction began in December 2004 and completion was set for June 2008. Complex terrain and repeated revisions of the plan, including a decision to use electric power for traction instead of diesel-powered locomotive, led to delays, according to Su Huimin, an official in charge of publicity with Kunming Railway Bureau. The railway cost 4.55 billion yuan ($669 million), said Song Xiude, chief of Kunming Railway Bureau. "The completion of Dali-Lijiang railway is of great significance for Yunnan to expand its rail network and increase contacts with interior areas of China and with countries in south and southeast Asia," said Song.

Song said the line will be linked to the southeast Asian rail network via a 350-km-long railway being constructed between Dali and Ruili, a city on the Sino-Myanmar border. Construction of the Dali-Ruili railway line began in 2008 and will be completed in 2014. Su Huimin with Kunming Railway Bureau confirmed Monday the railway was the first in western Yunnan and had a length of 162 km. The only land link between the two places before was a highway. Along the railway, the region is mainly inhabited by ethnic minorities, and has many cultural relics, tourist sites, and natural resources. It is estimated more than five million residents in Dali, Lijiang, Diqing and Nujiang, all in western Yunnan, will be benefited by the newly completed railway.

Hong Jumei, a woman of the Naxi ethnic group in Lijiang, was overjoyed at the completion of the Dali-Lijiang railway. "We Naxi people have been dreaming of seeing a train at the foot of the snow-capped Mount Yulong and now finally we have it in real life," said Hong. "I also think travel by train is safer, cheaper, and faster, and it will be very convenient to travel around in the future." Shen Zhou, Dali-Lijiang railway project manager and also deputy engineer-in-chief with China Railway Tenth Group Co Ltd, said the line, with 47 tunnels and 76 bridges, turned out to be the most difficult to build. "Geological problems such as landslides, quicksand, cave-in were persistent through the entire process of construction, and we have built a 5,800-meter-long tunnel in a stratum known as tuff, a type of rock composed of compacted volcanic ash, which is the world's first of the kind," said Shen. The Dali-Lijiang line has a designed speed of 120 km per hour. A single journey on it at present, however, takes three hours and 46 minutes to complete as currently, the train only travels at a speed of 80 km per hour out of safety concern. This railway line will be expanded to link more towns in Diqing Tibet autonomous prefecture in western Yunnan, including Shangri-la, a popular tourist destination, said Song.

According to Song, a plan of another railway line, with a length of 144 km, between Lijiang and Shangri-la, the prefectural seat of Diqing, passed an assessment by the Ministry of Environmental Protection early this year to examine the proposed railway's impact on the environment. This new railway will begin construction late this year, said Song.

Lijiang is well-known for its ancient town dating back 800 years ago. Set in a landscape representing the harmonious blend of different cultural traditions, Lijiang was inscribed in the World Heritage List of UNESCO in 1997. It hosted more than four million tourists in the first half of this year, including 300,000 travelers from overseas.


----------



## clkgtr

*Leading-edge BOMBARDIER ZEFIRO technology to feature maximum operating speeds of 380 kph*

*Leading-edge BOMBARDIER ZEFIRO technology to feature maximum operating speeds of 380 kph *

Bombardier Transportation announced today that its Chinese joint venture, Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd., has been selected by the Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) to supply 80 ZEFIRO 380 very high speed trains (1,120 cars) for the country’s rapidly growing high speed rail network. The contract, including 20 eight-car trainsets and 60 sixteen-car trainsets, is valued at an estimated 27.4 billion Chinese Renminbis ($4 billion US, 2.7 billion euros).[1] Bombardier’s share of the contract is estimated at 13.5 billion Chinese Renminbis, ($2 billion US, 1.3 billion euros).[1] The first train is scheduled for delivery in 2012 with final deliveries expected in 2014.









The new trainsets will be an integral part of an evolving high speed rail capability in China, which is developing more than 6,000 km of new high speed lines to create one of the most advanced high speed rail networks in the world. The trains, with maximum operating speeds of 380 kph, are based on Bombardier’s next-generation ZEFIRO high speed rail technology, and powered by a highly energy efficient BOMBARDIER MITRAC propulsion and control system.








The ZEFIRO 380 trainsets will also incorporate Bombardier’s advanced ECO4 energy saving technologies to create best-in-class energy and operating efficiencies. Bombardier launched its ECO4 technology package in 2008 as part of an ongoing focus to extend rail’s position as the most sustainable form of transportation in the world. Bombardier is first in the industry to create a new formula for total train performance with a portfolio that can create substantial overall energy savings of up to 50%.









The ZEFIRO 380 trains will be manufactured at Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation production facilities in Qingdao, China. Engineering will take place in Qingdao and at Bombardier centers in Europe with project management and components provided from sites in Europe and China.









Established in 1998, Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd. is a joint venture between Bombardier and CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Ltd. dedicated to supplying passenger rail rolling stock for China. It has delivered over 1,000 passenger rail cars into China since its inception, including a range of high speed trains and high-grade passenger coaches.

:banana::banana::banana::cheers::cheers::cheers:


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## big-dog

^^ looks really comfortable but I don't really like the face to face seating design (it may not be final design though)


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## zergcerebrates

Wow I like the Zefiro train design. The front is so nice!


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## chornedsnorkack

pearl_river said:


> The Fuzhou-Wenzhou line shortens the travel time from 15 hours to 100 minutes.





pearl_river said:


> The railways, linked with lines to Shanghai, also cut the travel time from Fuzhou to Shanghai from 11hours to about five hours.


If the travel time from Fuzhou to Wenzhou was 15 hous, how was it possible to travel from Wenzhou to Shanghai in minus 4 hours, so as to reach Shanghai in 11 hours?

Now that Fuzhou-Wenzhou is 100 minutes, what is the total trip time of the whole new route, Fuzhou-Ningbo?

Also, what is the trip time Fuzhou-Hangzhou?

Overnight fast trains Beijing-Shanghai already continue to Hangzhou and reach it in 11 and a half hours. Shall any trains travel direct Beijing-Fuzhou, 15 or so hours?


----------



## ANR

*Bombardier bags major railway deal*

By Li Xiang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 









_Bombardier’s share of the contract is estimated at 13.5 billion yuan. [China Daily]_

China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp (CSR) said yesterday that two of its affiliates have won contracts valued at 72.4 billion yuan from the Ministry of Railways. Subsidiary CSR Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd, a joint venture of Canadian train maker Bombardier and CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Ltd, signed a 27.4 billion yuan contract with the Shanghai Railway Bureau, under which the company will build 80 high-speed trains. The order for Bombardier Sifang's trains, which has a maximum operating speed of 380 kilometers per hour, consists of 1,120 cars. The first train is scheduled for delivery in 2012 with final deliveries expected in 2014, the company said. Bombardier's share of the contract is estimated at 13.5 billion yuan. The deal includes 20 eight-car trainsets and 60 sixteen-car trainsets based on Bombardier's next-generation ZEFIRO high-speed rail technology. The trains will be manufactured in Qingdao, Shandong province. Similarly, subsidiary CSR Qingdao Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Ltd also secured a 45-billion yuan deal yesterday from the Wuhan Railway Bureau to build high-speed trains for the country. 

"The 72.4-billion yuan deal is consistent with market expectations," said Yu Aibin, an analyst at Guosen Securities. "The volume is actually a bit smaller than we expected so we'll see more deals signed in the future but they are not going to be as big as this one." "This is an important win for Bombardier as it increases the company's share in the high-speed rail market segment," Cameron Doerksen, a Montreal-based analyst with Versant Partners, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying.

Established in 1998, the Bombardier Sifang joint venture has delivered more than 1,000 passenger rail cars into China since its inception, including a range of high-speed trains and high-grade passenger coaches. In 2007, the company won a $1.5-billion contract from the Ministry of Railways, the largest single order for rail passenger cars in China. "We are very pleased to be delivering leading-edge very high speed rail technology through Chinese expertise and resources. This illustrates the strategic importance of delivering the most advanced rail technology for China from within China," said Pierre Beaudoin, Bombardier's CEO in the company's statement.


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## Facial

I'm wondering if China has any domestic technology currently in use for its HSR network. Last I heard there were some experimental runs - does anyone have any info on this?


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## gincan

Facial said:


> I'm wondering if China has any domestic technology currently in use for its HSR network. Last I heard there were some experimental runs - does anyone have any info on this?


LOL, they'll just reverse engineer the trains they've acquired and come up with a cheap clone, just like they've done with everything else.


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## zaphod

well there's actually nothing wrong with that

France sold trains to Korea. Korea is now selling trains to Turkey. Turkey could sell trains to Qatar or Saudi someday?

There's no good reason to reinvent the wheel. This is something I've been saying about projects in the US where we need to buy cheap off the shelf trains from overseas then make our own versions. Everytime we tried to do something original through a government run program like defense conversions in the 1970s and the Boston LRV's, it wasn't as good as the product created by competitive industrial firms like Bombardier.


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## ANR

*China's 1st railway involving private fund starts construction*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-01 

China's first railway involving private fund starts construction in north China's Shanxi province on Monday.

The railway, linking Jiafeng township and Nanchenpu of Jincheng city, stretches 64.29 kilometers. The railway winds through three counties and has six stops, according to local authorities. It is expected to cost 2.3 billion yuan ($340 million), and will be finished in three years. The railway was co-funded by the Broad Union Investment Management Group Co Ltd, the Yufeng Railway Construction Investment Co Ltd and the Railway Bureau of Zhengzhou.

Jincheng is a major coal producing area in China's coal-rich Shanxi province. It is hoped the railway will become an important route to aid building a resource base.


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## gincan

zaphod said:


> well there's actually nothing wrong with that
> 
> France sold trains to Korea. Korea is now selling trains to Turkey. Turkey could sell trains to Qatar or Saudi someday?
> 
> There's no good reason to reinvent the wheel. This is something I've been saying about projects in the US where we need to buy cheap off the shelf trains from overseas then make our own versions. Everytime we tried to do something original through a government run program like defense conversions in the 1970s and the Boston LRV's, it wasn't as good as the product created by competitive industrial firms like Bombardier.


It is one thing to buy foreign technology and know-how and then use it when developing a domestic project like the Koreans did with the KTX. It is another thing to buy a foreign product and then re brand it as your own like the Chinese did with the Alstom pendolino 600 series.


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## gramercy

*I have serious doubts about 380 kph*

And here is why:
- there is NO train controll system currently that can safely operate trains ABOVE 320 kph, ETCS is the only one that even has a hope and it doesnt even work on the "350" Beijing-Tianjin. i have serious doubts that they actually do this and if they do then they do it without a controll system which means less frequency
- 380 kph would require +103 % energy (cost) compared to running at 300 kph, +67 % compared to 320 kph and +31 % (almost a third) compared to running at 350 kph. as a result the ticked would be twice, two thirds or one third more expensive
- not the chinese, nor bombardier have demonstrated their OWN design anywhere near these speeds
- a train running at 380 kph has to be able to operate SAFELY for LONG distances at +10% more speed, so in fact the design speed would be 418 kph!!!
- there is noone else even attempting this because there are more pressing issues for the japanese/europeans, such as: noise emissions, aerodynamics vs cost, train controll systems etc.


to do this sort of a leapfrog within 2-4 years is something I just dont believe possible

the chinese regime has claimed a lot of things and this just smells like one of their exagerrations

still i dont want to belittle their efforts, i mean thousands of kilometres of 320-350 kph is awesome and i'm sure its only a matter of time to go to 380
but its more like a decade imho


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## binhai

^^they are testing the 500km/h train soon, 380km/h should be easy. Remember, no one believed that China would have the fastest high speed train already at 350km/h, and is a similar situation now. If anyone can work miracles with high-speed trains, it's the Chinese


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## gramercy

BarbaricManchurian said:


> ^^they are testing the 500km/h train soon, 380km/h should be easy. Remember, no one believed that China would have the fastest high speed train already at 350km/h, and is a similar situation now. If anyone can work miracles with high-speed trains, it's the Chinese


what 500 km/h train? what testing?

the french run over 570 km/h *tests*, but the AGV will NOT be even 380, it will be 360 and thats not coming before 2012

which model of which independent chinese manufacturer is going to run these tests
and even if they do, this is bombardier we are talking about and they have not produced anything close to this speed

as for already running at 350, maybe they did during the olympics but i seriously doubt that they do now because they installed ETCS on the Beijing-Tianjin and ETCS is *still not* capable of handling trafic at those speeds which means less *safety* (and is the main reason why Barcelona-Madrid is not going at this speed either, even though they *could*), so the only way to do this is to start trains so rarely that they can stop no matter what. but thats not very economical


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## LUCAFUSAR

^^There is a 350 kph limit with ERTMS/ETCS level2 only for safety reasons. But the ERTMS/ETCS level2 system allows speeds up to 400 kph.


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## gramercy

LUCAFUSAR said:


> ^^There is a 350 kph limit with ERTMS/ETCS level2 only for safety reasons. But the ERTMS/ETCS level2 system allows speeds up to 400 kph.


Beijing-Tianjin is Level 1

Level 2 is intended to to that but nowhere on earth do they do that right now


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## LUCAFUSAR

^^Wrong. All the Italian TAV network works with the ERTMS/ETCS 2 level. And not only the TAV network, as you'll can see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERTMS

And on the Beijing/Tianjin the CRH3 runs at over 330 kph. On the LGV/Est TGVs run at over 320 kph. On the Rome/Naples ETR500 run at over 310 kph. The same the Velaro/E on the MAD/BCN.


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## Peloso

Gramercy seems to be right, nowhere the ETCS 2 is working at speeds close to 400 kph (there's a big difference between 350 and 400), and all of the italian TAV network works with ERTMS 2, but just the Rome-Naples stretch has ETCS 2, and that's at 310 kph, as said.
That said, I still believe the Chinese could soon come up with a control system that's as good as the Euro one, and who knows, they might be able (if even with a slightly inferior safety level) to reach higher speeds.


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## LUCAFUSAR

^^Ehm...the TGV Est runs at over 320...but the capabilities of the system is up to 400 kph...I know that the maximum speeds currently are 310-330 kph...but the speed limits will be upgraded in next years...


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## Peloso

LUCAFUSAR said:


> ^^Ehm...the TGV Est runs at over 320...but the capabilities of the system is up to 400 kph...I know that the maximum speeds currently are 310-330 kph...but the speed limits will be upgraded in next years...


Do you know the meaning of the words "right now"? If so, can you explain me what is "wrong", nay, "^^ wrong", in Gramercy's proposition?


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## LUCAFUSAR

Peloso said:


> Do you know the meaning of the words "right now"? If so, can you explain me what is "wrong", nay, "^^ wrong", in Gramercy's proposition?


Sorry, but there is a misunderstanding. I am talking about the 350 kph limit. I only said that there are many examples where the system is working OVER 310/335 Kph, so UNDER the 350 kph limit (that's a limit due to safety reasons, because the system capabilities are way higher), and with ERTMS2 trains can run at over 400 kph, and with levels 3 and 4 also with shortened intervals between one train and another. However I referred to 400 kph limit ONLY to explain ERTMS capabilities. Maybe I explained the matter in a bad way. Maybe.
P.S.: on the CRH network there'll be the ERTMS safety systems.


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## gramercy

All right.

We established (?) that ETCS 2 can theoretically handle 380 but it doesn't do that right now anywhere, in fact it doesn't even do 350 kph in regular timetable.
We also established that the Beijing-Tianjin only has ETCS 1, so the chinese right now are not even able to experiment with ETCS 2 and scheduled trains.

Based on this I seriously doubt that within 2-3 years the chinese will have a controll system not only theoretically allowing 380 (418...), but doing that in a regular timetable. Lets say they install ETCS 2 on these long lines. What makes you believe they will be able to make it work if neither the french, nor the spanish nor the italians can make it work today, 3 years before this supertrain is supposed to work in china.

If you look at recent introductions (Switzerland for example) it usually takes 1-3 years to set the system up, test it test it test it, then test it some more, and then make it handle trains....at 200-250 kph...in Switzerland!


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## LUCAFUSAR

^^gramercy, you have to know that originally the Madrid/Barcelona was inteneded to run at 350 kph with ERTMS2. In fact a SERIAL Velaro E was able to reach 404 kph on MAD/BCN with ERTMS2. Now, this line works at 300/310 kph due to the air turbulence that causes loose stones to be picked up and thrown at quite dangerous speeds (in fact the new chinese lines don't use loose stone ballast so there isn't this problem - everything is solod concrete, which is more expensive in theory. In fact the CRH3 runs over 335 kph), but THEORETICALLY is ALREADY capable to reach the speed of 350 kph. In France is the same, they did test with TGV Duplex at 360 kph...i heard of rumors about SNCF asked RFF to increase the speed limit from 300 (or 320 on the LGV/Est) to 360 kph...In Italy a 350 kph limit is antieconomical because of the short TAV lines interrupted by urban sections with their speed reductions stretches.


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## gramercy

in any case I'm pretty confident that the chinese will take the lead soon, but i just dont believe this will happen by 2012, not even by 2014

and I think only the Velaro and the Talgo something and the future AGV are near these speeds, so what Bombardier can do in just 3 years by 2012 is beyond me


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## gincan

LUCAFUSAR said:


> ^^gramercy, you have to know that originally the Madrid/Barcelona was inteneded to run at 350 kph with ERTMS2. In fact a SERIAL Velaro E was able to reach 404 kph on MAD/BCN with ERTMS2. Now, this line works at 300/310 kph due to the air turbulence that causes loose stones to be picked up and thrown at quite dangerous speeds (in fact the new chinese lines don't use loose stone ballast so there isn't this problem - everything is solod concrete, which is more expensive in theory. In fact the CRH3 runs over 335 kph), but THEORETICALLY is ALREADY capable to reach the speed of 350 kph. In France is the same, they did test with TGV Duplex at 360 kph...i heard of rumors about SNCF asked RFF to increase the speed limit from 300 (or 320 on the LGV/Est) to 360 kph...In Italy a 350 kph limit is antieconomical because of the short TAV lines interrupted by urban sections with their speed reductions stretches.


Ehm, what the hell are you talking about?

Madrid-Barcelona is still intended to run at 350 km/h with ERTMS level 2.

ERTMS level 2 is not installed on the line yet because of technical problems. The 404 km/h run was done with ERTMS level 1. The 300 km/h limit in that line has nothing to do with ERTMS 1 which can be used for 350, 400 km/h or even 500 km/h if you like, but because they built the system with ERTMS 2 in mind from day one, to equip the line with ERTMS level 1 with specs for 350km/h would have been a waste of money.

The flying stones have no implications for the speed restrictions but is a cost/maintenance problem for the operator, ADIF has already aproved 350 km/h commercial traffic, once level 2 is installed it is up to the operator to decide how fast they want to run their trains.


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## Peloso

urbanfan89 said:


> Besides, China is an authoritarian dictatorship, and if the Maglev is stopped by NIMBYism in China, this is proof that Maglev will not be accepted anywhere in the world.


Probably you don't know, but in Italy something more important than simple "nimbyism" (read hundreds of thousands of protesters worried for a tunnel that could contaminate dozens of villages with asbestos and uranium, search for "val di Susa" if you're interested) is not stopping the "democratic" Italian government from implementing its plans. To me it's obvious from other considerations that China is not more authoritarian than, say, Japan or the USA. For instance, in China the corporations', or the banks' power, is moderated by the state, whereas in the "west" these entities are above the law, nay, they MAKE the laws. Had it been Italy, or some other fake democratic country, the state would have ruled for building the Maglev, having some official been corrupted by some private firm involved in the construction. Since it's China, they took the soundest decision, the one that's best from an economic and practical point of view. The reason why they don't adopt Maglev in other countries is not nimbyism or consideration of public interest, it's that the "west" is BROKE.
BTW, I rode the Maglev some two months ago, top speed was 300 kph, but I remembered having read somewhere top speed was planned to be some 400 kph, so I was disappointed a bit. If for any technical reason top speed cannot exceed 300 on a regular basis, then apparently there's no advantage whatsoever for the Maglev against a regular HST.


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## staff

Peloso said:


> BTW, I rode the Maglev some two months ago, top speed was 300 kph, but I remembered having read somewhere top speed was planned to be some 400 kph, so I was disappointed a bit. If for any technical reason top speed can not exceed 300 on a regular basis, then apparently there's no advantage whatsoever for the Maglev against a regular HST.


Are you referring to the Shanghai Maglev? It's top speed is 431km/h, however during some hours of the day it is lower, maybe you rode it at those hours?


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## Peloso

staff said:


> Are you referring to the Shanghai Maglev? It's top speed is 431km/h, however during some hours of the day it is lower, maybe you rode it at those hours?


Of course I'm about Shanghai Maglev, is there another Maglev around?  Lemme see, I took it at 8.10 am. It was the end of July. It was more crowded than I had anticipated.


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## staff

^^
You can see here (under Operations) that the max speed between 6.45-8.45 is 301 km/h.


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## Peloso

staff said:


> ^^
> You can see here (under Operations) that the max speed between 6.45-8.45 is 301 km/h.


Yep. looks like it's capped at 301 kph most of the day. Pretty strange. The interval is the same, 15 minutes, so what could be the reason? In any case, 431 kph is not much more than the Beijing-Tianjin HST.


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## staff

Also, according to the Wiki article, the time lost when capping the speed is merely 50 seconds, so I guess it's not much of a difference anyway.


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## Scion

October 5, CRH3 on the new Wuhan-Guangzhou line near Zhuzhou station

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTIzMzkyNjAw.html


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## gramercy

wow, thx for the video

its really shaping up, innit?


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## big-dog

*10.3 CRH3 trial run on Wuhan-Guangzhou express rail*

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












big-dog said:


> *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://news.sina.com.cn/c/2009-10-09/040618791776.shtml)


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## gramercy

bravo :applause:


i remember reading about this project a while back, and now its almost operational
whoa :bow: :rock:


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## zergcerebrates

Are ticket prices between CRH and regular rails vary greatly or not that much?


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## yaohua2000

zergcerebrates said:


> Are ticket prices between CRH and regular rails vary greatly or not that much?


It vary greatly.

*Regular trains:*

The price for 普客 (regular passenger) train is ¥0.05861/km
The price for 普快 (regular fast) train is ¥0.070332/km (+20%)
The price for 快速 (fast, K-series) or 特快 (express, T-/Z-series) train is ¥0.082054/km (+40%)
The price for trains with air-conditioning +25%
The price for new-type air-conditioning * 150%

Most K-series and all T-/Z-series trains have new-type air-conditioning, so the price of a hard seat is: ¥0.05861*(1+40%+25%)*150%=¥0.14505975/km

Discount applied for long travel:
* Rail distance<=200km: no discount
* Rail distance>200km&&<=500km: 90%
* Rail distance>500km&&<=1000km: 80%
* Rail distance>1000km&&<=1500km: 70%
* Rail distance>1500km&&<=3000km: 60%
* Rail distance>3000km: 50%

Besides, for hard seat, there's also 2% insurance, "railway station air-conditioning fee" and "railway ticketing development fee" and etc.

There's an Excel sheet which can do the calculation based on rail distance:
http://ticketcalc.spaces.live.com/

*CRH trains:*

The price for CRH trains is simple. For 200 km/h CRH trains, the second class seat is ¥0.30855/km.

No regular long-distance discount as described above applied for CRH trains. However, some CRH trains run on slow yet to be upgraded lines do have special discount, to ensure the price not higher than K-/T-/Z-series hard sleepers.


----------



## big-dog

zergcerebrates said:


> Are ticket prices between CRH and regular rails vary greatly or not that much?


the price gap is relatively big. It's called price discrimination in economics, so the HSR is not filled with all the crowd.

I read news that HSR starts to sell standing tickets (no-seat) and some people feel uncomfortable with it.


----------



## big-dog

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


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> *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)


Shall any trains go all the way to Shanghai or beyond?


----------



## NCT

I'm slightly surprised the Southeast-Coast Mainline isn't designated 300 km/h, for it links up so many major coastal cities. Ideally this line should be 6-track with service patterns as follows:

Suburban commuter service, all stopping, routes operating only between the major cities;
Slow intercity, stopping at cities only (but all cities), routes operating the full length Guangzhou - Shanghai (or similar);
Fast intercity, stopping at a few major cities, routes operating the full length.

Fantasy over.


----------



## derekf1974

I think it has to do with the mountainous terrains of both Fujian and Zhejiang province. 300km/h+ would have been prohibitively expensive.


----------



## yaohua2000

chornedsnorkack said:


> Shall any trains go all the way to Shanghai or beyond?


The Beijing-Fuzhou sleeper CRH D311/2 will be launched on November 11. CRH2E will serve this route. The rail distance from Beijing to Fuzhou is 2369 km, and a single trip will take about 16 hours. The fastest train currently takes 19h43m from Beijing West to Fuzhou through different route which is 2067 km long. Rumored timetable:

Beijing departure at 19:20 - Fuzhou arrival at 11:20 the second day
Fuzhou departure at 15:57 - Beijing arrival at 07:53 the second day


----------



## gramercy

NCT said:


> I'm slightly surprised the Southeast-Coast Mainline isn't designated 300 km/h, for it links up so many major coastal cities. Ideally this line should be 6-track with service patterns as follows:



ideally? hardly...

heavy freight, high speed and suburban would require different alignments, different stops etc.

it would be criminal to build 1000+ kms from Shanghai to Hong Kong on the exact same alignment right next to each other...


the mountains and the tunnels slow down the high speed trains, thats a fact, and its the same in switzerland and japan, for hundreds and hundreds of kms


----------



## foxmulder

An update, from china forum by pearl river;


----------



## big-dog

*Oct.2009*

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



















Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan CRH










(hasea.com)


----------



## UD2

leo_sh said:


> Can CRH-2 sustain a speed of 350km/h? Kawasaki set a limit of 250km/h on the technology it transferred to Chinese.


The CRH-2C, which can reach 350km/h have a composition of 

DT-M-M-M-M-M-M-DT.


Where as the original CRH-2A/E2-1000 have a composition of 

DT-M-M-T-T-M-M-DT


DT = Control Trailer
M = Motor
T = Trailer


----------



## UD2

chornedsnorkack said:


> Only running costs are relevant. Investment into building the railway is a sunk cost!


only if you're China. at least these days.


----------



## ANR

*China to buy bullet trains made with Kawasaki tech*

By George Gao 
From:Gasgoo.com
October 27, 2009

China's Ministry of Railways has signed a contract to buy from a Chinese train-maker 140 bullet trains that will be built with the technology of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan, Kyodo News reported today, citing insiders. In the *45 billion yuan ($6.6 billion)* deal, China will buy the high-speed trains from Nanche Sifang Locomotive, which has a technology licensing agreement with Kawasaki Heavy, said sources familiar with the matter. The train can run at a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

The bullet trains will be manufactured using Kawasaki Heavy's technology for Hayate trains which run on the Tohoku Shinkansen Line in Japan. 









_The Hayate bullet trains run on Japan's Tohoku Shinkansen line._

The new trains will run between Beijing and Shanghai and between Beijing and Guangzhou starting next year. Japanese railway-related manufacturers which produce motors, brakes and other railway parts are also expected to benefit from this multi-billion-dollar contract, the sources said.

Meanwhile, China has also placed orders to a Chinese train maker affiliated with Germany's Siemens AG and a joint venture set up by Canada's aircraft and train maker Bombardier Inc. and a Chinese company. China began high-speed train services on the line between Beijing and Tianjin last year and is building similar lines in other parts of the country.


----------



## Peloso

ANR said:


> The bullet trains will be manufactured using Kawasaki Heavy's technology for Hayate trains which run on the Tohoku Shinkansen Line in Japan.


To anyone in the know: under the terms of these technology transfer contracts, will the local partners in China have to pay Kawasaki, or Bombardier, or Siemens, any royalty for every train produced? Also, after the orders already placed are fulfilled, will Chinese firms be rightfully allowed to produce trains and parts without further obligation towards the copyright owners?


----------



## bluemeansgo

Japanese trains usually are very conservative, are they not? In that they usually run 25% lower than their top speed? It's something like that, anyway.

Also remember that the 250km/h tagline was probably partly for optics. If they were seen as selling trains to China that "out of the box" run faster than those in Japan, it may cause negative feelings in public.

Of course, we know that's silly thinking, as China is building their network from scratch and has a completely different operating environment, but don't let facts get in the way... 

If nothing else it shows that Japanese trains under promise, but over deliver. Well done.


----------



## UD2

bluemeansgo said:


> Japanese trains usually are very conservative, are they not? In that they usually run 25% lower than their top speed? It's something like that, anyway.
> 
> Also remember that the 250km/h tagline was probably partly for optics. If they were seen as selling trains to China that "out of the box" run faster than those in Japan, it may cause negative feelings in public.
> 
> Of course, we know that's silly thinking, as China is building their network from scratch and has a completely different operating environment, but don't let facts get in the way...
> 
> If nothing else it shows that Japanese trains under promise, but over deliver. Well done.



what are you talking about?


----------



## foxmulder

I think he meant, in Japan, because of older infrastructure trains cannot reach their full potential (top speed).


----------



## bluemeansgo

UD2 said:


> what are you talking about?


What part wasn't clear?

This part? *1) usually run 25% lower than their top speed*

They are scheduled to run slower than their maximum speed in order to allow any lost time to be made up. This keeps the trains on time.

I remember seeing 25% somewhere, but that may be the safety threshold that trains must attain ( operational vs. max safe speed )

this part? *2) optics?*

About the 250km/h advertised speed, it wouldn't surprise me if Japan underpromises as it does not control the line. 

Any accidents can be blamed on higher speeds that were "not recommended" allowing them to save face.

In addition, the issue of advertising the export of technology that allows trains to run faster in China than Japan may unsettle the nationalists in Japan. Thus the comment about optics.

this part? *3) underpromise/overdeliver*
I thought that underpromise and overdeliver were pretty clear, but basically... they promise one performance level to be conservative, but the train can far exceed that in real life.

I realize that perhaps the post wasn't as clear as it could have been. Hope this helps.


----------



## Peloso

bluemeansgo said:


> I realize that perhaps the post wasn't as clear as it could have been. Hope this helps.


To me your post was pretty clear, and I agree too.


----------



## quashlo

_Optics_ wasn't the best choice of word, as this has absolutely nothing to do with the physics of light. 

_(Public) image_ would have been better.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> They are scheduled to run slower than their maximum speed in order to allow any lost time to be made up. This keeps the trains on time.


Perhaps, but I think the lower operational speeds are a result of line capacity constraints i.e. you can't have many 250km/h trains running on 3 or 5 minute headways.



> Any accidents can be blamed on higher speeds that were "not recommended" allowing them to save face.


Um, it's not an issue of "saving face", its just common worldwide business practice of manufacturers to avoid liability _if_ a reckless railway operator runs a train above its recommended speed. Anyway, in Japan no shinkansen trains can run above designated safe line speeds, as the digital ATC system will apply brakes automatically should the driver overspeed.



> In addition, the issue of advertising the export of technology that allows trains to run faster in China than Japan may unsettle the nationalists in Japan. Thus the comment about optics.


Wow, I didn't know these nationalist boogeymen had such an influence on overseas rolling stock sales. Care to point out a documented source? Anyway, these wingnut emperor worshippers are even _more fringe_ now that their LDP buddies are no longer in power after the recent national election.


----------



## Peloso

k.k.jetcar said:


> Um, it's not an issue of "saving face", its just common worldwide business practice of manufacturers to avoid liability _if_ a reckless railway operator runs a train above its recommended speed.


This depends on the terms of the contract. Formally it isn't even the same train, in fact it's manufactured in Qingdao, not in Japan, so I don't know if there's any problem with liability, but actually there would be an issue of "saving face" since the train does, somehow, "come" from Japan. As for being "reckless", I think the Chinese railways' bosses know better than you and me, otherwise they wouldn't have signed a contract for 140 trains to have them run at 300 or more on a daily basis and risk to render them useless.


----------



## Restless

I don't think 350km/h is unachievable for Kawasaki... considering that the Bombardier Joint venture has also recently signed a $4billion contract for 80 Zefiro trains with a maximum operating speed of 380km/h


----------



## UD2

bluemeansgo said:


> What part wasn't clear?
> 
> This part? *1) usually run 25% lower than their top speed*
> 
> They are scheduled to run slower than their maximum speed in order to allow any lost time to be made up. This keeps the trains on time.
> 
> I remember seeing 25% somewhere, but that may be the safety threshold that trains must attain ( operational vs. max safe speed )
> 
> this part? *2) optics?*
> 
> About the 250km/h advertised speed, it wouldn't surprise me if Japan underpromises as it does not control the line.
> 
> Any accidents can be blamed on higher speeds that were "not recommended" allowing them to save faces.
> 
> In addition, the issue of advertising the export of technology that allows trains to run faster in China than Japan may unsettle the nationalists in Japan. Thus the comment about optics.
> 
> this part? *3) underpromise/overdeliver*
> I thought that underpromise and overdeliver were pretty clear, but basically... they promise one performance level to be conservative, but the train can far exceed that in real life.
> 
> I realize that perhaps the post wasn't as clear as it could have been. Hope this helps.


1. yes. all trains do that. sames reason why you don't drive your car to it's max speed. The rated operational speed of a train will always be lower than what's capable. That's common practice. 

2. Japan didn't promise a 250km/h train. The tracks that the trains were designed to operate on only allowed for a maxium of 250km/h. And the same liability issues as was mentioned above. 

3. This point is the same as the top 2 combined. 

I was less confused about what you said then I was trying to figure out more on your train of thought before i gave my 2 cent.


----------



## UD2

Restless said:


> I don't think 350km/h is unachievable for Kawasaki... considering that the Bombardier Joint venture has also recently signed a $4billion contract for 80 Zefiro trains with a maximum operating speed of 380km/h


It is. China, with the help of the original manufacture I presume, redesigned the E2-1000 with a DT-M-M-M-M-M-M-DT config that currently operates at 350km/h. 

I don't think anybody is arguing that.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of the second double track of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway begins*

Lanxin Railway Second Double Track

1776 km long, 31 stations
Speed: 200–250 km/h
Cost: CN¥143.5 billion (US$21 billion)
Construction begins: 2009 November 4
Completion: 2014
Minimum railway curve radium: 7000 meters
Maximum inclination: 12‰ for most of the route, 20‰ for difficult sections, 13‰ from Zhangye to Qumul

Lanzhou West - (Gansu-Qinghai border) - Xining - (Qinghai-Gansu border) Zhangye - Jiuquan - Jiayuguan - (Gansu-Xinjiang border) - Qumul - Turpan - Urumqi

795 km in Gansu, 268 km in Qinghai, 713 km in Xinjiang



> 人民网北京11月4日电　（记者严冰）今天上午11时，兰新铁路第二双线建设动员大会在新疆乌鲁木齐市新建兰新铁路第二双线二宫火车站站址隆重举行，大会宣布兰新铁路第二双线开工建设。铁道部今天还透露，兰新铁路第二双线自兰州西站引出，经青海省西宁、甘肃省张掖、酒泉、嘉峪关、新疆维吾尔自治区哈密、吐鲁番，引入乌鲁木齐站，线路横跨新疆、甘肃、青海三省区，全长1776公里，共设31个车站。其中甘肃境内795公里，青海境内268公里，新疆境内713公里。线路为Ⅰ级双线，设计时速为200公里/小时，兰州至西宁段和哈密至乌鲁木齐段线下预留提速为250公里/小时。项目投资估算总额1435亿元，建设工期5年。届时，北京至乌鲁木齐将由现在的40小时缩短为12小时左右,列车可实现夕发朝至。


----------



## Scion

^^ wow the silk railway!! :applause:


----------



## gramercy

great stuff

and based on google earth, the view will be awesome


----------



## Scion

clkgtr said:


> *Leading-edge BOMBARDIER ZEFIRO technology to feature maximum operating speeds of 380 kph*
> 
> .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .....


Nice design


----------



## yaohua2000

*Four railway lines opened on the same day (November 5) in Xinjiang*

http://www.china-mor.gov.cn/detail.jsp?MSG_ID=20605

Jingyihuo Railway: 286 km long connecting Jinghe, Yining and Khorgas port with Kazakhstan, first electrified railway line in Xinjiang
Second Wujing Railway: 381.5 km long connecting Urumqi and Jinghe
Kuibei Railway: 468.5 km long connecting Kuitun and Beitun
Wuzhun Railway: 264 km long connecting Urumqi and the coal industry base in eastern Dzungaria


----------



## whosever

great , so China will become the most fast running country
wish to have a travel on the CRH


----------



## foxmulder

China is becoming a railroad country. A holiday just by using trains and taking photos will be a nice journey.


----------



## gramercy

why future tense?


----------



## yaohua2000

*The open date of the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-speed Railway will delay to 2010 January 30*

http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2009-11-05/143216559768s.shtml


----------



## Scion

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

Part 1





Part 2


----------



## Kenwen

holy molly!!! thats awsome


----------



## urbanfan89

yaohua2000 said:


> http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2009-11-05/143216559768s.shtml


Correction: the entire line except for the Guangzhou station will be open December 20, due to delays in completing the station. Between December 20 and January 30 all high speed trains will stop at the existing Guangzhou station.


----------



## gramercy

great videos

first off, the announcer was smoking hot, but the discussion reinforced me that i will never be able to learn chinese

--

this tunnel would be awesome and rather long indeed

but provided they go with the 140 km option, the swiss still have a hope  


i dont see this possible though with political tensions where they are


----------



## EricIsHim

150km of deep sea underground tunnel in an earthquake zone crossing fault lines?? 
that's nut and good luck.

no doubt the idea is great, but is it really engineering possible?? 
we aren't even talking about money here yet.

how about some genius come up with a ship that can cruise at 300+km/h?
or open up the air for direct flight?


----------



## gramercy

EricIsHim said:


> 150km


first of all, there are now _plenty_ of 30km++ tunnels in the world, actually, there are a lot of ~50km tunnels either in existence, under construction, planning or proposed

actually, if you look at the Zürich-Milano route and add together the Ceneri (15 km), the Gotthard Base (57 km) and the Zimmerberg (20 km) tunnels: the trains will run over 90 kms in tunnels...and thats not even mentioning the Bellinzona tunnel and the northern extention of the Base tunnel (+~30 kms)



> of deep sea underground tunnel in an earthquake zone crossing fault lines??


i'm not sure of this

Taiwan lies on the same continental plate as mainland china, in fact if you look at it on Google Earth, the average depth is 30-50 metres
and i dont think it would cross any fault lines



> no doubt the idea is great, but is it really engineering possible??


i think it is definitely possible



> we aren't even talking about money here yet.


got that right :banana:




> how about some genius come up with a ship that can cruise at 300+km/h?
> or open up the air for direct flight?


air traffic cannot have the same capacity as trains, not for freight!
and ships are a lot slower than freight trains going at 120-160 kph


----------



## binhai

It will greatly stimulate Fujian's economy, but with the current situation, I don't see it happening in under 10 years. But in today's Asia, anything can change/happen.


----------



## Huhu

gramercy said:


> Taiwan lies on the same continental plate as mainland china, in fact if you look at it on Google Earth, the average depth is 30-50 metres
> and i dont think it would cross any fault lineskph


It doesn't cross major fault lines but the area is riddled with minor ones and anyways it's very close to the Philippine Sea Plate subduction zone that generates a lot of seismic activity in the region.


gramercy said:


> air traffic cannot have the same capacity as trains, not for freight!
> and ships are a lot slower than freight trains going at 120-160 kph


Shipping is still a cheaper method than rail to move freight over long distances. I wonder if it's worth it to ship something by rail from Shanghai or Guangdong to Taiwan by rail (theoretically speaking) instead of just putting it on a ship.


----------



## Restless

Yeah... but the tunnel is not really going to be judged on its economic rationale.

At the end of the day, it is a political statement that Taiwan is inextricably part of China, and that will be the reason it will be built (if it ever does)


----------



## z0rg

A bridge would be far more sexy.


----------



## Huhu

^^ Lol I wonder how many ships would hit it per day, to say nothing of typhoons. :|


----------



## antovador

^^ I think you never see the Chongming bridges.



Huhu said:


> It doesn't cross major fault lines but the area is riddled with minor ones and anyways it's very close to the Philippine Sea Plate subduction zone that generates a lot of seismic activity in the region.


Since the Seikan Tunnel and the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan are build, it's not a problem.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

chinese Transrapid Copy


----------



## gramercy

wow


----------



## derekf1974

Awesome! I've seen pictures of their low speed mag-lev trains. This is the first domestic made high speed mag-lev train that I've seen. Looks good. I really believe mag-lev transportation will flourish in China in the future.


----------



## snow is red

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> chinese Transrapid Copy



Sorry for my ignorance.

How is this a copy ? Please explain. Thanks.

This is Shanghai maglev from Transrapid.


----------



## foxmulder

They might share some technology, even can be same thing under the skin but I don't think it is an illegal reverse engineered copy.


----------



## zergcerebrates

You must admit these two designs are 90% similar. If you put the Japanese Maglev and the German together well then nobody will say thats a copy. The Chinese im sure basically just borrowed the overall shape and form and modify it somehow to make it their own, thus cutting the cost to research a design of their own for speed reductions. Why not use something thats already available as its own was probably their idea. But hopefully in the future Chinese can be more original. I dont like anything that "Looks like" something gives people the idea we copied which in this case honestly i believe they did.


----------



## hkskyline

That photo looks more like a monorail than maglev.


----------



## UD2

hkskyline said:


> That photo looks more like a monorail than maglev.


It's almost the same config as the Transrapid one. 

And the Chengdu Aircraft Company isn't in the business of making monorails either.


----------



## city_thing

zergcerebrates said:


> You must admit these two designs are 90% similar. If you put the Japanese Maglev and the German together well then nobody will say thats a copy. The Chinese im sure basically just borrowed the overall shape and form and modify it somehow to make it their own, thus cutting the cost to research a design of their own for speed reductions. Why not use something thats already available as its own was probably their idea. But hopefully in the future Chinese can be more original. I dont like anything that "Looks like" something gives people the idea we copied which in this case honestly i believe they did.


Where is the patent held? Germany still?

If it uses magnetic levitation, then technically it is a copy.


----------



## YelloPerilo

city_thing said:


> Where is the patent held? Germany still?
> 
> If it uses magnetic levitation, then technically it is a copy.


What an ignorant statement. How else should a maglev train move?

Magnetic levitation is used in many technology.


----------



## snow is red

city_thing said:


> Where is the patent held? Germany still?
> 
> If it uses magnetic levitation, then technically it is a copy.


OK I am speechless........

Now that brings me to the next question. 

How does a Japanese maglev operate ?


----------



## YelloPerilo

snow is red said:


> How does a Japanese maglev operate ?


You know, ignorance knows not limit and that plus the constant brainwash of their media becomes an illness that is almost almost incurable. 

The Japanese have Dragon Ball! Well, Sun Wukong is actually Chinese.


----------



## derekf1974

The Shanghai Maglev project included some tech transfer from the Germans. It was well published years back. One can assume some of that technology was incorporated into the new train pictured above. I find it interesting that this is an aerospace company project/product when there is no shortage of train makers in China.


----------



## Pansori

I checked the last few dozens of pages or so in this thread... the developments in China seem of a colossal scale. I had read about China's HSR plans some time in 2003 or so... At that time it didn't seem too clear which lead me to thinking that it's not gonna happen anytime soon. I didn't have much idea of how things progressed since then. It's still hard to believe that things are moving forward THAT fast.


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

OMG that maglev train is the most hideous thing i have ever seen. why are Chinese designs so disgustingly atrocious? I hate to say this but the Chinese have absolutely no sense of design or aesthetics whatsoever! Everything they design turn out horrendously tacky but why!?!?! The Chinese used to be excellent designers in pre-modern era... their ships were beautiful their buildings so elegant... what happened?!?


----------



## foxmulder

So you find original MAGLEV design of Germans hideous too?


----------



## zergcerebrates

city_thing said:


> Where is the patent held? Germany still?
> 
> If it uses magnetic levitation, then technically it is a copy.


Not so.

There are three types of maglev trains, 
EDS (electrodynamic suspension), EMS (electromagnetic suspension) and stabilized permanent magnet suspension (SPM).

* For EMS, same pole electromagnets in the train repel it away from a magnetically conductive track.
* The EDS uses electromagnets on both the track and the train, to push the train away from the track.
* SPM uses opposite arrays of permanent magnets to magnetically levitate the train above the track.


----------



## yaohua2000

GE and China MOR Sign Strategic MOU to Advance High-Speed Rail Opportunities in the U.S.

http://www.genewscenter.com/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=9022&NewsAreaID=2


----------



## conc.man

WOW, if US and China adopt the same technology system, that's a huge market.



yaohua2000 said:


> GE and China MOR Sign Strategic MOU to Advance High-Speed Rail Opportunities in the U.S.
> 
> http://www.genewscenter.com/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=9022&NewsAreaID=2


 
GE and China MOR Sign Strategic MOU to Advance High-Speed Rail Opportunities in the U.S. 

Partnership Positions GE as first U.S. High-Speed Rail Locomotive Manufacturer 

Erie, Pa., USA and Beijing, China (Nov. 17, 2009) - GE and China’s Ministry of Railways today announced that they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly advance high-speed rail (HSR) opportunities in the United States. This collaboration will allow GE Transportation to be the first U.S. locomotive manufacturer to more effectively compete for high-speed rail projects against global competitors. In addition, the partnership would accelerate GE’s passenger rail technologies and create in the near future up to 150 high technology jobs in the U.S. The announcement was made as part of "GE's Clean Technology Week in China" activities. 

Lorenzo Simonelli, President and CEO of GE Transportation said, “China is a vital partner to GE Transportation’s future growth, and we find that China’s Ministry of Railways and GE share a common goal – driving high-speed rail technology development more quickly and broadly. We look forward to pursuing this collaboration.” 

Tim Schweikert, President of GE Transportation China, said, “High-Speed Rail in the U.S. and in markets worldwide is a significant opportunity for infrastructure and business growth. With the signing of today's framework agreement, GE and China’s Ministry of Railways have provided the basis for a cooperation-focused framework that will enhance economic development, create new jobs and promote research and development for high-speed railway technology. 

“While GE currently is the world leader in locomotive diesel-electric and electronic control systems technology, China currently is a leader in high-speed rail technology for speeds of 220 miles per hour. Working together, both parties could develop the best solutions faster to serve America’s high-speed rail needs for many years to come.” 

More than $13 billion will be spent over the next five years to support higher- and high-speed rail infrastructure development in the United States. Over the next three years, China will invest about $300 billion into its railways infrastructure, expanding its network by more than 20,000 kilometers, including 13,000 kilometers of track designed for high-speed trains capable of traveling up to 220 miles per hour. 

GE currently is working with China’s largest diesel locomotive manufacturing company, CSR Qishuyan Locomotive Co., Ltd., to provide China’s Ministry of Railways with the most technologically advanced, fuel-efficient and low-emissions diesel-electric, heavy-haul locomotive available to date. More than 100 of these locomotives already have been placed in revenue service by the MOR. 

This current project as well as past projects in cooperation with China’s Ministry of Railways have sustained and created high technology manufacturing jobs in the U.S. for American workers to manufacture and assemble key components essential to these types of projects. 

The signing of the framework agreement on high-speed railway cooperation reflects a partnership expansion between GE and China’s Ministry of Railways and has the potential for 3,500 U.S. jobs to support HSR development. By terms of the framework agreement at least 80% of the content of any potential high-speed locomotives or signaling equipment would be sourced from U.S. suppliers, and all final assembly would be performed in the U.S.


----------



## mgk920

conc.man said:


> WOW, if US and China adopt the same technology system, that's a huge market.


Don't forget that regular Chinese and North American railroads are already 100% compatible (same track gauge, loading gauge, coupling and braking standards). Extending that compatibility into other areas of rail transport should not be much of a stretch.

Mike


----------



## Substructure

I haven't been able to find an answer to this question yet : at 350kph, what would be the most energy hungry, TGV or Maglev ?
And when the TGV ran at 575kph, did it use more or less energy then the Japanese maglev running at the same speed ?


----------



## Tri-ring

Substructure said:


> I haven't been able to find an answer to this question yet : at 350kph, what would be the most energy hungry, TGV or Maglev ?
> And when the TGV ran at 575kph, did it use more or less energy then the Japanese maglev running at the same speed ?


Hypothetically, based on physics it's fairly a clear cut answer, Maglev.
First of all aerodynamic-wise, Maglevs have much less drag since it does not need bogies.
Second, no friction between wheel and rail.
Last no mechanical power transfer loss leading to much more efficient rely of energy to motion.
Of course there are unique energy consumption requirements for Maglevs such as power for mechanical coolants to maintain superconductivity for case of JR method but I believe it is trivial compared to the build up of drag by the boogies for Wheel to rail method.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Bridge pier collapse kills one in east China*

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-11/19/content_9004260.htm

When: 2009-11-19 00:10 CST (GMT+08:00)
Where: Shanghai-Hangzhou High-Speed Rail
Who: Zhang Kunxiang from Guizhou, 32 yrs old, killed; 5 others, 4 from Guizhou, 1 from Sichuan, injured


----------



## yaohua2000

*Driver's lost key makes the whole train wait*

Time: 2009-08-03 18:16–20:16
Location: Tianjin Railway Station, platform 7

http://news.enorth.com.cn/system/2009/08/04/004148369.shtml



> A high-speed CRH5 train had to postpone its departure time for two hours because the driver couldn’t find his key. The train D175 between Tianjin and Shenyang North stops at Tianjin station. “The key was lost during a work transfer, because the drivers for the route are different in each direction,” said the spokesman for the Tianjin Railway Station.
> 
> The train even broadcast news of the lost key on the train, asking passengers on board to help look for it. “We looked in the corners around our seats and the clerks and train crew also came around each carriage with flashlights, but with no result,” said a passenger who waited on the platform sweating.
> 
> The railway station had to call the Beijing Headquarters to bring a back-up emergency key.
> 
> The train finally departed from Tianjin Station after a two-hour delay.


----------



## foxmulder

that s funny. it reminded me seinfeld's comic about plane keys and pilots.


----------



## Thailand92

are you kidding me? lost the key!? that's so funny.


----------



## UD2

^^^^^ 

LOL!!!!!! 

somebody's getting fired...


----------



## gramercy

UD2 said:


> ^^^^^
> 
> LOL!!!!!!
> 
> somebody's getting fired...


literally


----------



## ANR

*GE Transportation to Provide 300 Locomotive Assemblies to CSR Qishuyan in China*

ERIE, Pa. & BEIJING

GE Transportation announced today that it has reached an agreement with CSR Qishuyan Locomotive Co., Ltd. to provide 300 locomotive assemblies for China HXN5 Mainline locomotives produced by CSR Qishuyan with Evolution Series diesel engines. The agreement helps to sustain close to 1,200 high-tech jobs in the U.S. The announcement was made as part of "GE's Clean Technology Week in China" activities.

The agreement follows an order of 300 Evolution Series China Mainline Locomotives originally placed in 2005. According to the agreement, GE Transportation will supply 300 locomotive assemblies that will be manufactured in Erie and Grove City, Pennsylvania, USA and shipped to China. The assemblies contain key components of the diesel engines and locomotive control systems that will be built into Evolution Series China Mainline locomotives assembled in China. The first batch of the locomotive assemblies is scheduled for delivery at the beginning of 2010. Lorenzo Simonelli, President and CEO of GE Transportation said, “China has been a vital partner to GE Transportation’s growth for close to 30 years. We are looking forward to building on our mutually beneficial company-to-country partnership.”

“GE Transportation’s rail technology is an integral part of China’s sustainable infrastructure development and increases China’s usage of the most fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly locomotives in its fleet,” said Tim Schweikert, President of GE Transportation China. “China’s Ministry of Railways sought a product that would significantly improve hauling capability and running speed on the China Mainline, while at the same time reduce emissions to meet increasingly rigorous environmental requirements. GE’s Evolution Series met those requirements.”

In October 2005, GE Transportation signed an agreement with China’s Ministry of Railways to supply three hundred 6,250-horsepower Evolution Series HXN5 China Mainline Locomotives. As of today, more than one hundred of those 300 Evolution Series HXN5 China Mainline Locomotives assembled in-country by CSR Qishuyan already have been placed in revenue service by the Ministry of Railways in China. Since 2005, GE Transportation realized US$ 1.2 billion in sales by serving the Chinese marketplace. The locomotive assemblies are based on GE’s Evolution technology, the result of an eight-year, $400- million development effort to produce the most technologically advanced, fuel-efficient and low emissions diesel-electric, heavy-haul locomotive to date.









_HXN5 Mainline locomotive_


----------



## superchan7

Please, can they come up with another name besides Hexie!


----------



## sotavento

Substructure said:


> I haven't been able to find an answer to this question yet : at 350kph, what would be the most energy hungry, TGV or Maglev ?
> And when the TGV ran at 575kph, did it use more or less energy then the Japanese maglev running at the same speed ?





Tri-ring said:


> Hypothetically, based on physics it's fairly a clear cut answer, Maglev.
> First of all aerodynamic-wise, Maglevs have much less drag since it does not need bogies.
> Second, no friction between wheel and rail.
> Last no mechanical power transfer loss leading to much more efficient rely of energy to motion.
> Of course there are unique energy consumption requirements for Maglevs such as power for mechanical coolants to maintain superconductivity for case of JR method but I believe it is trivial compared to the build up of drag by the boogies for Wheel to rail method.


:dunno:

TGV only needs to apply energy to maintain its mumentuum at high speeds ... drag aplies to both TGV/HSR and Maglev almost in the same manner.

The friction is the downfall of wheel on rail ... the energy consumption is the downfall of the maglev system.


Offtopic ... what's the difference between THIS track:









... and THIS track:
















(sorry~: didn't find any good picture of the chinese HSR with trains in service)


----------



## mgk920

One *BIG* advantage with steel wheel/rail is that should the HSR track go down for whatever reason, the trains can still cross over to nearby conventional lines and continue on to their destinations at slower speed.

Mike


----------



## ANR

*German Firm Wins Major Rail Deal in China*

16 November 2009
Railway-Technology.com

China's Ministry of Railways has awarded a €500m contract to German firm Knorr-Bremse to supply subsystems for its new CRH3 high-speed trains. The company will equip a total of 2,720 trains with braking and door systems, out of which 1,280 will also be fitted with air-conditioning systems. Supply is scheduled to begin in the final quarter of 2009 and run until 2012.

The CRH3 trains, being built by Chinese manufacturers Tangshan Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works and Changchun Railway Vehicles, will operate at speeds of up to 350kmph mainly between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The order marks the biggest-ever contract for the German firm.


----------



## foxmulder

"2,720 trains"

this number is unreal. Are all of these for CHR3? Also, how come half of trains dont have AC. A modern bullet train without AC sounds ridiculous.


----------



## gramercy

foxmulder said:


> "2,720 trains"
> 
> this number is unreal. Are all of these for CHR3? Also, how come half of trains dont have AC. A modern bullet train without AC sounds ridiculous.


I think its more like 2720 carriages, which would translate to /8 = 340 pieces.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> how come half of trains dont have AC


I would think a different supplier will be supplying the balance of AC systems. With big orders like these, subcontractors probably don't have the manufacturing capacity to fullfill them alone.


----------



## Tri-ring

sotavento said:


> :dunno:
> 
> TGV only needs to apply energy to maintain its mumentuum at high speeds ... drag aplies to both TGV/HSR and Maglev almost in the same manner.
> 
> The friction is the downfall of wheel on rail ... the energy consumption is the downfall of the maglev system.


I see you're shooting yourself in the foot AGAIN.hno:
First of all drag does apply in the same manner with HSR and Maglev(love your creative figure of speech) but because HSR needs downforce to maintain optimum traction between rail and wheel it develops more drag than Maglevs designed for neutral lift.
(Drag also develops at parts sticking out of the body like boogies while maglevs with it's streamline design creates minimum drag.)

Friction(drag as well as rail to wheel contact) also means energy consumption because it's becomes resistance against forward motion, energy consumed is transfer into heat and noise.
Which do you think generates more noise and heat at same speed Maglevs or HSR?


----------



## Nozumi 300

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.
> 
> Digg
> Submit
> 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.


A nice article that I found about high-speed railways in China and internationally (there are some nice pictures of the ChinaStar, CRH1, CRH3, and CRH5). My favourite part is when they discuss about Alstom and how they basically kicked themselves in the a** for listening to a arrogant CEO that has gotten them lock-out and disregarded for the next couple of centuries in doing high-speed rail business in China :lol:


----------



## makita09

Tri-ring said:


> I see you're shooting yourself in the foot AGAIN.hno:
> First of all drag does apply in the same manner with HSR and Maglev(love your creative figure of speech) but because HSR needs downforce to maintain optimum traction between rail and wheel it develops more drag than Maglevs designed for neutral lift.
> (Drag also develops at parts sticking out of the body like boogies while maglevs with it's streamline design creates minimum drag.)
> 
> Friction(drag as well as rail to wheel contact) also means energy consumption because it's becomes resistance against forward motion, energy consumed is transfer into heat and noise.
> Which do you think generates more noise and heat at same speed Maglevs or HSR?


HSR doesn't require any downforce created by aerodynamics. The weight of the vehicle is sufficient. Even a high powered HSR train would only have the tractive effort, where downforce would be of any use, at lower speeds when the air is passing too slow to generate the downforce.


----------



## snow is red

Nozumi 300 said:


> http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/11/20/meet-the-train-makers-part-6-china/
> 
> 
> 
> A nice article that I found about high-speed railways in China and internationally (there are some nice pictures of the ChinaStar, CRH1, CRH3, and CRH5). My favourite part is when they discuss about Alstom and how they basically kicked themselves in the a** for listening to a arrogant CEO that has gotten them lock-out and disregarded for the next couple of centuries in doing high-speed rail business in China :lol:


Yup that's what I am thinking too. As people here can see, the German, Japanese and Canadians are winning more and more contracts in China except the French, not even a single report for a single contract.


----------



## gramercy

snow is red said:


> Yup that's what I am thinking too. As people here can see, the German, Japanese and Canadians are winning more and more contracts in China except the French, not even a single report for a single contract.


I'm not sure Alstom is to be blamed here. We will regret this the day the first chinese train is running on the german lines..


----------



## Whiteeclipse

foxmulder said:


> "2,720 trains"
> 
> this number is unreal. Are all of these for CHR3? Also, how come half of trains dont have AC. A modern bullet train without AC sounds ridiculous.


I'm thinking half of the trains are for the notheast of China which will not require a/c due to the weather in that area.


----------



## foxmulder

Whiteeclipse said:


> I'm thinking half of the trains are for the notheast of China which will not require a/c due to the weather in that area.


Even so, it doesn't make sense to me. By doing so you are effectively limiting the area you can use the trains. Decreasing flexibility for planners. It should be that expensive to have AC. All the cars today have them right?


----------



## pearl_river

Wuhan-Guangzhou Express (350km/h; 989km) is supposed to open for business in a week.

Does anyone have confirmation?

Is it me or does almost no one in China seem to give a shit about the high speed rail network? The media coverage is so low. Talk to anyone and they are clueless about the subject. People are just spoiled by good infrastructure falling out of the sky.


----------



## yaohua2000

urbanfan89 said:


> I can see the smaller stations being revived once the high speed rail system is built. There will be plenty of spare capacity for freight and regional trains on the old lines.


Youzhou Railway Station, on Fengsha Railway, just on the border of Beijing municipality and Hebei province, is being demolished. The station was built in 1954.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.133856,115.681776&t=h&z=16


----------



## bluemeansgo

Those pictures remind me of the interior of British Columbia, Canada.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Rail near Changsha South Station*

during trial run
direction: up (northbound)


----------



## gramercy

wow


----------



## staff

It's damn fast!


----------



## Pansori

Which train was it? So far from what I understood it will be both CRH3 (Siemens Velaro) and CRH2 (E2 Shinkansen) which will run between Wuhan and Guangzhou?


----------



## superchan7

Passing through a station at full speed...AWESOME.


----------



## Jiangwho

^^ the station has not yet in use.
Very cool video, thanks for sharing.


----------



## gramercy

Jiangwho said:


> ^^ the station has not yet in use.
> Very cool video, thanks for sharing.


true, but if you look at pictures, most of these stations have a middle lane


----------



## superchan7

I hope so, these are vital to trainspotting--I mean, express trains so that they don't have to slow down, yeah!


----------



## yaohua2000

*Datong-Xi'an Passenger Dedicated Line*

Construction work of the Daxi Passenger Dedicated Line begins today.

http://ccnews.people.com.cn/GB/10503841.html

Rail length: 859 km long
Top speed: 250 km/h
29 stations (18 existing stations and 11 new stations)
CN¥ 96.33 billion
4.5 years (2014)

Current rail travel time from Datong and Xi'an: 16 hours 25 minutes
This line will cut the rail travel time between the two cities to ~3 hours


----------



## Restless

http://www.seatradeasia-online.com/News/4930.html

*China's container rail network on the fast track*

Hong Kong: China's container rail network is to take a major step forward next year, eventually linking via Russia with the European rail grid, according to an official of one of its main backers, reports the South China Morning Post. The network could have 18 stations operational by 2012, an official of NWS Holdings, the infrastructure arm of New World Development, has said. 

The mainland container rail network is operated by China United International Rail Containers (CUIRC), a joint venture between the Ministry of Railways (34%), NWS Holdings (22%) and other minority stakeholders that include shipping lines CMA CGM and Zim, as well as German state rail firm Deutsche Bahn (8% each). 

Currently only one mainland rail station is operational, in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. But next year, container train stations will start operations in seven other cities - Chongqing, Chengdu, Xian, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Qingdao and Dalian.

Thereafter 10 more stations are planned by 2012 - in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Shenyang, Harbin, Lanzhou and Urumqi. 

At present around 3m containers are carried by rail in China each year, but that volume is expected to triple by 2012. On the one hand the network will link inland cities with China's sea ports, but a planned evolution is to open up an overland rail link to Europe. Such a service might carry up to 400,000teu a year, a research study for CUIRC carried out by consultants Macquarie found. Despatching a container from China to Europe by rail might take 21 days, compared to nearer 32 by sea, the study also suggested. [03/12/09]


----------



## gramercy

great - great stuff

i wonder how much they can bring down the time of container trains
as i understand, today they still only average 20-30 kph from china to germany


----------



## yaohua2000

*Opening date for Wuhan-Guangzhou Line postponed to December 27*

http://news.changsha.cn/cs/2/200912/t20091205_1042328.htm


----------



## mgk920

gramercy said:


> great - great stuff
> 
> i wonder how much they can bring down the time of container trains
> as i understand, today they still only average 20-30 kph from china to germany


The other question is 'how will the differences in railroad technical standards (mainly track gauge) be handled along the way?'.

Will they be using equipment with switch-on-the-fly multi-gauge wheelsets?

Mike


----------



## gramercy

mgk920 said:


> The other question is 'how will the differences in railroad technical standards (mainly track gauge) be handled along the way?'.
> 
> Will they be using equipment with switch-on-the-fly multi-gauge wheelsets?
> 
> Mike


no, that is highly unlikely

i think what should happen is standardized and 100% computer controlled containers and cranes

two trains pull up next to each other and the laser/computer guided crane liftes the containers from one to the other in a couple of minutes

only 2 such terminals are needed


----------



## Whiteeclipse




----------



## hoosier

The U.S. sucks. It is a country whose political system is designed to avoid tackling crucial issues like shitty infrastructure in a timely manner.

Getting any substantial amount of money from Congress for anything other than the military or tax cuts is like pulling teeth.


----------



## Restless

gramercy said:


> great - great stuff
> 
> i wonder how much they can bring down the time of container trains
> as i understand, today they still only average 20-30 kph from china to germany


Yeah. Freight manages an average of the 60.7km/h on the 942km Hangzhou-Changsha mainline, so they should be able to improve on that.


----------



## Pansori

Restless said:


> Yeah. Freight manages an average of the 60.7km/h on the 942km Hangzhou-Changsha mainline, so they should be able to improve on that.


Note that large part of that is not about how fast some actual line is (I'm sure the line through Russia is faster than 20-30 km/h) but also customs and other border checks, gauge changes etc.


----------



## gramercy

Restless said:


> Yeah. Freight manages an average of the 60.7km/h on the 942km Hangzhou-Changsha mainline, so they should be able to improve on that.


frankly thats an awesome average for freight

the problem is probably on the transsib and during the reloading


----------



## Restless

Very true. And that is what makes it that slow and uneconomic against sea freight.

Remember though that the vast expansion in container traffic (from 3million to 9million TEUs per year by 2012) is expected to be wholly within China

In contrast, they only expect 0.4million TEU to go to Europe by land.


----------



## yaohua2000

*China introduces new train ticket with matrix barcode on December 10*


----------



## yaohua2000

*Wuhan-Guangzhou test run on December 9*

http://www.cnr.cn/gundong/200912/t20091210_505737384.html

A 2-train CRH3 group each train has 8-car (total passenger capacity = 1114)

07:56 - Depart from Guangzhou South Station
08:00 - 200 km/h
08:12 - 350 km/h
09:05 - 394.2 km/h
10:50 - Arrive at Wuhan Station

Average speed: 334 km/h

During commercial service, the train will cover the 968-km long railway track in 03h08m, or 309 km/h in average.


----------



## octopusop

yaohua2000 said:


> http://www.cnr.cn/gundong/200912/t20091210_505737384.html
> 
> A 2-train CRH3 group each train has 8-car (total passenger capacity = 1114)
> 
> 07:56 - Depart from Guangzhou South Station
> 08:00 - 200 km/h
> 08:12 - 350 km/h
> 09:05 - 394.2 km/h
> 10:50 - Arrive at Wuhan Station
> 
> Average speed: 334 km/h
> 
> During commercial service, the train will cover the 968-km long railway track in 03h08m, or 309 km/h in average.


334 km/h * 2h 54m = 968km
but the news you've quoted said that length of the line is 1068.6km (exsiting line length from Wuchang to Guangzhou).

China MoR is a great liar.


----------



## yaohua2000

octopusop said:


> 334 km/h * 2h 54m = 968km
> but the news you've quoted said that length of the line is 1068.6km (exsiting line length from Wuchang to Guangzhou).
> 
> China MoR is a great liar.


The railway is 968 km long. The Wuchang-Guangzhou section of the old Beijing-Guangzhou Railway is 1068 km long.

Since ticket price is based on rail distance. The money-oriented Ministry of Railways prefer use the old distance to the new one, so they can plunder more money from people.


----------



## yuen95

octopusop said:


> 334 km/h * 2h 54m = 968km
> but the news you've quoted said that length of the line is 1068.6km (exsiting line length from Wuchang to Guangzhou).
> 
> China MoR is a great liar.




The distance of Sanyo Shinkansen is 553.7km but JR price the ticket as 644km which is the distance of the existing sanyo line. 
So you think JR is a great liar too?


----------



## snow is red

*High-speed rail aces critical test*


2009-12-10 









Four lines of high-speed trains stop at Wuhan Railway Station in Central China's Hubei province. During a test, the trains ran at an average speed of 350 km/h.


Passengers from Central China can now reach Guangzhou, the southern economic hub, within three hours as the nation carries out its ambitious high-speed railway plan. 

The new high-speed railway linking Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, and Guangzhou successfully passed a critical operations test yesterday and could be open to the public later this month. 

The rail cuts the previous travel time of 10 hours between the two cities to less than three hours with an average speed of 350km/h. Chinese media said it is the longest railway with the world's fastest trains. 

Ticket prices have not been published yet. Earlier reports said it might be 500 yuan ($73), double the current berth ticket price. 

Although travel agencies are concerned the pricey high-speed train may not be a hit with the public, experts say the project is in itself a technological marvel that cost an investment of 100 billion yuan. 

"A successful operation of the high-speed railway of more than 1,000 km will help demonstrate China's technological strength ... and appeal to countries like Russia, India and the United States, which also have broad territories and a plan for building high-speed railways," said Yang Hao, professor in railway transport with Beijing Jiaotong University. 

Other countries with advanced high-speed railway technology, such as Germany, Japan and France, do not carry passengers over the same distance as China's railway will. 

Earlier media reports said countries such as Russia, the US and India have expressed interest in working with China. 

A railway researcher told China Daily earlier that the long-distance, high-speed railway is more demanding on train manufacturing technologies than China's first 120-km, high-speed rail link between Beijing and Tianjin. 

China also has ambitions of building high-speed railways over 80 percent of the current network of airlines by 2020 to offer passengers a cheaper, more reliable ride. It wants to cover 70 percent of the country's key cities. 

According to a blueprint by the Ministry of Railway, the mainland will build 16,000 km of high-speed railway by 2020, with trains running as fast as 350km/h. 

By 2012, 42 high-speed railway links amounting to 13,000 km will be finished, of which 5,000 km will be operated at 250km/h, while 8,000 km will run at 350km/h. 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-12/10/content_9152015.htm


----------



## Busfotodotnl

The tests were even on the television here in The Netherlands:
http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=10389890 (from 07:28)


----------



## octopusop

yuen95 said:


> The distance of Sanyo Shinkansen is 553.7km but JR price the ticket as 644km which is the distance of the existing sanyo line.
> So you think JR is a great liar too?


I don't care japanese.

China MoR are Liar, the Great.


----------



## Onn

hoosier said:


> The U.S. sucks. It is a country whose political system is designed to avoid tackling crucial issues like shitty infrastructure in a timely manner.
> 
> Getting any substantial amount of money from Congress for anything other than the military or tax cuts is like pulling teeth.


Ask Obama, he could have done it. The infrastructure is not that bad for much of the country, there's just some places. But the fact that Obama didn't go after high speed rail makes me believe he did not think it was necessary. Of course California will be getting one that rivals much of China's, so I guess it depends where you are. The reason China is building all this stuff though is because there was nothing there before, we've had roads and highways across the entire country since the 50s.


----------



## Restless

octopusop said:


> I don't care japanese.
> 
> China MoR are Liar, the Great.


Just watch the BBC news video below. It clearly shows the train speed reached 393km/h.

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


----------



## yuen95

Onn said:


> Ask Obama, he could have done it. The infrastructure is not that bad for much of the country, there's just some places. But the fact that Obama didn't go after high speed rail makes me believe he did not think it was necessary. Of course California will be getting one that rivals much of China's, so I guess it depends where you are. The reason China is building all this stuff though is because there was nothing there before, we've had roads and highways across the entire country since the 50s.


When i was a kid, i remember that the highway between shenzhen and guangzhou was the first highway in China (correct me if i am wrong) and now the highway network is the world 's second largest. But still, the government want to build the highspeed rail network. So i think building highspeed rail in US is the matter of will and demand from the government and the people


----------



## yuen95

octopusop said:


> I don't care japanese.
> 
> China MoR are Liar, the Great.


Everyone is doing the same thing and you don't care. What could i say to you huh? octpusop the honest?


----------



## Onn

yuen95 said:


> When i was a kid, i remember that the highway between shenzhen and guangzhou was the first highway in China (correct me if i am wrong) and now the highway network is the world 's second largest. But still, the government want to build the highspeed rail network. So i think building highspeed rail in US is the matter of will and demand from the government and the people


Not necessarily, it's a lot more practical for China to put a billion people in train cars than put a billion cars on the road. I think there are many reasons China is doing it. Furthermore, the people don't have a say if the Chinese government says they want build a high-speed rail line through their neighborhood. In China they can just do it. In California there have been many town hall meetings and ballot measures made in every stop along the proposed lines to please the people, the state, and the designers of the system. It's been a lot more complicated and that's why is just hasn't sprang up in a matter of 10 years. There will be more high-speed rail in the US in the future, but I'm not sure all parts of the country need it. Much of the US is sparsely populated, with larger cities here and there. There's no reason you need bullet trains going through 100s of miles of nothing. When you get to that point it’s easier just to take a plane. But states like California and Texas will probably need high-speed rail because they have 4 or 5 major cities, and large population growth.


----------



## Huhu

Onn said:


> I think there are many reasons China is doing it. Furthermore, the people don't have a say if the Chinese government says they want build a high-speed rail line through their neighborhood. In China they can just do it.


If this was true all the time, we'd be talking about the new Shanghai maglev extension right now.


----------



## Onn

Huhu said:


> If this was true all the time, we'd be talking about the new Shanghai maglev extension right now.


I don't know about that, the Maglev is extremely expensive. I can see why they didn't go through with it. Was that because of the noise people were complaining about or the health effects of electro magnetic waves? I can't remember. Yes, but that's also Shanghai. Shanghai is supposed to be China's version of New York. The government has to keep some decency level there and sense of respect.


----------



## staff

^^
Stop trolling...


----------



## zergcerebrates

^ WOW the Wuhan Station is impressive! Can't wait to see more of it and the new Guangzhou station too.


----------



## binhai

staff said:


> ^^
> Stop trolling...


+1


----------



## Onn

staff said:


> ^^
> Stop trolling...


What the heck, I never said a thing?


----------



## yaohua2000

[deleted]


----------



## hoosier

Onn said:


> There will be more high-speed rail in the US in the future, but I'm not sure all parts of the country need it. Much of the US is sparsely populated, with larger cities here and there. There's no reason you need bullet trains going through 100s of miles of nothing. .


No one is saying we need to build HSR in Montana or Idaho. The serious HSR proposals are in densely populated corridors/regions like the Northeast, Midwest, California, and Florida.


----------



## hoosier

Onn said:


> Ask Obama, he could have done it. The infrastructure is not that bad for much of the country, there's just some places. But the fact that Obama didn't go after high speed rail makes me believe he did not think it was necessary. Of course California will be getting one that rivals much of China's, so I guess it depends where you are. The reason China is building all this stuff though is because there was nothing there before, we've had roads and highways across the entire country since the 50s.


Obama doesn't run Congress you moron. Ever hear of separation of powers?

And if you think America's infrastructure is great, you are so naive it's not even funny. I have seen many reports that concluded the U.S. would need to spend over TWO TRILLION DOLLARS to bring its roads, bridges, mass transit systems, and water infrastructure up to an adequate level of service.


----------



## gramercy

yea, california will have one line by the time i'm a grandfather...


----------



## Onn

hoosier said:


> No one is saying we need to build HSR in Montana or Idaho. The serious HSR proposals are in densely populated corridors/regions like the Northeast, Midwest, California, and Florida.


Well a great part of the country is still uninhabited, take the train west and you'll see what I mean. Once you get passed Iowa there's little out there, no farms no nothing. It's not just Montana or Idaho, it's the whole interior of the country. Kansas and Colorado are practically ghost towns. Even in the Midwest I question how profitable high-speed rail would be. The rust belt cities are only rusting further, with the exception of Chicago.


----------



## Onn

hoosier said:


> Obama doesn't run Congress you moron. Ever hear of separation of powers?


Whoa, what?! It was Obama's stimuls package, HE proposed what was in the bill. That's what the president does, proposes legislation for Congress to consider. That's part of his job. :lol:



> And if you think America's infrastructure is great, you are so naive it's not even funny. I have seen many reports that concluded the U.S. would need to spend over TWO TRILLION DOLLARS to bring its roads, bridges, mass transit systems, and water infrastructure up to an adequate level of service.


Okay, well I live in the place where it's worst. So if I can get by with no major problems and living in a major city with no working form of mass transit, so can the rest of country. It's really not that bad, 2 trillion dollars? Where you would spend that money? I don't get it, you’re the one being naive. Much of the mass transit infrastructure doesn’t match Asia or Europe, of course. But it all works fine, I don't know what you’re complaining about. Be thankful for what you got, I think you would find there is a lot worse out there. Most people don't live in major cities in the world where mass transit is of the highest quality. At least here in the US everything is easy access. It will get better with time.


----------



## xXFallenXx

gramercy said:


> yea, california will have one line by the time i'm a grandfather...


And by 2020!


----------



## oliver999

the price is too high i think, 20 bucks will be perfect.


----------



## ANR

*Price war declared as ticket sales start for world's fastest train*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-18

China's railway stations Friday began selling passenger tickets for the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway, which boasts the world's fastest train journey with a 350-km-per-hour average speed. The service between Wuhan, the largest city in central China, and Guangzhou city, a business hub in the southern Guangdong province, was scheduled to start on December 26. The journey of 1,068.6 kilometers would take three hours, compared with the previous 10 and a half hours, said an official with the Wuhan railway bureau.

Tickets from Wuhan to Guangzhou ranged from 490 yuan ($72) to 780 yuan, almost the same as airline tickets. The China-made bullet trains reached a maximum speed of 394.2 km per hour in trial operations on December 20, said Sun Bangcheng, general engineer of the Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co Ltd of China CNR Corporation Ltd, the manufacturer of the trains.

China's government has launched a major upgrading of the nation's overstretched railway system. It will build 42 high-speed passenger rail lines with a total length of 13,000 kilometers in the next three years. The country opened the first high-speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin last year. With the expanding network of highways, bullet trains could further open up travel to millions of Chinese, while putting the pressure on airlines. "The price for Wuhan-Guangzhou line is reasonable, although it is a little bit higher than discounted flight price," said Wu Bin, a businessman who traveled between the cities frequently. "The time of the rail journey is even shorter than by air, because I can avoid security checks as well as long trips between the airports and city centers."

To attract passengers, China Southern Airlines (CSA) Thursday announced an express service with 30 flights traveling between Guangzhou, Wuhan and Changsha from 8 am to 11 pm every day. The airfare from Wuhan to Guangzhou dived to 190 yuan at the lowest, compared with the previous level at about 1,000 yuan.

When a network of high-speed passenger rail lines traveling at 250 to 350 km per hour is finished in 2012, it will cover almost every major city with a large population. Almost 80 percent of the civil transportation market will be affected. "We can only survive the competition by reducing costs and improving services," said Si Xianmin, general manager of CSA.


----------



## zaphod

China has a higher population density, cheaper labor, ability to take land for routes, to centrally plan cities around rail hubs, to move around economic activity as part of a larger national strategy, etc.

In the US it is a clusterfuck of high costs and political fights for little to no benefit in a market driven economy that does its own thing. The interstates were before there were so many environmental laws or NIMBYs that make it impossible to built absolutely anything.

Of course, who knows if a few of China's projects for glory will stand the test of time-certainly some will emerge as white elephants. Flying will still be faster and the magnificent new rail stations are also perhaps too inconvenient. It's like when the US built roads and urban projects in the 50's. Exciting but not all made sense after a few decades time.

Really, the one thing I wish from the US is that it would take care of the rail assets in has. We need to reconfigure and pour money into the NEC and other more regionally focused urban lines, getting the most bang for the buck by removing bottlenecks.We will never have the fastest trains but service frequency is another aspect to absolute travel time. This and location of stations is the true determinant in high speed rail's time competitiveness over other modes, not raw track speed. Another is customer service which Amtrak does excel at on some routes but noth others . A fast, but expensive, infrequent and uncomfortable train that still doesn't get you there as quick as an airplane will lose, but a slower but nice train that you can catch at any time of day will.


----------



## makita09

I thought this thread was about China? :doh:


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of three railway lines to begin today*

*Railway Corridor at Central South of Shanxi Province*

1260-km long coal railway, electrified, double track

*Hefei-Fuzhou High-Speed Rail*

806-km long, 350 km/h, CN¥110 billion, open in 2014, part of the planned Beijing-Taipei high-speed railway corridor

*Hangzhou-Changsha High-Speed Rail*

927-km long, 350 km/h, CN¥131 billion, open in 2014, part of the planned Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway corridor


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> *Hefei-Fuzhou High-Speed Rail*
> 
> 806-km long, 350 km/h, CN¥110 billion, open in 2014, part of the planned Beijing-Taipei high-speed railway corridor


Planned by whom?


yaohua2000 said:


> *Hangzhou-Changsha High-Speed Rail*
> 
> 927-km long, 350 km/h, CN¥131 billion, open in 2014, part of the planned Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway corridor


Let´s count the distances.

Via Wuhan: Guangzhou-Wuhan 968 km, Wuhan-Nanjing 520 km, total 1488 km HSR-s, then a bit under 300 km slow rails Nanjing-Shanghai.

Via Changsha: Guangzhou-Changsha 620 km, Changsha-Hangzhou 927 km, total 1547 km HSR, then a bit under 200 km slow rails to Shanghai.


----------



## yaohua2000

360° panoramic aerial view of Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Rail:

*Qingyuan Station* (Google Maps)
http://www.nddaily.com/multimedianews/360/200912/t20091222_1102418.shtml
http://umedia.nddaily.com/pano360/20091222qingyuan.swf

*Shaoguan Station* (Google Maps)
http://www.nddaily.com/multimedianews/360/200912/t20091222_1102417.shtml
http://umedia.nddaily.com/pano360/20091222jingzhujiaohui.swf

*Dawoshan Tunnel* (Google Maps)
http://www.nddaily.com/multimedianews/360/200912/t20091222_1102416.shtml
http://umedia.nddaily.com/pano360/20091222qingyuanduan.swf

*North River* (Google Maps)
http://www.nddaily.com/multimedianews/360/200912/t20091222_1102415.shtml
http://umedia.nddaily.com/pano360/20091222beijing.swf

*Guangzhou South Station* (Google Maps)
http://www.nddaily.com/multimedianews/360/200912/t20091222_1102409.shtml
http://umedia.nddaily.com/pano360/20091222guangzhounanzhan.swf


----------



## foxmulder

I like the 360 views thanks for posting.


----------



## zergcerebrates

I just realized after looking the 360 view of the Guangzhou station its actually quite far from the city.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Fastest trains in China (2009 December 28)*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastest_trains_in_China

List of China's fastest trains by commercial speed faster than 160 km/h. Note that speed is computed only over the entire length of a train's run, and not for parts thereof.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastest_trains_in_China
> 
> List of China's fastest trains by commercial speed faster than 160 km/h. Note that speed is computed only over the entire length of a train's run, and not for parts thereof.


So there are G trains now.

What are the trains like?


----------



## Arul Murugan

Guangzhou-Wuhan High speed trains inaugurated today.


----------



## ANR

*High-speed railway now open*

Source: Xinhua
2009-12-27

THE Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway started operation yesterday and it features one of the world's fastest train rides at 350 kilometers per hour. One train departed both Wuhan Railway Station and Guangzhou North Railway Station about 9am. Both completed their trips within three hours, compared with the usual 10 1/2 hours. The service between Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, and Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province, was put into trial operation on December 9. Trains reached a maximum speed of 394.2 kph during testing.

A 600-member delegation from Xianning City boarded the train at 10am at Xianning North Station to promote tourism and attract investment in Guangzhou. Nearly two hours later, they had to take off their winter coats as they arrived in Guangzhou, where the temperature was about 20 degrees Celsius. "We have been waiting a long time for the service to start," said Zheng Zengjin, manager of Yaochi Hotel in Xianning and a delegation member. "Previously, we had to suffer the exhausting and uncomfortable train trips that took more than 10 hours. "We expect closer cooperation between the Pearl River Delta and less developed regions such as Xianning with this faster rail link."

While traveling by train in China has usually meant crowded cars, dirty toilets and overnight trips, speed is the future of train travel as the government has launched a major upgrade of the nation's over-stretched railway system. The government spent more than 20 years lifting the speed of passenger trains from an average of 43 kph in 1978 to 100 kph in 2001. It took only nine years to reach 350 kph, said Xu Fangliang, general engineer in charge of design for the Wuhan-Guangzhou line. High-speed railways average 243 kph in Japan, 277 kph in France and 232 kph in Germany, he said.

China will build 42 high-speed passenger rail lines with a total length of 13,000 kilometers in the next three years, covering more than 90 percent of the population. By 2012, trips from Beijing to most provincial capital cities will take one to eight hours, said Railway Ministry spokesman Wang Yongping. High-speed rail services from Beijing to Hong Kong are expected to open in three years, cutting the journey time from 23 hours to eight. A one-way trip from Shanghai to Hong Kong will be shortened to six hours from the current 18, he said.

Zheng Zengwu, a 46-year-old train driver based at Wuhan Railway Station, has seen the evolution from steam locomotives and diesel-fueled engines to the high-speed trains during his 30-year career. "I'm proud China's railway technology is developing so fast," he said. "The new trains are so steady and comfortable."


----------



## ANR

*Magnificent Wuhan Railway Station*

December 11, 2009
People's Daily Online









_The main building of Wuhan Railway Station lights up for test, Dec. 9, 2009. Wuhan Railway Station locates in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, and has 11 platforms, a total of 20 track. (Xinhua)_









_An interior view of the under-construction Wuhan Railway Station is seen in this photo taken on Dec. 10, 2009 in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. The station costing more than 14 billion RMB yuan (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) is scheduled to be put into use on Dec. 20. It is the first station built for the Wuhan-Guangzhou high speed railway passenger special line. (Xinhua/Cheng Min)_









_An interior view of the under-construction Wuhan Railway Station is seen in this photo taken on Dec. 10, 2009 (Xinhua/Cheng Min)_


----------



## yaohua2000

*Four killed, five injured in clash with railway guards*

Date: 2009 December 28
Time: 20:15 CST (GMT+08:00)
Location: Near Jinghai Station, Jinghu (Beijing-Shanghai) Railway, Tianjin
Train: D38 from Jinan (18:16) to Beijing South (21:22)



> TIANJIN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Four people were killed and five others injured in a clash with railway guards in the port city of Tianjin Monday, the local public security authority said Tuesday.
> 
> A large number of unregistered tricycle drivers gathered around the government building of Jinghai County Monday, protesting against the latest government campaign of cracking down upon illegal business of passenger transportation.
> 
> The protesters then moved to the Tianjin Jinghai Station of the Beijing-Shanghai Railway in the evening, pushing down fences that cordon off the rail and clashed with railway security staff, according to the public security bureau of Jinghai.
> 
> However, some of the protesters were hit or scratched by an arriving train at 8:15 p.m.. Four were killed and the five injured were in a stable condition in a local hospital.
> 
> The county began to ban tricycle drivers from illegally transporting passengers in July to protect registered taxi business and restore normal traffic order. Those who defy the official order will face high fines.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of three railway lines began on December 29*

*Zhengzhou-Jiaozuo Intercity Railway*

77-km long (8.5 km shared with Jingguang Railway); 200 km/h; CN¥9.76 billion

*Zhengzhou-Kaifeng Intercity Railway*

50-km long; 200 km/h; CN¥5.87; travel time 19 minutes

*Zhengzhou-XinzhangAirport Railway*

30-km long; 200 km/h; CN¥5.59; travel time 14 minutes


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work on Yungui Railway began on December 27*

Kunming South to Nanning East

714.56 km long; 200–250 km/h
cut the travel time from 12 hours to 4 hours
70% on bridges or in tunnels
total bridge length: 99.18 km
total tunnel length: 400.95 km
25 stations
CN¥ 89.481
complete in 6 years (2015)


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> *Zhengzhou-Jiaozuo Intercity Railway*
> 
> 77-km long (8.5 km shared with Jingguang Railway); 200 km/h; CN¥9.76 billion
> 
> *Zhengzhou-Kaifeng Intercity Railway*
> 
> 50-km long; 200 km/h; CN¥5.87; travel time 19 minutes
> 
> *Zhengzhou-XinzhangAirport Railway*
> 
> 30-km long; 200 km/h; CN¥5.59; travel time 14 minutes


Those are really, really interesting.

How many stops between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng?

When is completion due?

Are there any other 200 km/h railways in China that are shorter than 100 km?


----------



## SimFox

BTW
could anyone tell me where exactly in Wuhan this new CRH station is located?


----------



## yaohua2000

chornedsnorkack said:


> How many stops between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng?
> 
> When is completion due?


Five stations including the two terminals.

Due in 2013.



SimFox said:


> BTW
> could anyone tell me where exactly in Wuhan this new CRH station is located?


30°36′36″N 114°25′07″E


----------



## Mateusz

What about non HSR rail. Something like 160 kph intercity connections ? Are they common in China ? What trains are beign used for that ?


----------



## urbanfan89

Mateusz said:


> What about non HSR rail. Something like 160 kph intercity connections ? Are they common in China ? What trains are beign used for that ?


The vast majority of Chinese people travel by regular intercity trains, which are similar to those used in Europe and Russia. During the Chinese New Year holiday season over a billion trips are made on the railway system, and trains are crammed until their absolute maximum space. Don't you dare travel during the holiday season!


----------



## Pansori

Mateusz said:


> What about non HSR rail. Something like 160 kph intercity connections ? Are they common in China ? What trains are beign used for that ?


Good point, Mateusz. I would love to see some regular trains and locomotives used in China (both passenger and freight). It wouls also be a good idea to separate threads for HSR and regular trains.


----------



## yaohua2000

Mateusz said:


> What about non HSR rail. Something like 160 kph intercity connections ? Are they common in China ? What trains are beign used for that ?












"Blue Arrow" DJJ1 EMU (push-pull). This was the train from Chengdu to Chongqing North before 2009 September 28. It had been replaced by CRH.


----------



## zergcerebrates

Any recent news on China's Zefiro? I tried finding it online its all dated info.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Heavy snow hits northern China*


----------



## makita09

^^ Just looking at photos of that much snow causes all transport in the UK to stop. :nuts:


----------



## foxmulder

News say snow fall was around 33cm (about 13 inch). It is not that bad actually


----------



## ANR

*Faster by rail to the city*

Shanghai Daily
Created: 2010-1-5
Author:Zha Minjie

VISITORS from neighboring provinces will have faster routes to Shanghai for the 2010 World Expo with two rail lines and a rail transport hub opening to passengers during the event. The inter-city railway between Shanghai and Jiangsu Province's Nanjing City is expected to be in use by July while a service between Shanghai and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province will be ready by October. The trains used will be able to reach a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour. Railway officials said the lines will "provide convenient traffic to the city."

Shanghai Railway Bureau, which is responsible for rail services in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and part of Anhui, plans to invest over 100 billion yuan (US$14.65 billion) this year in rail infrastructure mainly in east China. The Shanghai-Nanjing railway will cut travel time to about 75 minutes from the current 120 minutes. The line is expected to carry 48.5 million passengers annually by 2020. The Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway will cut the journey to 38 minutes from the current more than an hour, officials said.

The two new lines will terminate at Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station. The station, part of the Hongqiao Integrated Transport Hub, will handle over 80 million passengers a year.


----------



## Woonsocket54

Can someone clarify some information about Guangzhou-Wuhan Railway?

As I understand it, the Wuhan station is in the eastern end of the city, not anywhere near the Wuhan Metro.

Now the train stops at Guangzhou North and Guangzhou South. Is neither of these on the Guangzhou Metro? Will they be connected to the Guangzhou Metro?

I know Guangzhou Station is on lines 2 and 5, and Guangzhou East Station is on lines 3. Will these stations be connected to high-speed rail?


----------



## yaohua2000

Woonsocket54 said:


> Can someone clarify some information about Guangzhou-Wuhan Railway?
> 
> As I understand it, the Wuhan station is in the eastern end of the city, not anywhere near the Wuhan Metro.
> 
> Now the train stops at Guangzhou North and Guangzhou South. Is neither of these on the Guangzhou Metro? Will they be connected to the Guangzhou Metro?
> 
> I know Guangzhou Station is on lines 2 and 5, and Guangzhou East Station is on lines 3. Will these stations be connected to high-speed rail?


Wuhan Station will be served by Metro Line 4, which will be opened on December 30, 2012.

Guangzhou South Station will be served by three metro lines and three intercity lines. The first two lines – Guangzhou Metro Line 2 and Guangzhou–Zhuhai Intercity Line – will be opened before 2010 Asian Games in November 2010.


----------



## NCT

chornedsnorkack said:


> But my point is, splitting flights between nearby airports is inefficient and should be avoided. Ground transfer, even maglev, would be more efficient and cheaper than connecting flights.
> 
> Maybe wheeled rails are better than maglev. But even then, it is necessary to have efficient and comfortable rail connections to and between airports.


I'm with chornedsnorkack on this one. Hangzhou's population is probably only sufficient to support long-haul domestic and short-haul international flights. Flights to other continents are probably better concentrated in Shanghai for the economic reasons chornedsnorkack pointed out.

If the Maglev didn't exist I'd be in favour of a conventional rail-link. But seeing as the infrastructure is already there you might as well turn it into something useful - at least build it to South Station and Hongqiao making ONE simple connection a reality. At the end of the day Pudong IS a regional airport that needs a good regional train network.


----------



## Scion

An idea for passengers to board a train without the train stopping...


----------



## FazilLanka

This amzing I haven't seen anything like this. Is this a just plan or what?


----------



## foxmulder

Dude... crazy crowded.


----------



## Big Cat

Holly crap...


----------



## zergcerebrates

This is exactly why China needs to have a one child policy. I think I would collapse waiting in line in one of those stations, theres just too many people, and this is just one of the many stations that will be over crowded during the Chinese new year season.


----------



## zergcerebrates

Scion said:


> An idea for passengers to board a train without the train stopping...



^ that is actually a cool idea, but then the highspeed rail has that electrical thing on top of the train.


----------



## ddes

^^ Firstly, you have the overhead wires of the high speed rail, which means passengers will need to literally row themselves into the cabin thingy to get onboard.

Secondly, there'll be subjected to extreme high G forces because of the acceleration to keep up with the speed of the running train. hno:


----------



## Stainless

zergcerebrates said:


> ^ that is actually a cool idea, but then the highspeed rail has that electrical thing on top of the train.


It requires a continuous rail along the top of the train for that thing to speed up along. I can't see how they would make that smooth while still being flexible between carriages. Also all passengers entering and leaving at intermediate stations would have to access this thing at the back. This would only be worth it with a large amount of low traffic intermediate stations. A better idea would be a section of parallel track where a loading carriage could run alongside for a mile or so while passengers transfer onto it. Both of these ideas seem too costly and expensive.


----------



## ANR

*Alstom-Built World's Fastest Train Offered to China*

11 February 2010
Railway-Technology.com

French firm Alstom has offered China what it claims is the world's fastest train, as part of a bid to win train supply contracts for nationwide rail projects. The company's in-development 360kmph (224mph) Automotrice Grande Vitesse (AGV) train is competing with Canadian firm Bombardier and domestic suppliers for Chinese contracts. The AGV is scheduled to enter its first commercial services next year in Italy. The company says it is particularly looking at secondary cities adding new lines and may also seek more partners in China.


----------



## snow is red

^^ Wasn't the CEO of Alstom too busy running his mouth ? Talking about winning contract in China lol, what a deluded dream. Anyway I do wish them the best of luck.


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## Nozumi 300

ANR said:


> 11 February 2010
> Railway-Technology.com
> 
> French firm Alstom has offered China what it claims is the world's fastest train, as part of a bid to win train supply contracts for nationwide rail projects. The company's in-development 360kmph (224mph) Automotrice Grande Vitesse (AGV) train is competing with Canadian firm Bombardier and domestic suppliers for Chinese contracts. The AGV is scheduled to enter its first commercial services next year in Italy. The company says it is particularly looking at secondary cities adding new lines and may also seek more partners in China.


Too late haha, the damages have been done and you're shunned for the next century by the the MOR :lol:


----------



## strong

There might be a small chance for Alstom, but it is too late for big shares.



ANR said:


> 11 February 2010
> Railway-Technology.com
> 
> French firm Alstom has offered China what it claims is the world's fastest train, as part of a bid to win train supply contracts for nationwide rail projects. The company's in-development 360kmph (224mph) Automotrice Grande Vitesse (AGV) train is competing with Canadian firm Bombardier and domestic suppliers for Chinese contracts. The AGV is scheduled to enter its first commercial services next year in Italy. The company says it is particularly looking at secondary cities adding new lines and may also seek more partners in China.


----------



## ANR

*China Sees Growth Engine in a Web of Fast Trains*

February 13, 2010
By KEITH BRADSHER
NY Times

WUHAN, China — The world’s largest human migration — the annual crush of Chinese traveling home to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which is this Sunday — is going a little faster this time thanks to a new high-speed rail line.

The Chinese bullet train, which has the world’s fastest average speed, connects Guangzhou, the southern coastal manufacturing center, to Wuhan, deep in the interior. In a little more than three hours, it travels 664 miles, comparable to the distance from Boston to southern Virginia. That is less time than Amtrak’s fastest train, the Acela, takes to go from Boston just to New York. Even more impressive, the Guangzhou-to-Wuhan train is just one of 42 high-speed lines recently opened or set to open by 2012 in China. By comparison, the United States hopes to build its first high-speed rail line by 2014, an 84-mile route linking Tampa and Orlando, Fla. Speaking at that site last month, President Obama warned that the United States was falling behind Asia and Europe in high-speed rail construction and other clean energy industries. “Other countries aren’t waiting,” he said. “They want those jobs. China wants those jobs. Germany wants those jobs. They are going after them hard, making the investments required.”

Indeed, the web of superfast trains promises to make China even more economically competitive, connecting this vast country — roughly the same size as the United States — as never before, much as the building of the Interstate highway system increased productivity and reduced costs in America a half-century ago. As China upgrades and expands its rail system, it creates the economies of large-scale production for another big export industry. “The sheer volume of equipment that they will require, and the technology that will have to be developed, will simply catapult them into a leadership position,” said Stephen Gardner, Amtrak’s vice president for policy and development. But the high-speed trains, which average speeds of up to 215 miles an hour, have their critics here. Heavily subsidized regular trains, which require 11 hours for the trip from Guangzhou to Wuhan, cost $20.50 one-way. The bullet train costs $72, or one to three weeks’ pay for an assembly line worker. “These prices are unreasonable, just like a lion opening its bloody mouth,” said one recent Internet posting, using a Chinese proverb for voracious greed. Yet many workers traveling home for the lunar New Year were understanding of the high price. “Based on the distance, the price is not too high,” said a plastic injection molding worker who gave his surname, Li, and was catching the slow train to save money.

China’s lavish new rail system is a response to a failure of central planning six years ago. After China joined the World Trade Organization in November 2001, exports and manufacturing soared. Electricity generation failed to keep up because the railway ministry had not built enough rail lines or purchased enough locomotives to haul the coal needed to run new power plants. By 2004, the government was turning off the power to some factories up to three days a week to prevent blackouts in residential areas. Officials drafted a plan to move much of the nation’s passenger traffic onto high-speed routes by 2020, freeing existing tracks for more freight. Then the global financial crisis hit in late 2008. Faced with mass layoffs at export factories, China ordered that the new rail system be completed by 2012 instead of 2020, throwing more than $100 billion in stimulus at the projects. Administrators mobilized armies of laborers — 110,000 just for the 820-mile route from Beijing to Shanghai, which will cut travel time there to five hours, from 12, when it opens next year.










Zhang Shuguang, the deputy chief engineer of China’s railway ministry, said in a speech last September that the government planned 42 lines by 2012, with 5,000 miles of track for passenger trains at 215 miles an hour and 3,000 miles of track for passenger and fast freight trains traveling 155 miles an hour. Top speed on the Tampa-to-Orlando line is supposed to be 168 miles an hour. Though they have yet to retreat from their goals, Chinese officials have hinted in the last several weeks that stimulus spending may slow. Some transportation experts predict that a few of the 42 routes may not be finished until 2013 or 2014 as a result. One worry is whether China is overinvesting in high-speed trains that may require operating subsidies like those for maintaining highways: fares on a route from Beijing to Tianjin have been set lower than initially forecast to make sure they stay full.

The new trains leave 29 times a day for Wuhan from a gargantuan train station on the outskirts of Guangzhou that opened on Jan. 30. With soaring steel girders, white walls and enormous skylights far overhead, the station, Asia’s largest, resembles a major airport. As the Chinese train whizzes across the countryside, tile-roofed homes in ancient villages gape windowless, hints of peasant relocations that the government has not publicly quantified.

To avoid bulldozing urban neighborhoods, huge rail stations have been erected in industrial districts on the edge of cities. Subways to the stations are still being built in Guangzhou and Wuhan; passengers now take 40-minute bus rides from city centers. The three-hour train to Wuhan makes a quicker trip than the nearly two-hour flight, once faster train check-in times are accounted for. Airlines are losing customers.

Bullet trains travel faster than a commercial jet at takeoff. They require extremely flat, straight routes. Amtrak’s Acela only briefly reaches its top speed of 150 miles an hour because it runs on old, curvy tracks that it shares with 12,000-ton freight trains. On a recent Wednesday, the 2:50 p.m. bullet train glided smoothly out of Guangzhou’s station and within four minutes was traveling more than 200 miles an hour. Practically every seat on the 14-car train was full of migrants heading home for Chinese New Year. Sun Nanyu, a 9-year-old girl dressed in pink Minnie Mouse barrettes and a pink-and-gray “Hello Kitty” sweater, sat in economy class with her father. “I was scared to go on this train because it goes so fast, but now I’m not scared at all because it’s very stable and doesn’t wobble back and forth,” Nanyu said before falling asleep on her tray table. Many Americans may be too corpulent for the economy-class seats, which measure just 18 inches between the arm rests. One-way first-class seats are $114 and two inches wider. The 2:50 train arrived in Wuhan at 5:52, six minutes early. A nearly full train back to Guangzhou the next day also arrived six minutes early.

Soaring tax revenue, a national savings rate of 40 percent and laborers who earn less than $100 a month help make high-speed rail affordable to build in China. Even with cheap labor, the Wuhan-Guangzhou line cost $17 billion (116.6 billion renminbi); it has so many tunnels through mountains that at times it feels like a subway. A saying is making the rounds in Guangzhou: a resident can board a train in the morning, have lunch at historic Mount Yuelu in Changsha, dinner at the famous Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan and still come home and sleep in her own bed. For Americans, a comparable trip would involve a Boston resident who catches a train to Philadelphia, has lunch near the Liberty Bell, goes to dinner in colonial Williamsburg, Va., and returns home by bedtime.









_A bullet train in China travels 664 miles, from a southern coastal town deep into the interior. The American plan for high-speed rail is to link Tampa to Orlando. (Shepherd Zhou/European Pressphoto Agency)_









_Sun Nanyu, 9, on a new high-speed train in China. Its full 664-mile run takes about three hours. (Thomas Lee for The New York Times)_









_Janitors clean a high-speed train after its arrival at the Wuhan Railway Station, in Hubei, China. (Thomas Lee for The New York Times)_


----------



## WatcherZero

Spending on rail has reached over 1% of GDP, a shocking high figure. Some countries spend less than that on defence.


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## Gaeus

WatcherZero said:


> Spending on rail has reached over 1% of GDP, a shocking high figure. Some countries spend less than that on defence.


Some countries spend 3 - 7% of its GDP and some only 0.5%. It doesn't really matter how much they spend as long as they use it for good use. Actually, I am surprise they did not spend more with the surpluses they are getting.

What if they use this spending for defense purposes. That's going to be something of a concern.


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## derekf1974

The Chinese government does not own the trade surplus. It belongs to China's capitalists. It can't just use it. If I remember correctly, the central government is actually running a budget deficity, not as big as the U.S. of course. The money required to build these high speed rails are borrowed from banks. But these projects can pay for itself in time and no one is burdened with debt (hopefully). The story is the same with China's expressway network.


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## makita09

^^ Technically there is no difference between the government and everything else in China, it is kinda the point of their political system. The banks especially are not autonomous entities, there is a strong influence on what they can lend and to whom, indeed even if in banking terms it isn't advisable, they may still be required to do it. The government is in control in China, in a way that isn't seen almost anywhere else. If China has a surplus so does the government, even if on paper it doesn't. No matter how large the structural deficit is on paper, if there is a trade surplus the government can control everything so that it has no restrictions on its actions due to the structural deficit. 

In the west a government is beholden to the bond markets for borrowing. Therefore a deficit is a an actual issue. China's government isn't, therefore it isn't. If the country itself had a deficit, then it would change things significantly from the current operations.

[making no political judgement btw - it is what it is]


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## foxmulder

Actually both of you guys are right. The money (around 2 trillion dollar) really mostly belongs to China's capitalists. They have the ones who produce your pc components and walmart kitchen appliances in their factories. Owners of these factories invest their earnings in the government running banks. So, government is using the money but it is like a bank in USA, what they own is right to use the money. Most of this money is back to USA anyway since they lend around 1 trillion$ to USA.


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## WatcherZero

We were talking about this in the UK forum, how fragile the economy is under the hood with lots of domestic lending secured on worthless land. One serious Bump and it could repeat the Japanese lost decade.


----------



## Pansori

WatcherZero said:


> We were talking about this in the UK forum, how fragile the economy is under the hood with lots of domestic lending secured on worthless land. One serious Bump and it could repeat the Japanese lost decade.


The difference from Japan is that the Chinese government has an 'iron fist'. Something the Japanese government hasn't. So all such talks are just hypothetical and extremely unlikely speculations.


----------



## foxmulder

WatcherZero said:


> We were talking about this in the UK forum, how fragile the economy is under the hood with lots of domestic lending secured on worthless land. One serious Bump and it could repeat the Japanese lost decade.


World economy as a whole is fragile. If anything Chinese economy is one of the robust ones. For 30 years, China didn't experience any serious economic crisis. Even during 1997 Asian crisis or current global one, they were the one who damaged the least.


----------



## WatcherZero

Point is thats how it appears but not when you look closely. Its headline national debt is 15.7% of GDP, however this doesnt factor in local debt. Most of the growth is being financed by a quirk that allos local government to CP land, rezone it and force banks to lend based on an inflated and unrealistic price sometimes as much as 1000%, this money is then used on infrastructure and housing development. You say China didnt suffer in the Asian crisis but it did, Since 1997 $1000bn has been spent by the national government to bail out failed banks, and that effectivley worthless debt is still growing at a fast pace. In real terms the countries actually between 60 and 100% GDP debt (impossible to know the exact amount without a full audit of debt like whats happened in other countries), the same level as most of the advanced economies.


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## Gaeus

We need to get back on this thread and not talk about "Country's Debt". Please refrain from any political ideas you have and please go back to the topic if you can.


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## maldini

WatcherZero said:


> Point is thats how it appears but not when you look closely. Its headline national debt is 15.7% of GDP, however this doesnt factor in local debt. Most of the growth is being financed by a quirk that allos local government to CP land, rezone it and force banks to lend based on an inflated and unrealistic price sometimes as much as 1000%, this money is then used on infrastructure and housing development. You say China didnt suffer in the Asian crisis but it did, Since 1997 $1000bn has been spent by the national government to bail out failed banks, and that effectivley worthless debt is still growing at a fast pace. In real terms the countries actually between 60 and 100% GDP debt (impossible to know the exact amount without a full audit of debt like whats happened in other countries), the same level as most of the advanced economies.


When the US or other countries calculate their debt-to-GDP ratio, do they include just the federal debt? do they include their local government debt as well? If not, then the public debt of the US is a lot higher than people think.


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## oliver999

you guys get the right answer,i am surprised you know china so much.


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## hkskyline

*China's railways carry record-high of 6.3 mln passengers *

BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's train passengers totalled 6.33 million on Friday, the busiest day in the country's history falling at end of the Spring Festival holiday, the Ministry of Railways (MOR) said Saturday.

The number is an increase of 11.5 percent from the same day last year, as millions of people began to return to work as the one-week holiday neared its end.

Trains have run smoothly and safely so far with no complaints, said the ministry.

The MOR estimated before Spring Festival that 210 million passengers would travel during the 40-day rush period beginning Jan. 30, a 9.5 percent rise from a year earlier.

Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, fell on Feb. 14 this year. It is the most important Chinese traditional festival of family reunions.


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## yaohua2000

*Full length raw video*

C2048 (Tianjin - Beijing South)

Rail distance: 116.9 km

On Timetable (GMT+08:00):
* Departure: 2010-Feb-05 14:45
* Arrival: 2010-Feb-05 15:15

Actual (GMT+08:00):
* Doors close: 2010-Feb-05 14:43:49
* Start moving: 2010-Feb-05 14:44:11
* Stop moving: 2010-Feb-05 15:14:12
* Doors open: 2010-Feb-05 15:14:18

GPS trace: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/wangchun/traces/619949

Part 1:





Part 2:





Part 3:


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## Bonngo

maldini said:


> When the US or other countries calculate their debt-to-GDP ratio, do they include just the federal debt? do they include their local government debt as well? If not, then the public debt of the US is a lot higher than people think.


The "public debt" of the federal government is separate from the "public debt" of state and city governments. There is a law in place that says states must have a balanced budget, so excessive debt like the federal government has is not possible. Even in California the debt, 20 billion, is trivial compared to any country in the world. Some states have a lot of money too, depends which state. Most city governments are fine.


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## foxmulder

yaohua2000 said:


> C2048 (Tianjin - Beijing South)
> 
> Rail distance: 116.9 km
> 
> On Timetable (GMT+08:00):
> * Departure: 2010-Feb-05 14:45
> * Arrival: 2010-Feb-05 15:15
> 
> Actual (GMT+08:00):
> * Doors close: 2010-Feb-05 14:43:49
> * Start moving: 2010-Feb-05 14:44:11
> * Stop moving: 2010-Feb-05 15:14:12
> * Doors open: 2010-Feb-05 15:14:18
> 
> GPS trace: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/wangchun/traces/619949
> 
> Part 1:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Part 2:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Part 3:



That was fun. I didn't watch the whole thing but liked the idea of taking a clip out of the trip


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## snapdragon

makita09 said:


> ^^ Technically there is no difference between the government and everything else in China, it is kinda the point of their political system. The banks especially are not autonomous entities, there is a strong influence on what they can lend and to whom, indeed even if in banking terms it isn't advisable, they may still be required to do it. The government is in control in China, in a way that isn't seen almost anywhere else. If China has a surplus so does the government, even if on paper it doesn't. No matter how large the structural deficit is on paper, if there is a trade surplus the government can control everything so that it has no restrictions on its actions due to the structural deficit.
> 
> In the west a government is beholden to the bond markets for borrowing. Therefore a deficit is a an actual issue. China's government isn't, therefore it isn't. If the country itself had a deficit, then it would change things significantly from the current operations.
> 
> [making no political judgement btw - it is what it is]




I still can't believe people keep buying this argument of Chinese government having total control on everything . Lets get real . Governments cant run businesses . It has been clearly proven in the 20th century with the failures of russia and ofcourse China . The rise of China over the last 3 decades has only to do with individual entrepreneur spirit. The role of government has been associated with the infrastructure growth . Which is again sold as contracts to private firms in many cases Japanese Korean or French firms. Its not the Chinese government building those roads . Hence the roads are so perfect thankfully.

About the banking industry . Like all underdeveloped nations China does not have an elaborate financial industry thus has very less private enterprise which is again very quickly changing and also has classical banking system . Where banks borrow money and lend it to the people. The brokerage industry, and asset management in China on the other hand is totally dominated by private enterprise.

If the Chinese government really had the control that your western media . the capitalistic societies would now be producing cheap goods for China not the other way round.


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## der Reisender

wrong thread!


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## UD2

^^

although good points.


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## [email protected]

hzkiller said:


> GO HOME FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR~~~~~
> 珠三角农民工组成10万摩托车返乡大军


Haha, this is the funnest post I've ever read on this thread. They set up their own motels on their way home too ? :lol: Lucky that China has world-class road infras.


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## zergcerebrates

CNN Video on China's rail


http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2010/02/28/chang.china.train.expansion.cnn


----------



## ANR

*High-speed rail spearheads economic growth*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-04 

As Chinese policymakers endeavor to whip up domestic demand to maintain steady and rapid economic growth, Yu Zhuomin believes he has found a right path: the high-speed rail. "Just look at the new Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway," said Zhuo, a deputy from central China's Hubei province to the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature. "Its effect on boosting regional economic and cultural exchanges is immeasurable." The opening of the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway has accelerated the integration of the Pearl River Delta, the country's economic power house in the south, and the central provinces of Hubei and Hunan by greatly shortening travel time between the regions. Before the high-speed railway was put into use in December, it took 11 hours to travel more than 1,000 kilometers between the two cities by train but now it takes only three hours via the express. "To the provinces and regions that build high-speed railways, the network has becomes a vanguard for local economy and social development," said Yu, who is now in Beijing to attend the NPC annual session that opens on Friday. 

China currently has about 3,300 kilometers of operational high-speed railways, on which bullet trains gallop at an average speed of 350 kmph and it plans to expand the network to 13,000 kilometers by 2012, according to the Ministry of Railways. As part of the 4 trillion-yuan ($585.7 billion) economic stimulus package, China invested about 600 billion yuan in railway construction last year, an upsurge of 80 percent. The government has earmarked a record 823.5 billion yuan for 2010 to further expand its railway network. "The massive investment in railway construction last year fueled the demand for 20 million tons of steel and 120 million tons of cement while creating about 6 million jobs," said Yu, also chief of Wuhan Railway Bureau. Last year, China completed two long distance high-speed railways, with one between Wuhan and Guangzhou, and the other between Zhengzhou and Xi'an. Before that, China had built high-speed railways between Beijing and Tianjin, Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan, Qingdao and Jinan, Hefei and Wuhan, and Hefei and Nanjing.

A number of new high-speed railways are under construction or will be finished in the coming few years, of which the Beijing-Shanghai line has a length of 1,318 km and a designed travel speed of 350 km/h. Railway passengers topped a record 1.53 billion last year. Cargo transportation hit 3.32 billion tons, according to the Ministry of Railways.


----------



## snow is red

*China starts building railway into 'sea of death'*

2010-03-04 

URUMQI - China began Wednesday to build a railway over the Lop Nur, a former lake that is known as "the sea of death," in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Construction workers began building a 3-km railway bridge in Nanhu town of Hami City, the starting point of the 370-km railroad, sources with China Railway Group Co. Ltd., the prime contractor, said Thursday.

The railway project was launched by Xinjiang's regional government in June 2009, but civil construction was postponed for eight months to discuss technical details and raise funds, an executive with China Railway Group said on condition of anonymity.

The rail link would have a freight capacity of 33 million tonnes a year, he said.

The 3.28-billion yuan (470 million US dollars) railway is co-sponsored by Ministry of Railways, the regional government of Xinjiang and a branch of the State Development and Investment Corporation (SDIC), a state-owned investment holding giant that has a potassium fertilizer base in the Lop Nur.

The Hami-Lop Nur railway will provide a faster route to transport Lop Nur's rich potassium salt, according to SDIC President Wang Huisheng.

The two places are linked by a highway that opened in 2006.

The railway, on completion in two years, would speed up exploitation of potassium salt, one of China's rarest resources used in fertilizer production, he said.

Lop Nur area has an estimated 500 million tonnes of reserves, valued at more than 500 billion yuan.

Without adequate exploitation of the potassium salt resources, China's total reserve is about 457 million tonnes, less than 3 percent of the world total. The country imports at least 4 million tonnes of potassium fertilizer every year.

At least 11 railways are under construction in Xinjiang. By 2020, the region's total rail mileage will top 10,000 kilometers.

The Lop Nur was the largest lake in northwestern China before it dried up in 1972 as a result of desertification and environmental degradation.

It once nurtured the civilization of Loulan (Kroraina) -- an ancient city that was one of the pivotal stops along the famous Silk Road, but mysteriously disappeared around the Third Century AD.

Due to its geology, geography and historical values, the Lop Nur has attracted the attention of scientists from home and abroad since the mid 19th century.

In 1980, Peng Jiamu, a noted Chinese scientist, went missing on his fourth expedition to the Lop Nur and was never found.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/04/content_9539782.htm


----------



## Scion

*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/SCM...00000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=&s=News


----------



## ANR

*Alstom looks to high-speed train maintenance contracts*

By Lu Haoting (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-08 

_French company wants to work on ensuring higher reliability and availability of rail cars_

While bidding to supply the world's fastest train to China, Alstom is looking at another gold mine in the country - high-speed train maintenance services. In the eyes of Kim Chan, China managing director of Alstom's transport sector, the logical next step after the country's ambitious goal of building 18,000 km of high-speed passenger rail lines by 2020 is how to ensure greater reliability and availability of the trains that can run at least 250 km per hour. "The Chinese operating environment is very challenging because of the distance and the high utilization of the trains. We need to make sure the equipment is operating at an optimal condition and ensure higher reliability and availability. We see a role for us to play because of our experience in Europe," Chan said.

The French company does not only build trains but also provides maintenance services to the West Coast Main Line in the United Kingdom. The West Coast Main Line is the busiest rail artery in Europe and links London and Glasgow. Alstom plans to cooperate with Chinese local companies to provide maintenance services, Chan said. "It should be a partnership. We bring our philosophy and our maintenance experience in Europe. But it has to be adapted to the local environment with the help of a Chinese partner. Both sides have roles to play."

China embarked on the world's largest railway network expansion program in late 2008 when the world economic slowdown worsened. As a national priority and a core component of the government's economic stimulus measures, railway investment is expected to peak in the coming two years, with annual investment in between 2010 and 2012 reaching no less than 600 billion yuan ($87.89 billion), according to the Ministry of Railways. Many new rail lines will be high-speed networks, allowing trains to travel more than 250 km an hour. By 2020, China will own more than half of the world's total length of high-speed rail lines.

Alstom, the world's largest high-speed train maker, has offered the AGV train that can run 360 km per hour as it competes with Bombardier from Canada, Siemens from Germany and domestic suppliers for Chinese contracts. The AGV, the world's fastest conventional train in terms of designed commercial speed, is expected to enter into commercial service in Italy next year. But the level of technology transfer has been one of the most important factors that determine to whom the Chinese government awards a rail contract because China has been keen to foster its own rail transport technologies. "To support the AGV to enter into China, we are flexible with technology transfer," Chan said. "Given China's ambitious plan to develop its own railway industry and given the size of this market, the government has to do that. For us, technology transfer is a market entry requirement."

Alstom has set up five joint ventures in China since 1986. The joint ventures produce products ranging from railway signaling systems to train traction systems, from motor equipment and components for electric locomotives to hydraulic dampers. "In fact we are receiving benefit (from the technology transfer). We have a big sourcing program and we leverage on the lower costs in China to support our projects in Europe," Chan said. But some Western companies are worried that the fast growing Chinese train producers, namely China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp (CSR) and China CNR Corp, will transform into their future rivals in global markets. "Competition is inevitable. That is life. It pushes everybody to do better," Chan said. In fact, by leveraging on its industrial base in China, Alstom is currently bidding for a project abroad by partnering with a Chinese company, Chan said, without releasing further details of the project. "We have a certain advantage to help with each other. It is an issue of how to work with each other and how to maximize the value," Chan said. China's booming urban rail transit sector is another lucrative market for Alstom.

The French train maker has sold more than 1,200 cars to Shanghai Metro Lines and over 400 in Nanjing. It also provides metro signaling systems for Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Chan said Alstom was looking for opportunities in China's second-tier cities. China has launched 31 metro lines in 10 cities. The State Council last year approved another 79 metro lines in 22 cities, which are expected to involve a total investment of 882 billion yuan. That will create huge demand for rail-related businesses. "Two years ago, we reached an annual production capacity of 2,000 cars. It still lags behind (the booming demand)," Zhao Xiaogang, chairman of China CSR, was quoted as saying by Forbes China magazine. The Chinese company plans to ramp up production capacity to be able to produce 3,000 metro trains annually this year.









_A new high-speed train departs from Wuhan railway station. The train is part of China's new high-speed rail system that connects the cities of Wuhan, Changsha and Guangzhou. [Zhou Guoqiang / Chinafotopress]_


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Scion said:


> *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/SCM...00000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=&s=News


Unfortunately requires registration.

Which countries, and how many of them are in Europe?


----------



## K_

[email protected] said:


> Still confused, my man?


I'm not, but I think you are... Something that is trivially easily disrupted is not a strategic logistic asset. In Europe France and Germany build railways to the same gauge, even when they were mortal enemies. WWI and WWII showed how easily railways were disrupted. One of the reason the Allies managed to win over the Germans was that they used trucks for supply, not trains.


----------



## K_

mgk920 said:


> Keep in mind, too, that China's basic railroad technical standards are identical to those of North America (Canada/Mexico/USA), so options in that direction are also available for the REAL dreamers.


The basic standards in China are more like Europe than the USA. China has bought lots of European and Japanese HST's and is basing it's own designs on those imports. These designs do not meet FRA requirements, so they can't just be imported to the States.


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## Nozumi 300

I found this interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, it's a bit old but it may explain why we probably will never see any other Shinkansen models offered to China.hno:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...5068902824104136.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines


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## highway35

Well, JR Central had refused to work with China right from the beginning when China was soliciting bids from foreign train manufacturers several years ago. Kawasaki participated and offered their technologies of 200 kmh class train to form a JV with CSR. It's the base model for CRH-2C. China now has developed the 300-350 kmh class train on its own based on these technologies and is developing the 380 kmh class trains.

I could understand Yoshiyuki Kasai's bitterness. These days, you could accuse Chinese of any crimes: cheating, low-quality products and environment-polluting ...

Alstom, for the similar reason of not willing to transfer their technologies, did not participate the bids to work with Chinese train manufacturers. They had complained loudly and publicly over a year ago that China "steals" its technologies. Now, obviously they have had second thoughts and offered their 360 kmh train to China (http://www.toocle.com/china-business-news/detail--19551-2010-03-09-Alstom-looks-to-high-speed.html).

I'm afraid it's a little bit too late. 



Nozumi 300 said:


> I found this interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, it's a bit old but it may explain why we probably will never see any other Shinkansen models offered to China.hno:
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...5068902824104136.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines


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## Restless

[email protected] said:


> Invasion, by default, means that foreign troops march inside a target country(in this case China proper) while domestic troops ( Chinese troops) are within her own border. The high speed line disrupted in foreign land and  thus controlled by foreign forces (logically by definition of invasion) could serve as the perfect mean for transporting resources(human and natural) for invasion purpose should it be called upon during war time.
> 
> Disrupted by whom?
> 
> Well, as I said, apart from several hostile countries in the region, there're at least a couple of dozen terrorist groups around, officially. Off the record, I would be prefectly happy to take down and get hold on a train-worth Made-in-China high tech elec. gargets heading towards the EU with handheld rocket-propelled grenades, if I were some improverished and anonymous East Turkistan "freedom fighter " based in some moutainous Stanland - who can do anything about it?
> 
> Or CIA would do that to make it believe with "photos evidences" to prove that I or whomever they want it to be did it.
> 
> If a train is loaded with valuable natural resources during troubled time, it would and will become a nice target for ransom.
> 
> In fact the trail track itself becomes a highly valuable bargain tool.
> 
> ...
> 
> I am only talking about individual groups here, hostile countries could do much much more indirectly with no hard evidences leaking out.
> 
> The best example is that Japan, having both sufficient funds and leading HSR tech for decades, has never drawn up a proposal of setting up land-based energy/natural resources/its export high speed rail acrossing CHina and stanlands towards the Middle East and the EU.  That's telling enough.
> 
> 
> Still confused, my man?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> :lol: That's what all the mental retards used to call Werner von Braun. Depending on who you are, I could be honored being addressed as such.


No one in the world seriously thinks they can invade and then occupy China. China is simply is too large for that to happen. If Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be subdued, how does anyone expect to conquer Guizhou and Gansu? These two provinces are much richer and more united.

As for the railways, the other countries have much more to fear from China, considering that China has much more military and economic power. They also know that China will always be their neighbour - no matter what happens. 

Your reading of Chinese-foreign relations is also very inaccurate. China generally has "good" relations with most other countries - they are not implacable and hostile enemies.

However, these countries are worried about how to compete with China, and what kind of China they will have to deal with in the future.

You are right that there are risks to China when building a railway line, but China's neighbours have an even bigger stake in ensuring peaceful trade because they are much smaller.

And Japan has never bothered with promoting railway routes to Europe because it is an ISLAND nation that could never connect to the railway network. In contrast, China is at the centre of the network and will benefit the most.

Please have a look at an atlas and look at the population, wealth and trading patterns of all of China's neighbours, and you will see how most of them are very dependent on what China does.

I recommend you start with the World Factbook to get an understanding of the geopolitical and economic situation https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/


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## Restless

*JR Central Chairman Aims to Bring Shinkansen to U.S.*
By MARIKO SANCHANTA And YOSHIO TAKAHASHI
= = = = 

TOKYO—The chairman of Central Japan Railway Co. said the company is aiming to work with U.S. companies such as General Electric Co., as part of an aggressive bid to see its platypus-billed shinkansen whiz its way through the state of Florida.

At the same time that the company is aggressively ramping up to do business in the U.S., Yoshiyuki Kasai, the 69-year-old head of JR Central, said in an interview Monday that he will never try to sell his world-leading product in China—a strategy at odds with many Japanese companies focusing increasingly on their rapidly growing neighbor.

"It's not possible to export our trains to China. They would steal our technology and they would not respect it," said Mr. Kasai, who has worked in Japan's rail business for 48 years and has become a larger-than-life figure who doesn't mince his words, a rarity in corporate Japan. Known as an outspoken nationalist, he said bluntly: "The risks are too high—if there was an accident they would blame us and it would be the end."

"JR East uses the cheap version of their train in China. I told them not to do it," Mr. Kasai added, referring to East Japan Railway, an independent company operating the shinkansen in central and northern Japan. JR Central and JR East are two of six former state-owned rail companies that were privatized in 1987.

Mr. Kasai also took a swipe at global competitors, notably French firms looking to export their own high-speed railway systems. "In France, if a train is five minutes late, then it's just on time. In Japan, if it's one minute late then it's late," said Mr. Kasai, who got his master's degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969. "In 45 years of operation, we have had 4.5 billion passengers and zero casualties as a result of a train accident."

A spokeswoman for French engineering company Alstom SA, a major French train maker, declined to comment.

As for the U.S., "we would make the cars in America and operate a factory in Florida," said Mr. Kasai. "We could partner with American firms, such as General Electric, and engage in technology transfers—these would be 50-50 joint ventures."

Mr. Kasai, however, made clear that these discussions had not reached official stages yet. "We have not received any information on [a proposed tie-up]" said a GE spokeswoman in Tokyo.

Mr. Kasai is vying to export the N700I version of the Japanese shinkansen to the U.S. If his bid is successful, it would mark the first time its total system—including the track, rolling stock, signal equipment and railway management systems—would be used outside of Japan.

Mr. Kasai said he wants to do so in the spirit of what could be called shinkansen diplomacy, or fostering better ties between two nations due to technology transfers and joint infrastructure development projects. "Japan and the U.S. should pursue a free trade agreement or an economic partnership agreement—people should be able to move freely between both countries," said Mr. Kasai. "As a private company we want to improve U.S.-Japan relations."

A big U.S. contract could also be good for the firm's bottom line. The shinkansen remains one of Japan's enduring technological icons and is renowned for its punctuality—trains arrive to the minute—and its efficiency. JR Central's high speed connection between Tokyo and Osaka is one of the few profitable train routes anywhere in the world, and accounts for 80% of the company's revenue.

President Barack Obama announced last month the recipients for an $8 billion plan to develop high-speed rail throughout the U.S. Of that amount, $1.25 billion is earmarked to construct a high-speed link between Tampa and Orlando, which Mr. Kasai says is the most promising area in the U.S. to use shinkansen technology.

A high-speed rail link between the two cities would result in a 45-minute train ride, though the entire project would cost $3.5 billion to finance. A decision on the successful bidder is set to be decided later this year.

Mr. Kasai said that close to a dozen firms in Japan would benefit if JR Central won the bid to build its bullet train in Florida, including Nippon Steel Corp., Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd.,Hitachi Ltd., Nippon Sharyo Ltd., which makes rolling stock, Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

Dozens of international companies, including Germany's Siemens AG, Canada's Bombardier Inc., France's Alstom, and General Electric Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. of the U.S. are all vying to win the lucrative contracts. Mr. Kasai said that while competition would be tough, Japan's technology, timeliness and safety record spoke for itself.

JR Central is marketing two types of trains in the U.S.: the shinkansen, which travels as fast as 330 kilometers per hour; and the magnetic-levitation, or maglev, train, which can run up to 581 kph, but is more expensive and in only limited use so far. JR Central has already spent more than $1 billion developing the technology behind it.

Mr. Kasai said a maglev link between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., would result in a journey between the two cities of less than 10 minutes. But the cost to construct the line would be exorbitant, totaling several of billions of dollars.

Maglev trains use powerful magnets that allow the train to skim along its guideway without touching it, reducing friction. JR Central's trains float 10 centimeters above the guideway but need supercooled, superconducting magnets to generate lift. The train still uses wheels because it lifts clear of the guideway only after picking up speed.


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## Restless

highway35 said:


> Well, JR Central had refused to work with China right from the beginning when China was soliciting bids from foreign train manufacturers several years ago. Kawasaki participated and offered their technologies of 200 kmh class train to form a JV with CSR. It's the base model for CRH-2C. China now has developed the 300-350 kmh class train on its own based on these technologies and is developing the 380 kmh class trains.
> 
> I could understand Yoshiyuki Kasai's bitterness. These days, you could accuse Chinese of any crimes: cheating, low-quality products and environment-polluting ...
> 
> Alstom, for the similar reason of not willing to transfer their technologies, did not participate the bids to work with Chinese train manufacturers. They had complained loudly and publicly over a year ago that China "steals" its technologies. Now, obviously they have had second thoughts and offered their 360 kmh train to China (http://www.toocle.com/china-business-news/detail--19551-2010-03-09-Alstom-looks-to-high-speed.html).
> 
> I'm afraid it's a little bit too late.


Seconded...

There are already Siemens, Kawasaki and Bombardier high speed train designs in China now, so what can Alstom offer that the others haven't already?


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## chornedsnorkack

Restless said:


> And Japan has never bothered with promoting railway routes to Europe because it is an ISLAND nation that could never connect to the railway network.


Oh, Japan can. Singapore is an island nation, too.

But how high priority is a Soya Strait tunnel to Sakhalin if it only leads to sparsely settled Sakhalin, and connecting even to Khabarovsk means building another 1000 km railway and another tunnel? How high priority is a Tsushima Strait tunnel that goes only to South Korea, and no further?

Whereas China... If they are building 500 to 1000 km HSR-s to connect Guangzhou to backwaters of Nanning, Kunming and Guizhou, why not build another 1000 km railway Guangzhou to Hanoi?


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## [email protected]

Restless said:


> No one in the world seriously thinks they can invade and then occupy China. China is simply is too large for that to happen. If Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be subdued, how does anyone expect to conquer Guizhou and Gansu? These two provinces are much richer and more united.
> 
> As for the railways, the other countries have much more to fear from China, considering that China has much more military and economic power. They also know that China will always be their neighbour - no matter what happens.
> 
> Your reading of Chinese-foreign relations is also very inaccurate. China generally has "good" relations with most other countries - they are not implacable and hostile enemies.
> 
> However, these countries are worried about how to compete with China, and what kind of China they will have to deal with in the future.
> 
> You are right that there are risks to China when building a railway line, but China's neighbours have an even bigger stake in ensuring peaceful trade because they are much smaller.
> 
> And Japan has never bothered with promoting railway routes to Europe because it is an ISLAND nation that could never connect to the railway network. In contrast, China is at the centre of the network and will benefit the most.
> 
> Please have a look at an atlas and look at the population, wealth and trading patterns of all of China's neighbours, and you will see how most of them are very dependent on what China does.
> 
> I recommend you start with the World Factbook to get an understanding of the geopolitical and economic situation https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/


First off, I wouldn't use a public source of cia to read up geopolitical implications if I were you. As for the purpose of tieing up and intergrating economy with the neighbouring stanland, you don't need to build up a posh line to do so, since their economies have been already depending on CHina even without the line as you just proved.

Secondly, I haven't completely denied the potential economic benefits of the project which actually seem to be the only consideration project planner put on the table so far. I was arguing that the potential risks would outweight the benefits. Tan China could afford to build a Silk Road for east-west trade since its per cap income was the highest in the world; while with low per cap income, China today should not squander hard-earned cash on this opulent showpiece when social security and medicare for the mass need investments much more urgently at this stage. In fact, before thinking about external consolidation, one should think first on more inter-provinces consolidation within China herself for the time being.

On the invasion of China, of course no one would do so or could succeed now and today. Not doable doesn't mean it's impossible ( WWI, WWII were not that ancient history). 

More importantly, the global geopolitical chess is NOT about pure invasion per see, particularly betwwen the 2 superpowers USA and China, but control and/or having ability to disrupt, sabotage at minimum costs - just think in terms of the US control of East China Sea 1st/2nd island chains; the US current attempt to control Yemen using Al Qaeda as an excuse to control China's oil shipping sea route bottleneck ... Did the US threaten invasion of CHina by doing so? Of course NO, but CHina feels euqally threatened as if it were an "invasion" since indeed China has been effectively "controlled"/: managed" in this way. 

Building a posh rail line passing through stanland in light of the almost de facto US control of current Afgan and Iraq is nothing less than giving the US another convenient way to distupt/sabotage at minimum costs at the doorstep of its millitary bases. It is an imprudent and risky move given the current limited info we have on teh project- this is what I was arguing for.

As for Japan's case, even though it's an island country, shipping thru the short line betwwen a port of Russia to Northern Japan, then building a high speed railway passing thru either China, or Russia Far East - Outer Mogolia ( taking advantage of existing trans-siberia railline), towards theMiddle East and the EU, is not a fairytale idea given Japan's total dependence on energy , export and Malacca straits. Yet it hasn't done so, not even a proposal at any time in recent history. Isn't it weird?


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## K_

[email protected] said:


> First off, I wouldn't use a public source of cia to read up geopolitical implications if I were you.


What sources should we read then?


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## [email protected]

^^

Pandamonium Guide ( 2010 Edition) could be a good read, maybe it's too niche for ya? :lol:


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## foxmulder

Restless said:


> *JR Central Chairman Aims to Bring Shinkansen to U.S.*
> By MARIKO SANCHANTA And YOSHIO TAKAHASHI
> = = = =
> 
> TOKYO—The chairman of Central Japan Railway Co. said the company is aiming to work with U.S. companies such as General Electric Co., as part of an aggressive bid to see its platypus-billed shinkansen whiz its way through the state of Florida.
> 
> At the same time that the company is aggressively ramping up to do business in the U.S., Yoshiyuki Kasai, the 69-year-old head of JR Central, said in an interview Monday that he will never try to sell his world-leading product in China—a strategy at odds with many Japanese companies focusing increasingly on their rapidly growing neighbor.
> 
> "It's not possible to export our trains to China. They would steal our technology and they would not respect it," said Mr. Kasai, who has worked in Japan's rail business for 48 years and has become a larger-than-life figure who doesn't mince his words, a rarity in corporate Japan. Known as an outspoken nationalist, he said bluntly: "The risks are too high—if there was an accident they would blame us and it would be the end."
> 
> "JR East uses the cheap version of their train in China. I told them not to do it," Mr. Kasai added, referring to East Japan Railway, an independent company operating the shinkansen in central and northern Japan. JR Central and JR East are two of six former state-owned rail companies that were privatized in 1987.


^^ :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Someone is really scared.... If you have proof open a law suit. China paid billions of dollars to Kawasaki and *bought *the tech. There is no stealing or copying or anything illegal. This is the case for almost everything China produces. People are just saying "China copies" because they are threatened with rising China. Nothing less nothing more. I've yet to seen a law suit about a serious copyright case.


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## quashlo

^^ Call it misuse of the technology, if you like. Technology sold by Kawasaki to China and used in the CRH2 sets has a safe maximum operating speed of 275 kph, and JR East (which operates the E2-1000 series which the CRH2 units are based on) specifically instructed the Chinese not to operate above the design speeds. 

Lo and behold, the CRH2 units are being operated at speeds much higher than that by beefing up the MT ratio. It was enough of a liability issue that Kawasaki went over to China's Ministry of Railway and demanded an official statement that they would not be held responsible in the event of an accident. rThe issue isn't just copyright, but also public image, and when an accident does happen, it *will* look bad on Kawasaki and Shinkansen technology, regardless of the fact that the technology was purchased.


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## gincan

foxmulder said:


> ^^ :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
> 
> Someone is really scared.... If you have proof open a law suit. China paid billions of dollars to Kawasaki and *bought *the tech. There is no stealing or copying or anything illegal. This is the case for almost everything China produces. People are just saying "China copies" because they are threatened with rising China. Nothing less nothing more. I've yet to seen a law suit about a serious copyright case.


China has a long tradition of copying technology, Russia refuse to sell them any hightech weaponssystems after they begun to sell cheap clones of a russian fighterjet. In europe chinese train manufacturers are blacklisted by the european union and are basically unable to enter the market with their products. The only reason Bombardier and Siemens sell their trains to china is because they know that their homemarkets are safegarded by the EU. This however has not stoped the chinese train manufacturerers to try and sell clones to countries outside of the EU.


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## Ariel74

quashlo said:


> ^^ Call it misuse of the technology, if you like. Technology sold by Kawasaki to China and used in the CRH2 sets has a safe maximum operating speed of 275 kph, and JR East (which operates the E2-1000 series which the CRH2 units are based on) specifically instructed the Chinese not to operate above the design speeds.
> 
> Lo and behold, the CRH2 units are being operated at speeds much higher than that by beefing up the MT ratio. It was enough of a liability issue that Kawasaki went over to China's Ministry of Railway and demanded an official statement that they would not be held responsible in the event of an accident. rThe issue isn't just copyright, but also public image, and when an accident does happen, it *will* look bad on Kawasaki and Shinkansen technology, regardless of the fact that the technology was purchased.


By the way, it is a widespread myth that China simply took the Japanese and German trains and *made* them, by fiat so to speak, run at a higher speed than specified by their Japanese and German providers. The core technologies come from Siemens and Kawasaki, no doubt. But the Chinese aimed to tweak and optimize these from the get go. There is a large amount of discussion about the (attempted) tweaks and improvements among the chinese railway fans on forums such as hasea. Interested (and linguistically competent) readers can surely profit from taking a look there.

So no, it will *not* look bad on Kawasaki, because we are talking about CRH2, trains built with the same core technologies as E2-1000 series, but not identical with them.


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## Ariel74

gincan said:


> In europe chinese train manufacturers are blacklisted by the european union and are basically unable to enter the market with their products. The only reason Bombardier and Siemens sell their trains to china is because they know that their homemarkets are safegarded by the EU. This however has not stoped the chinese train manufacturerers to try and sell clones to countries outside of the EU.


Didn't China win a contract to supply England with moderately high-speed rolling stocks not too long ago? One of us is imagining things :nuts:


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## Republica

they did, Grand Central trains for some 125mph trains.

I dont know if it will happen though.


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## foxmulder

gincan said:


> China has a long tradition of copying technology, Russia refuse to sell them any hightech weaponssystems after they begun to sell cheap clones of a russian fighterjet. In europe chinese train manufacturers are blacklisted by the european union and are basically unable to enter the market with their products. The only reason Bombardier and Siemens sell their trains to china is because they know that their homemarkets are safegarded by the EU. This however has not stoped the chinese train manufacturerers to try and sell clones to countries outside of the EU.


wrong, wrong, wrong. All misinformation. You don't know anything about military trade between Russia and China. You just heard smt from God knows where and writing here like it has any substance. Which aircraft is Russia not selling to China? Come on, write here some specific ones. 

China bought many fighters, bombers, missiles and always had build their clones. Russia has been OK every time because the Chinese market was profitable at the end. There was nothing illegal. 

Mig-21 ==> J-7
Su-27 ==> J-11
Tu-16 ==> H-6

These are examples just come into my mind. There are countless examples. 

But, now, due to economical hence technological development China have undergone she simply does not need to purchase weapons from Russia. This is the reason why we dont see any big purchases in last 5-6 years. Even right now, China is buying AL-31 and RD-33 jet engines from Russia. So, show me the so called embargo you are talking about. 


Chinese trains in Europe.... This is again nothing to do with copyright. Show me single official document stating this. Siemens is selling both trains and technology period. China can use it however she wants. They paid billions for it. Also, as far as I know China already selling their rolling stocks to everywhere not only Europe. 


You want to blame someone about copyright, look at big shiny companies like apple. How many law suits does apple have about copyright?


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## K_

[email protected] said:


> ^^
> 
> Pandamonium Guide ( 2010 Edition) could be a good read, maybe it's too niche for ya? :lol:


How is a computer game a source of better geopolitical information?


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## Bandit

gincan said:


> China has a long tradition of copying technology, Russia refuse to sell them any hightech weaponssystems after they begun to sell cheap clones of a russian fighterjet. In europe chinese train manufacturers are blacklisted by the european union and are basically unable to enter the market with their products. The only reason Bombardier and Siemens sell their trains to china is because they know that their homemarkets are safegarded by the EU. This however has not stoped the chinese train manufacturerers to try and sell clones to countries outside of the EU.


Then why are the Russians trying to sell Su-35s to China? It has technology that they didn't sell to the Chinese before. Why did they want China on board with the PAK-FA project?


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## Restless

K_ said:


> It used to be that indeed the national railways of a country would favor the railway industry of a particular country. However the last couple of years things have been changing.
> - Alstom isn't really that much of a French company any more. They have plants all over Europe. The same applies to Siemens and to Bombardier.
> - Railways now have to put out their orders for public tender, and all manufacturers can apply. The process is supposed to be transparent, so that any company, regardless of it's nationality has a chance.
> 
> The result is that SNCF has been buying from others beside Alstom for quite a while now. SNCF has orderd quite a large number of trainsets for regional services from Bomdardier, and even some from Siemens. The freight division has locomotives from about every supplier at the moment.
> You see the same in Germany, with DB buying trainsets from Alstom for example.
> 
> If a Chinese railway manufacturer comes forward with a product that matches the requirements of a European railway operator they would have a chance. However at the moment I suppose the Chinese railway industry has enough orders for the domestic market to keep it busy.


I think the following FT article explains the situation better than either of us can:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3c96dc0c-216f-11df-830e-00144feab49a.html

*SNCF chooses Bombardier over Alstom*
By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent
Published: February 25 2010 02:31 | Last updated: February 25 2010 02:31
France’s state train company has awarded one of its biggest-ever orders to a non-French train builder, in a move that is likely to fuel controversy about the company’s train-ordering practices.

SNCF placed the order – for 860 regional electric trains, likely to be worth €8bn ($11bn) – with Montreal-based Bombardier, the world’s largest trainmaker, rather than France’s Alstom, the market number two.

The orders, announced on Wednesday, will be financed by France’s regions, which tend to own the rolling stock used in their areas and lease it to SNCF, the train operator.

The order is not the first major train order granted by SNCF to Bombardier for regional trains but it is much the largest. Bombardier builds trains ordered by SNCF at its factory at Crespin in northern France, but that has not stopped controversy in the past over the allocation of orders to the company in preference to Alstom.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, is proud of his role in arranging a state-led bail-out of Alstom as France’s finance minister in 2004, when the company was threatened with insolvency because of problems at its industrial turbine division.

In 2008, in a speech at Alstom’s La Rochelle factory, he questioned whether Bombardier should be allowed to sell trains in France, given questions surrounding the openness of a tender by the government of Quebec, where Bombardier is based. The tender was originally awarded to Bombardier but reopened on the orders of a judge following a challenge by Alstom.

The double-deck trains will be delivered in batches, with much of the order still subject to what Bombardier called “technical options” – meaning that the work could be cancelled under certain conditions. SNCF has nevertheless signed an initial firm order for 80 trains, to cost €800m, to be delivered between June 2013 and December 2015.

Bombardier said the train design had been developed specially for the tender, to provide wide, comfortable trains.

“We thank the regions and SNCF for their trust in this large-scale project," Jean Berge, president of Bombardier Transportation France, said.

The decision to build the trains in France reflects widespread practice in continental Europe. No large continental European state-owned train operator has placed a significant order for trains built outside their country, even if they have bought rolling stock from competitors to their main, national champion manufacturers.


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## K_

Restless said:


> The decision to build the trains in France reflects widespread practice in continental Europe. No large continental European state-owned train operator has placed a significant order for trains built outside their country, even if they have bought rolling stock from competitors to their main, national champion manufacturers.


Depends on what you call "large continental european state-owned train operator". But NS has been buying its rolling stock abroad for a few decades now, and a recent NMBS order (biggest in their history) has gone to Siemens. It's true however that often multinational rolling stock manufacturers will try to tempt their clients by offering a certain amount of local work. The new Hitachi HSTs for the UK will be assembled in the UK. 
SBB is also about to place a huge order. It will be interesting to see who will land that one.


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## [email protected]

Ariel74 said:


> The rest of the world won't be in dust. China is still playing catchup, more or less. Starting from scratch has its advantages, as no old technology is in the way. But one shouldn't get carried away. China is a large country and it still has nowhere near the high-speed rail density either Europe or Japan has, and it won't match that in the near term.
> 
> Are you trying to be entertaining again in your second paragraph? I sure hope that's not some sick insecure chinese patriot ranting. The fewer the likes of you China has, the better off it will be.
> 
> Just to let you know, the indian sub-continent is practically the only continent-sized place I have _never_ been to, nor have a relation in. So give it a rest, whatever the reason of your agitation. And please, clean up your spelling while you clean up your language




Didn't you see that I clearly used "in dust" under the context of the thread topic - China High Speed Train, or is this phrase too noval for you lot?

Say, Indians are everywhere, eh? What, another white master land today? No more pretending of hidding under the skirt of Her Majesty The Queen? Sure? :nuts:

indian sub-continent is practically the only continent-sized place I have neverbeen to, you said? Given your reputation in this thread, I am sure any holy cow would believe you my friend.

And what is wrong with you with all these perpetual provocations by "complaining" about others English? - *the only persons *in the internet in the last 15 years who explicitly and constantly complain about other's English spelling and grammar (bragging of their own by implication) despite of the fact that both parties are non-native English speakers, *are Indians* almost without an exception, thanks to your patented slave mentality.

*As for the spelling, what spelling this time? And which one you fail to understand in my last sentence, Quotation Mark (" ") , or Sic ? * 

If you really don't understand it as you do, it provides just another proof that you are not from the EU  where I've grown up and currently reside in, because you failed to understand the basic irony in this entremely fashionable and popular quotation here - the typo and underlying confusion in the quotation are the exact reasons why it has become fashionable in the first place and what it's all about! 

Frankfurt am main? :lol: Cool, I like your sense of humor. BTW, which caste are you from?


----------



## Restless

K_ said:


> Depends on what you call "large continental european state-owned train operator". But NS has been buying its rolling stock abroad for a few decades now, and a recent NMBS order (biggest in their history) has gone to Siemens. It's true however that often multinational rolling stock manufacturers will try to tempt their clients by offering a certain amount of local work. The new Hitachi HSTs for the UK will be assembled in the UK.
> SBB is also about to place a huge order. It will be interesting to see who will land that one.


The Belgium, Dutch or Swiss markets are really small and therefore don't have any large operators. Also, do they even have any domestic train manufacturers anymore?

The UK is a funny situation, as most of the people here don't really think of themselves as "Europeans" and we don't have an industrial policy as such. Hence we've now got very little high-tech industry in the country.


----------



## hkhui

Stop the person attacks and start discussing China Railway Development News goddamnit. :bash: And unless you have sources, don't post controversial dick measuring remarks and "hearsay".


----------



## [email protected]

Restless said:


> The Belgium, Dutch or Swiss markets are really small and therefore don't have any large operators. Also, do they even have any domestic train manufacturers anymore?


Agreed. 

Plus, the Belgium and Dutch rail networks in particular are very much saturated where one doesn't have the burning needs to upgrade the speed any time soon, as the existing snel trains in the region are highly efficient already. One can live in Noord Holland while work in South Belgium commuting on a daily basis with ease, as many do. 

I don't know the details about Swiss Rail as I usually drive there when I go skiing.




Restless said:


> The UK is a funny situation, as most of the people here don't really think of themselves as "Europeans" and we don't have an industrial policy as such. Hence we've now got very little high-tech industry in the country.


The other major problems of the UK railway in my view are (1) corruptions/inefficiencies with companies who are responsible for expansion and maintenance of the network - too much extra expenses and delay. .. just think in terms of disasters of London Underground here and there, along with the long waiting line at Waterloo, for instance, during any snow weather, in spite of the huge public funding; and (2) Nulabour policies, what else can it be? :cheers:


----------



## Ariel74

[email protected] said:


> Didn't you see that I clearly used "in dust" under the context of the thread topic - China High Speed Train, or is this phrase too noval for you lot?
> 
> Say, Indians are everywhere, eh? What, another white master land today? No more pretending of hidding under the skirt of Her Majesty The Queen? Sure? :nuts:
> 
> indian sub-continent is practically the only continent-sized place I have neverbeen to, you said? Given your reputation in this thread, I am sure any holy cow would believe you my friend.
> 
> And what is wrong with you with all these perpetual provocations by "complaining" about others English? - *the only persons *in the internet in the last 15 years who explicitly and constantly complain about other's English spelling and grammar (bragging of their own by implication) despite of the fact that both parties are non-native English speakers, *are Indians* almost without an exception, thanks to your patented slave mentality.
> 
> *As for the spelling, what spelling this time? And which one you fail to understand in my last sentence, Quotation Mark (" ") , or Sic ? *
> 
> If you really don't understand it as you do, it provides just another proof that you are not from the EU  where I've grown up and currently reside in, because you failed to understand the basic irony in this entremely fashionable and popular quotation here - the typo and underlying confusion in the quotation are the exact reasons why it has become fashionable in the first place and what it's all about!
> 
> Frankfurt am main? :lol: Cool, I like your sense of humor. BTW, which caste are you from?


keep ranting, until you get your-insecure-self banned one of these days....


----------



## Ariel74

Restless said:


> Factual corrections below in RED.


Well, I wouldn't call what you wrote in red "corrections". At best an argument disputing my claim. 

Apropos your argument:

1) sure there are a lots of things going for China in the area of HSR. I wasn't denying that. Was only pointing out that a more honest description of the current situation is that China is catching up with Europe and Japan, and there is no indication whatsoever that the latter two are going to be left in the "dusty wake" of chinese development of HSR.

2) Obviously I did not mean to say that China is playing catchup with Poland. The point of reference in that context was Germany and France, the established powerhouse of HSR. Now according to your statistics comparing the *entire* EU with China, the HSR density in China will *still* lag behind Europe in 2012. Obviously the gap will be a lot greater if you restrict the comparison to China and the established European HSR powers. All of that, however, is assuming that the construction mayhem in China continues in the next few years.

3) Very telling that you didn't do the same comparison between Japan and China


----------



## [email protected]

Ariel74 said:


> keep ranting, until you get your-insecure-self banned one of these days....


It seems that you have got Indian Mods in your pocket for the purpose?

As for banning somebody, I am afraid that this is a thread from a popular European forum regarding China railway, not an Indian tabloids newspaper bashing- China&Chinese column that you are used to. 

If you disgree on sth, state your view, and please do not resort to any more personal attack.

If mods want to ban anyone, you could be on top of the list if we have a public vote on the issue by the thread members here, because anyone in this thread with a pair of fair glasses can see that your contribution are not much more than nonsenses such as  "hey, your have a typo" or "hey, your english is borken, or "hey, your english is half-baked" , which solely aims at trolling by deliberately picking a fight. I am sure mods know it better than you do.

Unfortunately, I can't stand no more your repeated and proactive provocations and responded in self defence. 

What are your self-insecurity and grudges against anything Chinese? 

I've grown up in several European countries since I was a kid and speak almost all of major European languages. *I have never seen any European or British behave the way you do. Clearly you are not one of us as you pretend to be in order to pick a fight with Chinese in the name of an "European" - a pathetic but common trick by Indians in general in the internet* --- I believe most mods here, as Europeans, agree with me on this. 

Now back to the thread topic please, if you have anything related at all to add on.


----------



## Ariel74

[email protected] said:


> It seems that you have got Indian Mods in your pocket for the purpose?
> 
> As for banning somebody, I am afraid that this is a thread from a popular European forum regarding Chin*ese* railway, not an Indian tabloid*s* newspaper bashing- China&Chinese column that you are used to.
> 
> If you disgree on sth, state your view, and please do not resort to any more personal attack.
> 
> If mods want to ban anyone, you could be on top of the list if we have a public vote on the issue by the thread members here, because anyone in this thread with* a pair of fair glasses *can see that your contribution *is* not much more than nonsenses such as  "hey, your have a typo" or "hey, your english is b*ro*ken, or "hey, your english is half-baked" , which solely aims at trolling by deliberately picking a fight. I am sure mods know it better than you do.
> 
> Unfortunately, I *couldn't* stand *any* more *of* your repeated and proactive provocations and responded in self defence.
> 
> What are your self-insecurity and grudges against anything Chinese?
> 
> I *grew* up in several European countries *as* a kid and speak almost all of major European languages. *I have never seen any European or British behave the way you do. Clearly you are not one of us as you pretend to be in order to pick a fight with Chinese in the name of an "European" - a pathetic but common trick by Indians in general on the internet* --- I believe most mods here, as Europeans, agree with me on this.
> 
> Now back to the thread topic please, if you have anything related at all to add *on*.


You really do have serious cognitive dissonance, apart from that rabid obsession with Indians. For it'd be otherwise obvious to you that I am not trying to pick fights with "anything Chinese". It only seems to you that way because of the chips on your own shoulders. Others, somewhat less rabid than you but equally extreme, have thought that I am a Chinese nationalist belittling the Europeans. 

It all goes to show what I have been saying: this place is crowded with extremists of all stripes. 

But of course it'd be a million years before *you* are ever going to notice that.


----------



## [email protected]

^^ Mods, are you watching? Above is the example of how this guy repeatedly trys to derail this thread and molests other forum members. 


Ariel74: 

Again, stop trolling and go back to the thread discussion, will you? Try to impress me after you figure it out how to stitch a decent paragraph together in German or any other EU language that you implied you speak. Yes, you just proved that 150 years colonisation of your land by Her majesty The Queen was not in vain as you finally learned the language of the white master. So? I still fail to see how do those typos corrections have anything to do with China High Speed Railway. 

I told you long ago andI'll say it one last time that if I decide to look for an "english" interpreter in order to pay a visit to Mumbay, I'll drop you a call. Promised! Now if you excuse me, I decide to go back to the thread topic instead of keep feeding a troll like you.






Restless said:


> The UK is a funny situation, as most of the people here don't really think of themselves as "Europeans" and we don't have an industrial policy as such. Hence we've now got very little high-tech industry in the country.



Restless: the energy secretary Lord Adonis of the UK just announced 30 Billion high speed rail plan for the UK, including links btw London and Birmingham.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/mar/11/high-speed-rail-plans-liveblog)

Perhaps it's a response to China's recent plan building HSR across 17 nations to King's Cross?


----------



## hkhui

*High-speed rail: New Silk Road*

From CCTV:


> High-speed rail: New Silk Road
> 2010-03-12 15:49 BJT
> 
> By Kang Juan
> Less than two years after China's first high-speed railway went into operation, the country is now planning to extend its rail network beyond its borders, a project that will involve 17 nations, a Ministry of Railways spokesman confirmed to the Global Times Thursday.
> The international rail network will boost the exchange of trade and promote China's newly acquired high-speed railway technology, likely the next brand of "Made in China" comparable to world competitors, experts say.
> 
> Initial negotiations with some countries are already underway, the spokesman said, without disclosing what progress had been made or details of the routes.
> The information was first revealed by Wang Mengshu, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who said Sunday that China plans to construct a high-speed railway system that will travel across Asia and Europe by 2025.
> Wang told the Global Times yesterday that China began construction of the domestic part of one route, which will travel across Southeast Asia, several years ago. The line starts in Kunming in Yunnan Province and runs south, as far as Singapore. Negotiations with parties in Myanmar and Singapore have gone smoothly he said.
> According to Wang, a second route will start in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and connect Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with Germany. A third line will connect the city of Heilongjiang in northern China with Eastern and Southern European countries via Russia.
> "Progress on the first route has been faster than the other two," Wang said. "Many problems such as discrepancies in track gauge, line direction and expense allocations are under discussion with the related countries."
> Lu Huapu, director of the Communication Research Institute at Tsinghua University, said the project is part of the Pan-Asian railways network, a plan proposed in 2006 that is expected to connect 28 countries with 81,000 kilometers of railways.
> "The construction of the network requires a huge coordination effort among countries with big development gaps and must overcome difficulties in terms of discrepancies and technical standards," Lu said.
> China will obtain major benefits from the project, which will carry mostly cargo transportation. "The second route will serve as a new "Silk Road" for China's western regions," Wang said. "Industries, businesses and issues of environmental protection are built on growing transport networks."
> "It will also be more convenient for us to tap into natural resources, especially oil and gas, in Myanmar, Iran and Russia if the system is completed," Wang said, adding that some parts of the project can be financed by a proposed "resourc-es-for-technology" agreement.Technology edge
> China began purchasing high-speed rail technology in 2004 from France, Japan, Can-ada and Germany.
> Six years later, China has developed its own high-speed rail systems, which run at over 350 kilometers per hour.
> The high-speed rail line between Beijing and Tianjin, which started service in August 2008, was the first such train in China.
> The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway came into use late last year. It runs 990 kilometers between the Central China city and the booming industrial hub in the south, reducing the standard 12-hour-long trip to only three hours.
> These are just two of 42 high-speed lines projected for completion in the country by 2012.
> "For China, high-speed railways are both necessary and affordable," Lu said. "Its fast development is boosted by the country's domestic demand, stable financing and a sustain-ability-oriented development mode.
> "The country's urbanization process offered opportunities for the massive construction of railway networks," he said, adding that a network of high-speed railways would dramatically "shrink" the country.
> According to the plan proposed by the railways ministry, the country's total railway coverage will be more than 110,000 kilometers by 2012, with 13,000 kilometers being high-speed railway, forming the world's largest high-speed railway network.
> Wang expects that China may spearhead a new global wave of railway development, and with that the ability to grab a big share of international markets with its cutting-edge safe technologies and low construction costs that will compete with the pioneers in the field, Japan and Germany.
> "India would be our top target market in the future. And we are currently negotiating with the US, Russia and Poland," Wang said. "High-speed railways will become another brand of Made-in-China."
> Japan, which first implemented a high-speed railway in 1964, has expressed concern that it wasted its chance to be a dominant player in the market.
> Although Japanese railway technology is "one of the best in the world, it has failed to find its way into overseas markets," said an editorial in Japan's The Asahi Shimbun on February 1.
> "The technology was so bent on Japanese standards that it developed in a very insular way. The rail industry has been very inward-looking," it said.
> Deng Jingyin and Qiu Wei contributed to this story


http://english.cctv.com/20100312/103525_1.shtml


----------



## Restless

@ Panda Play

The truth of the matter is that our government ministers make a lot of announcements but nothing is ever done. I think this would be the 10th? announcement in the past 10years, and there is no movement.


----------



## Restless

Ariel74 said:


> Well, I wouldn't call what you wrote in red "corrections". At best an argument disputing my claim.
> 
> Apropos your argument:
> 
> 1) sure there are a lots of things going for China in the area of HSR. I wasn't denying that. Was only pointing out that a more honest description of the current situation is that China is catching up with Europe and Japan, and there is no indication whatsoever that the latter two are going to be left in the "dusty wake" of chinese development of HSR.
> 
> 2) Obviously I did not mean to say that China is playing catchup with Poland. The point of reference in that context was Germany and France, the established powerhouse of HSR. Now according to your statistics comparing the *entire* EU with China, the HSR density in China will *still* lag behind Europe in 2012. Obviously the gap will be a lot greater if you restrict the comparison to China and the established European HSR powers. All of that, however, is assuming that the construction mayhem in China continues in the next few years.
> 
> 3) Very telling that you didn't do the same comparison between Japan and China


1. In terms of the end output, China has already caught up due to the technology transfers from Europe and Japan. What isn't there yet is full localisation and the independent design capability. 

Also, as Europe and Japan are building very few new railways and rolling stock, how will the expertise and skills be sustained??

2. If we look at individual European countries, there are 4 chinese provinces with a greater population than Germany. 

So comparisons between US States vs China Provinces vs individual countries in Europe make sense.

However, China is a continental-sized country like the USA/Europe with significant regional differences. Eg.

a) The northern part of China is part of Siberia and specialises in heavy industry like the Ruhr in Germany
b) The South has a year-round tropical climate and focuses on tourism like the Southern European countries
c) The west is composed vast sparsely populated desert and mainly provides resources
d) The different coastal provinces can be compared to France, the UK etc, in terms of their governing philosophies and industrial structure
e) etc etc 

Therefore you have to compare China/USA/Europe at that level.


3. Why bother with a comparison with Japan when you're European?


----------



## Restless

For the latest Chinese HSR construction schedule, Wikipedia has a good article which is kept up-to-date

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#North-South_Lines_in_the_National_HSR_Grid

Virtually all of these lines are currently under construction and funding should not be an issue as they are part of the financial crisis stimulus package, and have been publicly endorsed by the Premier and every government agency involved (In China, public announcements are not made until everyone has agreed and signed up to the actions).

There is also negligible technology risk (ref from World Bank technical assessments) as it is:

a) Proven technologies being used
or
b) there are multiple suppliers of competing technologies, so at least 1 supplier will make the grade.

Lastly, here is an old World Bank workshop presentation given to Indian Railways in 2007, on the Chinese experience and their future plans.

http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/DE...COMM, IR, WORLD BANK/25.03.09/JOHN SCALES.pdf


----------



## foxmulder

Ariel74 said:


> Well, I wouldn't call what you wrote in red "corrections". At best an argument disputing my claim.
> 
> Apropos your argument:
> 
> 1) sure there are a lots of things going for China in the area of HSR. I wasn't denying that. Was only pointing out that a more honest description of the current situation is that China is catching up with Europe and Japan, and there is no indication whatsoever that the latter two are going to be left in the "dusty wake" of chinese development of HSR.
> 
> 2) Obviously I did not mean to say that China is playing catchup with Poland. The point of reference in that context was Germany and France, the established powerhouse of HSR. Now according to your statistics comparing the *entire* EU with China, the HSR density in China will *still* lag behind Europe in 2012. Obviously the gap will be a lot greater if you restrict the comparison to China and the established European HSR powers. All of that, however, is assuming that the construction mayhem in China continues in the next few years.
> 
> 3) Very telling that you didn't do the same comparison between Japan and China


Like it or not, China will have the best high speed rail network on Earth by 2012. You can compare it Japan or Europe or Moon. Chinese HSR will be faster and longer. Even when you put population in calculations it will be on par to any country. And China will reach this level in less than a decade. This is a great achievement.


----------



## Ariel74

Restless said:


> 1. In terms of the end output, China has already caught up due to the technology transfers from Europe and Japan. What isn't there yet is full localisation and the independent design capability.
> 
> Also, as Europe and Japan are building very few new railways and rolling stock, how will the expertise and skills be sustained??
> 
> 2. If we look at individual European countries, there are 4 chinese provinces with a greater population than Germany.
> 
> So comparisons between US States vs China Provinces vs individual countries in Europe make sense.
> 
> However, China is a continental-sized country like the USA/Europe with significant regional differences. Eg.
> 
> a) The northern part of China is part of Siberia and specialises in heavy industry like the Ruhr in Germany
> b) The South has a year-round tropical climate and focuses on tourism like the Southern European countries
> c) The west is composed vast sparsely populated desert and mainly provides resources
> d) The different coastal provinces can be compared to France, the UK etc, in terms of their governing philosophies and industrial structure
> e) etc etc
> 
> Therefore you have to compare China/USA/Europe at that level.
> 
> 
> 3. Why bother with a comparison with Japan when you're European?


Ad 1: I don't know what your argument here is. You seem to know that the chinese are still struggling with the key components of CRH3 (at least) and are importing these from Siemens. So in what sense have they caught up _technologically_?

how do the European and Japanese companies maintain expertise and skills? by building trains for export and by replacing and expanding the existing HSR lines, albeit slowly. It remains to be seen how competitive chinese trains are going to be in the export market.

Ad 2: Not true that you have to compare chinese provinces to European countries. Each province of china can specialize in whatever they want, the HSR density (gauged by population) is still a good basis for comparing the extent of HSR development between countries, each of which will have within itself a relatively uniform level of technological development. The difference between Poland and Germany is not due to specialization, but due to different levels of economic and technological development. The same technology will be employed both in Hubei and in Guangdong, precisely because they are parts of the same country, and that cannot be said for Poland and Germany.

Ad 3: Again what's your point? I thought you are disputing my claim that the density of HSR in China will not - in the short term - match those EU countries with mature HSR technology and Japan. So my assumption is that you want to dispute both the part of my claim about Europe as well as the part of my claim about Japan.

Or are you saying that I shouldn't have made the claim involving Japan to begin with? Now enlighten me about why that is the case (especially given that Japan is *the* country of HSR), and why that has anything to do with anyone's being European?

You are not making sense, frankly.


----------



## Ariel74

foxmulder said:


> Like it or not, China will have the best high speed rail network on Earth by 2012.
> 
> *Well, that is just a bald claim. Restless and I are precisely disagreeing with aspects of it, and I don't see what are you bringing to the debate.*
> 
> You can compare it Japan or Europe or Moon. Chinese HSR will be faster and longer. Even when you put population in calculations it will be on par to any country.
> 
> *Restless's statistics about 2012 projections contradicts this claim (when understood in terms of density, that is), as I have just been pointing out. On which statistics are you basing your claim? To be long in absolute terms is not really leading given the size of China.*
> 
> And China will reach this level in less than a decade. This is a great achievement.
> 
> *Great achievement or not, it is not germane to the discussion here. Fact is that people get carried away by this "great achievement" sentiment and begin making silly claims. *


My replies are italicized and in bold.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev to start in 2010*

http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2010-03/13/content_13164969.htm

Length: 199.484 km
- Intercity Mainline: 164.577 km
- Airport Branch: 34.857 km

The line is expected to be completed in 2014.


----------



## NCT

I don't think they ever truly abolished it, it's just there was huge uncertainly over it with regime changes and stuff. The new Hongqiao Complex already has the Maglev station constructed.


----------



## Gaeus

yaohua2000 said:


> http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2010-03/13/content_13164969.htm
> 
> Length: 199.484 km
> - Intercity Mainline: 164.577 km
> - Airport Branch: 34.857 km
> 
> The line is expected to be completed in 2014.


What? Are you sure about this? What's the cost of this project? And I thought that abolished the MagLev Project?


----------



## Ariel74

yaohua2000 said:


> http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2010-03/13/content_13164969.htm
> 
> Length: 199.484 km
> - Intercity Mainline: 164.577 km
> - Airport Branch: 34.857 km
> 
> The line is expected to be completed in 2014.


Amazing, if true. But the phrase "深化研究" does appear to give them room for canceling the project later on after all. Any more detailed reports?


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

I only believe when I see pictures of the construction site.

Acutally, it has been "approved" and "given green light" for so many times in the past only to be halted shortly after again.

Are there any other sourches who can confirm it?

Howerve, it would be just awesome, if they would build it!!!


----------



## Restless

Comments in RED below



Ariel74 said:


> Ad 1: I don't know what your argument here is. You seem to know that the chinese are still struggling with the key components of CRH3 (at least) and are importing these from Siemens. So in what sense have they caught up _technologically_?
> 
> In the sense that Chinese companies can develop and construct an entire high-speed railway, with the exception that a few key technologies are still dependent on outside sources. Of course, they'd be working to master these.
> 
> how do the European and Japanese companies maintain expertise and skills? by building trains for export and by replacing and expanding the existing HSR lines, albeit slowly. It remains to be seen how competitive chinese trains are going to be in the export market.
> 
> For a hundred years, the UK was the home of the railway, but now there is only a single train factory left in the country
> 
> 
> Ad 2: Not true that you have to compare chinese provinces to European countries. Each provinces of china can specialize in whatever they want, the HSR density (gauged by population) is still a good basis for comparing the extent of HSR development between countries, each of which will have within itself a relatively uniform level of technological development. The difference between Poland and Germany is not due to specialization, but due to different levels of economic and technological development. The same technology will be employed both in Hubei and in Guangdong, precisely because they are parts of the same country, and that cannot be said for Poland and Germany.
> 
> The same argument applies to Hubei and Guangdong. Hubei is way behind Guangdong in terms of development. You may not be aware, but Chinese provincial governments have absolute control of all government resources in their province. Central government influence and control is pretty limited.
> 
> 
> Ad 3: Again what's your point? I thought you are disputing my claim that the density of HSR in China will not - in the short term - match those EU countries with mature HSR technology and Japan. So my assumption is that you want to dispute both the part of my claim about Europe as well as the part of my claim about Japan.
> 
> Again, since we're both in Europe, why bother spending the time to compare against Japan?
> 
> 
> Or are you saying that I shouldn't have made the claim involving Japan to begin with? Now enlighten me about why that is the case (especially given that Japan is *the* country of HSR), and why that has anything to do anyone's being European?
> 
> You are not making sense, frankly.


----------



## city_thing

This thread is a mess hno:


----------



## Ariel74

Restless said:


> Comments in RED below


You are still not making sense:


1) So they caught up, except for the _*key*_ elements of technology. That is, strictly speaking not, but very close to a contradiction.

2) Don't the existing and planned HSR lines, made of similar technologies, go through most provinces, and the fact that they do is the result of *planning* by the central government???

3) I am going to say it again: you are disputing *my* claim, and my claim has *two* parts, one part about Europe, one part about Japan. If being in Europe is the reason for not talking about Japan - despite the fact the Japan is *the* gold standard of HSR - then why do we talk about Chinese HSR at all??? 

How parochial do you have to be, seriously?


----------



## Restless

Ariel74 said:


> You are still not making sense:
> 
> 
> 1) So they caught up, except for the _*key*_ elements of technology. That is, strictly speaking not, but very close to a contradiction.
> 
> 2) Don't the existing and planned HSR lines, made of similar technologies, go through most provinces, and the fact that they do is the result of *planning* by the central government???
> 
> 3) I am going to say it again: you are disputing *my* claim, and my claim has *two* parts, one part about Europe, one part about Japan. If being in Europe is the reason for not talking about Japan - despite the fact the Japan is *the* gold standard of HSR - then why do we talk about Chinese HSR at all???
> 
> How parochial do you have to be, seriously?


You aren't listening.

1. I said that the end outcome is equal or better to any other HS Train.
However, there are some key input technologies which are still to be developed or replicated domestically

2. The NRDC and the Central MOR draw up the overall plans based on the needs of the nation. Funding, construction and implementation are left to autonomous units at a lower level (such as Provincial Governments, Local railway bureaus and special purpose vehicles) which are then audited by national agencies.

3. Japan is the not the gold standard in terms of HSR.

The Chinese HSR lines that have opened in the past 2years are longer, faster and more modern than the few kilometres the Japanese are currently building. 

Also don't forget that whilst Maglev development in Europe and Japan has stalled, Chinese companies are now pushing ahead with at least 3 different maglev designs.

Lastly, what on earth are you talking about parochialism for?


----------



## Restless

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h7ss33mRp2IeNxPab7ABTadRrwZQD9EDOF7G0

*China to bid on US high-speed rail projects*
By JOE McDONALD (AP) – 20 hours ago

BEIJING — China plans to bid for contracts to build U.S. high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said Saturday.
China has built 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) of high-speed rail for its own train system and President Barack Obama issued a pledge in November with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to cooperate in developing the technology.
"We are organizing relevant companies to participate in bidding for U.S. high-speed railways," Wang Zhiguo, a deputy railways minister, told a news conference.
Wang gave no details of where China's railway builders might seek contracts, but systems are planned in California, Florida and Illinois. He said state-owned Chinese companies already are building high-speed lines in Turkey and Venezuela.
Beijing plans to construct a 16,000-mile (25,000-kilometer) high-speed rail network by 2020 in a 2 trillion yuan ($300 billion) project it hopes will spur economic and technology development. A new line linking the central city of Wuhan with Guangzhou near Hong Kong on China's southern coast is billed as the world's fastest at 237 miles (380 kilometers) per hour.
China produces high-speed trains using French, German and Japanese technology. Its manufacturers have developed a homegrown version but have yet to produce a commercial model.
Chinese rail authorities have signed cooperation memos with California and Russia and state companies plan to bid on a line in Brazil linking Rio de Janeiro with Sao Paulo, Wang said. He said Saudi Arabia and Poland also have expressed interest.
The White House announced $8 billion in grants in January for rail projects including the high-speed systems in California, Florida and Illinois.
"China is willing to share its mature and advanced technology with other countries to promote development of the world's high-speed railways," Wang said.
So far, China's government has completed 2,295 miles (3,676 kilometers) of rail lines with top speeds of up to 220 mph (350 kph) and 1,795 miles (2,876 kilometers) with speeds up to 155 mph (250 kph), according to Wang.
Another 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) of lines are under construction, he said.
Once the network is completed, it will cut travel time from Beijing to Hong Kong from 24 hours to 10.
Some critics say high-speed train fares are too high for average Chinese and question whether the lines can recover their construction costs.
Wang said high-speed trains already have higher occupancy rates than regular trains, though he gave no details.

Associated Press researcher Bonnie Cao contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


----------



## Ariel74

Restless said:


> You aren't listening.
> 
> 1. I said that the end outcome is equal or better to any other HS Train.
> However, there are some key input technologies which are still to be developed or replicated domestically
> 
> 2. The NRDC and the Central MOR draw up the overall plans based on the needs of the nation. Funding, construction and implementation are left to autonomous units at a lower level (such as Provincial Governments, Local railway bureaus and special purpose vehicles) which are then audited by national agencies.
> 
> 3. Japan is the not the gold standard in terms of HSR.
> 
> The Chinese HSR lines that have opened in the past 2years are longer, faster and more modern than the few kilometres the Japanese are currently building.
> 
> Also don't forget that whilst Maglev development in Europe and Japan has stalled, Chinese companies are now pushing ahead with at least 3 different maglev designs.
> 
> Lastly, what on earth are you talking about parochialism for?


I have to complement you, as Sacrates did his interlocutor, for making arguments that are so life-like, that, like the sculptures of Daedalus, they move around, and never stay at the same place. 

Or maybe your arguments are rather like an CRH3 raging across the southern plains of china? 

But you do seem to need help with English as well. If you look up "parochialism", you'd notice that your suggestion that we not talk about Japan for the reason of being in Europe has something to do with it. Remember, you may make super-fast moving arguments. The meanings of words are pretty stable, they stay where they are a long time.

Well then, I will leave you to people of your own league, logically and linguistically speaking.


----------



## Restless

@ Ariel74

Are you a native speaker of English? If so, you REALLY don't want to get into an argument with a native speaker like myself who has spent all his life in the British Isles. If not, then shame on you for disparaging people like Panda Play who are using English as a completely foreign second language.

That is simply bad conduct in British eyes, and your grammar is not anything to shout about either.

Also, there is nothing parochial about missing out Japan. I didn't do Japan for the same reason that I didn't do a comparison with Germany: the rough equivalent to Japan (Population: 127million) is Guangdong province.


----------



## Ariel74

Restless said:


> @ Ariel74
> 
> 
> Also, there is nothing parochial about missing out Japan. I didn't do Japan for the same reason that I didn't do a comparison with Germany: the rough equivalent to Japan (Population: 127million) is Guangdong province.


Compare that with your original rhetorical question a few posts back:

"3. Why bother with a comparison with Japan when you're European?"

And there you have a beautiful demonstration of the Daedalian character of your writings. No logical person can engage with such swiftness of movement in argument. So excuse me for not wasting my time with you any more.


----------



## Ariel74

You probably meant this :



Restless said:


> @ Ariel74
> 
> Are you a native speaker of English? If *not*, you REALLY don't want to get into an argument with a native speaker like myself who has spent all his life in the British Isles. If *so*, then shame on you for disparaging people like Panda Play who are using English as a completely foreign second language.


Either way, I have met plenty of people who've "spent their entire life" on that island and who wouldn't be able to save their ass by putting together a few cogent sentences. So that's that. And if you are telling truth about yourself, I have just "met" another of these...


----------



## foxmulder

Ariel74 said:


> Well, that is just a bald claim. Restless and I are precisely disagreeing with aspects of it, and I don't see what are you bringing to the debate.
> 
> Restless's statistics about 2012 projections contradicts this claim (when understood in terms of density, that is), as I have just been pointing out. On which statistics are you basing your claim? To be long in absolute terms is not really leading given the size of China.
> 
> Great achievement or not, it is not germane to the discussion here. Fact is that people get carried away by this "great achievement" sentiment and begin making silly claims.
> 
> My replies are italicized and in bold.


Nothing I wrote was claim. They are facts, again, in more detailed way:

Fact 1: China is spending 300 billion dollars to build its high speed network.

Fact 2: China will have 13,000km high speed railroad by 2012. ==> longest

Fact 3: 8000km of this 13,000 is designed for speeds more than 350km/h, remaining is designed for speeds more than 250km/h. ==> fastest

Fact 4: Germany has only ~1300km high speed railway and only a fraction of this may be suitable for 350km/h. No 350km/h train is in operation. Population of Germany is ~82 million.

Fact 5: France has only 1700km high speed railway and again only a fraction may be suitable for 350km/h. No 350km/h train is in operation. Population of France is ~65 million. 

Fact 6: Japan has ~2500km high speed railway. No 350km/h train is in operation. Population of Japan is ~127 million.

P.S. I would prefer if we were talking about Chinese railways not about English language.


----------



## anarchojoseph

news updates : http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=China Railway Development News&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn










looks so futuristic


----------



## Ariel74

foxmulder said:


> Nothing I wrote was claim. They are facts, again, in more detailed way:
> 
> Fact 1: China is spending 300 billion dollars to build its high speed network.
> 
> Fact 2: China will have 13,000km high speed railroad by 2012. ==> longest
> 
> Fact 3: 8000km of this 13,000 is designed for speeds more than 350km/h, remaining is designed for speeds more than 250km/h. ==> fastest
> 
> Fact 4: Germany has only ~1300km high speed railway and only a fraction of this may be suitable for 350km/h. No 350km/h train is in operation. Population of Germany is ~82 million.
> 
> Fact 5: France has only 1700km high speed railway and again only a fraction may be suitable for 350km/h. No 350km/h train is in operation. Population of France is ~65 million.
> 
> Fact 6: Japan has ~2500km high speed railway. No 350km/h train is in operation. Population of Japan is ~127 million.
> 
> P.S. I would prefer if we were talking about Chinese railways not about English language.


First of all, let's get the conceptual relation between "claims" and "facts" straight: even if your claims were true, so that they express facts, they would still be claims. 

Now to your false claim, and I quote "*Chinese HSR will be faster and longer. Even when you put population in calculations it will be on par to any country*".

The falsity of this claim is demonstrated by your "fact 2", "fact 4", "fact 5", "fact 6".

To flash it out for you (since you seem to be too lazy to do it yourself before posting any none-sense that happens to come to your mind), china, germany, france, japan, will have the following per capita HSR in kilometers around 2012, *assuming that the latter three countries will not be expanding*, which is by the way false:

China: 13000km/1,3billion = (roughly) *10* km/million persons

Germany: 1300km/82million = (roughly) *15,8* km/million persons

France: 1700km/65 million = (roughly) *26* km/million persons

Japan: 2500km/127million = (roughly) *19.6* km/million persons

In other words, under the assumptions most favorable to China (that no one else is expanding and upgrading, that the projection for China's HSR construction materializes, that Germany and Japan's populations do not shrink, etc.), each of the three established HSR powers will have at least a 50% advantage over China in terms of per capita HSR, in the short term. Two of these will have roughly twice the HSR density of China.


----------



## foxmulder

Ariel74 said:


> First of all, let's get the conceptual relation between "claims" and "facts" straight: even if your claims were true, so that they express facts, they would still be claims.
> 
> Now to your false claim, and I quote "*Chinese HSR will be faster and longer. Even when you put population in calculations it will be on par to any country*".
> 
> The falsity of this claim is demonstrated by your "fact 2", "fact 4", "fact 5", "fact 6".
> 
> To flash it out for you (since you seem to be too lazy to do it yourself before posting any none-sense that happens to come to your mind), china, germany, france, japan, will have the following per capita HSR in kilometers around 2012, *assuming that the latter three countries will not be expanding*, which is by the way false:
> 
> China: 13000km/1,3billion = (roughly) *10* km/million persons
> 
> Germany: 1300km/82million = (roughly) *15,8* km/million persons
> 
> France: 1700km/65 million = (roughly) *26* km/million persons
> 
> Japan: 2500km/127million = (roughly) *19.6* km/million persons
> 
> In other words, under the assumptions most favorable to China (that no one else is expanding and upgrading, that the projection for China's HSR construction materializes, that Germany and Japan's populations do not shrink, etc.), each of the three established HSR powers will have at least a 50% advantage over China in terms of per capita HSR, in the short term. Two of these will have roughly twice the HSR density of China.


^^ good  At least you didn't quote anything from my previous post as claims. That's a good progress. Now my claims or comments on these numbers,

As you calculated Chinese network will be comparable even when bluntly divided to population. 

If we add speed hence the capacity to this calculations it will be on par to any other network.

You wrote about possible addition to other countries' networks. Those possible additions you are talking about, please post some figures here so we learn the scale of them. Moreover, please don't forget to add a comparable figure for China for same time period. For example, do you mind sharing us the planned high speed railway length by 2020 in China? It will leave possible planned railroads from all other countries we are talking about in the dust even when we combine them.

Chinese network is brand new, faster, longer and will be carrying probably more passengers than any other network. That is why it is not difficult to guess/claim it will be the best. 

We can now argue about my comments since we put the facts straight.


----------



## Ariel74

foxmulder said:


> ^^ good  At least you didn't quote anything from my previous post as claims. That's a good progress. Now my claims or comments on these numbers,
> 
> Apparently you are still clueless about what the relation is between claims and facts. But I am not here to be your grammar tutor nor to refresh your logic, so I will let that pass.
> 
> 
> As you calculated Chinese network will be comparable even when bluntly divided to population.
> 
> Whatever your definition of "comparable" is, I have shown that your own statistics supports _*my*_ claim about china's significant lag in per capita HSR mileage in the near term. So why the wiggling? To save face?
> 
> 
> Chinese network is brand new, faster, longer and will be carrying probably more passengers than any other network. That is why it is not difficult to guess/claim it will be the best.
> 
> We can now argue about my comments since we put the facts straight.



Unlike you and the rest of the fanatics on this site, I don't care to make grand claims about the far future. The purpose of my posts was to make the point that China is currently playing catchup with Europe and Japan in the area of HSR and that in the near term China will continue to compare poorly with these established HSR powers in terms of HSR per capita mileage. And I rest my case here.

No one is stopping you from taking great joy in China's brand new infrastructure projects. It's that that joy has tendency to issue in silly, exaggerated claims.


----------



## foxmulder

Ariel74 said:


> The purpose of my posts was to make the point that China is currently playing catchup with Europe and Japan in the area of HSR and that in the near term China will continue to compare poorly with these established HSR powers in terms of HSR per capita mileage. And I rest my case here.


Your definition for the adverb "poorly" is ..... hmmm..... let's say "different" than how most of the people define it. 

Don't worry I am enjoying a lot... Especially when I see pictures of endless elevated railways. :cheers:

I hope to see the same in US. My enjoyment will be great in that case too. Because USA is the only country who might have a comparable network.


----------



## Scion

The 1318km Beijing-Shanghai high speed line will open 2011, one year ahead of schedule.

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


----------



## makita09

..


----------



## yaohua2000

*Two express railway lines start construction near Sino-Korea border*

Rough translation:

The foundation-stone laying ceremony was held for Shenyang to Dandong Railway Passenger Dedicated Line and Dandong to Dalian Express Railway on March 17.

The total investment of these two railway lines exceeding CN¥50 billion, making Dandong, the largest border city in China, an important transport hub in northeast Asia. Perhaps the wish of drink miso soup in Pyongyang in the morning, eat duck in Beijing at noon can be met by taking train in near future.

Wang Zhanzhu, the secretary of Shenyang Railway Bureau, spoke at the ceremony, the total length of Shenyang–Dandong PDL is 207 km, designed speed 250 km/h, planned construction duration is 4 years. The total length of Dandong–Dalian Express Railway is 295.9 km, designed speed 200 km/h, planned construction duration is 3.5 years.

Once Shenyang-Dandong PDL opened, it will take only one hour from Dandong to Shenyang, cut by 2.5 hours. Once Dandong-Dalian Railway opened, the eastern Northeast China railways will form a railway corridor, Dandong port will become the nearest seaport from eastern Northeast China.

Dandong, the city located aside Yalu River in southeast Liaoning province. North Korea is on the opposite side across the river. It is the closest city with North Korea in economy and trade. 70 percent cross-border trade between China and North Korea enter North Korea from here. Most tourists to North Korea are also enter North Korea by train from Dandong port.

A high-speed railway will also be built between Beijing and Shenyang according to plan. It is expected to be started in July this year. Besides these two railway lines, China and North Korea also signed an agreement on February 25, to construct a new road bridge across Yalu River.



> *中朝边境城市丹东开建两条快速铁路*
> 
> 新华网沈阳３月１７日电（记者 徐扬）沈阳至丹东铁路客运专线、丹东至大连快速铁路，１７日上午在此间举行了开工奠基仪式。
> 
> 这两条总投资超过５００亿元人民币的铁路，将使丹东这座中国最大的边境城市，成为东北亚地区的重要交通枢纽。早晨在平壤喝酱汤，中午到北京吃烤鸭，在不远的将来，乘坐火车也许就可以满足这个愿望。
> 
> 沈阳铁路局局长王占柱在仪式上说，沈阳至丹东客运专线全长２０７公里，设计时速２５０公里，计划工期４年。丹东至大连快速铁路全线长２９５．９公里 ，设计时速２００公里，工期为３年半。
> 
> 沈丹客运专线开通后，从丹东到沈阳只需要１个小时，比现在缩短了两个半小时；丹大铁路运营后，与东北东部铁路通道连成一线，丹东港将成为中国东北东部地区最近的出海口。
> 
> 位于辽宁省东南部鸭绿江畔的丹东市，与朝鲜隔江相望，是与朝鲜经贸联系最为紧密的城市。中朝边贸中的７０％通过丹东口岸进入朝鲜，赴朝旅游的游客也大都通过丹东口岸乘坐火车进入朝鲜。
> 
> 按照规划，北京至沈阳还将修建高速铁路，有望在今年７月开工建设。辽宁社会科学院边疆所研究员吕超说，随着朝鲜半岛局势缓和，如果朝鲜半岛的京义（首尔－新义州）线能够开通，首尔的火车就可以经过平壤，一直通达到北京。
> 
> 学者认为，新建快速铁路将对中朝交流发挥积极而重要的作用。特别是今年４月１２日起，朝鲜将正式成为中国公民组团出境旅游目的地，中朝两国的民间交往和经贸往来将对交通运输提出更高要求。
> 
> 除了这两条铁路开工建设外，今年２月２５日，中朝双方还在丹东市签署协议，共同建设新的鸭绿江公路大桥。吕超说，中朝边境地区的铁路建设和新建鸭绿江大桥，将惠及两国人员往来和经济交流。同时，也将有助于构建东北亚地区通往欧洲新的欧亚铁路大通道。


----------



## ANR

*Officials rules out imminent start on E China maglev*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-16

HANGZHOU - Officials in east China's Zhejiang Province have ruled out this year for starting construction of a maglev train service between the provincial capital, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. A statement from the provincial development and reform commission Tuesday said the project had no timetable and was still undergoing feasibility studies. 

Media this week reported construction was expected to start this year. The commission statement said project proposal was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission in 2006. The planned ultra-high-speed maglev line, with an estimated total cost of 22 billion yuan (3.22 billion US dollars), will be approximately 200 km long. It would shorten travel time between Shanghai and Hangzhou to half an hour from the current 2 to 2.5 hours.

China already has one 32-km maglev line operating connecting Shanghai's Pudong New Area with Shanghai Pudong Airport.


----------



## yaohua2000

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2010-03-18/080517235367s.shtml

Tracklaying complete on Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway

Length: 300.209 km (31 stations)
Maximum in-service speed: 300 km/h
Construction start: July 1, 2008
Tracklaying complete: March 17, 2010
Trial run start: May 1, 2010
Open for service: July 1, 2010


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of three railway lines started on March 17*

http://news.163.com/10/0318/10/62270QU7000146BB.html

Qingdao-Rongcheng Intercity Railway
* Length: 299 km
* Max. speed: 250 km/h
* Cut travel time of Qingdao-Yantai from 3.7 hours to 1 hour
* Cut travel time of Qingdao-Weihai from 4.3 hours to 1.5 hours

Haitian-Qingdao Railway
* Length: 90.3 km

Linyi-Linshu Railway
* Length: 20 km

*Construction work of Qingdao North Railway Station started*
Platforms: 8
Tracks: 18
Open in 2012


----------



## makita09

..


----------



## makita09

> a press official has no political power nor authority of any kind. The person raising the concern, according to the article, does have such authority.


Regardless of authority it doesn't change the facts. Otherwise it would be the fallacy of appealing to authority.




> You simply miss the point - and with what self-confidence! To begin with, you cannot have arrived at the data unless you have concrete information about the designs of rolling stocks in China. Second, part of the point of the news article is that there is a political awareness of the issue.


No, you miss the point, and with what self-confidence.

To beign with it is absoultely possible to derive the change in energy consumption for a given speed, that is precisely what mechanics (as in the branch of maths) is for.

Using a combination of the tractive effort curve, and models of rolling resistence, air resistance and air friction, one can easily derive an approximation of energy consumption to speed. Any first year maths major or physics major will be able to do a rough calculation for you on a napkin. They will create a formula that will predict approximately ratio of energy consumption change, all that would be needed would be plugging in the precise details about the motors and the traction package's efficiencies.

Fortunately China does not live in a separate universe where the rules of physics are different.

Unless you seriously believe that the increase in consumption by a factor of 2 between 250 and 350km/h is an exact, precise and rigorously tested practical measurement?

:rofl:

Its a back of the *** packet calculation using a little bit of basic mechanics.



> Is the madness catching up with you too, and itching to shout over other people instead of trying to read and respond calmly without projecting your own emotions into everything? I don't know what chip you are talking about. I am doing my best to tamper the madness here, bubbling over in all directions.


F%*@ you Miss Daisy. Hows that?

You are now on ignore.


----------



## Scion

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


----------



## foxmulder

^^ I think southern route is more plausible since the Urumqi line is already started construction.


----------



## ANR

*New port to boost Inner Mongolia's coal output*

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-18 

SHENYANG - The landlocked coal-rich Inner Mongolia autonomous region in north China will soon have an open access to ship its coal from a port in its neighboring province to fuel-thirsty customers in eastern and southern regions. A port terminal to be built in Huludao, Liaoning province, will support an annual throughput of 50 million tons of coal when the first phase of the project becomes operational by 2012, Zhao Rongqing, the chief of port affairs in Huludao, said on Wednesday. The annual throughput would be eventually expanded to 230 million tons, Zhao said. He said a 300-km railway will be built to link the port directly with Xilingol, a major coal production base in Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Inner Mongolia is China's coal heartland. Its verified coal deposit of 732 billion tons is much greater than the 250 billion tons in Shanxi province, which is currently China's biggest producer of the fossil fuel. The region's coal output has been quickly catching up, reaching 600 million tons last year, compared with 615 million tons in Shanxi. However, transport bottlenecks have been hindering Inner Mongolia from sending the resource to end users in coastal and southern regions, where coal-fired electricity plants suffer severe fuel shortages every year, especially in winter and summer. "The landlocked northern region has 60 percent of the country's coal reserve. However, southern and coastal regions consume 70 percent of the country's electricity. Current road and railway transport for coal cannot meet the demand," said Zhao Yonghua, deputy mayor of Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia. He said the traffic problem in the region was so serious that Inner Mongolia in January introduced an odd-even license plate policy for cargo trucks to ease traffic congestion .

Shipping the coal by sea is expected to get some of trucks off the road. "I was too excited to sleep when I heard the port plan," said Wang De, deputy head of the economic commission in Xilingol. He said the prefecture with a verified coal reserve of 150 billion tons of coal would see its output of coal reach 100 million tons this year and 350 million tons by 2015. The port will offer a "fast lane" to distribute the resource, Wang said.


----------



## foxmulder

I come up with this article:

http://www.prlog.org/10214091-resea...-chinese-railway-transport-industry-2009.html



> Research Report on the Investment in Chinese Railway Transport Industry, 2009
> 
> WWW.SHCRI.COM - Research Report on the Investment in Chinese Railway Transport Industry, 2009
> 
> 
> 
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> 
> PR Log (Press Release) – Apr 08, 2009 – "Description
> In 2008, Chinese daily departure train volumes were 144,868, up by 3.1% over the last year. The national daily departure train volumes were 120.445, increased by 2.3%. The cargo transportation volumes and turnover volumes by Chinese railways reached to 3.29 billion tons and 2.4828 trillion ton-kilometers, up by 4.5% and 3.7% respectively. The national railways finished 2.74 billion tons and 2.3375 trillion ton-kilometers, up by 3.7% and 3.5% respectively. The passenger volumes transported by the national railways were 1.456 billion man-times, up by 10.6% over the last year. The passenger turnover volumes were 772.8 billion man-kilometers, up by 7.1%. the passenger transportation volumes and turnover volumes by the national railways were 1.44 billion man-time and 768.8 man-kilometers, up by 10.6% and 7% respectively.
> 
> In order to cope with the international financial crisis, Chinese government issued a series of expanding domestic demand policies from the end of 2008, consisting of the 4-trillion-Yuan (570 billion USD) investment plan. Among the investments, the railway constructions occupied the important part. It was planned to finish 600 billion Yuan investments in 2008.
> 
> Propelled by the investment plans and policies, the investments in Chinese railway transport industry were increased fast in 2008. The investments in the railway transport industry had finished 414.4 billion Yuan (59.2 billion USD) in the whole year, up by 60% over the previous year. In 2008, the newly started railway projects totaled 596, down by 308 of the last year, but the average scale of the new projects reached to 787 million Yuan (112.4 million USD), increased by 475 million Yuan (679 million USD) compared with 2007.
> 
> By the end of the first quarter 2009, the approved investment amounts had exceeded 2 trillion Yuan (292 billion USD), including more than 1.2-trillion-Yuan (175 billion USD) investment in the process projects. *It is clearly showed from Medium and Long Term Railway Network Plans (adjusted in 2008) that China will newly construct 40-thousand-kilometer railways with the total investment breaking through 5 trillion Yuan (730 billion USD) from 2009 to 2012.*
> 
> In accordance with the plans of Ministry of Railways, the newly approved railway construction projects will be about 70 in 2009 in China with the total investment scale to 1.5 trillion Yuan (219 billion USD). It is predicted that the railway locomotive purchase expenses will reach to 150 billion Yuan (21.9 billion USD), which will be roughly the same in 2010.
> 
> Taking JING-HU railway express with the total estimated investments of 220 billion Yuan (32.1 billion USD) for example, at present, the construction involves more than 120 thousand workers and 24 thousand construction machinery. With the project advancement, the demands for the work force and machinery will also be increased. It is predicted the investments in JING-HU railway express construction will reach to 60 billion Yuan (8.76 billion USD) in 2009 and create demands for 2 million tons steel products and 12 million tons cements.
> 
> From the monthly growth investments in the basic railway constructions, the growth speed had been fast YOY increased by 100% for successive 8 months since July 2008, even exceeding 200% in February 2009. it is predicted that the investments in the railway infrastructure construction will be YOY up by about 80%. In next few years, the sub-sectors of Chinese railway construction industry will also keep growing.
> 
> Chinese passenger turnover volumes, cargo transportation volumes, the converted volumes and the transportation density all stand the first place in the world and finishes one fourth converted turnover volumes of the worlds’ railways through 6% of the world’s railway operation mileages.
> 
> The domestic and international enterprises related to the railway fixed infrastructure construction industry, the railway equipment manufacture industry and the railway transport industry will be benefited from Chinese railway construction.
> 
> In all, there are promising investment perspectives for the railway transport industry. Although it takes a long period to invest in the railway transports, the whole return is high with low ventures, increasing investment opportunities for the railway construction industry and the equipment manufacture.
> 
> The statistics in this report are from the authoritative institutions, such as the statistical departments and the industry associations. Meanwhile, the research center made profound investigations by interviewing the professionals and obtained abundant first-hand information. It is of high reference values to master the present situation and development trends of Chinese railway transport industry and discover the investment opportunities in Chinese railway transport industry and its related industries.
> 
> More following information can be obtained in this report:
> - Present Development Situation of Chinese Railway Transport Industry
> - Value Chains of Chinese Railway Transport Industry
> - Investment Opportunities in Chinese Railway Construction Industry
> - Influences of International Financial Crisis on Chinese Railway Transport Industry
> - Demands of Chinese Railway Equipments, 2009-2010
> - Construction Machinery Demands from Chinese Railway Construction Industry "


I thought China was planing to spend 300 billion dolars but apprently I was wrong plan is investing *more than 700 billion $*.


----------



## Railfan




----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of Tianjin-Baoding Railway started today*

*Construction work of Tianjin-Baoding Railway started today*

March 21, 2010

Length: 158 km
Max. speed: 250 km/h
Investment: CN¥24 billion
Open in 2013


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## yaohua2000

*Construction work of Zhangjiakou-Tangshan Railway started*

*Construction work of Zhangjiakou-Tangshan Railway started*

Length: 525 km
Investment: CN¥40.001 billion
Freight capacity: 200 million tons per year
Passenger capacity: 10 trains daily from each direction
Open in 2014


----------



## yaohua2000

*Test run on Chengdu-Dujiangyan Railway*




























*Chengdu-Dujiangyan Railway*
* Length: 65.5 km
* Max. speed: 200 km/h
* Investment: ¥13.3 billion
* Construction started: 2008-11-10
* Construction completed: 2010-01-26
* Expected to be put into service in May 2010


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of Chengdu-Chongqing PDL started today*

*Construction work of Chengdu-Chongqing PDL started today*

March 22, 2010

Chengdu-Chongqing Passenger Dedicated Railway
* Length: 308 km (66% on bridges or in tunnels)
* 12 stations
* Maximum speed: 350 km/h
* Total investment: CN¥43 billion
* Expected to open in 2014


----------



## GreenPeas

*High-speed rail to link Chengdu and Chongqing*

A high-speed railway linking Chengdu and Chongqing will be built in the first half of 2010, local authorities in Chongqing announced Thursday, China News Service's website reported.

"Once the railway opens, it will take only 56 minutes to travel by train between the two cities," said Wen Tianping, spokesman of Chongqing municipality government, at a news conference.

According to Wen, the 305-kilometer-long high speed railway is a passenger dedicated line and there will be ten stations along the whole route. The project is expected to be finished within 4 to 5 years.

Wen said the railway will be co-invested by the Ministry of Railway, Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality. Another local newspaper Chongqing Economic Times also reported Thursday the estimated investment is 39.89 billion yuan ($5.85 billion).

The maximum designed speed of the railway is 350km/h, the top standard in China's high speed railway network. Currently, only the Beijing-Tianjin and Wuhan-Guangzhou high speed rails are capable of handling 350km/h trains. The Zhengzhou-Xi'an line could also reach such a high speed and is expected to open soon.

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, and Chongqing municipality are both major cities in China's southwest and the planned high speed railway linking them is expected to boost the economic development of the region.

Currently, it takes about 2 hours to travel between the two cities using the fasted train in operation.

China has an ambitious plan to develop its high speed railway network. The authorities said in 2009 that there will be 42 high speed railway lines in China by 2012. Eight high speed lines have been put into operation with the total mileage of 2,830 kilometers, the longest in the world.


----------



## GreenPeas

*Beijing-Shenyang high-speed rail to start construction in Jul*

Mar. 23, 2010 (China Knowledge) - China’s high-speed railway line connecting Beijing and Shenyang, the capital of Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, may start construction in July, according to sources.

The Beijing-Shenyang Railway will be the second high-speed railway connecting northeastern China and northern China. Trains on the high-speed railway will travel at speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour, shortening the trip between Beijing and Shenyang from nearly 4 hours to 2.5 hours.

The largest transportation infrastructure project in northeastern China, the Harbin-Dalian high-speed passenger railway project, will start operation in 2011. The project began construction in August 2007. The railway is expected to shorten the trip between Shenyang and Dalian from 3 hours to 1 hour.

The high-speed railway between Beijing and Shanghai will start operation this year, a year ahead of schedule, China Knowledge reported earlier. It will shorten the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai from 10 hours to 4 hours.


----------



## GreenPeas

*China gathers speed in railway projects*

FINANCIAL TIMES

by Jamil Anderlini

For decades the high-speed railway sector has been dominated by a handful of companies in Europe, Japan and North America that have mostly focused on their own regional markets. But now, just as the industry witnesses a proliferation of high-speed rail projects across the globe, the rapid rise of Chinese state-owned rail producers is posing a serious threat to the dominance of companies such as Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom, Canada’s Bombardier and Japan’s Kawasaki.

“Chinese companies are changing the landscape of the global railway market because of the dimensions of their home market and because they are becoming involved in international tenders, which is new,” says Dominique Pouliquen, Asia-Pacific managing director for Alstom. While Chinese companies are new to the global stage and lag their European rivals in terms of quality and technology, they have some significant advantages.

“Price is their number one competitive advantage and they are very well organised, with financing support from Chinese state-owned banks,” Pouliquen says. “They offer a global package which is usually combining technical solutions with financing so it is very easy for governments to make a decision to use their products.”

The Chinese Ministry of Railways, which directly owns many of the country’s rail companies, co-ordinates tenders so they do not bid against each other. It also encourages foreign companies to join Chinese consortiums by holding out the prospect of greater access to the enormous Chinese market.

Analysts say Chinese companies are already very active in bidding for projects in the Middle East and Latin America. They are also targeting projects in Australia and the US and have already made significant inroads in their own region, with contracts in Thailand and Hong Kong.

The rise of a Chinese rail industry with global aspirations has happened virtually overnight. Iain Carmichael, managing director of consultants Lloyd’s Register Rail (Asia), says that as recently as three years ago Chinese companies did not have the know-how for many parts of their own rail systems, such as signalling and high-speed technology.

“But as the Chinese gained the know-how, the relationship changed, so now the Chinese have the upper hand and the Europeans have to work co-operatively if they want to compete.” The main constraint on Chinese exports of rolling stock is capacity, as Chinese producers try to keep up with orders at home in what is now the largest market in the world. “Some big manufacturers are tripling their output this year and we’re seeing a vast expansion of metro systems as well as high speed rail,” Carmichael says.

China’s market for rail equipment, including trains, components and equipment such as signalling systems, is expected to quintuple from an average of $10bn a year between 2004 and 2008 to more than $50bn between 2009 and 2013, according to McKinsey. This year, China is expected to account for more than half of the total global expenditure on rail equipment. The government plans to build at least 30,000km of new railway, most of it high speed, over the next five years and China is expected soon to overtake Russia to have the second-largest rail infrastructure in the world after the US.


----------



## hkhui

From Financial Times


> China Railway wins $4.8bn Indonesia deal
> By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing and Anthony Deutsch in Jakarta
> Published: March 25 2010 19:37 | Last updated: March 25 2010 19:37
> 
> China Railway Group has won a $4.8bn contract to build and operate an Indonesian coal railway, the latest in a string of offshore contracts for China’s state-controlled rail companies.
> 
> They have been winning rail projects across the world, including in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and Australia. Chinese companies have also been snapping up global coal assets for the country’s power stations.
> 
> The deal is also further evidence that the once-frosty ties between East Asia’s two largest nations are now rapidly warming. It comes just weeks before Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, is scheduled to make his first visit to Indonesia.
> 
> China Railway, listed in both Hong Kong and Shanghai but majority owned by the state, said on Thursday it won the 24-year contract to design, build and manage the railway in South Sumatra for Indonesia’s Bukit Asam Transpacific Railway Corporation.
> 
> China Railway owns 10 per cent of Bukit Asam Transpacific Railway. Privately-owned Transpacific Group owns 80 per cent and Indonesian coal mining giant Bukit Asam owns the rest.
> 
> Beijing has made the transfer of sophisticated technology a prerequisite for international rail companies trying to enter the huge Chinese market and in the process, Chinese companies have rapidly become technologically competitive while offering much lower prices than their global rivals.
> 
> State-owned Chinese financial institutions usually offer favourable financing terms for projects such as the coal transport line in South Sumatra, making Chinese bids even more attractive.
> 
> China Railway announced on Monday a “strategic co-operation” agreement with state-owned Agricultural Bank of China to fund the railway. The bank will provide up to Rmb110bn ($16bn, €12bn, £11bn) in financing over the next three years to support China Railway projects, including its overseas contracts and projects related to exploiting natural resources.
> 
> Bukit Asam said it and its partners were in talks with four Chinese lenders to finance 70 per cent of the railway and the rest will be financed internally.
> 
> In spite of a history of turbulent bilateral relations, Chinese investment in Indonesia has in recent years significantly outstripped traditional sources such as the US.
> 
> Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter of thermal coal. Last year 15 per cent of its coal exports went to China.


----------



## hkhui

All articles from scmp.com


> High-speed rail spells doom for Xian air link
> Reuters in Beijing
> 4:44pm, Mar 26, 2010
> 
> A new high-speed rail link between two mainland cities has cut travel times so dramatically that all competing air services on the route have been suspended, state media said.
> The suspension of flights between the gritty industrial city of Zhengzhou and Xian, home of the Terracotta Warriors, came just 48 days after the express railway began operations, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday.
> The 505km railway, on which trains run at a top speed of 350 km/h, has cut the travel time between the two cities from more than six hours to less than two, the report said. By contrast, flying takes just over an hour. Xian’s airport is also located at least an hour away by road from downtown.
> 
> Before the railway opened, Joy Air, one of the domestic airlines flying the route, managed to sell an average of more than 60 per cent of seats for the route, Xinhua said.
> 
> Zhengzhou airport confirmed that all flights to and from Xian had now stopped, the report added.
> 
> Mainland is spending billions of dollars on a network of high-speed railways, including one from Beijing to the country’s financial capital Shanghai, posing a challenge to airlines which had profited from mainland’s vast size and slow roads and trains.
> 
> By 2012, the country would have more than 13,000 km of high-speed railway, Xinhua said.
> 
> “By then, 60 per cent of China’s domestic air market will be affected by the high-speed railways,” Liu Chaoyong, general manager of China Eastern Airlines (SEHK: 0670), was quoted as saying.
> 
> China Eastern last year agreed to sell 35 per cent of Joy Air, in which it held 40 per cent, to state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China.





> Costs and political sensitivities hit hopes of a pan-Asia rail link
> Toh Han Shih in Beijing
> Mar 22, 2010
> 
> 
> Prospective Malaysian and Thai partners in a Chinese-built high-speed rail network linking the mainland with Southeast Asia say prohibitive costs and political sensitivities could delay the plan for a decade.
> "High-speed trains may happen in Malaysia in 10 to 15 years, but not in two to three years. The main problem is high-speed rail is too expensive as new rail lines need to be laid," said Afzar Zakariya, a senior manager at Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), the Malaysian state railway.
> 
> Zakariya was speaking on the sidelines of the China Modern Rail Summit in Beijing last week.
> 
> At an earlier railway conference in Beijing, a senior Thai railway official said that Chinese companies had been trying to persuade the Thai government to adopt high-speed railways supplied by China, but he was advising against the plan.
> 
> High-speed rail links were too expensive for Thailand, given the state of its economy, the official said, adding that political sensitivities over the location of rail links from southern China through Southeast Asian nations such as Myanmar and Vietnam, would require careful negotiation.
> 
> Another KTM official, Ismail Said, said mainland firms may be invited to join upgrading projects on existing lines and train stations in Malaysia, but not high-speed systems.
> 
> China has proposed a high-speed link from Kunming, in Yunnan province, to Singapore via Thailand and Malaysia, and is involved in technical negotiations on this issue, it has been reported.
> 
> State-owned firms such as China Railway Group (SEHK: 0390) and CNR Tangshan Railway Vehicle were in negotiations with parties in Malaysia over various railway projects, including a high-speed network, CNR sales chief Wang Dianwu said
> 
> But Wang declined to comment on a Malaysian newspaper report that CNR was in talks to build a rail link between Georgetown on Penang island with Butterworth.
> 
> In November last year, around the time of President Hu Jintao's visit to Malaysia, the Malaysian government announced it would award a US$2.1 billion railway project in southern Malaysia to a Chinese consortium including China Railway Engineering Corporation, the state-owned parent of China Railway Group, a Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed railway construction firm.
> 
> But China Railway Group now appears to be facing possible delays in its planned Malaysian projects.
> 
> On March 9, when former Malaysian finance minister Daim Zainuddin met the group's president Li Changjin in Beijing, Li expressed to Daim his hope that both sides would implement their joint project as soon as possible, according to China Railway's website.
> 
> Daim replied that while the Malaysian government had signed a letter of intent on the project late last year, much work remained to be done by both sides.
> 
> With progress on the high-speed land network evidently stalled over price and political sensitivities, attention has returned to the idea of a 200km undersea high-speed rail link between Fujian province and Taiwan, which was first mooted earlier this month.
> 
> Zheng Jian, the chief planner at China's Ministry of Railways, confirmed that an undersea high-speed rail tunnel between Fujian and Taiwan was part of the government's long-term plans, and said authorities were conducting feasibility studies.
> 
> But the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's top China policy co-ordinating body responded coolly to the comments, dismissing the idea as a unilateral proposal from Beijing and saying it was improper for the two sides to talk about such a huge project given the political situation across the Taiwan Strait.
> 
> However, speaking in Beijing last week, Sung Hung-kang, the chief of the train operation and maintenance section of the Taiwan Railways Administration, said the feasibility of the idea should be considered.
> 
> "Now there is no war between China and Taiwan. Relations between Taiwan and China are improving. As cross-straits ties get better, a high-speed rail link can be considered," said Sung.
> 
> Last year, the Taiwan government scrapped a law forbidding the sourcing of railway equipment from the mainland. Also last year, a Taiwanese railway delegation visited mainland railway officials in Shanghai to discuss cross-strait partnerships in rail technology and Taiwanese purchase of mainland-made railway components, said Sung.
> 
> The Taiwan Railways Administration is conducting a tender for 296 electric train cars, and mainland companies were welcome to bid for it, he said.





> Private funds shun railway projects
> Toh Han Shih
> Mar 25, 2010
> 
> Private bankrolling of the mainland's ambitious railway construction plan has fallen far short of Beijing's wishes as investors shy away from the huge capital outlay required.
> The government originally wanted 40 per cent of railway project financing to come from the private sector, but it is actually below 5 per cent, according to Chen Jing, a sales manager at Beijing Huaxinjie Investment Consulting (BHI), a Chinese state-controlled consultancy.
> 
> "Railways have been far less successful than expressways in getting foreign and private investment," Chen said. "Railway investment is very high, and return on investment is a consideration for investors."
> 
> Private investors baulked at backing the 1,069km Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway, which costs 116.6 billion yuan (HK$132.55 billion). It started service in December last year and will connect with Hong Kong's future high-speed railway by 2016. The project tried to get both private and foreign investment but failed, Chen said.
> 
> In 2004, a mainland company was formed to obtain private financing for railway projects but was unsuccessful and was subsequently acquired by the Ministry of Railways, he added.
> 
> As a result, the country's massive rail spending is being financed by debt and investment from the central government, local governments and the ministry.
> 
> China plans to dislodge the United States as having the world's most extensive railway network by 2020, with 120,000km of track. Planned investment in railway construction is 823.5 billion yuan this year, and for the 12th Five-Year Plan from 2011 to 2015, the budget is three trillion yuan, according to BHI.
> 
> "To make money from railways has always been a challenge around the world," said Paul Ng, a partner at law firm Stephenson Harwood. "Few, if any, rail projects make money. With a ticket costing two yuan, the Beijing metro will never make money. How do you attract investors to a project like that?"
> 
> The global financial crisis also has stymied foreign funding of the railway projects. "The number of banks active in big-ticket funding has massively decreased in the last couple of years," said Graeme McLellan, a partner at Stephenson Harwood.
> 
> Premier Wen Jiabao recently stated a preference for more spending on social causes instead of transport infrastructure projects, said Wendy Liu, the head of China research at RBS. "This means railway spending growth will moderate on the margin. We are likely to see strong competition for funding in 2010 among various infrastructure projects and regular enterprise borrowers."





> Chinese infrastructure firms' deals top US$5b
> Toh Han Shih
> Mar 26, 2010
> 
> 
> Chinese infrastructure construction firms have recently won more than US$5 billion in contracts for Indonesia and Macau.
> China Railway Group (SEHK: 0390) won a US$4.8 billion contract to build and operate a rail coal freight network in Indonesia, equivalent to 13.96 per cent of the company's turnover in 2008, the state-owned firm announced on the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday.
> 
> 
> 
> On March 23 in Beijing, the Shanghai and Hong Kong-listed company signed the US$4.8 billion contract with Bhakta Hill Pan Pacific Railway Corporation, consisting of a US$1.3 billion project to build the railway within 1,460 days and a US$3.5 billion yuan contract to operate it for 20 years.
> 
> Given the long-term nature of the project, the contract would not have any significant effect on China Railway's results this year, the company said. "The contract's risks are mainly in financing, currency exchange rate and operations," China Railway said.
> 
> The financing risk arises from the project's dependence on Bhakta Hill's ability to raise funds, while the foreign exchange risk arises from the fact that 65 per cent of the consideration is in US dollars, China Railway said.
> 
> The operational risk is because project revenue depends on how much coal is transported, China Railway said. Recently, a subsidiary of China Communications Construction (SEHK: 1800) (CCC), a state-owned port construction firm, and China National Electric Equipment Corporation signed in Beijing a US$64.41 million contract to build a port for the Tanjung Awar-Awar electric power station in Java in Indonesia, CCC said.
> 
> The port will facilitate the supply of raw material to the power station. The construction period is 20 months.
> 
> CCC said last week that West Java governor Ahman Heryawan welcomed the company's increased participation in infrastructure projects in the Indonesia province. Heryawan said CCC had established itself as one of the leading engineering contractors in Indonesia.
> 
> The Indonesian government plans to see infrastructure spending of US$140 billion in the next five years to lift annual GDP growth to 7 per cent, including US$90 billion that it hoped would come from the private sector, Agence France-Presse quoted the Indonesian Investment Co-ordinating Board chairman Gita Wirjawan as saying.
> 
> Last week, CCC won a 1.58 billion pataca contract to expand a port in Cotai in Macau, CCC said. The Macau project involves a passenger terminal, with 16 berths for boats carrying 400 passengers, and three berths for boats carrying 1,200 passengers, as well as helicopter pads. The construction period is 1,088 days.


----------



## looktoeast

*China Exports Its First Train To India*

In an important development, China has announced that it has shipped its first subway/metro train to Mumbai. This is not just the first class A type train to be exported by China, but also the first train to be sent to India. The trains will be used by the Mumbai Metro Network which is scheduled to be launched later this year.

http://blog.looktoeast.com/2010/03/26/chinese-rail-manufacturers-change-locomotive-industry.aspx


----------



## GreenPeas

*Construction of high-speed rail begins in SW China
(Xinhua)*

GUIYANG - Construction of a high-speed passenger railway linking Changsha city of central China's Hunan province with Kunming city of the southwestern province Yunnan began Friday.

Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang attended the launch ceremony of the project and announced the start of construction in Guiyang, capital city of southwest China's Guizhou province.

The railway linking Kunming and Changsha, 1,167 km in length, is designed for trains traveling at 250 km per hour, and is part of the Shanghai-Kunming Passenger Railway.

Travel time between Kunming and Changsha is expected to be reduced to only four hours from the current 22.8 hours when the railway is completed.

When the project will be finished is not immediately known.

It is estimated the new high-speed railway would carry 60 million passengers from Changsha to Kunming each year when completed.

"The Changsha-Kunming railway will help improve transport between central and southwest China, and it will also beef up connections between the southwest with the prosperous east coast," said Zhang.

The Shanghai-Kunming Passenger Railway would promote industrialization and urbanization of China and the coordinated development between central and western China, Zhang said.

Zhang stressed quality and safety in the railway's construction as many tunnels and bridges would need to be built in the hilly region between Changsha and Kunming.


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## foxmulder

All interesting news. Especially India export and pan-Asia rail link ones. Tnx


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## highway35

As usual, this is a 350 kmh class high-speed rail, not 250 km. This is also implied by the 4-hour, 1167-km journey time.



GreenPeas said:


> *Construction of high-speed rail begins in SW China
> (Xinhua)*
> 
> The railway linking Kunming and Changsha, 1,167 km in length, is designed for trains traveling at 250 km per hour, and is part of the Shanghai-Kunming Passenger Railway.
> 
> Travel time between Kunming and Changsha is expected to be reduced to only four hours from the current 22.8 hours when the railway is completed.


----------



## Gaeus

I wonder how much does all these construction project costs? I'm pretty sure the total expenses exceeds more than US 300 billion dollars in conservative estimate. The question is how will the Chinese Government pay for this project? How many millions of people are working? And what will it truly benefit once all these projects are finished? Can China provide or develop their own "Bullet" train in the next 5 - 10 years? And the last question is what will be the annual maintenance costs will be? It must really expensive.

Oh, there is also that Maglev project.


----------



## Restless

Here are some of the ADB reports on 2 projects in China. The "Reports and Recommendations" are where you can find the costs/benefits and the financial analysis

Xian-Zhengzhou (455km)
http://www.adb.org/Projects/project.asp?id=37487

Lanzhou-Chongqing (820km)
http://www.adb.org/Projects/project.asp?id=35354

Of course, how accurate are these projections and are they representative of the others?


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## joseph1951

Gaeus said:


> I wonder how much does all these construction project costs? I'm pretty sure the total expenses exceeds more than US 300 billion dollars in conservative estimate. The question is how will the Chinese Government pay for this project? How many millions of people are working? And what will it truly benefit once all these projects are finished? Can China provide or develop their own "Bullet" train in the next 5 - 10 years? And the last question is what will be the annual maintenance costs will be? It must really expensive.
> 
> Oh, there is also that Maglev project.


Well, Washington will spend just 8 billion dollars in H.S. Rail and over $300 billions in purchasing the new fighters. 

It is a question of priorities..


----------



## Nozumi 300

Does anyone know what train is in this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzkSmP2Gi8g
It looks like a mix between the CRH train sets with a modification of the front. Any info would be greatly appreciated


----------



## yaohua2000

Nozumi 300 said:


> Does anyone know what train is in this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzkSmP2Gi8g
> It looks like a mix between the CRH train sets with a modification of the front. Any info would be greatly appreciated


Only in Chinese and Japanese:

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/長白山號電動車組
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/長白山号

It's Changbaishan introduced in 2004/2005 before CRH. Maximum operating speed at 180 km/h. Only two sets were produced.


----------



## highway35

What do you mean by China's own bullet train?

China imported the (quasi) bullet trains of 200 km h class from Siemens, Kawasaki, Bombardier and Alstom for its sixth nation-wide railway speed upgrade in 2007. It jointly developed CRH2 and CRH3 with Japan and Siemens by modifying and upgrading the respective imported trains for the 300 - 350 km h lines. It is now developing the 350-380 km h class bullet trains on its own and to be delivered next year. 



Gaeus said:


> I wonder how much does all these construction project costs? I'm pretty sure the total expenses exceeds more than US 300 billion dollars in conservative estimate. The question is how will the Chinese Government pay for this project? How many millions of people are working? And what will it truly benefit once all these projects are finished? Can China provide or develop their own "Bullet" train in the next 5 - 10 years? And the last question is what will be the annual maintenance costs will be? It must really expensive.
> 
> Oh, there is also that Maglev project.


----------



## foxmulder

yaohua2000 said:


> Only in Chinese and Japanese:
> 
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/長白山號電動車組
> http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/長白山号
> 
> It's Changbaishan introduced in 2004/2005 before CRH. Maximum operating speed at 180 km/h. Only two sets were produced.


This is not "China Star" right?


----------



## yaohua2000

foxmulder said:


> This is not "China Star" right?


No, it isn’t.


----------



## makita09

Gaeus said:


> I wonder how much does all these construction project costs? I'm pretty sure the total expenses exceeds more than US 300 billion dollars in conservative estimate. The question is how will the Chinese Government pay for this project? How many millions of people are working? And what will it truly benefit once all these projects are finished? Can China provide or develop their own "Bullet" train in the next 5 - 10 years? And the last question is what will be the annual maintenance costs will be? It must really expensive.
> 
> Oh, there is also that Maglev project.


The most important thing to remember about China and the Chinese over the last 20 years, is that though may not have earned as much as the west per capita, they didn't actually spend it all.

Though $300bn may be a conservative estimate, it is dwindled in size by how much the Chinese government has in savings. It is invested mostly in dollars and mostly in the USA so it is not completely liquid as withdrawal affects the exchange rate with the dollar etc etc. Nonetheless it means that the Chinese can invest without being in debt overall, allowing a freehand to invest in infrastructure. Infrastructure investment has been a much larger factor in GDP growth over the last 20-30 years in China than in western countries (aided by not having to justify projects to the bank managers to bank roll it - the party has more power to tell the banks what to do).


----------



## SimFox

GreenPeas said:


> It is estimated the new high-speed railway would carry 60 million passengers from Changsha to Kunming each year when completed.


How exactly do they come up with those numbers?
Thre has been news of "disappointing" performance of Beijing-Tianjin line that in a first year of operation had transported "only" 18 million passengers instead of expected 38 million, yet if you try to brake down those numbers it is virtually impossible to hit the target.
Just think of it 30 000 000 passengers each way (lets assume for simplicity that number of travelers will be equal in each direction) a year means 821292 passengers a day. Assuming 16 car long CRH style train (carrying about1200 passengers) this means 68,5 departures a day, or about every 20 minutes around the clock. Isn't it a bit absurd? What is the point to set target that most probably shall fail? Do those exaggerated numbers have to do with receiving founding? Or am I missing something?


----------



## highway35

Couple of comments:

1. The projected numbers should not be taken with a high confidence. The truth is in a growing market any forecast numbers are bound to be unreliable. But you need a crude number to start with.

2. Currently Beijing-Tianjin line has average daily passengers of 50,000. You're right they need to hit over 80,000 to meet with the forecast number.

3. You have to consider the 18 million is just the first year, when the metro lines to Beijing South Railway Station and Tianjin Railway Station had not been completed. The Beijing South Railway Station is in the southern part of the city and is a bit far away from the major commercial districts (in the north) and the more populous and wealthier part of the city. So you need good intra-city transit network. The Line 4 to Beijing South Railway Station had become operational late last year. Line 14, which will connect CBD to the station, is still under construction and won't be completed in a few years.

4. Your calculation of average daily departures of 68 is about right. The current daily departures are between 58 - 60+, with more departures during weekends and holidays. The discrepancy of passengers numbers is because right now Beijing-Tianjin is using 8-car CRH.

5. For comparison purpose, China's other HSRs have been more than met their forecast passenger numbers: Taiyuan - Shijiazhuang - Beijing, Heifei-Nanjing, Hefei-Wuhan, and the coastal line: Ningbo - Taizhou - Wenzhou - Fuzhou. Other comparisons: Taiwan's Taipei - Kaosiung and Korea's KTX Seoul - Busan all had ridership of around 100,000 after a few years, although they all had a disappointing start. Beijing and Tianjin are all over 10 million population mega cities.

6. You need a little bit more patience: China is growing and the passenger volume is only going to grow. The HSR is built for 50 - 100 years.




SimFox said:


> How exactly do they come up with those numbers?
> Thre has been news of "disappointing" performance of Beijing-Tianjin line that in a first year of operation had transported "only" 18 million passengers instead of expected 38 million, yet if you try to brake down those numbers it is virtually impossible to hit the target.
> Just think of it 30 000 000 passengers each way (lets assume for simplicity that number of travelers will be equal in each direction) a year means 821292 passengers a day. Assuming 16 car long CRH style train (carrying about1200 passengers) this means 68,5 departures a day, or about every 20 minutes around the clock. Isn't it a bit absurd? What is the point to set target that most probably shall fail? Do those exaggerated numbers have to do with receiving founding? Or am I missing something?


----------



## foxmulder

makita09 said:


> The most important thing to remember about China and the Chinese over the last 20 years, is that though may not have earned as much as the west per capita, they didn't actually spend it all.
> 
> Though $300bn may be a conservative estimate, it is dwindled in size by how much the Chinese government has in savings. It is invested mostly in dollars and mostly in the USA so it is not completely liquid as withdrawal affects the exchange rate with the dollar etc etc. Nonetheless it means that the Chinese can invest without being in debt overall, allowing a freehand to invest in infrastructure. Infrastructure investment has been a much larger factor in GDP growth over the last 20-30 years in China than in western countries (aided by not having to justify projects to the bank managers to bank roll it - the party has more power to tell the banks what to do).


Just on previous page, I send an article saying China will spend more than 700 billion dollar  Have a look...


----------



## Peloso

So how is the Beijing-Shanghai HSR construction progressing? Anyone got news? Or, even better, photos? :banana2:


----------



## Scion

^^ Here you go

First, a very accurate to scale map of the route










Sorry the construction pics are all over the place, they are from late last year to early this year.


----------



## hkhui

Any idea when in 2011 it will be finished? I hope it is finished just before the summer holiday, so I can use it! :soon: Hopefully, I can take the train from Shenzhen-Shanghai-Beijing next year!


----------



## Peloso

Scion said:


> ^^ Here you go


Fastest answer ever, thanks Scion! Nice photos (careful to the dimensions of the fourth one, anyway).
I love those megamachines... I also love the elevated railway construction method, I believe it's so much better for the environmental balance...
Like Hkhui said, is there a projected completion date yet? They mentioned 2012, right?


----------



## foxmulder

I want buy one of those machines


----------



## K_

Peloso said:


> I love those megamachines... I also love the elevated railway construction method, I believe it's so much better for the environmental balance...


Are they actually building the entire line elevated like this?


----------



## hkhui

Peloso said:


> Fastest answer ever, thanks Scion! Nice photos (careful to the dimensions of the fourth one, anyway).
> I love those megamachines... I also love the elevated railway construction method, I believe it's so much better for the environmental balance...
> Like Hkhui said, is there a projected completion date yet? They mentioned 2012, right?


Actually, the expected completion date has been pushed earlier by one year to 2011, according to this source:

http://sh.sina.com.cn/news/s/2009-03-07/0953108130.html. This is the source from which wikipedia got the 2011 date. wikipedia source


----------



## hkhui

> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 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 about Chinese railways from ft.com


----------



## Nozumi 300

hkhui said:


> Some news about Chinese railways from ft.com


Sounds like someone is whining about how the Chinese are beating them at their own game :lol:


----------



## UD2

^^ pictures above

Why is the Hydro Ministry building railways?


----------



## Peloso

K_ said:


> Are they actually building the entire line elevated like this?


Well I don't know for sure, judging from all the photos I've seen (also of the Wuhan-Guangzhou line) I'd say if not all, then long stretches of it are elevated, but there are many wiser forumers who could answer this better than me.


hkhui said:


> Actually, the expected completion date has been pushed earlier by one year to 2011, according to this source


That'd be great! :cheers:


----------



## foxmulder

Nozumi 300 said:


> Sounds like someone is whining about how the Chinese are beating them at their own game :lol:


Definitely he is a cry baby. China even didn't start to sell the high speed rolling stock yet. What China is offering the tract building where they are probably better than Japan right now. They are teaming up with Siemens for the train sets and signaling. I want to see this guy when China really starts to sell the good stuff


----------



## binhai

Peloso said:


> Well I don't know for sure, judging from all the photos I've seen (also of the Wuhan-Guangzhou line) I'd say if not all, then long stretches of it are elevated, but there are many wiser forumers who could answer this better than me.


Yes, almost all of the line will be elevated :cheers:


----------



## hkhui

Check out this great interactive graphics to see the map of present and future railway network in China!

Last updated 16 March


----------



## maldini

foxmulder said:


> Definitely he is a cry baby. China even didn't start to sell the high speed rolling stock yet. What China is offering the tract building where they are probably better than Japan right now. They are teaming up with Siemens for the train sets and signaling. I want to see this guy when China really starts to sell the good stuff


China has kept Alstom out of China's railway. How come the Alstom guy is complaining China of competing using their technology instead of Siemens?
How come the JR guy is not suing China if he thinks China is using their technology. Sounds like some jealousy here, because of China's own high-speed technology is better than Japan's.


----------



## makita09

^^ I doubt we could say it is undeniably better, but commercially attractive in worldwide bids is a different kettle of fish.


----------



## UD2

Peloso said:


> Well I don't know for sure, judging from all the photos I've seen (also of the Wuhan-Guangzhou line) I'd say if not all, then long stretches of it are elevated, but there are many wiser forumers who could answer this better than me.That'd be great! :cheers:


Line is elevated in most parts to reduce intrusion on local farming communities and to minimize the reduction in avaliable farming space as irrigation can still take place under the tracks. It also allow free passage under the tracks as to reduce the dividing affect that the railway may have on local communities.

Elevated tracks also help to reduce noise pollution onto nearby residences. 

It also reduces a safety concern as elevated tracks are much more difficult to access by local unkonwing people and wildlife.



now someone please answer my question per photos posted in previous pages. Why is the hydro department building railways?


----------



## Peloso

UD2 said:


> It also reduces a safety concern as elevated tracks are much more difficult to access by local unkonwing people and wildlife.


Not only that. To prevent access by wildlife a fence would suffice, with elevated track, though, migrations are allowed as well. In Europe I know of tracks at ground level where they left "holes" every X kilometers for the wildlife to cross, but that solves the problem only in part. I guess elevated tracks give added security against terrorism too.


UD2 said:


> now someone please answer my question per photos posted in previous pages. Why is the hydro department building railways?


Could it be the machine was simply "borrowed"?


----------



## wolf839




----------



## ANR

Scion said:


> ^^ Here you go


Thanks for posting the pictures of the Shanghai - Beijing HSR construction.

Any pictures available of the new stations along the line that are being built, especially the Shanghai station near the airport?


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

http://english.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20100409/103013.shtml







































no comment


----------



## Scion

ANR said:


> Any pictures available of the new stations along the line that are being built, especially the Shanghai station near the airport?


The Shanghai Station is here in the Hongqiao traffic hub thread. Can't (yet) find pics on other stations along the line.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=53835657&postcount=206


----------



## hkhui

Is there any hope for more maglev use in China, except the one from Shanghai-Hangzhou? Since the maglevs cannot be used on conventional tracks, I find it hard to see where else it can be used. Perhaps some intercity routes, but really it is the longer routes the maglev have the best utility.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

UD2 said:


> ^^ pictures above
> 
> Why is the Hydro Ministry building railways?


They probably have the equipment and expertise to build heavy concrete structures like these, think of dams and water channels...

*(to original poster): it's probably better not to post such large bandwidth clogging pictures like these, or find a smaller equivalent one.


----------



## TsLeng

The picture above seems to be missing some electrical lines for the EMU:lol:

:banana:

The ticket prices are really good if its the similar to buses! Can't believe there is so little difference between first class and second class too!


----------



## AlexisMD

15$ for first class is very good


----------



## highway35

Speed is low; the highest average travel speed is only 187 kmh. I thought this line is 250 kmh class.


----------



## G5man

highway35 said:


> Speed is low; the highest average travel speed is only 187 kmh. I thought this line is 250 kmh class.


For an HSL, that is slow, but as I like to say, at least it is better than North America's freight based rail system.


----------



## hkhui

This is from ft.com


> China's high-speed-rail wizards have the answer
> By Tyler Brule
> 
> Published: April 20 2010 03:00 | Last updated: April 20 2010 03:00
> 
> When China's rail authorities recently announced plans to build a high-speed rail link connecting Beijing with London I had to pause and wonder who would be booking passage on this Eurasian super express?
> 
> Would it be a shuttle for Chinese seamstresses heading off to work in Italian sweatshops? Perhaps it might position itself as a pimped up version of the Orient Express catering to Japan's ever-greying tourism market? Or maybe it would turn a profit by selling seats exclusively to train-spotters.
> 
> Having spent the better part of the past weekend in Hong Kong trying to figure out how I am going to get 12 colleagues back to London, I reckon the rail wizards in the People's Republic are on to a winner if they can persuade other nations along the proposed line to play ball and they make the journey comfortable enough.
> 
> Rather than dreaming up elaborate routings (Hong-Kong-Auckland-Santiago-São Paulo-London was one option on the table), checking the price of chartering a jet fit for 12 or trying to predict the direction the winds might blow in, it would have been easier to get everyone to a rail platform in Beijing, pack some lunchboxes and send them on their way. Goodness knows, they all would have been back at their desks by now.
> 
> Aside from revealing the glaringly obvious - that the world cannot function on fibre-optic cables, huge servers and social network sites alone, and is rather helpless when there is not a fully fuelled Airbus or Boeing close at hand - it also demonstrated that for myriad reasons there is an urgent need to invest in alternative global transport links for days/weeks/ months when volcanic ash, cyber-terrorism and other calamities can bring commerce and continents to a standstill.
> 
> On a more practical front, all those companies that decided to close their company travel office a few years ago and are now worried that their foot soldiers might be basking under the blue skies of Bali might want to think about either bringing back a group travel desk or retaining a top-notch travel agency to deal with a logistical headache as big as this one.
> 
> I might have the odd issue with some of Beijing's behaviour, but if China wants to build a high-speed rail link that could whisk thousands of people back and forth across the frontier-lands of Europe and Asia every day then I will be the first to buy a rail-pass.
> 
> Indeed, there is something quite romantic about a 21st-century whistle-stop business trip calling at Vienna, Kiev, Almaty, Urumqi and Beijing rather than making countless, stressful point-to-point journeys over the course of the year.
> 
> Other countries with a vested interest in the rail sector (Canada, Germany, France and Japan) might want to think about filling in other gaps around the globe. Cape Town to Copenhagen and Buenos Aires to Montreal are also up for grabs.


----------



## foxmulder

Was Lhasa railway affected by the last earthquake? I think it was relatively close.


----------



## urbanfan89

^^ Nope. Nowhere near the earthquake: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=32.990236,97.009277&spn=8.555612,16.721191&z=7


----------



## conc.man

New generation CRH380 is coming! It's a real one showed at Railway Pavilion Shanghai Expo.

@ourail.com


----------



## staff

Awesome！


----------



## toddhubert

ugly


----------



## conc.man




----------



## Scion

Lovely!!


----------



## foxmulder

This is nice... Any specs yet?


----------



## derekf1974

Very nice. 380 kmph.


----------



## Nozumi 300

Very good looking ^.^b
I have to say that it has a blend of similarities between the E5 and 400 series. The Japanese won't be happy about this :lol:


----------



## maldini

Looks very stylish.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

foxmulder said:


> This is nice... Any specs yet?


Well, looking at the pictures (especially of the underside), the driving car is a trailer (i.e. not motored), based on the axle mounted disc brakes, supplementing the wheel mounted discs. Also, the bogie looks alot like the Siemens SF500 type- notice the twin parallel dampers. However, you can't be 100% sure from this angle .

SF500 type on Velaro E(for comparison purposes):
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Velaro_E_bogie.jpg&filetimestamp=20070908204842


----------



## makita09

I like it! I do enjoy the incredibly long noses.


----------



## Railfan

Nice desing!


----------



## foxmulder

k.k.jetcar said:


> Well, looking at the pictures (especially of the underside), the driving car is a trailer (i.e. not motored), based on the axle mounted disc brakes, supplementing the wheel mounted discs. Also, the bogie looks alot like the Siemens SF500 type- notice the twin parallel dampers. However, you can't be 100% sure from this angle .
> 
> SF500 type on Velaro E(for comparison purposes):
> http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Velaro_E_bogie.jpg&filetimestamp=20070908204842


Yeah.. I didn't notice that. Twin parallel dampers really look like Siemens ones. 

It is probably too early but after this train enter service in China, we can expect China bidding international projects with total package- building the track, rolling stocks and financing. 

Can this train be the one with 380km/h which has been mentioned before?


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> Can this train be the one with 380km/h which has been mentioned before?


Yes, CRH380, meaning the top speed of 380 km/hr, meaning revenue speed will be something like 340 km/hr.

So what is this thing, a Frankenstein of Shinkansen body coupled with Velaro underbody? The best of both world? Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. 

There is a good reason why Japan imposed the revenue speed restriction of 320 km/hr with all Shinkansen models; any higher and the wear and tear on track is too great, and train must be lightened to service at 360 km/hr.

You can witness this extensive weight reduction effort on true 360 km/hr class train models AGV and HEMU-400x, which isn't visible on this Chinese model.


----------



## foxmulder

HyperMiler said:


> Yes, CRH380, meaning the top speed of 380 km/hr, meaning revenue speed will be something like 340 km/hr.
> 
> So what is this thing, a Frankenstein of Shinkansen body coupled with Velaro underbody? The best of both world? Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that.
> 
> There is a good reason why Japan imposed the revenue speed restriction of 320 km/hr with all Shinkansen models; any higher and the wear and tear on track is too great, and train must be lightened to service at 360 km/hr.
> 
> You can witness this extensive weight reduction effort on true 360 km/hr class train models AGV and HEMU-400x, which isn't visible on this Chinese model.


This has been discussed before. Bottom line: Japan and China is not the same. China has better tracks and trains are built according to 350km/h speed. 

Also, the train that has been talked has 380km/h speed. There is no need for discrimination of top speed and revenue speed. I am not sure whether that train is this one but as you wrote name may be the clue.


----------



## makita09

^^ seconded.


----------



## Ariel74

my comments are embedded, in red.



HyperMiler said:


> Yes, CRH380, meaning the top speed of 380 km/hr, meaning revenue speed will be something like 340 km/hr.
> 
> *you are mixing categories. revenue speed is contrasted not with "top speed", but with speed in experiments, and there are at least three "revenue" speeds to be distinguished: top commercial speed, top sustained commercial speed, and average speed for a specific commercial line. The current idea is that CRH380 should have top commercial speed of 380km/h, but a top sustained commercial speed of around 350km/h (?). *
> 
> So what is this thing, a Frankenstein of Shinkansen body coupled with Velaro underbody? The best of both world? Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that.
> 
> *I think you are probably not the first person who came upon this insight. The chinese engineers, for example, aren't paid for nothing. So wait until this thing hits the rail, and it still won't be too late for your sarcasms.*
> 
> 
> There is a good reason why Japan imposed the revenue speed restriction of 320 km/hr with all Shinkansen models; any higher and the wear and tear on track is too great, and train must be lightened to service at 360 km/hr.
> 
> You can witness this extensive weight reduction effort on true 360 km/hr class train models AGV and HEMU-400x, which isn't visible on this Chinese model.
> 
> *there is great danger in partial knowledge. The Velaro trains for Spain are way heavier than shinkansen models, yet they are certified to run at 350km/h. You apparently have no idea how different components of a train hang together.
> 
> And what kind of eyes do you have to "see" from these photos how heavy it is??? To give you an example: the CRH2 was developed based on the E2 series, yet its bogies were something like 1 ton heavier than their japanese counterparts (the chinese wanted to run CRH2 at a higher speed, and for that, they require more stability). Now do you "see" that CRH2 train-cars are significantly heavier than the E2 series??? *


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> trains are built according to 350km/h speed.


Siemens say no. Velaro CN(aka CRH3) they sold to China is rated at 300 km/h for revenue service. This compares to Velaro E rated at 350 km/h. Power is the same. The difference? Weight. Velaro E is lighter so it can run faster without destroying the track.

http://www.siemens.com/press/pool/de/materials/industry/imo/velaro_cn_en.pdf
http://www.siemens.com/industryjournal/pool/01-2010/velaro_en.pdf

This is the reason why JR Central's CEO(Central Shinkansen Line) recently blasted Chinese railway operators for operating their trains beyond manufacturer imposed revenue service speed limit.



> Also, the train that has been talked has 380km/h speed. There is no need for discrimination of top speed and revenue speed.


All the other guys advertise revenue service top speed, not the top speed that the train is actually capable of(At least 10% faster than the advertised revenue service top speed). CRH380's claimed 380 km/hr speed isn't a revenue service speed.


----------



## Ariel74

One thing that bothers me about this design is the fact that it retained the significant forward protrusion on the bottom of the lead-car. E2 and CRH2 had it, and many earlier Shinkansen models did too. It is extremely ugly to my eyes, and I bet it is not the best aerodynamic feature either. 

Both the newest Shinkansen models as well as the Velaro trains have trimmed this "beard", making the wrapping around the cars and bogies tighter and more stream-lined. The fact this beard remained on CRH380 is the most striking sign yet that the modification from CRH2 has been pretty modest.


----------



## HyperMiler

Ariel74 said:


> The chinese engineers, for example, aren't paid for nothing.


Well, almost nothing.



> The Velaro trains for Spain are way heavier than shinkansen models, yet they are certified to run at 350km/h.


Velaro CN is also much heavier than Velaro E and Siemens rated it 300 km/hr, yet Chinese disregarded this speed limit and is running those trains at 350 km/hr, just because they could(Not necessarily safe to do so).


----------



## makita09

This type of elongated nose is intended to reduce the effects of tunnel boom, so it may indeed not be the best aerodynamics for open running.


----------



## HyperMiler

Ariel74 said:


> One thing that bothers me about this design is the fact that it retained the significant forward protrusion on the bottom of the lead-car. E2 and CRH2 had it, and many earlier Shinkansen models did too. It is extremely ugly to my eyes, and I bet it is not the best aerodynamic feature either.
> 
> The fact this beard remained on CRH380 is the most striking sign yet that the modification from CRH2 has been pretty modest.


And CRH2 surely wasn't rated 380 km/hr, from which this CRH380 heavily burrows parts from.


----------



## Ariel74

HyperMiler said:


> Siemens say no. Velaro CN(aka CRH3) they sold to China is rated at 300 km/h for revenue service. This compares to Velaro E rated at 350 km/h. Power is the same. The difference? Weight. Velaro E is lighter so it can run faster without destroying the track.
> 
> http://www.siemens.com/press/pool/de/materials/industry/imo/velaro_cn_en.pdf
> http://www.siemens.com/industryjournal/pool/01-2010/velaro_en.pdf
> 
> This is the reason why JR Central's CEO(Central Shinkansen Line) recently blasted Chinese railway operators for operating their trains beyond manufacturer imposed revenue service speed limit.
> 
> 
> All the other guys advertise revenue service top speed, not the top speed that the train is actually capable of(At least 10% faster than the advertised revenue service top speed). CRH380's claimed 380 km/hr speed isn't a revenue service speed.


Give your jumpy logic a rest, will you? Velaro E is heavier than E2, but runs faster. 

JR Central's CEO's china-related remarks are certainly more motivated by sour-grape than anything else. As already pointed out, the CRH2 models commissioned to run at higher speeds are not copies of E2 series, but contained significant modifications. The chinese engineers knew more about what they are doing than you, most certainly.

And yes, the CRH-380 *is* supposed to have top speed of 380km/h and accordingly test speed of at least 420km/h. You may not want to believe it, but your antics don't change the facts, unfortunately. (or should I say, fortunately?)


----------



## Ariel74

HyperMiler said:


> Well, almost nothing.


apart from your mangled logic, this is the clearest sign yet that you belong to the sanitorium, and your presence here is merely wasting our time.


----------



## makita09

HyperMiler said:


> Velaro CN is also much heavier than Velaro E and Siemens rated it 300 km/hr, yet Chinese disregarded this speed limit and is running those trains at 350 km/hr, just because they could(Not necessarily safe to do so).


You are putting 2+2 together and coming up with disaster. From the same pdf document you posted



> The proven SF 500 bogies – which are rated for running speeds of up to 350 km/h – contribute to the exemplary lateral guidance of the train, maximizing stability for excellent running comfort.


I think you're reading too much into a press document. I certainly wouldn't take the 300km/h as the ultimate truth, considering there have been no complaints whatsoever from Siemens that I know of and all the other versions of this train are capable of this sort of speed. Basically with no supporting evidence you are scaremongering.


----------



## Ariel74

makita09 said:


> This type of elongated nose is intended to reduce the effects of tunnel boom, so it may indeed not be the best aerodynamics for open running.


I am not talking about the "nose". I am talking about the part just above the rail, below the "nose".


----------



## HyperMiler

Ariel74 said:


> Give your jumpy logic a rest, will you? Velaro E is heavier than E2, but runs faster.


Euro track is newer and presumed to be rated higher than Japanese track.



> The reason for JR Central's CEO's china-related remarks are certainly more motivated by sour-grape than anything else.


I don't think so.



> the CRH2 models commissioned to run at higher speed are not copies of E2 series, but contained significant modifications.


To boost the revenue service speed to 300 km/hr, that's about it.

E2 series is a fundamentally an old and obsolete model whose production was discontinued in Japan at the time it was transferred to China; Japanese gave it to Chinese because it was an old technology. No amount of upgrade will make it as good as latest Shinkansen models.



> And yes, the CRH-380 *is* supposed to have top speed of 380km/h and accordingly test speed of at least 420km/h.


Is CRH380 even running?


----------



## HyperMiler

makita09 said:


> You are putting 2+2 together and coming up with disaster.


Velaro E is 300 mm narrower(lower air resistance) and is lighter than Velaro CN. This is why Velaro E could safely run at 350 km/hr. Velaro CN can't.



makita09 said:


> there have been no complaints whatsoever from Siemens that I know of and all the other versions of this train are capable of this sort of speed.


Velaro RUS is rated at 300 km/hr max like Velaro CN.


----------



## Ariel74

well......do we have a full-moon tonight???



HyperMiler said:


> Euro track is newer and presumed to be rated higher than Japanese track.
> 
> *Exactly the same thing applies to the China/Europe and China/Japan comparison. Chinese tracks currently are the best in the world. But you have a selective hearing problem when it comes to arguments *
> 
> 
> I don't think so.
> 
> 
> To boost the revenue service speed to 300 km/hr, that's about it.
> 
> *And how did you come up with that number??? People with extensive test data have decided otherwise, so I think you are just making a buffoon of yourself. *
> 
> 
> 
> Is CRH380 even running?
> * Ditto. Haven't you read my advice to you above? wait until it hits the rails. But you have the cognitive capacity of a three year old and can't keep different issues separate: weren't we talking about which speed the "380" in the designation is referring to? What does that have to do with whether it is running??? *


----------



## Ariel74

I would like to invite those interested to read the exchanges I had with DoDo on a blog article he wrote a few months ago about Chinese HSR. DoDo exhibits to my mind the typical attitude of a westerner not _*wanting*_ to believe what is happening in China. While much is still not rosy in chinese HSR industry, it is absurd to ignore evidence and interpret evidence to suit your wishes.

In these exchanges I (under the same user name as here) examine how DoDo systematically misinterprets his sources to support conclusions that he was antecedently determined to believe: that the chinese simply took the German and Japanese trains and ordered them, _*by fiat*_ as it were, to run at a higher speed than permitted by their german and japanese producers.

That is of course categorically false. For people interested, they can find detailed discussions in my exchanges with DoDo on the modifications Chinese made to their German and Japanese prototypes, including reference to many chinese sources.

Roll to the bottom of the long page:

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2010/2/21/16648/0334


----------



## foxmulder

*In China CRH3 and CRH2C trains operate at 350km/h on Earth's most modern tracks*. This is the fact. Beyond this fact one can write whatever he wants but nothing will change.


----------



## HyperMiler

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/877fe50a-4114-11df-94c2-00144feabdc0.html



> _*Chief of Japanese rail operator attacks China over risks to safety
> *_
> By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo
> 
> Published: April 6 2010 03:00 | Last updated: April 6 2010 03:00
> 
> *The chairman of Central Japan Railway*, operator of Japan's oldest and busiest bullet train link, has denounced China's growing high-speed rail industry for "stealing" foreign technology and *compromising safety.*
> 
> ....
> 
> "The difference between China and Japan is that, in Japan, if one passenger is injured or killed the cost is prohibitively high," Yoshiyuki Kasai said. "It's very serious. But *China is a country where 10,000 passengers could die every year and no one would make a fuss."*
> 
> ....
> 
> Many trains on Chinese routes travel at up to 350kph, 25 per cent faster than Shinkansen trains in Japan, and have had no big accidents. But *Mr Kasai said they are much closer to 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."


So you have the word of Shinkansen Line CEO that Chinese are speeding their Shinkansen trains beyond their safe operating speed limit.


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> *In China CRH3 and CRH2C trains operate at 350km/h on Earth's most modern tracks*. This is the fact.


Chinese track is no more modern than German tracks. 

And Germans who supplied track design and rolling stock certified them for 300 km/hr max revenue service speed, but this is ignored by Chinese operators.


----------



## maldini

HyperMiler said:


> Why do you ask us? I thought you were the expert on CRH3, *enough to claim that manufacturer's official speed rating is false* and those trains could be sped up to 350 km without compromising safety thanks to the ingenuity of Chinese engineers making necessary modifications?


what an anti-Chinese racist you are? You behavior is beyond reasonable, and should be banned soon. What a loser you are?
China's new technology is causing a lot of jealousy from you, hahaha.


----------



## staff

Please ban this troll.


----------



## Ariel74

maldini said:


> what an anti-Chinese racist you are? You behavior is beyond reasonable, and should be banned soon. What a loser you are?
> China's new technology is causing a lot of jealousy from you, hahaha.


Leave him alone, he's on a point of no return, and will self-destruct in his own flame of hatred.

By the way it's now official that _*both*_ a rabid anti-chinese racist _*and*_ a chinese nationalist firmly convinced that I am an indian with a mission to defame china, both of them want me banned..  just goes to show how hard it is to occupy the neutral position on this forum.


----------



## HyperMiler

Ariel74 said:


> Leave him alone, he's on a point of no return, and will self-destruct in his own flame of hatred.


Sorry to prove you wrong, since I harbor no hate, only concerns for safety of Chinese product.



> By the way it's now official that _*both*_ a rabid anti-chinese racist _*and*_ a chinese nationalist firmly convinced that I am an indian with a mission to defame china, both of them want me banned..


That proves that you are a world class troll, who manages to inflame both pro-Chinese product and anti-Chinese product crowd.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> I heard that the firm that bought the E2 technology ("North-Rail"?) was more technically competent than the firm that bought the Velaro technology ("South-Rail"), so that, even though Velaro is newer technology than E2, South-Rail has greater difficulty than North-Rail to digest what they bought and improve upon it. Does that explain why the next generation CRH2 came out while nothing is known yet about the next generation CRH3?


Interesting. Sifang Locomotive (which apparently built this CRH380 prototype) also has the E2 license, so it's quite natural that characteristics of the E2 design will show up on this new unit. 

On another forum there was a picture of the rear end of this unit. The carbody has a square profile, showing the shinkansen influence. Scroll down to fourth picture:

http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/Military/33724615.html


----------



## SamuraiBlue

A mock-up is just a mock-up.
Until they actually start testing, I don't think anything can be said as fact.


----------



## foxmulder

It is not a "mock up" tough judging from the pictures.


----------



## SamuraiBlue

foxmulder said:


> It is not a "mock up" tough judging from the pictures.


What is it then a paper tiger? :nuts:


----------



## k.k.jetcar

In my (very ) amateur opinion, it looks more than a mock-up, judging by fittings, but perhaps less than an operating prototype. Need to see a complete trainset. Hopefully more info will be forthcoming with the opening of Expo 2010 starting next month (I assume that's where these pictures were taken).

*Edit- confirm that pictures taken at China Railway Pavilion on Expo Site. Note background building.

http://en.expo2010.cn/c/en_qy_tpl_104.htm#zgld

http://www.echinacities.com/special/shanghai-expo-2010/Content.aspx?n=4454


----------



## maldini

HyperMiler said:


> I make the same *request to throw Ariel out.*
> 
> He is making things up with unsubstantiated claims about safety of Chinese high speed rails to flame this topic while I back mine with official specification and official quotes to prove that they are speeding beyond limit and compromising safety in the process.
> 
> 
> I am talking about the safety of Chinese practice of speeding trains beyond manufacturer imposed speed limit.
> 
> *Throw Ariel out, problem solved.*


nah, your arguments do not have logic or reasoning at all. You allegations are baseless and without evidence.
The Chinese high speed railway have been tested to the highest standards.


----------



## Ariel74

k.k.jetcar said:


> In my (very ) amateur opinion, it looks more than a mock-up, judging by fittings, but perhaps less than an operating prototype. Need to see a complete trainset. Hopefully more info will be forthcoming with the opening of Expo 2010 starting next month (I assume that's where these pictures were taken).
> 
> *Edit- confirm that pictures taken at China Railway Pavilion on Expo Site. Note background building.
> 
> http://en.expo2010.cn/c/en_qy_tpl_104.htm#zgld
> 
> http://www.echinacities.com/special/shanghai-expo-2010/Content.aspx?n=4454



I don't know if this is relevant, but notice the light blue painting on the bogie. Most of the bogies I have seen on an operational train have the darker "natural" color of steel. If so, this could be an indication that we are not looking at the real thing entirely. 

After all, the rolling-stocks don't have to be ready until 2011, when the Beijing-Shanghai line will be completed.


----------



## SamuraiBlue

Ariel74 said:


> I don't know if this is relevant, but notice the light blue painting on the bogie. Most of the bogies I have seen on an operational train have the darker "natural" color of steel. If so, this could be an indication that we are not looking at the real thing entirely.
> 
> After all, the rolling-stocks don't have to be ready until 2011, when the Beijing-Shanghai line will be completed.


Again this really doesn't make sense.
If you need them in 2011 when do propose to test the trains?
It takes more than a year to actually test anything especially a completely new designed train.


----------



## Ariel74

SamuraiBlue said:


> Again this really doesn't make sense.
> If you need them in 2011 when do propose to test the trains?
> It takes more than a year to actually test anything especially a completely new designed train.


I am sure prototypes must have existed for a long time, but if they are still busy adjusting and modifying, then most likely they won't be able to show the final model yet. 

Whatever is the case with the current development stage, what do you think of the light blue paint on the bogie?


----------



## SamuraiBlue

Ariel74 said:


> I am sure prototypes must have existed for a long time, but if they are still busy adjusting and modifying, then most likely they won't be able to show the final model yet.
> 
> Whatever is the case with the current development stage, what do you think of the light blue paint on the bogie?


Your guess is good as mine.
One thing I can say is that if they do have a working proto-type which they should according to the dates you had given, I believe they will be showing at least a Promo vid within the pavilion for PR (and bragging rights:lol.
After all that is what world fairs are for.


----------



## HyperMiler

SamuraiBlue said:


> Again this really doesn't make sense.
> If you need them in 2011 when do propose to test the trains? It takes more than a year to actually test anything especially a completely new designed train.


The work on CRH380 must have begun after Chinese engineers working on localization of E2 as CRH2 completed their work, probably around early 2009. 

What you see is indeed a mock up with parts taken(or replicated) from CRH2 and CRH3, and does not represent a rolling model.

A rolling prototype won't come out until the end of next year at the earliest, and Chinese would need a couple year of testing on an accelerated schedule, so 2013 is the earliest date CRH380 could enter service on Chinese lines.


----------



## foxmulder

SamuraiBlue said:


> What is it then a paper tiger? :nuts:


You are funny... 


"Mock ups" are just models. This clearly has real parts. *Especially, look at the picture of the axles.* It might not be a "running" one but it sure is more than a model.


----------



## UD2

^^

The mock-up in shown in the pictures was an attempt to increase the operating speed of the CRH2 family of trains by streamlineing the train's design by incorporating some structural characterstics from the CRH3. I've been looking for pictures of this design for some time now.

However, I believe this modification have produced little improvements upon the orignal design.


----------



## SamuraiBlue

foxmulder said:


> You are funny...
> 
> 
> "Mock ups" are just models. This clearly has real parts. *Especially, look at the picture of the axles.* It might not be a "running" one but it sure is more than a model.


Nope, a lot of mock ups use off the shelf parts to give it a make-up job. (It's actually cheaper this way since you don't need to make things from scratch)
The Z8 in 007 movie was a mock-up using Ford parts because BMW was not able to provide a moving proto-type in time.
Even clay models uses real tires.
Since we don't have actual specs we won't know for sure but if it's based on Japanese design philosophy then all carts would probably be motorized which I believe this one is not.


----------



## foxmulder

This picture suggests that this thing possible attached to another car. 










Also I like the comments here  ;




> Title: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: bikkuri bahn on April 26, 2010, 06:42:59 AM
> The CRH 380 type has been revealed. I suppose this is the "fully Chinese designed" trainset/technology we've been told about. Is it just me, or do the lines look strangely familiar???
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/crh380/
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: Nozomi on April 26, 2010, 06:51:27 AM
> Looks like a cross of the E5 and 500 Series Shinkansen.....
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: bikkuri bahn on April 26, 2010, 09:35:30 AM
> The bogies look similar to Siemens SF500 type:
> 
> http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Velaro_E_bogie.jpg&filetimestamp=20070908204842
> 
> *for all I know, they may have a license to use the design or elements of it
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: Shashinka on April 26, 2010, 12:42:10 PM
> Looks a bit like the FasTech to me.
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: Kumo on April 26, 2010, 02:09:01 PM
> For me it's a bit of a mix between the 500 and the 800 (tsubame) series.
> But without the Shinkansen touch I love on both of them...
> (witch train could even come close to the 500 design anyway?!) :laugh:
> 
> There is also a bit of the recent Swiss Pendolino ETR 600.
> 
> (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...1_Biel1_08.jpg/800px-ETR_610.001_Biel1_08.jpg)
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: to2leo on April 26, 2010, 02:58:00 PM
> It's a United Nations sort of design using similar design softwares, it's just like car designs these days...but that's another story.
> 
> The train type is called Harmony after all. :cheesy
> 
> Just observing from China's and Korea's past attempts in developing its own high speed trains, I think it will be a while (maybe short while?) before Korea and then China can develop a reliable model.
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: CaptOblivious on April 26, 2010, 07:13:48 PM
> So funny. There are clearly elements of the 500 (cockpit), 800 (conical nose), E2 (tapering around the cockpit), 700 (flaring around the trucks). Which just goes to show there are only a handful of ways to solve particular design problems. And yet, it really does appear distinctive (in that, it doesn't appear to blatantly copy any existing Japanese design). It's not got the grace of many of the Japanese cab designs, but I like it.
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: alpineaustralia on April 27, 2010, 01:53:37 AM
> you forgot the nose of the E5
> 
> Title: Re: New Chinese HSR design
> Post by: Shashinka on April 27, 2010, 02:57:24 AM
> Don't forget side window profile of the Raomancecar 50000


It looks, CRH380 might be a nice synthesis.


----------



## Nozumi 300

foxmulder said:


> This picture suggests that this thing possible attached to another car.
> 
> 
> It looks, CRH380 might be a nice synthesis.


Judging from that photo, its possible that this prototype needed a locomotive to haul it out from the manfacturer to a transfer station to transfer it to a roadbed so it can be transported to the expo. Hence the need for a coupler, but this is just a guess.


----------



## HyperMiler

yaohua2000 said:


> It is already in test. The train was under testing on Beijing's circuit railway facility late April, and rumor says it has been moved on to the Zhengzhou-Xi'an HSR last week.


So we have four more years of testing to go and it should be ready for service by April 2014, No???


----------



## binhai

why do you need so much testing? CRH has NEVER had an accident, injury, or death. GTFO with your trolling. CRH has an impeccable safety record and your "fears" (more like your hopes) are completely unfounded.


----------



## HyperMiler

BarbaricManchurian said:


> why do you need so much testing?


The question should be the other way around; "Why don't Chinese do enough testing?"



> CRH has NEVER had an accident, injury, or death.


1. All existing CRH models are foreign designs.
2. China's high speed rail hasn't been around long enough to show the effect of excessive speeding.



> your "fears" are completely unfounded.


Kawasaki and JR East disagree; they asked for, and got, the document of waiver after finding out that Chinese were running CRH2 beyond their design speed limit. 

They designed the system that Chinese use; they know better than Chinese if their machine could take such prolonged mechanical abuse or not.


----------



## SamuraiBlue

BarbaricManchurian said:


> why do you need so much testing? CRH has NEVER had an accident, injury, or death. GTFO with your trolling. CRH has an impeccable safety record and your "fears" (more like your hopes) are completely unfounded.


The short answer would be, because we are human.

Have you ever counted how many times CRH went out of service because of a problem or another in the short period it has been in service?
Testing is to prove that everything they had planned on the drawing board is correct and amend any and all unseen problems to shorten down time of the system before it goes into actual commercial service.


----------



## xerxesjc28

Its things like this that leave you with your mouth hanging open and wondering why can we not at least try to do something like this in the USA. 
____________________________________________________________________________________
China plans $1 trillion in urban rail spending by 2015

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/05/13/china-expands-its-investment-in-rapid-transit-paving-way-for-future-urban-growth/
» After $1 trillion in spending, 1,900 miles of rapid transit planned for world’s most populated country by 2015.

Most of China’s growth is concentrated in its large urban centers, which will house fifty percent of the country’s population by 2020 and 75% by 2050. For these increasingly huge megacities, the central government has no choice but to develop adequate measures to transport the population. Following the American model of car dependence is simply not possible because of high densities and inadequate space. With its high-speed rail network, now the longest in the world, the Chinese are providing efficient intercity links into downtowns.

But it’s in urban rail networks that the country has made the biggest strides towards increasing mobility within cities. Shanghai’s huge Metro, the longest on earth, is just one among eleven currently operating in China. Dozens of other cities have rapid transit systems either under construction or in planning.

Now the central government has made a commitment to spend up to one trillion U.S. dollars by 2015 on such grade-separated urban public transportation corridors. After roughly $150 billion in spending on rapid transit this year alone, China will offer a total of 870 miles of metro systems, up from around 600 today, on the way to 1,900 miles in five years. Far more is planned by 2020, especially in the east coast powerhouses of Beijing, Shanghai, and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong megaplex.

Urban infrastructure investment has consumed an average of 2.6% of China’s GDP since 1994. With a national growth rate predicted to hold at between seven and ten percent a year, the country will be able to guarantee its huge level of investment.

Total infrastructure investment across all levels of government accounts for roughly 1% of American GDP. The U.S. commits about $100 billion a year to all forms of transportation spending.

Whether China’s spending will be enough to prevent the rapid rise in car use there is unknown. Chinese’s per capita automobile ownership has increased from 24 cars per 1,000 people to 40 per 1,000, though that’s far less than the 765 cars per 1,000 people in the United States. The country’s decision to implement tolls on virtually all new highways and the use of vehicle restrictions in the central zones of cities like Shanghai and Beijing will spur more use of public transit.

China better be preparing for the future, though, when it will need to spend more rebuilding its infrastructure than constructing it anew. One hopes the Chinese have developed more stable long-term operations and maintenance funds than have those of us in North America.


----------



## maldini

HyperMiler said:


> The question should be the other way around; "Why don't Chinese do enough testing?"


wow, what a troll? You are just jealous of China. The newest generation of highspeed train is designed by Chinese companies, without outdated parts from Japan.
The Chinese put in the investments and surpassed the Japanese in quality.


----------



## maldini

HyperMiler said:


> The question should be the other way around; "Why don't Chinese do enough testing?"


wow, what a troll? You are just jealous of China. The newest generation of highspeed train is designed by Chinese companies, without outdated parts from Japan.
The Chinese put in the investments and surpassed the Japanese in quality.


----------



## Peloso

BarbaricManchurian said:


> why do you need so much testing? CRH has NEVER had an accident, injury, or death. GTFO with your trolling. CRH has an impeccable safety record and your "fears" (more like your hopes) are completely unfounded.


You got it right, HyperTroll makes me think of the typical racist who is just looking forward to an accident in order to show the Chinese are a backward people and the "west" has superior "humanist" values. We are full of such garbage, in Italy too.


----------



## Ariel74

yaohua2000 said:


> It is already in test. The train was under testing on Beijing's circuit railway facility late April, and rumor says it has been moved on to the Zhengzhou-Xi'an HSR last week.


We don't know how long the new train has been under test. What the rumor (with multiple sources and fotos now seems pretty reliable) says is that they are moving to the *last test phase* with real conditions of commercial operation. Before they could do this, they *must* have had long and extensive tests on the test-tracks.


----------



## bace

Ariel74 said:


> CRH380 is *not* Zefiro. It's well known that Sifang is involved in two parallel developments of next generation trains. CRH380 is scheduled to be delivered next year, when Beijing-Shanghai line finishes construction.
> 
> Stop spreading ignorance and posting old news.


CRH380 must be Zefiro.

It is building by BST, not by Sifang. Lay persons confused the 2 factories in Qingdao.


----------



## Ariel74

bace said:


> CRH380 must be Zefiro.
> 
> It is building by BST, not by Sifang. Lay persons confused the 2 factories in Qingdao.


I don't know about "lay persons". You are certainly confused, and ill-informed. Zefiro is going to be delivered at the earliest in 2012, CRH380 is scheduled to be delivered *this year*. 

"BST" is a joint venture between Bombardier and Sifang, so Sifang is definitely involved in Zefiro. It's just a different line of business as CRH380, for which Sifang alone is responsible.

You need to provide sources for what you claim. But in this case, you aren't going to find any such sources, because your claim is plainly false.


----------



## gramercy

BarbaricManchurian said:


> why do you need so much testing? CRH has NEVER had an accident, injury, or death.


wow, what an achievement with trains that have been in service in other countries for decades...


----------



## binhai

^^yes and Shinkansen has only had one death ever, and it wasn't due to a crash. It also uses lower quality tracks than CRH. With the higher quality tracks, larger curve radius, and better signalling system of CRH, crashes are nearly impossible, and while the trains may wear out faster due to the higher speed, they can just buy new ones or refurbrish them every few years. The 380km/h train is specifically designed for higher speeds, so wear and tear will be less of a problem on that, and the older 350km/h trains will be slowly replaced anyway.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> ...better signalling system of CRH


I'm curious, what about it that makes it "better"? (just asking)


----------



## HyperMiler

maldini said:


> The newest generation of highspeed train is designed by Chinese companies


"Copied" != "Designed"



> The Chinese put in the investments and *surpassed the Japanese in quality.*


:lol::lol::lol::lol:



Peloso said:


> "west" has superior "humanist" values.


Which is actually true.

When atheists dream of a world without Christianity, I point them toward China as the example what a Godless world would look like today.



Ariel74 said:


> We don't know how long the new train has been under test.


There were pictures of CRH380's outer skin being transported circulating around the net since early this year. So it's not more than 5 months.



> What the rumor (with multiple sources and fotos now seems pretty reliable) says is that they are moving to the *last test phase*


That's one scary rumor if true.



BarbaricManchurian said:


> It also uses lower quality tracks than CRH.


Shinkansen tracks aren't as abused as CRH tracks are.



> and better signalling system of CRH


I am not sure what signaling system CRH adopts(I presume the European system), but it is not better than Shinkansen's signal and control system.



> crashes are nearly impossible


When trains are being operated within manufacturer's guideline, which isn't the case with CRH trains.



> they can just buy new ones or refurbrish them every few years.


Looking at rest of China's railway system, I don't think so. 



> The 380km/h train is specifically designed for higher speeds


None of components used in CRH380 are certified for 380 km/hr revenue speed; not the E2 body nor the bogies from Velaro CN.


----------



## binhai

k.k.jetcar said:


> I'm curious, what about it that makes it "better"? (just asking)


it uses ETCS


----------



## binhai

so its basically just your thoughts and opinions, vs my facts. Good to know that you're talking out of your ass.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

BarbaricManchurian said:


> it uses ETCS


Ah, I see. ETCS level 2 I suppose. The main difference between that and Japan's digital ATC is that ETCS level 2 uses wireless (GSM) to transmit information rather than through the tracks. More reliable possibly and cheaper, especially on long stretches of track with the requisite maintenance demands.


----------



## foxmulder

HyperMiler said:


> "Copied" != "Designed"
> 
> 
> :lol::lol::lol::lol:
> 
> 
> Which is actually true.
> 
> When atheists dream of a world without Christianity, I point them toward China as the example what a Godless world would look like today.
> 
> 
> There were pictures of CRH380's outer skin being transported circulating around the net since early this year. So it's not more than 5 months.
> 
> 
> That's one scary rumor if true.
> 
> 
> Shinkansen tracks aren't as abused as CRH tracks are.
> 
> 
> I am not sure what signaling system CRH adopts(I presume the European system), but it is not better than Shinkansen's signal and control system.
> 
> 
> When trains are being operated within manufacturer's guideline, which isn't the case with CRH trains.
> 
> 
> Looking at rest of China's railway system, I don't think so.
> 
> 
> None of components used in CRH380 are certified for 380 km/hr revenue speed; not the E2 body nor the bogies from Velaro CN.


You are one messed up personality. Almost everything you have written are either plain wrong or irrational babbles. 

CHR380 is a Chinese design. 

You don't know anything about history and humanist values.

Religion is nothing more than an illusion created and believed by mortals like you. It has to be completely out of governmental system otherwise results have been clear but you don't know anything about history or present day, so... :lol:

It is sad that you are almost praying for an accident in China which shows your "humanity" values. You are spamming here, just to write "I told you so" in case an accident occurred.

Which holly institution should certify CRH380 for 380km/h??? Vatican??? Do you think Chinese do not have such standards.. actually probably you don't  that is why this crab 

By the way, Chinese has the best high speed network on the World  It is fastest, longest and most modern one. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about this


----------



## maldini

HyperMiler said:


> "Copied" != "Designed"


nah, the Chinese imported the first batch of trains. There was no need to copy, because they bought the trains with money. 

After that they did their research and development and made their own substantial improvements to the trains. This is Chinese design with Chinese parts, together with much better railway tracks and signaling systems, their performance is above the Japanese.
The Chinese are now setting the necessary quality and reliability standards for 380km/h, not the Japanese.

Now, the Japanese are trying to copy from the Chinese, as the Chinese highspeed railway system is better.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> This is Chinese design with Chinese parts, together with much better railway tracks and signaling systems, their performance is above the Japanese.


OK, fine. The Chinese HSR system benefits from being new and subject to stupendous government spending, making everyone else envious. But no need to compare everything to Japanese systems, just say "world leading" or something- constant references to "being better than Japan" reveals more about internal inferiority complexes than anything else.



> Now, the Japanese are trying to copy from the Chinese, as the Chinese highspeed railway system is better.


Now this tidbit is new to me- any verifiable proof that Japanese railways are doing such things, or is this pure speculation/opinion like our mutual friend "HM"?


----------



## Bandit

I see the stink from the US HSR thread has reached in here. Stink always accompanies insecurity.


----------



## maldini

k.k.jetcar said:


> OK, fine. The Chinese HSR system benefits from being new and subject to stupendous government spending, making everyone else envious. But no need to compare everything to Japanese systems, just say "world leading" or something- constant references to "being better than Japan" reveals more about internal inferiority complexes than anything else.
> 
> 
> 
> Now this tidbit is new to me- any verifiable proof that Japanese railways are doing such things, or is this pure speculation/opinion like our mutual friend "HM"?


I understand what you mean, but someone else above started to compare China's CRH380 with the Japanese highspeed system.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

It doesnt make sence to discuss such a difficult topic as rail safety in a forum like this.

The germans know what they are doing. So do the French and the Japanese.

Realtity will show who was right in the end....


----------



## dumbfword

Bandit said:


> I see the stink from the US HSR thread has reached in here. Stink always accompanies insecurity.


Yeah. Because it's always the USA. :hilarious:no:


----------



## Ariel74

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> The germans know what they are doing.


Except those times when they don't. Fractured axles anyone?


----------



## sasalove

Youtube Videos


----------



## Ariel74

deleted


----------



## foxmulder

Great post sasalove. Thanks. I love how stable those trains at 350km/h.


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> CHR380 is a Chinese design.


Most of things Chinese claim to be of "Chinese design" aren't Chinese designs. China is a country whose government freely pirates jet fighters and spaceships, so what harm done in pirating a bullet train design? That's nothing.

CRH380 was created by coupling a face-lifted Shinkansen E2 body with Velaro CN's bogies. The only thing uniquely Chinese about CHR380 is that Chinese could imagine such a Frankenstein of bullet train.



> Religion is nothing more than an illusion created and believed by mortals like you.


I was talking about ethics code aspect of religion. China is free of western ethics system, so you should not expect Chinese to behave in a manner you would expect from an individual originating from a western society.



> It is sad that you are almost praying for an accident in China


I don't have to pray for it to happen; it is bound to happen.



> just to write "I told you so" in case an accident occurred.


There are a lot of people who would write that, not just me.



> Which holly institution should certify CRH380 for 380km/h???


Chinese institution, of course.



> Do you think Chinese do not have such standards..


Chinese standard doesn't mean anything outside of China.



> And there is absolutely nothing you can do about this


And wait for the headline that reads "500 people dead from a Chinese bullet train accident"?



maldini said:


> nah, the Chinese imported the first batch of trains. There was no need to copy, because they bought the trains with money.


They were "licensed", not "bought".

Licenses come with usage restrictions, which is conveniently disregarded by the Chinese railway companies and rolling stock manufacturers. I notice from other discussions that Chinese do not understand this "usage restriction" concept. They think they could do anything they want with the design they "bought"(The word "Licensed" is understood to be a synonym to word "Bought" in mainland China).



> After that they did their research and development and made their own substantial improvements to the trains. This is Chinese design with Chinese parts


No it isn't. That's called the Chinese modifications to an existing foreign design, which is still governed by the terms of original licensing contract.

In order for China to produce a "completely Chinese" train, they must undertake the engineering from scratch. Modification alone isn't good enough.



> The Chinese are now setting the necessary quality and reliability standards for 380km/h, not the Japanese.


Chinese standard doesn't mean anything outside of China.



> Now, the Japanese are trying to copy from the Chinese


Now everyone else here can see that you are a crack smoker.



Ariel74 said:


> Except those times when they don't. Fractured axles anyone?


Yes, the effect of mechanical fatigue doesn't show until years of operation.

This is why Chinese trains are disasters waiting to happen, with all the speeding beyond their design limits.


----------



## bobke90

I see in this films that the ranging is 2+3. I didn't know that. Is that in all trains of China? A train of this kind must be larger than?


----------



## HyperMiler

bobke90 said:


> I see in this films that the ranging is 2+3. I didn't know that. Is that in all trains of China? A train of this kind must be larger than?


Chinese adopted Shinkansen's physical dimension of 3400 mm in width, as opposed to European standard of less than 3000 mm in width.


----------



## Pansori

HyperMiler said:


> This is why Chinese trains are disasters waiting to happen, with all the speeding beyond their design limits.


So are you saying that those trains will not be maintained and checked for potential faults? It makes sense that using trains at higher speeds wears them off (as well as consumes more energy) quicker but doesn't it mean that they will simply have to be maintained and fixed more often? Why are you so certain that the only outcome is a "disaster" and simply not a more often maintenance work? Do you think those who are responsible for running such a service and investing hundreds of billions of US$ into the system are that stupid and incompetent not to understand that and allow for accidents to happen? Doesn't sound very credible, does it.


----------



## carrot1

HyperMiler said:


> Most of things Chinese claim to be of "Chinese design" aren't Chinese designs. China is a country whose government freely pirates jet fighters and spaceships, so what harm done in pirating a bullet train design? That's nothing.
> 
> CRH380 was created by coupling a face-lifted Shinkansen E2 body with Velaro CN's bogies. The only thing uniquely Chinese about CHR380 is that Chinese could imagine such a Frankenstein of bullet train.
> 
> 
> I was talking about ethics code aspect of religion. China is free of western ethics system, so you should not expect Chinese to behave in a manner you would expect from an individual originating from a western society.
> 
> 
> I don't have to pray for it to happen; it is bound to happen.
> 
> 
> There are a lot of people who would write that, not just me.
> 
> 
> Chinese institution, of course.
> 
> 
> Chinese standard doesn't mean anything outside of China.
> 
> 
> And wait for the headline that reads "500 people dead from a Chinese bullet train accident"?
> 
> 
> They were "licensed", not "bought".
> 
> Licenses come with usage restrictions, which is conveniently disregarded by the Chinese railway companies and rolling stock manufacturers. I notice from other discussions that Chinese do not understand this "usage restriction" concept. They think they could do anything they want with the design they "bought"(The word "Licensed" is understood to be a synonym to word "Bought" in mainland China).
> 
> 
> No it isn't. That's called the Chinese modifications to an existing foreign design, which is still governed by the terms of original licensing contract.
> 
> In order for China to produce a "completely Chinese" train, they must undertake the engineering from scratch. Modification alone isn't good enough.
> 
> 
> Chinese standard doesn't mean anything outside of China.
> 
> 
> Now everyone else here can see that you are a crack smoker.
> 
> 
> Yes, the effect of mechanical fatigue doesn't show until years of operation.
> 
> This is why Chinese trains are disasters waiting to happen, with all the speeding beyond their design limits.



:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


----------



## HyperMiler

Pansori said:


> So are you saying that those trains will not be maintained and checked for potential faults?


That is if you trust the quality of Chinese inspection.



> Why are you so certain that the only outcome is a "disaster" and simply not a more often maintenance work?


You are suggesting Chinese would inspect their trains three to four times as intensively as Europeans and Japanese. Something that's hard to believe.



> Do you think those who are responsible for running such a service and investing hundreds of billions of US$ into the system are that stupid and incompetent not to understand that and allow for accidents to happen?


Chinese did not design the tracks and trains of China's high speed railways; they haven't been using the high speed railway system long enough to understand.



> Doesn't sound very credible, does it.


Yes it does, a very accurate description of Chinese railway operation.


----------



## HyperMiler

carrot1 said:


> :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


:lol::lol::nuts::nuts::banana::banana::bash::bash::hahaha::hahaha:


----------



## foxmulder

HyperMiler said:


> Most of things Chinese claim to be of "Chinese design" aren't Chinese designs. China is a country whose government freely pirates jet fighters and spaceships, so what harm done in pirating a bullet train design? That's nothing.


Show me a single official declaration of this, together with a lawsuit. 

Both Kawasaki and Siemens sold their technology together with the trains. 

All major manufacturers are still dying to sell their stuff to Chinese. 

So, basically, you are just lying.


----------



## Peloso

HyperTroll is a weirdo and that's for sure, what I don't understand is why the mods are not intervening and are letting him derail a thread that was most interesting before his appearance. Constant off-topic... repetitive tirades... massive posts... does not seem to care about a thing except sowing bullshit in this thread... 24/24 on alert to object to any sensible observation...


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> Show me a single official declaration of this


http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/...ts_China_on_rail_safety_technology_theft.html



> JR Central head blasts China on rail safety, technology theft
> April 6, 2010
> *Yoshiyuki Kasai, the chairman of Japan Central Railway* (JR Central; 9022.TYO), *accused China of stealing foreign technology* and ignoring safety precautions, the Financial Times reported.





> together with a lawsuit.


It's pointless to file an IP theft lawsuit in China. Do expect legal actions when Chinese attempt to market CRH380 in the US. 



> Both Kawasaki and Siemens sold their technology together with the trains.


You are telling us Siemens SOLD Velaro tech to the Chinese? You mean their bread and butter product? :lol::lol::nuts::nuts:

What's wrong with Chinese who can't distinguish between a sale and a license??? hno:hno:



> So, basically, you are just lying.


Look who's proven to be clueless.


----------



## HyperMiler

Peloso said:


> what I don't understand is why the mods are not intervening and are letting him derail a thread that was most interesting before his appearance.


Perhaps because you are the troll who is derailing this thread with useless flames?


----------



## foxmulder

Haha, is that your official source 

It is like chair of IBM (the cry baby you quoted) accusing Apple (Chinese manufacturers) for stealing Microsoft's (Kawasaki) technology  As usual, you have only *baseless lies*. 

Kawasaki is very happy with their Chinese deal. For E2-1000, China has been much larger market than Japan itself.


----------



## dumbfword

foxmulder said:


> Haha, is that your official source
> 
> It is like chair of IBM (the cry baby you quoted) accusing Apple (Chinese manufacturers) for stealing Microsoft's (Kawasaki) technology  As usual, you have only *baseless lies*.
> 
> *Kawasaki is very happy with their Chinese deal. *For E2-1000, China has been much larger market than Japan itself.


Like you say. Source or not believing it.


----------



## Ariel74

Peloso said:


> HyperTroll is a weirdo and that's for sure, what I don't understand is why the mods are not intervening and are letting him derail a thread that was most interesting before his appearance. Constant off-topic... repetitive tirades... massive posts... does not seem to care about a thing except sowing bullshit in this thread... 24/24 on alert to object to any sensible observation...


What people have to do is to ignore him. Simply *do not respond to his post*, whatever he writes/spews forth. That's what I have been doing for a while.


----------



## foxmulder

dumbfword said:


> Like you say. Source or not believing it.


eeeerrrr.. next sentence????? 

I will put it like this for you: They are very happy because China is the biggest market for the E2. After the initial 60 sets in 2004 deal (even this number larger that what Japan has), they have decided to continue producing 140 more sets in 2009. Is this enough??? :lol::cheers:


----------



## Bandit

Let's face the facts. The only reason why the stink from the US HSR thread has come in here is because they're realizing the HSR dream in the US will be just a dream and very limited in reality. Most will fail simply because it will be too expensive especially if they buy over-priced European trains and also Americans don't ride trains to justify it. It will be a big white elephant. The envy is they know it wil be reality in China. Just like I heard of this radio talk show host in San Francisco who was angered about China having a Maglev system in Shanghai. Never mind it was a German train. He was upset at China having a commercial one first. Western countries are suppose to have everything first. See what petty stuff they get mad about.


----------



## snow is red

You people are just adding fuel to the fire by replying his posts. Just ignore him, whatever he says is just purely his speculation. 

There are still more than 100 countries in this world that have no or zero standard so let him rant. At least China is doing something and achieving them. There are loads of countries out there that are craving to achieve just a fraction of what China has achieved.


----------



## dumbfword

Bandit said:


> Let's face the facts. The only reason why the stink from the US HSR thread has come in here is because they're realizing the HSR dream in the US will be just a dream and very limited in reality. Most will fail simply because it will be too expensive especially if they buy over-priced European trains and also Americans don't ride trains to justify it. It will be a big white elephant. The envy is they know it wil be reality in China. J*ust like I heard of this radio talk show host in San Francisco who was angered about China having a Maglev system in Shanghai.* Never mind it was a German train. He was upset at China having a commercial one first. Western countries are suppose to have everything first. See what petty stuff they get mad about.


Hearsay. Back it up with Proof.


----------



## Bandit

dumbfword said:


> Hearsay. Back it up with Proof.


His name is Karel. Sorry can't grab radiowaves from the past. But just listen to him on the internet. He's highly racist against Asians for a gay radio talk show host in the US that hypocritically cries about discrimination against gays. He also said it was all right to be a little racist but of course any amount of homophobia was wrong. White supremacists come in all stripes.

Notice you didn't highlight the part about US HSR being a dream and you guys being envious about China's system which is why you guys are bringing your stink in here. Don't need proof when you agree? Thanks for confirming it.


----------



## dumbfword

Bandit said:


> His name is Karel. Sorry can't grab radiowaves from the past. But just listen to him on the internet. He's highly racist against Asians for a gay radio talk show host in the US that hypocritically cries about discrimination against gays. He also said it was all right to be a little racist but of course any amount of homophobia was wrong. White supremacists come in all stripes.
> 
> Notice you didn't highlight the part about US HSR being a dream and you guys being envious about China's system which is why you guys are bringing your stink in here. Don't need proof when you agree? Thanks for confirming it.


lol. I wanted proof about some alleged comments by a single radio host in a country with a population of 300 million. Guess when a Chinese blogger makes racist comments against the West we get to judge 1.3 billion Chinese based on it. Thank you!


----------



## binhai

this thread has officially turned into garbage


----------



## yaohua2000

*Test run on Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway*

Length: 300 km
Maximum in-service speed: 300–350 km/h
Investment: CN¥39.45 billion
Construction started on July 1, 2008
Due to open on July 1, 2010


----------



## yaohua2000

*Freight service opens on Lince Railway yesterday*

Lince Railway, Linhe, Bayan Nur – Ceke, Ejin Banner, where it connects with Mongolia railway system
Length: 768.415 km
Investment: CN¥4.27 billion
Construction started in October 2006
Freight service opened on May 16, 2010
Passenger service is expected in early next month


----------



## Bandit

dumbfword said:


> lol. I wanted proof about some alleged comments by a single radio host in a country with a population of 300 million. Guess when a Chinese blogger makes racist comments against the West we get to judge 1.3 billion Chinese based on it. Thank you!


Pretty hypocritical for someone who has that quote tagged onto every post. And look at all those blanket generalizations about teh quality of China's HSR. Got any proof except from stereotypes? I thought so. :banana::lol::banana::lol::banana:


----------



## foxmulder

Thanks for the updates yaohua2000. 

Two projects with a total of ~7billion dollars  Money good spent. 

If you have more pictures especially from new HSR stations, please share.


----------



## The Chemist

yaohua2000 said:


> Length: 300 km
> Maximum in-service speed: 300–350 km/h
> Investment: CN¥39.45 billion
> Construction started on July 1, 2008
> Due to open on July 1, 2010


This one is part of the Beijing-Shanghai HSR, right? Does it terminate at Hongqiao or at Shanghai Railway Station?


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> Haha, is that your official source


Sure, a far more authoritative source than your mouth.



> accusing Apple (Chinese manufacturers)


A poor analogy, since you are comparing one of most innovative company of our time with world renowned pirates.



> Kawasaki is very happy with their Chinese deal.


Are they happy with CRH380 too?



Ariel74 said:


> Simply *do not respond to his post*, whatever he writes/spews forth. That's what I have been doing for a while.


It's not like your response was ever productive. Thank you for not wasting my time. 



Bandit said:


> And look at all those blanket generalizations about teh quality of China's HSR.


The very fact that Chinese railway operators speed trains beyond their manufacturer's certified top service speed everyday shows the general disregard for safety in Chinese railway industry, like the rest of China.


----------



## yaohua2000

The Chemist said:


> This one is part of the Beijing-Shanghai HSR, right?


No. Beijing-Shanghai HSR is another railway parallel to this one. Beijing-Shanghai HSR is mainly for long distance passengers. This one is for intercity uses in the Yangtze Delta region. There are 31 (including 10 planned) stations along the line.



The Chemist said:


> Does it terminate at Hongqiao or at Shanghai Railway Station?


It terminates at Shanghai's main railway station.


----------



## Bandit

> The very fact that Chinese railway operators speed trains beyond their manufacturer's certified top service speed everyday shows the general disregard for safety in Chinese railway industry, like the rest of China.


Got proof of that? :lol::lol::lol: Of course you don't except you blanket assumptions?


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai - Nanjing HSR*



yaohua2000 said:


> Length: 300 km
> Maximum in-service speed: 300–350 km/h
> Investment: CN¥39.45 billion
> Construction started on July 1, 2008
> Due to open on July 1, 2010


Thanks for posting these pictures. Any more pictures that you or anyone could post would be greatly appreciated.

Also thanks for turning this thread back towards its original focus.

This parallel HSR to the Shanghai - Beijing HSR, that is still being constructed, is not very well known.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Yining Railway Station (February 2010)*

Originally posted at bbs.ourail.com

Yining Railway Station is located on recently completed Jingyihuo Railway in Xinjiang. The railway is currently only opened for freight, passenger service is expected in a couple of months.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> Length: 300 km
> Maximum in-service speed: 300–350 km/h
> Investment: CN¥39.45 billion
> Construction started on July 1, 2008
> Due to open on July 1, 2010


What shall the trip time be:
with all 31 stops?
with fewest stops?


----------



## Jellena85

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> do you have more pics of the Shanghai-Nanjing PDL line?
> 
> Whatever people are arguing in this thread---China is doing a great job.


I agree. I hope my country will make even more cooperation with China. Already Chinese are involved in modernising our energy infrastructure and building a bridge in Belgrade. 

There are some speculations they will be involved in reconstructing the rail network. Today , the HSR is unfortunately only a dream for Serbia.


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> By the way, Chinese has the best high speed network on the World.


Biggest, yes.
Best, no.



> It is fastest


At the expense of safety.



> And there is absolutely nothing you can do about this.


I can pray it doesn't come to the US.



Restless said:


> I could also say that GM is one of the best known companies in the US and it's products are generally a piece of crap.


There are American companies better known to Chinese than GM. 

Once again, I picked BYD because this company has the best brand awareness in the US because of Warren Buffet's China riches.



> It's more like Daimler is keeping its options open


No, just an OEM deal, which Nissan is urging to drop and go exclusive with their battery.



> whilst BYD are keen to absorb what they can from Daimler in terms of carmaking


There is nothing to learn. It is just a badge-engineering OEM deal in China, where Daimler wants to re-sell some BYD models.



> In 10years time, who knows what the industrial landscape will look like?


Look at Hong Kong and Taiwan for the future of China's economy 10 years from now?



> Remember that "Made in Japan/Taiwan/Korea" was once a byline for cheap and low quality. LOL


I really really don't understand why Chinese have this misconception that Japan once competed on price and were considered to be cheap junks like Chinese goods of today.

Go to a big library, get a 70s archive of Car & Driver or Motor Trend, and look at the ads. You will see Chevy and Dodge undercutting Toyota and Nissan in prices. Yes, American cars were already cheaper than much smaller Japanese cars in the 70s! Japan was already a major industrial power before WW2, and only during the reconstruction period of 1955~1965 did Japanese compete on price. After Tokyo Olympics, Japanese no longer competed on price, but only on quality and features.

Koreans had that cheap junk image for 20 years until early 90s, but completely lost it by 2000 and now they no longer compete on price, but on quality and design only.

Taiwanese on the other hand still competes on value and low prices, and Taiwan doesn't have world-class brands like Japan and Korea have. Why? Lack of world-class brands is a curse common to all Sinitic countries, attributable to Chinese culture that values low price over high quality. 

So if you think Chinese product will be of high quality in 10 years, forget it. That ain't happening.


----------



## carrot1

HyperMiler said:


> Biggest, yes.
> Best, no.
> 
> 
> At the expense of safety.
> 
> 
> I can pray it doesn't come to the US.
> 
> 
> There are American companies better known to Chinese than GM.
> 
> Once again, I picked BYD because this company has the best brand awareness in the US because of Warren Buffet's China riches.
> 
> 
> No, just an OEM deal, which Nissan is urging to drop and go exclusive with their battery.
> 
> 
> There is nothing to learn. It is just a badge-engineering OEM deal in China, where Daimler wants to re-sell some BYD models.
> 
> 
> Look at Hong Kong and Taiwan for the future of China's economy 10 years from now?
> 
> 
> I really really don't understand why Chinese have this misconception that Japan once competed on price and were considered to be cheap junks like Chinese goods of today.
> 
> Go to a big library, get a 70s archive of Car & Driver or Motor Trend, and look at the ads. You will see Chevy and Dodge undercutting Toyota and Nissan in prices. Yes, American cars were already cheaper than much smaller Japanese cars in the 70s! Japan was already a major industrial power before WW2, and only during the reconstruction period of 1955~1965 did Japanese compete on price. After Tokyo Olympics, Japanese no longer competed on price, but only on quality and features.
> 
> Koreans had that cheap junk image for 20 years until early 90s, but completely lost it by 2000 and now they no longer compete on price, but on quality and design only.
> 
> Taiwanese on the other hand still competes on value and low prices, and Taiwan doesn't have world-class brands like Japan and Korea have. Why? Lack of world-class brands is a curse common to all Sinitic countries, attributable to Chinese culture that values low price over high quality.
> 
> So if you think Chinese product will be of high quality in 10 years, forget it. That ain't happening.



:lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## HyperMiler

carrot1 said:


> :lol: :lol: :lol:


:stupid::hilarious:hilarious :laugh::laugh:

:rofl::rofl:


----------



## carrot1

HyperMiler said:


> I was commenting on the quality of Chinese engineers and engineering. BYD is the best known Chinese tech company to westerners because of its association with Warren Buffet, so I used it.
> 
> 
> Yes, for China and China only, since Daimler's EVs for Europe and the US will use Daimler's inhouse battery or NEC's battery from NEC-Nissan battery joint venture(of Nissan Leaf fame).


:hahaha::hahaha::hahaha:


----------



## carrot1

HyperMiler said:


> Numbers can be misleading, since each of these Chinese workers are much less efficient than their foreign counterparts.
> 
> For example, BYD claims to have 5,000 engineers working on electric car battery alone, yet hardly any break-through came out of it with BYD batteries being the worst and least competitive battery in the automotive world in spite of their low cost. It's so bad that even Chinese auto makers bypass BYD batteries for foreign batteries, and all BYD bids on overseas EV project failed.
> 
> Similar force is at work here, with Chinese easily defeated by foreign forces numbering 1/10th.



:baeh3::baeh3::baeh3:


----------



## HyperMiler

A testimony to Chinese knock-off product's quality.

http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=257074



> *China military refuses to accept new domestically made fighters*
> BEIJING, May 17 KYODO
> 
> *China's Air Force has refused to accept 16 J-11B fighters manufactured by a domestic aircraft maker due to technical problems, *the Kanwa Defense Review magazine said in its June issue, quoting a Western intelligence source in Beijing.


J-11, the Chinese replica of Su-27, has been under flight testing since 1998, and Chinese still hasn't been able to produce a working plane after 12 years of repair work.

It's the same story with other high-profile Chinese replica products, be it a jet fighter or a bullet train.

BTW, Shenyang is the same aircraft company that built China's first Maglev train, so I would be wary of riding that.


----------



## maldini

carrot1 said:


> :baeh3::baeh3::baeh3:


Just ignore that stupid troll. He was posting with another name, but was banned because of trolling and making wild claims.:lol::lol::lol:


----------



## snow is red

lol now Taiwan is dragged into the debate. Hmm..how come the way he rants about Taiwan is so familiar ? I think I saw it somewhere on SSC, if my memory serves correctly it was also said by some Asian members on SSC before.


----------



## Peloso

HyperMiler said:


> When atheists dream of a world without Christianity, I point them toward China as the example what a Godless world would look like today.


(Sorry I had lost this "pearl")
I can understand you, a world with a severe shortage of cocaine for our teenagers, not enough prostitution and little or no children willing to please the priesthood, is in a bad predicament indeed.


----------



## ANR

*High-speed rail bridge sections join*

By Zha Minjie
Shanghai Daily
2010-5-18 

A MAJOR link in the high-speed railway from Shanghai to neighboring Hangzhou was completed yesterday with the joining of the two sections of a long arch bridge, railway authorities said. The 160-meter arched span is the longest used on a fast train route, authorities said. Wang Feng, deputy director of the Shanghai Railway Bureau, said yesterday that it was a breakthrough in technology for fast railway routes. The arch bridge in Zhejiang Province overpasses an expressway connecting Shanghai and Hangzhou.

To not disrupt the 40,000 vehicles that use the expressway daily, builders constructed the two arched sections separately beforehand. Builders then took an hour to connect the two sections yesterday.

Construction of the railway began in April 2009 with a total investment of 30 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion). The trains on the 154-kilometer route can reach a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour. Testing will begin in July. The line is expected to start operating on October 1. 










_Workers conduct a final inspection before the two sections of an 
arch bridge on the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway were connected yesterday._


----------



## Huhu

HyperMiler said:


> When atheists dream of a world without Christianity, I point them toward China as the example what a Godless world would look like today.


China has lots of Christians no? Not only Christians, there are also many Buddhists, Muslims, etc.



HyperMiler said:


> A testimony to Chinese knock-off product's quality.
> 
> http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=257074
> 
> 
> J-11, the Chinese replica of Su-27, has been under flight testing since 1998, and Chinese still hasn't been able to produce a working plane after 12 years of repair work.
> 
> It's the same story with other high-profile Chinese replica products, be it a jet fighter or a bullet train.
> 
> BTW, Shenyang is the same aircraft company that built China's first Maglev train, so I would be wary of riding that.


According to your logic, since China clearly does not accept faulty products, then anything China _does_ accept is therefore good, whether domestic or not, no?


----------



## strandeed

HyperMiler said:


> A testimony to Chinese knock-off product's quality.
> 
> http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=257074
> 
> 
> J-11, the Chinese replica of Su-27, has been under flight testing since 1998, and Chinese still hasn't been able to produce a working plane after 12 years of repair work.
> 
> It's the same story with other high-profile Chinese replica products, be it a jet fighter or a bullet train.
> 
> BTW, Shenyang is the same aircraft company that built China's first Maglev train, so I would be wary of riding that.


What about the F-22 and F-35? what a disaster they have been, and they were designed and built by some of the worlds most advanced economies.

China is playing catchup with the rest of the world. Considering they have had 20 years to learn what the rest of the word developed over the best part of a century, I think they are doing remarkably well.


----------



## nineth

according to his mentality, which is so negatively Enthusiastic about PRC, HyperMiler is an indian, can't be wrong.


----------



## Geography

Gentlemen, don't feed the troll. He'll be banned soon enough, let's get back on topic.


----------



## staff

> When atheists dream of a world without Christianity, I point them toward China as the example what a Godless world would look like today.


Haha, I should have known we were dealing with a religious nut job here. :lol: 

But in fact, I'm almost starting to believe in miracles because this clown hasn't actually been banned yet. Moderators-- do your job!


----------



## conc.man

Yeah, moderators should do something with these trollers, they are wasting time of everyone subscribing this thread.


----------



## HyperMiler

snow is red said:


> lol now Taiwan is dragged into the debate.


I was pointing to Taiwan as the future of China.



Huhu said:


> China has lots of Christians no?


Christians are persecuted in China. Most importantly, Chinese ethics code has no effect in China. 



> since China clearly does not accept faulty products


Consumers don't accept defective product, but sellers do try to pass defective product onto consumers, who could be anybody from poor farmer's wife shopping for a baby formula to PLAAF.



strandeed said:


> What about the F-22 and F-35?


F-22 works fine and you have rich countries lined up to buy this thing even with its supposed defect if Americans would sell it.

As for F-35, yes this project is a failure in terms of cost because of its overstretching supply chain across the globe, but it works as planned performance wise. A lesson learned from F-35 program is to not get too many partners involved in single project, as management complexity derails project. 

Now, J-11 isn't a brand new design; it is a Chinese replica of an old Russian design for which they have full design plan, yet Chinese cannot fully replace the missing Russian tech that Russians refuse to supply and make it work the original. And the people who are working on J-10/J-11 are the cream of Chinese engineering talent pool, far more talented than people working on CRH380. 

So why are Chinese engineers struggling on J-10 and J-11? Because of engine failures caused by poor material, and unstable FWB system. That poor material issue has a direct consequence on China's high speed train development program, since Chinese are decades behind the West in material science and metallurgy, and it's inconceivable that Chinese are able to produce a wheel+axle assembly that could tolerate a higher operating speed than Germans could.



staff said:


> But in fact, I'm almost starting to believe in miracles because this clown hasn't actually been banned yet. Moderators-- do your job!


Well, mods aren't doing their job of banning flame throwers like yourself and carrot1, so why would they be banning a productive and contributing member like me?


----------



## UD2

Hypermiller get a life please and stop ruining my forum. 

get out...


----------



## binhai

Put him on your ignore list, I did that...


----------



## HyperMiler

UD2 said:


> Hypermiller get a life please and stop ruining my forum.
> 
> get out...


Didn't it occur to you that it is your baseless whining that's ruining this forum?

You are not contributing anything useful here.

Just Look at this page.

Posters who contributed useful material and debates

- HyperMiler
- ANR
- Huhu
- strandeed

Trolls who are wasting bandwidth and storage

- carrot1
- maldini
- snow is red
- Peloso
- nineth
- Geography
- staff
- conc.man
- BarbaricManchurian
- UD2


----------



## UD2

BarbaricManchurian said:


> Put him on your ignore list, I did that...


I never knew about that. thanks!


----------



## UD2

HyperMiler said:


> Didn't it occur to you that it is your baseless whining that's ruining this forum?
> 
> You are not contributing anything useful here.
> 
> Just Look at this page.


whatever monkey.

Your post is my base.


----------



## maldini

nineth said:


> according to his mentality, which is so negatively Enthusiastic about PRC, HyperMiler is an indian, can't be wrong.


Just ignore that Indian troll.:lol:
what names were he posting with before this?:lol:


----------



## Ariel74

maldini said:


> Just ignore that Indian troll.:lol:
> what names were he posting with before this?:lol:


Seriously, you guys get a life too. Not every sinophobe and wacko is an Indian. When's the last time you hear an Indian complain about a "godless world" anyway?? Just put him on your ignore list. That way, his messages are automatically blended out. "out of sight, out of mind" as they say.

Back to topic: does anyone have any info on the progress of the CHR3 based next generation HS train? Both the Wikipedia article on CRH380 (which is CRH2 based and has little to do with CRH3-380) as well as some chinese rail-fan forums contain brief and oblique references to hiccups in the cooperation between Bei-Zhe - the chinese producer - and Siemens, to the effect that Siemens does not agree to many of the modifications the chinese side wants to make. Since Siemens still provides some of the key components to the CRHs that the chinese at the moment cannot produce, they apparently have a say in how far the chinese can go to modify the CRH3 to produce a next generation variant (code-named CRH3-380).

Does anyone have more detailed information on that?


----------



## HyperMiler

Ariel74 said:


> Back to topic: does anyone has any info on the progress of the CHR3 based next generation HS train?


Chinese aren't working with CRH3 because it is heavier and cost more than twice as much as CRH2.

Chinese have taken individual component from CRH3 like bogie and put into CRH2's body to create CRH380, but the base platform of choice for further modification is CRH2 Shinkansen.

This strategy means Chinese will not be present in the US or Europe, but focus on high speed rail projects of developing countries, where cost matters more than safety and performance, and IP rights wouldn't matter.


----------



## foxmulder

BarbaricManchurian said:


> Put him on your ignore list, I did that...


I forgot this forum had that option. Thanks for reminding


----------



## foxmulder

Ariel74 said:


> Seriously, you guys get a life too. Not every sinophobe and wacko is an Indian. When's the last time you hear an Indian complain about a "godless world" anyway?? Just put him on your ignore list. That way, his messages are automatically blended out. "out of sight, out of mind" as they say.
> 
> Back to topic: does anyone have any info on the progress of the CHR3 based next generation HS train? Both the Wikipedia article on CRH380 (which is CRH2 based and has little to do with CRH3-380) as well as some chinese rail-fan forums contain brief and oblique references to hiccups in the cooperation between Bei-Zhe - the chinese producer - and Siemens, to the effect that Siemens does not agree to many of the modifications the chinese side wants to make. Since Siemens still provides some of the key components to the CRHs that the chinese at the moment cannot produce, they apparently have a say in how far the chinese can go to modify the CRH3 to produce a next generation variant (code-named CRH3-380).
> 
> Does anyone have more detailed information on that?


I am a little bit confused. I start to think there are three 380s. 

1) what we see in expo

2) one that is talked about in Kawasaki deal
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3578595

3) one based on Siemens one. (this might be #1)


----------



## conc.man

BarbaricManchurian said:


> Put him on your ignore list, I did that...


Thanks, very helpful.


----------



## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> I am a little bit confused. I start to think there are three 380s.


No, there is only one.



> 1) what we see in expo


This is the only CRH380.



> 2) one that is talked about in Kawasaki deal


It is not a Kawasaki deal, but a deal with China Sifang Locomotive, who in turn is licensed by Kawasaki. Kawasaki director protested Chinese modification of CRH2 back in 2009 and does not approve such Chinese modification. Accordingly all modifications are of China Sifang's own work. In fact, this model maybe CRH380, thereby confirming that CRH380 is a modified Shinkansen E2.


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## conc.man

foxmulder said:


> I am a little bit confused. I start to think there are three 380s.
> 
> 1) what we see in expo
> 
> 2) one that is talked about in Kawasaki deal
> http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3578595
> 
> 3) one based on Siemens one. (this might be #1)


CRH1-380: Bombardier's Zefiro 380 version
CRH2-380: Sifang 380 version CRH2
CRH3-380: Tangshan 380 version CRH3

The one in Exop is CRH2-380, one photo in ourail bbs shows it has started testing on tracks, but the photo was deleted several days later.


----------



## UD2

Some pictures snapped by some friends on Railwayfan.net These arn't my photos as I'm simply linking them.

Credits and copy rights reserved for original posters on Railwayfan.net

*CRH380 Test Train *<--- people seem to be asking about this lately. 
Photo taken on the Beijing-Guangzhou conventional line. Train was travelling south near the city of Shijiazhuang, around 300kms from Beijing. Definately one of the first instances where the train has been seen operating on its own power in public. 

http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/18-210123L/8513/jpg/05/2010/img6/glowfoto.jpg

URL reference (http://www.railwayfan.net/viewthread.php?tid=82587&extra=page=2&page=2)


CRH1E & CRH1

http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/18-203404L/2836/jpg/05/2010/img5/glowfoto

CRH1E
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/18-210449L/1806/jpg/05/2010/img6/glowfoto

CRH2 350
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/18-223920L/6973/jpg/05/2010/img4/glowfoto

CRH5
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/18-224301L/4815/jpg/05/2010/img4/glowfoto


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## yaohua2000

UD2 said:


> Some pictures snapped by some friends on Railwayfan.net These arn't my photos as I'm simply linking them.
> 
> Credits and copy rights reserved for original posters on Railwayfan.net
> 
> *CRH380 Test Train *<--- people seem to be asking about this lately.
> Photo taken on the Beijing-Guangzhou conventional line. Train was travelling south near the city of Shijiazhuang, around 300kms from Beijing. Definately one of the first instances where the train has been seen operating on its own power in public.
> 
> http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/18-210123L/8513/jpg/05/2010/img6/glowfoto.jpg
> 
> URL reference (http://www.railwayfan.net/viewthread.php?tid=82587&extra=page=2&page=2)


Don't post old images.  (It's on page 119 of this thread)

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=56922845&postcount=2374


----------



## foxmulder

conc.man said:


> CRH1-380: Bombardier's Zefiro 380 version
> CRH2-380: Sifang 380 version CRH2
> CRH3-380: Tangshan 380 version CRH3
> 
> The one in Exop is CRH2-380, one photo in ourail bbs shows it has started testing on tracks, but the photo was deleted several days later.



But, the one in th expo has bogies very similar to those of Velaro ones. How can it be based on E2? 

Also, just wanted to write down the total number of train sets on order for each CRH to see the scale of the Chinese market, please correct if they are wrong:

CRH1 (Zefiro which can reach 380km/h): 80 sets (http://www.bombardier.com/en/corporate/media-centre/press-releases/details?docID=0901260d800acfd9)

CRH2 (Kawasaki E2, 380km/h): 140 sets

CRH3 (Velaro, 380km/h): 340 sets - 2,720 cars?? (subsystem contract: http://www.railway-technology.com/news/news69895.html)

All of these contracts are signed in 2009.

I believe what we see in expo is not any of these. :dunno: However, some of those subsystems from the last deal might have ended up on the expo one.


----------



## makita09

I can't believe they are working on 3 380km/h designs! This really is turning out to be the second golden age of rail, and I salute the Chinese efforts. Plus I look forward to travelling on them one day (even though i'll probably die according to internationally renowned industry commentators).

France and Japan have shown what can be done with mature HSR networks, but China is about to take this to a whole new level. It will be interesting to see what a fully mature network on a France+Spain+Germany+Italy scale matched with Japanese-esque density can acheive in the development of a country and its demography.


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## HyperMiler

foxmulder said:


> But, the one in th expo has bogies very similar to those of Velaro ones. How can it be based on E2?


Because Chinese took Velaro/CRH3's bogies and put it on a Shinkansen/CRH2's body?

Like I said Chinese are making modifications without Kawasaki's approval, and Kawasaki JR East has renounced all responsibilities from Chinese modifications.



makita09 said:


> I can't believe they are working on 3 380km/h designs!


No, Chinese are working on CRH380 only.

Zefiro is a Bombardier design.


----------



## Ariel74

conc.man said:


> CRH1-380: Bombardier's Zefiro 380 version
> CRH2-380: Sifang 380 version CRH2
> CRH3-380: Tangshan 380 version CRH3
> 
> The one in Exop is CRH2-380, one photo in ourail bbs shows it has started testing on tracks, but the photo was deleted several days later.



correct.


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## derekf1974

Not sure if these two pictures have been posted before. Wuhan station.


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## foxmulder

I saw the first one somewhere in this forum but the second one is new to me. Thanks for sharing. Incredible infrastructure


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## Ariel74

yaohua2000 said:


>


Another strange thing about this picture is that it appears mysterious how the nose of the car that houses the coupling equipment would be opened at all. And where are the lights?


----------



## SamuraiBlue

If you make a comparison with the people pushing I think you'll notice that it's a bit small.
It's probably a 75% scale or something.


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

Any news about the chinese made maglev train that was presentet a month ago and that was supposed to be used during the world expo? (accoridng cctv-video)


----------



## binhai

Ariel74 said:


> By the way, someone apparently attached a photo of the new CRH3 in the first post of the following thread in a chinese railway forum:
> 
> http://www.ditiezu.com/redirect.php?tid=95813&goto=newpost#newpost
> 
> But, because of the idiocy of those bastards in Beijing, viewing of the picture is denied visitors like me, and I cannot become an official member of the site, again thanks to the idiotic internet control emanating from Beijing.
> 
> Could someone who's a member of that site post the picture for us here?


its pretty easy to register, all you have to do is supply a username, password, email address, 2 verification codes, and agree to the terms and conditions. I think it's rather your lack of Chinese comprehension that is hindering your efforts to register, as I just easily registered a new account in 15 secs. I can help you register if you want, just supply the username, password, and email you want, and I'll give the account to you after I create it.

Anyway here's the photo:


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## Ariel74

BarbaricManchurian said:


> its pretty easy to register, all you have to do is supply a username, password, email address, 2 verification codes, and agree to the terms and conditions. I think it's rather your lack of Chinese comprehension that is hindering your efforts to register, as I just easily registered a new account in 15 secs. I can help you register if you want, just supply the username, password, and email you want, and I'll give the account to you after I create it.


I am not sure you understand what the problem is. Registering is no problem. But you do not get the full-membership status just by registering. They are supposed to review my application and notify me at the email account I gave them. Yet months go by and I haven't seen anything yet in my email account. 

Without a full-membership status (whatever they call it) you cannot view the photo attachments to certain posts. 

It's definitely not an automatic process. They obviously employ censors who personally review each registration and decide the German email account I gave them is not good enough, or whatever.


----------



## Ariel74

SamuraiBlue said:


> If you make a comparison with the people pushing I think you'll notice that it's a bit small.
> It's probably a 75% scale or something.


I agree.


----------



## binhai

Ariel74 said:


> I am not sure you understand what the problem is. Registering is no problem. But you do not get the full-membership status just by registering. They are supposed to review my application and notify me at the email account I gave them. Yet months go by and I haven't seen anything yet in my email account.
> 
> Without a full-membership status (whatever they call it) you cannot view the photo attachments to certain posts.
> 
> It's definitely not an automatic process. They obviously employ censors who personally review each registration and decide the German email account I gave them is not good enough, or whatever.


seems like this is new, when I registered years ago I didn't have this problem or any delays in registering, but I guess they are trying to be as annoying as possible now...


----------



## Glodenox

Are you sure your activation mail didn't arrive in your spam box?
Although it's possible they use manual activation - which would be a pain, the usual problem is more that such activation mails end up in a spam folder and as such are overlooked...

Greetings,
Glodenox


----------



## foxmulder

yaohua2000 said:


>



Now, with this, number of 380km/h trains under development increased to 4?


----------



## Ariel74

@BarbarianManchurian / Goldenox

my apologies, I confused ourail.com with ditiezu.com. The former has the censorial policies I described. The latter, as I just found out, actually doesn't. I could become a full-member by *uploading a personal picture* (though not necessary of my person). 

But the better sites (hasea.com, ourail.com) remain closed or member-ship censored.


----------



## Pansori

So what train is in that picture?


----------



## Ariel74

Pansori said:


> So what train is in that picture?


We don't know. It may be a model for a CRH3-380 mentioned in the articled posted above, the next generation CRH based on CRH3.


----------



## UD2

^^

The train that's being pushed sideways is a MOCKUP that's being displayed in the Jilin Province Pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 expo.

There are rumors that it is a model of the 500km/h test train that's currently under development. Only a rumor though.


----------



## Pansori

UD2 said:


> ^^
> 
> The train that's being pushed sideways is a MOCKUP that's being displayed in the Jilin Province Pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 expo.
> 
> There are rumors that it is a model of the 500km/h test train that's currently under development. Only a rumor though.


500km/h? I have no doubt it's technically possible to develop one (just as the current top-speed records prove) but wouldn't it be too inefficient due to the forces of friction with conventional rails and wheels? Even if it could actually run at such speed, operating and maintenance costs would many times exceed those of trains running at 300-350km/h. Hence if they want 500km/h the only reasonable option is maglev which would do much better at such speed.


----------



## UD2

Pansori said:


> 500km/h? I have no doubt it's technically possible to develop one (just as the current top-speed records prove) but wouldn't it be too inefficient due to the forces of friction with conventional rails and wheels? Even if it could actually run at such speed, operating and maintenance costs would many times exceed those of trains running at 300-350km/h. Hence if they want 500km/h the only reasonable option is maglev which would do much better at such speed.


^^

point is to beat the French. As in the my long and round object is faster.

Will they build something that'll commercially operate at that speed? Nobody's planning for it at this time.


----------



## Ariel74

UD2 said:


> ^^
> 
> The train that's being pushed sideways is a MOCKUP that's being displayed in the Jilin Province Pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 expo.
> 
> There are rumors that it is a model of the 500km/h test train that's currently under development. Only a rumor though.


Are there any pictures of the CRH3-380 (not this other project) in the public domain?


----------



## HyperMiler

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> Any news about the chinese made maglev train that was presentet a month ago and that was supposed to be used during the world expo? (accoridng cctv-video)


It's designed by Shenyang Aircraft Corp, whose replica fighter jet J-11B(a clone of Su-27) was refused to be accepted by Chinese airforce due to an instability in the air.



Pansori said:


> 500km/h? I have no doubt it's technically possible to develop one


No it is not. Too much wear and tear on the track. The realistic service speed limit of a conventional high speed train is 360 km/hr. Higher commercial service speeds would require maglev.



> Hence if they want 500km/h the only reasonable option is maglev which would do much better at such speed.


Yes, maglev is the only option for a commercial service speed in excess of 360 km/hr.


----------



## Restless

*Global Rail Tech Conductor*

http://bjreview.com.cn/business/txt/2010-05/24/content_274034.htm

*China becomes a world leader in high-speed railway innovation after absorbing foreign technologies and making breakthroughs of its own
By LAN XINZHEN*

Most everyday train passengers don't have time, or reason, to ponder the technicalities of the rails, wheels and engines beneath his or her feet. But inevitably questions will pop up. What kind of quality technologies do China's high-speed railways utilize? How are they maintained? And are they safe?

"China has mastered a complete set of high-speed railway technologies that integrate designing, construction, equipment manufacturing, train control and system integration, as well as daily operation and management, forming a high-speed railway technology system with independent intellectual property rights at a global advanced level," said a news release from the Ministry of Railways (MOR).

The release also says that although high-speed railway technologies originated in Japan, Germany and France, China has made independent innovations when absorbing technologies from abroad. With a series of significant technological achievements, China has become a world leader in high-speed railway technologies. The fastest train operating in the world is in China (CRH trains), and it features the best system integration capabilities, covers the longest distance and is the largest construction project of its kind anywhere in the world.

Thanks to China's achievements in high-speed rail construction, Beijing is honored to host the Seventh World Congress on High Speed Rail in December 2010.

*Technological breakthroughs*

China currently has three high-speed rails operating above 350 km per hour, all of which were built on different terrain, presenting multiple challenges—the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway is built on a mollisoil bed, Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway on a karst bed and Zhengzhou-Xi'an High-Speed Railway on a collapsible loess bed. Construction of railways, particularly high-speed railways, on such geological conditions is unprecedented, even in Japan, Germany and France. To build the railways, China had to overcome numerous design obstacles before setting out to complete the high-speed projects.

The MOR noted the three high-speed railways are operating stably and efficiently, a testament to China's ability to master treatment technologies of railway beds with complicated geological conditions.

To save land, an array of bridges were built during the construction of high-speed railways, particularly over sections that span major rivers. On Chinese high-speed railways operating now, three of these viaducts stand out: the Wuhan Tianxingzhou Bridge, Nanjing Dashengguan Yangtze River Bridge and Jinan Yellow River Bridge. The three structures hold world records in terms of span, load-bearing capacity and width.

Tunnel construction also reflects the degree of difficulty facing China as it strives to construct a massive high-speed network. The Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway has tunnels running through the Dayao Mountain and crossing the Liuyang River near Changsha, capital of Hunan Province. Cross-sections of these tunnels are 160 meters wide, and trains pass through at speeds of 350 km per hour, an unprecedented accomplishment among high-speed rails worldwide.

As for track technologies, high-speed railways in France use ballasted tracks (tracks stabilized with small, crushed stones), while those in Germany and Japan use ballastless tracks. According to the MOR release, with systematic and comprehensive research on ballastless tracks, China has solved the problem of electric current coverage between ballastless tracks and rails, which other countries have never encountered.

China also has high-speed railways with seamless tracks, such as the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway. On the 120-km railway, there is not a single seam. He Huawu, chief engineer of the MOR, said using seamless tracks in China is a thorny problem due to its vast territory and range of temperatures between different regions and seasons. After years of research and a hefty financial commitment, China has developed the most advanced technologies in the world in both ballastless and seamless tracks.

*High-speed innovator*

The MOR release said China's high-speed train technologies have reached the world's most advanced level. Based on mastering core technologies for high-speed trains capable of traveling 200-250 km per hour—the same as those abroad—China has solved the difficulties that restrict speed increases. With innovations in key technologies and manufacturing technologies of its own, China has successfully established a technology platform for trains with a speed of 350 km per hour.

China-made CRH high-speed trains now operate widely on high-speed lines nationwide. The CRH trains have risen to the advanced level among world high-speed trains for their demonstrated excellence on the Beijing-Tianjin, Wuhan-Guangzhou and Zhengzhou-Xi'an high-speed lines, in addition to the operating speed, large transportation volume, energy-saving and environmentally friendly capability, and comfort of each train.

Overseas competitors, He said, have yet to match the speed of China's trains. The Super Express, or Shinkansen, is the masterpiece of Japan, but runs at only 300 km per hour, while French and German high-speed trains run at around 320 km per hour and 300 km per hour, respectively.

China, while producing the world's fastest trains, hasn't ceased efforts to produce even higher-speed rails. To meet the demand for a Beijing-Shanghai high-speed corridor, China has completed the design work for trains capable of traveling at more than 350 km per hour, and progress is being made on the production of such trains.

The Chinese Train Control System (CTCS)—the mechanism used to coordinate China's massive rail network—has also surpassed the present world advanced level. Currently, most Chinese rails apply the CTCS-2 technology, which is similar to the high-speed train control system used abroad. In addition, a CTCS-3 system has been developed to ensure the safe operation of high-speed trains of 350 km per hour with train intervals of three minutes. The CTCS-3 system has been applied to the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway and the Zhengzhou-Xi'an High-Speed Railway with positive results.

Since China is still in the primary stage of high-speed railway development, many railway stations serve both high-speed and standard trains, which presents varying safety requirements, especially when trains are entering and leaving the stations.

"We have solved this problem and unveiled all the hidden perils caused by pulling in trains from multiple tracks," He said.

China's routine maintenance system for high-speed railways integrates some of the most advanced technologies in the world. This technology combines sub-systems such as CRH trains, telecom signals, operation controls and passenger transportation. Specialized personnel are responsible for checking the integrated data and then making subtle adjustments to the equipment based on the collected data in order to optimize the whole system.

The integrated technology will not only allow China's high-speed rails to reach their goal of breaking speeds of 350 km per hour, but also provide new levels of comfort and safety where not even full beverage glasses will spill during the course of any trip.

The MOR release also outlined plans for comprehensive high-speed checking trains to monitor the infrastructure with automated equipment. In addition, the MOR has developed early-warning technologies to monitor natural disasters in real time.

*Exporting technologies*

China has reached a series of agreements with the United States, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arab and Venezuela on cooperation in high-speed railway construction. Some of the projects are making significant headway.

The MOR release says it will share advanced and mature high-speed railway technologies with other countries in line with the principle of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation to promote high-speed railway development worldwide.

As chief engineer of the MOR and mastermind for designing and manufacturing China's high-speed railways, He is quite proud of the independent innovation and breakthroughs his country has made.

He said China has complete independent intellectual property rights over its high-speed railways, with 946 patents pending. And so far, there have been no intellectual property right disputes between China and any foreign companies in the high-speed railway sector.


----------



## HyperMiler

Derailment in China kills 19, injures 70.










http://www.worldbuzznow.com/derailed-china-train-killing-19/10642


----------



## Ariel74

I reckon that ourail.com is up and running, though it does not accept new members. I am sure some readers of this forum are members of that (and other) chinese railway fan sites  Any news/photos about the CRH380 and CRH3-380 on ourail.com?


----------



## makita09

Yes its a biased article for sure. I think pretty much all of the statements about what is being done are broadly correct, but the bias is that it is all China's doing when it isn't, and is economical with the truth about other countries' capabilities. For example, Germany can only achieve 300km/h, when its German technology that got China to 350km/h in the first place.


----------



## ANR

*Riding the High-Speed Rails*

_China plans to double its high-speed railway network to make domestic transportation more convenient and efficient _

By LAN XINZHEN 
May 24, 2010
bjreview.com.cn









_A train roars along during the trial run of the Zhengzhou-Xi'an High-Speed Railway on January 25, 2010 (ZHANG XIAOLI) _

Travel between Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province in south China, used to take 10 hours. But now, the 1,000-km journey can be made in three hours. When factoring in time spent getting to the airport and then waiting to board the aircraft, travel time between the two cities by air or rail is roughly the same. But the cost effectiveness of train travel trumps air transportation, luring a considerable number of people to stay grounded when traveling.

Trains have become the preferred transportation method of many travelers who used to travel by air, as high-speed railways cut both time and costs. The reduction in travel time comes from the debut of the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway which started operating on December 26, 2009, and has since become a major transportation artery from the heart of China to the southeast coastal areas. During the recent three-day May Day holiday, the high-speed railway transported nearly 270,000 passengers, a record high in train transportation between the two cities.

The Wuhan-Guangzhou corridor is also the longest high-speed railway in China—1,069 km in length. Other high-speed railways now in operation in the country include those from Beijing to Tianjin, Beijing to Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, Zhengzhou in Henan Province to Xi'an in Shaanxi Province and Hefei in Anhui Province to Shanghai. Figures from the Ministry of Railways (MOR) show the total length of high-speed railways currently in operation has reached 6,552 km, the longest in the world. In spite of the quick construction, more high-speed rails will be needed to cater to China's ever-increasing passenger demand. MOR figures state China plans to construct an additional 13,000 km of high-speed railways by 2012, bringing the high-speed railway network to just shy of 20,000 km.

Also by 2012, the majority of Chinese cities will be connected in the network as the nation enters an era of popularized high-speed railway demand.










Years in the making

Development of China's high-speed rail network began in 2004, but the vision of the nation linked by fast trains is decades old. He Huawu, a 55-year-old MOR chief engineer, has witnessed that vision take shape and speed off over the course of his career. In 1992, He went to Europe for a field study of European railway development with an MOR delegation. During the trip, He took the Channel Tunnel, or the Eurotunnel, connecting Britain and France, the first time he had been on a high-speed railway running at 273 km per hour. At that time in China, trains could only travel at a maximum of 120 km per hour. He was amazed by the European talent in developing such fast transportation and wondered when China would catch up. China needed fast trains, but He had no idea of when or how long it would take to build high-speed railroads in his home country.

In the early 1990s, China's railway capacity could only meet half of the cargo transportation demand, which greatly restrained economic development. For years, China mulled the possibility of building a high-speed rail network, but protest was raised because of technology and capital constraints. The high-speed rail decision was slowed until 2004 when the Central Government determined China needed high-speed railways and pushed for railway technology innovation. The Central Government also ordered the construction of the first high-speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin and said it must be put into operation within five years. That year, He was appointed as chief engineer of MOR, taking charge of the design and construction of Chinese high-speed railways.

The first day in August 2008 marked the beginning of the high-speed rail era in China, as the Beijing-Tianjin Railway became operational one year earlier than scheduled. Soon thereafter, high-speed links sprouted up one after another across the country. At present, more than 10,000 km high-speed railways are under construction, connecting economically developed cities in eastern and central parts of the country. In April 2007, China increased the speed of trains by applying high technology, after which 2,876 trains could reach a maximum speed of 200-250 km per hour, the highest speed possible on existing railroads.

According to information provided by the MOR, high-speed railways are running smoothly with stable and reliable railroads, telecommunication signals, traction and power supply. MOR data show 773 high-speed trains travel across the country each day with a daily passenger transportation capacity of 845,000. The expanding network of high-speed railways has made travel more convenient, improved people's lives and relieved the pressure of insufficient capacity. Train cars with passengers packed in like canned sardines were widespread in the years before high-speed railways. But now, that common occurrence is becoming a fleeting memory of a slower past.

The Central Government has also adopted favorable policies to encourage railway development in terms of approval procedures, financing, land appraisal, environmental impact assessment, and research and development. Local governments have accordingly provided for the construction of high-speed railways, as they see such development as a strategic measure to boost local economic growth.

Across the nation

By 2020, according to MOR figures, China's high-speed railway network will extend over 50,000 km, connecting all provincial capitals and cities with populations exceeding 500,000 and providing 90 percent of the country's total population with access to rails. By that time, "China will build up a comprehensive railway network which will meet the demand of national economic and social development, and the passengers and cargoes will be able to be transported freely and conveniently without obstruction," said the MOR.

China laid out the blueprint for its high-speed railways in 2004 when the State Council, the cabinet, passed the Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan. According to the plan, the high-speed railway development will include four "north-south" lines and four "east-west" lines. The four "north-south" lines refer to railways that connect cities in northern and southern parts of China, including:
- the 1,318-km Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway to connect the Bohai Sea Rim and the prosperous east coastal Yangtze River Delta regions
- the 2,350-km Beijing-Wuhan-Guangzhou-Shenzhen (Hong Kong) High-Speed Railway to connect north, central and south China
- the 1,612-km Beijing-Shenyang-Harbin (Dalian) High-Speed Railway to connect the northeastern and inner-Shanhaiguan Pass areas
- the 1,650-km Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo-Fuzhou-Shenzhen High-Speed Railway to connect the Yangtze River Delta, southeast coastal areas and the Pearl River Delta.

The four "east-west" lines refer to high-speed railways running between eastern and western parts of China:
- the 906-km Qingdao-Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan line to connect the country's northern and eastern parts
- the 1,346-km Xuzhou-Zhengzhou-Lanzhou Railway to connect the northwestern and eastern regions
- 1,922-km Shanghai-Nanjing-Wuhan-Chongqing-Chengdu line to connect the southwestern and southeastern regions
- the 2,264-km Shanghai-Hangzhou-Nanchang-Changsha-Kunming railway to connect the central, eastern and southwestern regions.

The completion of the eight high-speed railways will connect China's major population hubs, making it possible for people to travel across the country with ease.

China also plans to develop inter-city high-speed railways covering economically developed and densely populated cities and towns, such as the Bobai Sea Rim, Yangtze River Delta, Chongqing and Chengdu areas and the west bank of the Taiwan Straits. Those inter-city rails will link relatively smaller cities and towns to the eight major high-speed railways.

The MOR plan shows the ultimate goal of China's high-speed railways is to form a one- to two-hour transportation network between neighboring provincial capital cities, and half- and one-hour transportation networks between provincial capital cities and other cities in the province. After the completion of these major railway lines, it will take no more than eight hours to travel from Beijing to the majority of provincial capitals.

High-Speed Projects

Existing railways:
With speeds reaching 350 km per hour
- Beijing-Tianjin: 120 km, started operating on August 1, 2008
- Wuhan-Guangzhou: 1,069 km, started operating on December 26, 2009
- Zhengzhou-Xi'an: 485 km, started operating on January 27, 2010

With speeds reaching 250 km per hour
- Hefei-Wuhan: 350 km in length, started operating on April 1, 2009
- Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan: 212 km, started operating on April 1, 2009
- Hefei-Nanjing: 166 km, started operating on April 18, 2009
- Jinan-Qingdao: 394 km, started operating on December 20, 2008
- Ningbo-Wenzhou: 268 km, started operating on September 28, 2009
- Wenzhou-Fuzhou: 302 km, started operating on September 28, 2009
- Fuzhou-Xiamen: 276 km, started operating on April 26, 2010

Railways under construction:
- Harbin-Dalian: to connect Harbin, Shenyang and Dalian in northeast China; speeds reaching 300-350 km per hour; 950 km in length; expected to be launched in 2013.
- Beijing-Shanghai: to connect Beijing and Shanghai via Jinan, Xuzhou and Nanjing; speeds reaching 350 km per hour; 1,318 km in length; expected to be launched in 2012.
- Beijing-Guangzhou: from Beijing to Guangzhou via Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Changsha; 2,200 km in length; speeds reaching 250 km per hour. The Wuhan-Guangzhou section has already been put into operation. The rest of the line is expected to be completed in 2012.
- Shanghai-Shenzhen (southeast coastal railways): to connect Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Xiamen and Shenzhen; 1,650 km in length; speeds reaching 250 km per hour; expected to be completed in 2011.
- Qingdao-Taiyuan: to connect the east and the north, from Qingdao to Taiyuan via Shijiazhuang; 770 km in length; speeds reaching 250 km per hour. The Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan section and Qingdao-Jinan section have already been completed. The rest of the line will be finished by 2020.
- Xuzhou-Lanzhou: to connect Xuzhou, Zhengzhou, Xi'an and Lanzhou; 1,400 km in length; speeds reaching 250 km per hour. The Zhengzhou-Xi'an section has been put into operation, while a construction timeframe for the rest of the railway has yet to be determined.
- Shanghai-Chengdu (along the Yangtze River): to connect Shanghai, Nanjing, Hefei, Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu; 1,900 km in length; speeds reaching 200-350 km per hour. It will become a major transportation route from east to west China after its completion in 2011.
- Shanghai-Kunming: to connect Shanghai and Kunming via Hangzhou, Nanchang and Changsha; 2,264 km in length; speeds reaching 250 km per hour; expected to be put into operation in 2015.


----------



## Ariel74

ANR said:


> ....


Most of your post is just old-news. What I'd *really* like to know about the existing HSR lines would be:

1) What are the occupancy rates on each of these lines?

2) The nature and frequency of those reported technical problems the CRH3 and CRH2 on Wuguang line have run into.

Please, those with access to the good chinese railway fan sites, report some *real* news! (again CRH380 and CRH3-380 anyone?) We've read all the boring official Xinhua news articles.


----------



## Ariel74

foxmulder said:


> Thanks for the article. China has been a heaven for railway fans. Love the picture in this article. I saw it before but nice to see it again


Could you please stop *re-*quoting lengthy, old, and boring articles? It makes the scrolling difficult. Thanks.


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## HyperMiler

http://english.cri.cn/6909/2010/05/24/1901s571679.htm

Beijing residents who live along the proposed Beijing maglev line are protesting, as they fear health risk from electromagnetic radiation.


----------



## Tubeman

Please keep this thread on topic, trolling-free, and stop abusing thread tags or I'll start brigging


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## HyperMiler

Tubeman said:


> Please keep this thread on topic, trolling-free, and stop abusing thread tags or I'll start brigging


Thank you for issuing this warning against trolls who flood this thread with useless flames. I appreciate that.


----------



## Tubeman

HyperMiler said:


> Thank you for issuing this warning against trolls who flood this thread with useless flames. I appreciate that.


Errrr... You were one of the worst offenders


----------



## HyperMiler

Tubeman said:


> Errrr... You were one of the worst offenders


No I am not. 

Actually read through and I stick to the topics and discuss issues related to Chinese railway.

Have you seen me flaming others? No you haven't.

Do you see me posting valid news and see Chinese nationalists enraged by the negative portrayal of Chinese railway, which they regard as an insult to China motherland? Yes, that's exactly what you are seeing here.

You are confusing the negative reaction of Chinese nationalists against my perfectly valid criticism of Chinese railway industry with trolling. I am not responsible for the trolling by Chinese nationalists here.


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## Tubeman

And there you go again... Fair enough, the brig for you... you were warned


----------



## sasalove

*Photos from Railway Pavilion Shanghai Expo*


----------



## foxmulder

I love the models, especially the train station. China-Europe HSR idea is also very interesting as we discussed in another topic. We'll see what it will turn into. Exciting days for HSR fans.


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## Ariel74

sasalove said:


> ...


Do you have any photos from the mock-up train in Jilin-Exhibition Hall at the Expo?


----------



## hkskyline

*Concerns about the benefits of Maglev rail*
26 May 2010
China Daily - Hong Kong Edition

The controversial Maglev train project finally got its green light in Beijing.

The environmental assessment report of the Line S1 was publicized to solicit public opinion. Accompanying the report, however, is the timetable of the project. So the public cannot but question whether the authorities really care about what the public thinks.

In fact, residents along the planned line, worrying about the possible harm from radiation and noise, have already lodged a joint protest.

The Maglev train in Shanghai, put into operation in 2002, was the world's first Maglev in commercial operation. The 30-km line, with a gigantic cost of 10 billion yuan, is now deeply in deficit. Because of the high ticket prices, the annual passenger flow is only 20 percent of capacity.

Another Maglev train project, with a budget of 35 billion yuan, was canceled in Shanghai for fear of potential pollution.

Shanghai's Maglev should provide food for thought for any potential follower. Behind the advantages of Maglev - comfort, modern styling and efficiency, some questions should be answered.

First, does it harm the environment? How big is the impact of Maglev pollution? Such a question should be answered with concrete figures instead of empty talk. The worry of residents living along the line can be alleviated only when the environmental department conducts on-the-spot surveys and gives convincing figures.

Second, is it safe? Maglev has many more technical requirements than traditional rail. Its smooth operation, for example, depends on the stability of electric pressure. Can all the technical requirements be guaranteed?

Third, is it efficient? What is the budget of the planned project? It is reported that the planned S1 line has a low- and medium-speed, requiring a much smaller investment compared with the high-speed one in Shanghai. Still, the investment is by no means a small sum. It is known that Maglev trains have a high energy consumption and high maintenance costs. How much of that fee will future passengers shoulder for them?

Fourth, how many benefits will it bring to local residents?

What is the real purpose of building a Maglev line, to improve traffic or boost domestic consumption? Is it for social or economic benefit? If it really aims to improve traffic, will the fare be affordable to residents?

Furthermore, is it a must? Is there any other choice with a lower investment but mature and stable technology?

An assessment could not be deemed just and scientific if it fails to answer the above questions. The answers will make clear whether the project is for show or for the welfare of residents.

Excerpts from a comment that appeared in Beijing Times on May 25


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## Ariel74

hkskyline said:


> *
> The environmental assessment report of the Line S1 was publicized to solicit public opinion. ...
> 
> Excerpts from a comment that appeared in Beijing Times on May 25*


*

So the article talks about the low-speed maglev train to be adopted in Beijing's city-rail system? Why does it use the Shanghai Maglev line as example, without even mentioning the huge differences between the two?*


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## dumbfword

sasalove said:


>


Any idea which Station?


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## urbanfan89

It's the Guangzhou South station.


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## Geography

This is the mother of all transportation hubs, the Hongqiao Transport hub in western Shanghai. It adds a second airport terminal to the Hongqiao Airport which is mated with a huge train station for HSR and a Maglev express line to Pudong airport, and five metro lines. A transportation planner's dream.


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## dumbfword

urbanfan89 said:


> It's the Guangzhou South station.


What's the third level used for?


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## sasalove

dumbfword said:


> What's the third level used for?


departure hall, platform and arrival


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## Jay

foxmulder said:


> Now, with this, number of 380km/h trains under development increased to 4?




Damn it looks like they got only 12 guys moving that 50 ton railcar.


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## dumbfword

sasalove said:


> departure hall, platform and arrival


Second seems all HSR, the last level will be metro?


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## carrot1

dumbfword said:


> Any idea which Station?



Very futuristic, I love it.


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## Huhu

Geography said:


> This is the mother of all transportation hubs, the Hongqiao Transport hub in western Shanghai. It adds a second airport terminal to the Hongqiao Airport which is mated with a huge train station for HSR and a Maglev express line to Pudong airport, and five metro lines. A transportation planner's dream.


Wouldn't a maglev line be redundant if the station is also served by ample HSR and metro lines?


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## Restless

There is a separate thread on Hongqiao here

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=542316


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## Ariel74

I have come across the news today that the first *CRH3-based* 380km/h series HSR rolling stock - named CRH380A - has rolled off the assembly line, and been introduced to journalists. But it is strange that, although there are photos of the train on the internet, I couldn't find a single shot of its *head*. I have a feeling there is again some sort of implicit censoring concerning the coverage of the event. But why? 

On the following thread in the forum ourail.com, people have reported that

1) the news has been reported on chinese television, and
2) the front-car of CRH380A is different from that of CRH3, indicating that Siemens has made concessions about what the Chinese can modify.

http://www.railwayfan.net/redirect.php?tid=83226&goto=newpost

Some photos I have managed to find on the internet:




























Please, people with better access to the Chinese media/internet sites, post more photos and information!!!


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## pearl_river

Another update to the map from http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/


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## Peloso

pearl_river said:


> Another update to the map from http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/
> http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/China-HSR-Update53.jpg


The volume of the ongoing work is just amazing.


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## Ariel74

By the way, I found a still from the tv-program introducing CRH380A with a shot of the head:


----------



## Ariel74

deleted


----------



## UD2

Ariel74 said:


> deleted


CRH 2 body with CRH3 windows/doors and a hybrid nose?


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## foxmulder

There should be tourist tours to these factories


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## Ariel74

UD2 said:


> CRH 2 body with CRH3 windows/doors and a hybrid nose?


Have you actually seen CRH2 and CRH3 before? CRH380A obviously has a body like that of CRH3. And the nose of CRH380A is also quite obviously a modification of that of CRH3. No hybridity going on here. 

(don't confuse the CRH3-based CRH380A with the CRH2-based CRH380 shown at the Expo).


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## Ariel74

At least two aspects in which the CRH380A nose differs from the nose of CRH3/Velaro :

1) CRH380A's nose is flatter;

2) driver's window on CRH380A begins *immediately* above the part of the nose that houses coupling instruments, whereas with CRH3/Velaro, there is something like half a meter distance between them.


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## Ariel74

Another still, now of the bogie of CRH380a:


----------



## UD2

Ariel74 said:


> Have you actually seen CRH2 and CRH3 before? CRH380A obviously has a body like that of CRH3. And the nose of CRH380A is also quite obviously a modification of that of CRH3. No hybridity going on here.
> 
> (don't confuse the CRH3-based CRH380A with the CRH2-based CRH380 shown at the Expo).


1. Yes I've seen em. In fact I've sat in them as well. 

2. Is this the 380A that we're talking about? Because if it is, then the exterior design project was to make a CRH2 train body more aerodynamically efficient by incorporating design elements from the CRH3's, mainly in the frontend. 



















3. And yes, the train that you've posted in your photos is definately different from the mockup. But the mock up is also certainlly labeled as the CRH380A.


----------



## bluemeansgo

Any word on the new Bombardier Zefiro?


----------



## UD2

bluemeansgo said:


> Any word on the new Bombardier Zefiro?


250 version is in service as the CRH-1E. 

380 version is still in the pipes.


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## Ariel74

UD2 said:


> 3. drink some tea.


and you drink some coffee and open your sleepy eyes to look at the photos I posted again, use your brain too. 

And please, stop posting old pictures that we all have seen multiple times.


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## Knuddel Knutsch

@Ariel:

Do you have a link to the video, from which you have the screenshots?


----------



## Geography

> that's some kung fu sh*t right there


Right on.


> The trains, which China has the independent intellectual property rights of, will run for the first time on the Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway that is to be completed and opened in 2011.


I thought the Beijing-Shanghai HSR line opens in 2012, at least that is what Wikipedia says.


----------



## hkhui

Geography said:


> Right on.
> 
> I thought the Beijing-Shanghai HSR line opens in 2012, at least that is what Wikipedia says.


Actually wikipedia is right. It is 20*11*. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing-Shanghai_Express_Railway

2012 was the original completion year, but it has since been brought forward to 2011.


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## maldini

The Beijing-shanghai highspeed railway opens in 2012?


----------



## Gaeus

maldini said:


> The Beijing-shanghai highspeed railway opens in 2012?


^^

:bash:


----------



## yuen95

HyperMiler said:


> There is an incredible video of a Chinese rail worker dodging two CRH trains coming from both direction at full speed. An incredible video
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CRH clip starts at 50 sec.



Look at closely you can see one of the train is ICE1 and the other one is ICE3, I think this is one of DB 's lines

But you won't care about it anyway


----------



## yaohua2000

*Track laying on Kahe Railway*

Kahe Railway, Kashgar to Hotan, 488 km long, construction work started on July 3, 2008, it will open later this year

Map: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:喀和線.png










Photos at http://bbs.ourail.com/viewthread.php?tid=70175


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## foxmulder

Interesting pictures, thanks for sharing.


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## HyperMiler

Is it just me or rails in Kahe Railway doesn't look so straight?


----------



## MarcVD

chornedsnorkack said:


> Sarakhs crossing is said to have SUW2000 gauge change device. Does any border station of China have any gauge change facility?


There is a gauge change facility at each place where a railway line crosses
a border between China and any ex-USSR country. I know about two of them,
one between Almaty and Urumqi, and one east of Mongolia, whose name
escapes me right now. Both have a bogie changing facility, since there
are through passenger trains on both of them.


----------



## Restless

*Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece*

*China's Fast Track to Development*
High-speed rail is about more than passengers. The new lines will free up valuable space for freight.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...3879199386.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopBucket

By WILL FREEMAN AND ARTHUR KROEBER

The 350-kilometer-per-hour Wuguang Harmony Express rockets through China's heartland delivering passengers 1,000 kilometers from Wuhan to Guangzhou—roughly the distance between Washington, D.C. and Chicago—in just three hours. Outside, quintessential scenes of modern China unfold. Future urban districts populated only by cranes, the skeletons of concrete buildings and the cooling towers of coal-fired power plants rise out of fields of bright-yellow rapeseed dotted with the occasional dilapidated brick farmhouse.

Such glimpses of an agrarian country still in its initial stages of development make the state-of-the-art Wuguang Harmony Express seem an extravagant indulgence, an emblem of Beijing's obsession with infrastructure, regardless of cost or utility. Critics say China's mammoth high-speed passenger rail network (16,000 kilometers of which a quarter is complete) serves no useful purpose and will saddle the country with a crippling debt.

Such criticism is misguided. The high-speed rail program is not a desperate throw of gold-plated dice in response to the global financial crisis, but a carefully considered component of a long planned and desperately needed upgrade of China's rail system.

Building a high-speed rail network now is a good investment.

As incomes rise, China's passenger railroads will become by far the world's busiest. Moving passenger traffic off clogged conventional rail lines will free up room for an explosion of freight traffic, so increased freight revenue will pay the capital cost of building the new lines. And by reducing the need for airplanes, cars and trucks to carry passengers and freight, the system will yield big savings in energy intensity and carbon emissions.

China's rail system is already the most intensively used in the world. China carries a quarter of the world's rail freight and passenger traffic on only 6% of the world's track. China's intensity of rail use (passenger and freight combined) is double India's, triple that of the United States, and a dozen times Europe's. Over the next decade, China's Ministry of Railways expects freight carriage to rise 55%, while passenger-miles will double. More miles of track are not a luxury, but a necessity. In addition to the high-speed lines, the ministry plans to lay another 18,000 kilometers of new conventional freight and passenger track by 2020.

One objection is that high-speed lines cost far more to build than conventional lines. Maybe new passenger lines are not a luxury, but high-speed lines are.

Wrong again. In France, Spain or Japan a mile of high-speed track costs triple a conventional mile. But in China, according to World Bank estimates, the cost premium is as low as 20% to 30%. Cheap labor and locally produced equipment help; so does the decision to build much of the network on viaducts, minimizing land acquisition cost. Finally, building an entire network all at once produces massive economies of scale.

This modest cost premium translates into affordable ticket prices—higher than for conventional rail, but lower than for air travel. The average household income in China's 36 biggest cities is now more than $10,000, so tens of millions of Chinese can easily afford high-speed tickets, especially for business trips.

On several recent trips on the Nanjing-Wuhan, Wuhan-Guangzhou and Guangzhou-Shenzhen lines, we found the trains to be about 90% full. The World Bank reckons that in a few years' time the Beijing-Hong Kong line will carry more than 80 million passengers a year, becoming the world's busiest high-speed passenger rail line.

But the really big gain is that by moving most passenger traffic off existing conventional lines, more space is freed up for cargo. China's businesses—ranging from manufacturers to coal mines—have complained for years about the difficulty of securing space on freight trains, which forces them to move a lot of their cargo on more expensive and less efficient trucks. An increase in rail capacity will enable them to put their freight back on trains, generating huge savings. Ton for ton, freight carried by rail costs nearly 70% less than carriage by truck, uses 77% less energy and produces 91% less carbon dioxide emissions.

All well and good, but these benefits will accrue over many years. The cost of building the network is happening now, and is financed mainly by a huge run-up in debt. Isn't the financial risk too great?

Actually, no. For one thing, building the network now, when labor costs are still low, is smarter than waiting a decade or two, when higher wages will push the real cost far higher. And anyway, financing projects whose economic benefit takes a long time to emerge is precisely what debt is for.

That said, Beijing does need to diversify the sources of rail finance. MOR's liabilities rose by nearly 50% in 2009 to 1.3 trillion yuan ($190 billion), and it is near the limit of its ability prudently to issue more bonds. It has begun to get local governments to shoulder about one-third of the cost of building new lines, but direct budgetary support from the central government may also be required in the next five-year plan.

Yet this is hardly unusual—most countries with high-speed rail networks financed the capital construction mainly or entirely from budgetary funds. The bottom line is that, however it is financed, China's ambitious rail build-out is an investment well worth making.

Mr. Freeman is a research analyst and Mr. Kroeber is managing director at GaveKal Dragonomics, a Beijing-based research firm.


----------



## Pansori

^^
One of the better articles about China's HSR development. Some very good points.


----------



## Restless

I think the only point that the authors have missed is that the cost of land/property in most parts of China are still quite low.

In 10years time, railway construction costs could be double because of this.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

MarcVD said:


> There is a gauge change facility at each place where a railway line crosses
> a border between China and any ex-USSR country. I know about two of them,
> one between Almaty and Urumqi, and one east of Mongolia, whose name
> escapes me right now. Both have a bogie changing facility, since there
> are through passenger trains on both of them.


Yes, but these are bogie changing facilities.

The point of SUW2000 is that the bogies themselves can change gauge, but they need a facility on the track to accomplish this.


----------



## Rebasepoiss

HyperMiler said:


> Is it just me or rails in Kahe Railway doesn't look so straight?


You are correct. The rails are straightened after the ballast has been added.


----------



## Restless

I think this document from an Asian Development Bank audit of a resettlement plan for a new 1000km railway is fairly representative. There will always be resettlement problems, but the overall implementation appears positive.

http://www.adb.org/Documents/SEMRs/PRC/36433/default.asp

I've excerpted a few of the summary paragraphs below:


9 Conclusion

"By the large amount of information and data collected, a conclusion can be made: regardless of cities or villages, regardless of immigrants affected by land acquisition, demolition and relocation, all have been resettled satisfactorily"

"The housing standards of the people affected by the land acquisition, demolition and relocation are, by large, better. The old adobes of most people were simple and crude, with no toilets, kitchen and the area is cramped. The Project has not only provided the affected villagers in villages a chance to reconstruct a new home using the relatively high compensation allocated by the resettlement department and their savings, but also to enable the people with low incomes or relatively lower living standards a chance and affordability to choose a new residence with even lower cost."


Section 12.1 107
"Compensation and resettlement for project affected people during land acquisition and housing removal are greatly emphasised. Settlement departments in most areas provided multiple land resettlement proposals..."


----------



## MarcVD

chornedsnorkack said:


> Yes, but these are bogie changing facilities.
> 
> The point of SUW2000 is that the bogies themselves can change gauge, but they need a facility on the track to accomplish this.


Ooops, sorry, I missed your point. I'm mot aware that such an equipment
exists anywhere in China. And you're quite right to ask, those things should
go by two at least in that case, otherwise it's pointless.


----------



## MarcVD

Restless said:


> I think the only point that the authors have missed is that the cost of land/property in most parts of China are still quite low.
> 
> In 10years time, railway construction costs could be double because of this.


A good reason for the chinese government to build its rail network now,
while
- the land needed to build it is still affordable
- all the available capital is not yet diverted to road construction

In 10 years from now it will be too late; so hurry up - that's pretty much
what they are doing, it seems...


----------



## Panya

^^ Regarding that excerpt above. It mentions only the pure material consequences. The sociological and emotional impact of some of these people being moved from where their families have lived for generations sometimes into a different way of life in larger towns goes way beyond any improvement in housing or monetary compensation they may receive.

I agree it is certainly for the greater good of the country, but I wouldn't like to be one of those people being forced to move. Needless to say many of these people will have benefited from these actions as well.


----------



## The Chemist

Governments in other countries have to expropriate land for projects as well, causing people to have to move. It's not just a Chinese phenomenon, but obviously with the high population density in this country, especially in eastern provinces, more people are affected by infrastructure developments. It's unfortunate that some people have to move from ancestral land, but it doesn't just happen in this country, and it's an inevitable cost of development in any country.


----------



## Tubeman

HyperMiler: *very* thin ice


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Thanks!

Found another article on it. The 50 minute, 6 stop trains are the slowest. 6 more stations are yet to open, the trains will presumable get even slower then:
http://www.gochengdoo.com/en/blog/item/1543/chengdu_to_dujiangyan_in_half_an_hour_with_15_yuan


----------



## joseph1951

Ariel74 said:


> Well, fist of all, I don't know where you get "nationalism" from. The contrast is between a random internet forum member (namely YOU), and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I don't know and don't care what nationality you are. But you are a random internet forum member, so I don't take you seriously. It's that simple. So take a deep breath, and don't cry "nationalism" at the first opportunity.
> 
> Secondly, you haven't said anything in your long-winded post beyond rough conjectures based on high-school physics. Your post simply confirms that you don't have any cutting edge research experience in vacuum-maintenance. So I don't see why I should take you seriously, as opposed to a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. ..............
> 
> the first vactrains would have been up and running a long time ago.


I think it is going to be quite difficult to run trains on wheels at a commercial speed of 600 km/h, even on a vacu system. 

This is because: a) the catenary will cause problems at around 620 km/h, and b) becuse it is believed that at around 630 ~770 km/h the wheels lose contact with the rails. During the last TGV world record they run to the limit of the TGV wheels adherence........

For a vacu-maglev is a totally different story


----------



## chornedsnorkack

*Nanchang-Jiujiang HSL*

It is supposed to open sometime in this June.

Which day? It is the middle of the month already.


----------



## Ariel74

joseph1951 said:


> I think it is going to be quite difficult to run trains on wheels at a commercial speed of 600 km/h, even on a vacu system.
> 
> This is because: a) the catenary will cause problems at around 620 km/h, and b) becuse it is believed that at around 630 ~770 km/h the wheels lose contact with the rails. Durign the alast TGV world record they run to the limit of the TGV wheels adherence........
> 
> For a vacu-maglev is a totally different story


Sure, things will have to change for their project to work, even for the first stage. And I have no idea if they are going to succeed. As for the specific problems for traditional wheel technology in low vacuum condition, it sounds - from the interview - like it's just a testing stage for gathering experience with vacuum environment. Whether they can achieve 600km/h or merely 550km/h in that first stage is probably not important.


----------



## UD2

things that are for sure.



1. a vac tunnel is and will be financially feasiable as it really isn't extravagantly expansive to build a tunnel and pump the air out. We build tons sealed tunnels and most of them are underwater. This will be easier. 

2. a conventional wheel based vactrain will never be commercially operational as it is simply stupid. Even without the wear and tear factor, the quality of the railbeds required and the amount of money that's needed to maintain will easily bankrupt even the likes of China. The only purpose that a wheel based vactrain should exist should be to test the tunnel. 

3. A vactrain maglev will work wonders.


----------



## gincan

Ariel74 said:


> There was an interview with a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences - a certain Mr. 沈志云 (Shen Zhiyun) - on the research currently being done in China on next generation railway systems. It was posted on ourrail.com at
> 
> http://bbs.ourail.com/thread-71560-1-1.html
> 
> Unfortunately it is in Chinese and I don't have time to translate the whole thing in full. Some interesting points mentioned there are:
> 
> 1) The chinese are currently doing research on trains capable of running at 500km/h or more, and in experiments, they have achieved 600km/h;
> 
> 2) Mr. Shen admits readily that currently *no trains* can achieve 400km/h in commercial operations, mostly due to energy inefficiency and damaging effects on the environment;
> 
> 3) He nonetheless says that such high-speed experiments are useful, for two reasons: (a) it provides valuable data for trains running at speeds below 400km/h, and (b) it will help to achieve the first stage development of the vactrain concept currently being experimented with in China.
> 
> 4) The vactrain concept is being taken seriously in China, and they want to approach it in *three stages*: (a) first convert the current conventional high-speed passenger-dedicated lines, by constructing a tube around them, in which a low-level vacuum (10% of the atmospheric pressure at sea level) will be maintained. At this stage, trains will be able to achieve (commercially viable speed of) 600km/h; (b) in a second stage, they plan to experiment with maglev trains with low-level vacuum environment. The achievable speed at this stage is 1000km/h; (c) in a final stage, high-level vacuum will be combined with maglev technology to achieve the speed of 4000km/h.
> 
> 5) By the end of *this year*, the National Laboratory for Rail-Transport Technology will finish construction at the South-West Transport University. They plan to test in this laboratory small-scale models for (presumably the first stage) vactrains in the next 2-3 years.
> 
> It is all in all fascinating that the Chinese are taking concrete steps to realize the vactrain concept.


Not going to happend for a number of reasons:

costs

Unless someone invent free energy the vactrain will never be commersially viable.

maintenance

Just to maintain the vacum tunnel safe you will need to x-ray the entire tube every few weeks to ensure no accidents with catastrophic pressure failure will occur. Imagine a train with 500 passengers suddenly being exposed to earth pressure, I for sure would not want to be in that train.

resource scarcity

Very few materials are adequate to use when you want to seal the tunnel, and simply will not be available in abundance as required.


----------



## joseph1951

Ariel74 said:


> Sure, things will have to change for their project to work, even for the first stage. And I have no idea if they are going to succeed. As for the specific problems for traditional wheel technology in low vacuum condition, it sounds - from the interview - like it's just a testing stage for gathering experience with vacuum environment. Whether they can achieve 600km/h or merely 550km/h in that first stage is probably not important.


Oh.. I think it is an intersting idea, and I believe it is worth exploring the feasibility. A train can run at 500-550 km/h, for short dashes, right now, buth this is achieved at an extremely high energetic cost, due to air drag. Also, a train running in a vacu-tube will be protected from bad weather, such as extreme wind, which is dangerous when a train runs at very high speed.... 

I hope the tests will be successful.....


----------



## makita09

I think the vac tube is a good idea if only because if the technology is successful then it is transferable. If a manufacturere on earth mass produces good vac trains for earth, then then with a few modifications the same model will work on the moon, where there is no atmosphere.

It might seem pie in the sky but with such futuristic technological ideas it is worth remembering that we won't be restricted to earth forever and we will need techonology that operates in a vacuum. Perhaps China's authorities are more acutely aware of this than other governments.


----------



## TsLeng

There is one slight problem with the vactrain......

No view:bash:

But still, if it is fast and efficient, why not. There are always LCDs and magazines..


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

TsLeng said:


> There is one slight problem with the vactrain......
> 
> No view:bash:
> 
> But still, if it is fast and efficient, why not. There are always LCDs and magazines..


There's barely any view on a plane either other than takeoff and landing. For the most part, its just flat blue skies and puffs of clouds


----------



## Taizu

*XJ Group to Fast Track Rail Project in China *

The Chinese Ministry of Railways and XJ Group Corporation have decided to accelerate railway construction in Urumqi, the country's westernmost province.

The project involves spending CNY310bn ($45bn) to increase XJ's railway mileage to 12,000km before 2020.

The contract will also see further upgrades to XJ's railway mileage and transport capacity, according to aboutxinjiang.com. 

XJ undertakes 95% of the region's passenger and cargo transport task.

Source: www.railway-technology.com


----------



## Bandit

Transparent tube?


----------



## foxmulder

Is this $45bn budget of the high speed railway to Urumqi?


----------



## yaohua2000

foxmulder said:


> Is this $45bn budget of the high speed railway to Urumqi?


No. This is the "four longitudinal four latitudinal" in Xinjiang.

The four longitudinal railway corridors are:
* Altay-Karamay-Yining-Aksu railway corridor
* Fuyun-Zhundong-Urumqi-Baluntai-Korla railway corridor
* Turpan-Korla-Aksu-Kashgar railway corridor (existing southern branch Lanxin railway)
* Hami-Lop Nur-Ruoqiang-Hotan railway corridor

The four latitudinal railway corridors are:
* Zhundong-Jiangjunmiao-Hami-Ejin railway corridor
* Alataw-Urumqi-Hami-Lanzhou railway corridor (existing northern branch and main line Lanxin railway)
* Korla-Ruoqiang-Golmud railway corridor
* Kashgar-Hotan-Shigatse railway corridor (planning Xinjiang-Tibet railway)


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> No. This is the "four longitudinal four latitudinal" in Xinjiang.
> 
> The four longitudinal railway corridors are:
> * Altay-Karamay-Yining-Aksu railway corridor
> * Fuyun-Zhundong-Urumqi-Baluntai-Korla railway corridor
> * Turpan-Korla-Aksu-Kashgar railway corridor (existing southern branch Lanxin railway)
> * Hami-Lop Nur-Ruoqiang-Hotan railway corridor
> 
> The four latitudinal railway corridors are:
> * Zhundong-Jiangjunmiao-Hami-Ejin railway corridor
> * Alataw-Urumqi-Hami-Lanzhou railway corridor (existing northern branch and main line Lanxin railway)
> * Korla-Ruoqiang-Golmud railway corridor
> * Kashgar-Hotan-Shigatse railway corridor (planning Xinjiang-Tibet railway)


Are there any plans before 2020 to extend the Yining railway to Kazakhstan?


----------



## yaohua2000

chornedsnorkack said:


> Are there any plans before 2020 to extend the Yining railway to Kazakhstan?


No need to wait for 2020. Construction work of the second railway connection between China and Kazakhstan, the Korgas-Zhetigen Railway, was started on August 3, 2009, it is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The railway will be 293 km long. The railway between Yining and Korgas has already been opened for service. Passenger train service between Urumqi and Yining will begin on July 1, 2010.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> No need to wait for 2020. Construction work of the second railway connection between China and Kazakhstan, the Korgas-Zhetigen Railway, was started on August 3, 2009, it is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The railway will be 293 km long. The railway between Yining and Korgas has already been opened for service. Passenger train service between Urumqi and Yining will begin on July 1, 2010.


Which shall be the shorter and faster route between Urumqi and Almaty - through Alashankow and Dostyk, or through Yining, Korgas and Zhetigen?


----------



## Restless

http://bjreview.com.cn/business/txt/2010-06/21/content_280241.htm

*The Maglev Dispute*

The proposed high-speed maglev train project in Beijing is suspended by residents' questions and concerns

By LAN XINZHEN


Plans for Beijing's first maglev line, despite providing efficient and record-speed transportation across the Chinese capital, is meeting fierce resistance from residents along the proposed route. Concerns stem from possible exposure to radiation produced by the maglev train.

The project, called the S1 Line, aims to include Beijing's western suburbs into the city's urban rail transport network. China's independently developed technologies will highlight the construction of the low-to-medium-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train. Expected to run at 150 km per hour, S1 Line trains will have two operating systems— manual and automatic.

The maglev train has several advantages over conventional trains. The cost for the maglev line is around 400 million yuan ($58.6 million) per km, far less than the 600-800 million yuan ($87.8-117 million) price tag that comes with subway rail. The maglev train can easily run through dense residential areas with a minimum turning radius of 75 meters, while subways and urban trains require 300 meters. Additionally, the maglev train suits areas with complex geological surroundings where tunneling can be somewhat challenging.

But residents aren't buying it, even though these merits make the maglev line Beijing's top choice in terms of high-speed city transportation.

*Objection*

Construction of the S1 Line has been assigned to Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co. Ltd., while the Environmental Assessment and Engineering Center (EAEC) of the China Academy of Railway Sciences (CARS) has been entrusted with assessing the project's impact on the environment.

The academy released an assessment report on its website on May 6, inviting the citizens to provide their opinion and ask questions about the S1 Line's environmental impact.

Anxieties were high among residents pertaining to the maglev line's influence on their health, said Zhao Lei, who lives in an apartment in the China House residential compound. The S1 Line will run through his compound and nearby Bisenli residential compound, with only 30 meters separating the residents from the maglev line.

Residents in the two residential compounds and some other housing projects along the line signed a letter of protest and sent it to the academy, the Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co. Ltd. and relevant departments of the Beijing Municipal Government. They have also taken their opposition online.

From the letter's first sentence, the residents' stance is clear: "We the residents along the maglev line—a severe environmental and health menace to us—firmly oppose the decision."

They outlined four primary reasons for their opposition.

First and foremost was the fear of exposure to unknown amounts of radiation. The safety of maglev technologies has yet to be proved for wide application because of a lack of statistical data to define radiation pollution and associated harm, said the letter.

The letter also raised questions concerning the government's ability to assess harm to regular passengers from potential radiation exposure and also provide medical support should the project have a detrimental side-effect on passengers and residents.

The second point addressed the distance of the S1 Line from residential areas. Houses need to be 300 meters away from the maglev line for safety purposes, according to German rail standards. Research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) already prohibits construction of any building within 100 meters of maglev rails.

Noise from passing maglev trains was also addressed in the letter. Many claim the noise from a passing maglev train is more annoying than that of a wheeled train.

Residents also said they are hesitant to believe that maglev trains will not bother those along train routes with jarring or jolting. The absence of jarring is only theoretical, based on statistics from experiments conducted in an environment without vehicles, residents or factories, they said in the letter.

Instead, the residents proposed paving rails underground for wheeled trains as an alternative to the S1 Line.

*Safe design*

Beijing Enterprises Holdings Maglev Technology Development Co. Ltd. will provide the technology for the Chinese capital's fist maglev line. The company completed research and development work with nearly 40 million yuan ($5.86 million) in funds from the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

In 2008, the company built a 1.547-km low-speed maglev test line in Tangshan, Hebei Province, and tested it with an economical maglev train.

The train was approved by a team of experts and passed four tests from the CAS Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE) and Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center on March 5, 2010.

Magnetic radiation intensity from a low-to-medium-speed maglev train is lower than the safety standard set by the International Commission on Non-Lonizing Radiation Protection and is about the same as that from wheeled trains running on rails, a report issued by the team of experts said.

"The radiation from a low-to-medium-speed maglev train is safe enough for people to use, because, broadly speaking, we are already living in an electromagnetic environment," said Sun Guangsheng, a researcher with the Bioelectromagnetics Lab under the IEE of the CAS and one of the experts involved in analyzing the Tangshan test line.

While household lights generally operate on at least 50 hz, the maglev train has a frequency high of 90 hz. The electromagnetic radiation is also "sealed," Sun said.

Passengers don't have to worry about the radiation because the radiation within the maglev train is about the same as that from a hair dryer or an electric razor, said Cong Chunshui, a senior engineer with Beijing Enterprises Holdings, to Beijing Review.

In terms of the noise, Liu Zhiming, Chairman of Beijing Enterprises Holdings, said it is about 64 db 10 meters from the rail, which is lower than the 92 db from a light rail train.

The test states that the S1 Line maglev train meets national standards for magnetic radiation and noise, according to the Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co. Ltd.

*Concessions*

The wide dispute over the maglev's safety has postponed the public hearing slated to conclude later this month.

A CARS researcher said the expert team is investigating the issues brought up by residents and will publish their findings in a second report. No timetable has been set for the follow-up report.

But residents have won a small victory in their fight against the fast train: on May 12, the EAEC of the CARS issued a notice on its website, saying the length of the project's underground section would be extended from 455 meters to 2,969 meters.

The underground extension will cause a smaller population to be affected, but will still leave the two compounds of Bisenli and China House on the maglev's proposed path.

Zhao and his neighbors are decided in their resistance and will continue to send letters to relevant administrations.

"Maglev trains haven't been put into wide application overseas despite numerous demonstrations. So why should China promote it so hastily?" Zhao said.



*The Maglev Line to Be Constructed in Beijing*

With a total length of 19.869 km and 12 stations, the project runs eastward to Cishousi Station in Haidian District from Shimenying Station in Mentougou District in southwest Beijing.

Divided into two sections for easier construction, the project will begin land acquisition and resettlement work from the west section, starting September 1, 2010. The west section, from Shimenying Station to Pingguoyuan Station, is slated to be ready for trial operation by December 2013. The east section, from Pingguoyuan Station to Cishousi Station, will begin construction in November 2013, with a trial operation in February 2017.

(Source: The Chinese Academy of Railway Sciences)

The Maglev Line Now Operates in Shanghai

Shanghai boasts China's only current maglev line, with a total investment of 10.03 billion yuan ($1.47 billion). The 30 km-long maglev line was built using German technologies and has a high speed of 431 km per hour.

Approved for construction in June 2000, the Shanghai Maglev Line was completed on December 31, 2002, launched on October 11, 2003, and examined and accepted by the government on April 26, 2007.

Designed to have a daily passenger turnover of 23,000, the line now sees less than 5,000 passengers due to high ticket prices. Price cuts in recent years haven't helped boost passenger turnover.

The line cost nearly 1 billion yuan ($146.4 million) for equipment updating by the end of 2009. The line has been operated at an annual loss of 500-700 million yuan ($73.2-102.5 million), with accumulated debts of more than 7 billion yuan ($1 billion).

(Source: edited by Beijing Review)


----------



## hkskyline

By *tobyruri * from a Hong Kong photography forum :


----------



## ANR

*High-speed rail brings Delta closer together*

Shanghai Daily
By Zha Minjie
2010-6-21










THOMAS Lu, a young advertising agency employee who works in Shanghai, has never thought his home in Nanjing would be that close. "It sounds a nice idea to me that I can get off work in the city and have dinner with my parents back home," said Lu who, like many non-locals working here, lives in a small rented apartment on his own. He's talking about the Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed rail line which will start operating on July 1 after two years of construction.

The bullet train, which has a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour, will connect Shanghai to Nanjing, capital of neighboring Jiangsu Province 300 kilometers away, in a little less than an hour. The Shanghai-Nanjing train is just one of five high-speed lines recently opened or set to open in the Yangtze River Delta, one of the country's most developed economic zones. The Shanghai Railway Bureau, which is also responsible for rail services in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and part of Anhui, plans to invest more than 100 billion yuan (US$14.65 billion) this year in rail infrastructure mainly for high-speed trains.

The region's new rail system will have 6,849 kilometers of track by 2020, according to a 2005 plan for the Yangtze River Delta rail network, and allow passengers to travel between key Delta cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Ningbo within three hours. The Shanghai-Nanjing line is expected to cut travel time between the two cities from more than two hours currently to under an hour. And there will be about 200 daily services, double the current capacity, including one train every five minutes during peak hours. The Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway, which will start in October, will cut the journey from more than an hour currently to 38 minutes. Both the new lines will operate from Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station.

But railway authorities have still not announced ticket prices for the high-speed journey, raising concerns. Tickets will certainly be more expensive than on the current Shanghai-Nanjing line which cost from 93 to 112 yuan. "Hopefully it won't cost me too much," Lu said. However, some passengers, especially migrant workers who make a hard living in the city, are worried that regular trains will be canceled and they will be compelled to use the more expensive high-speed trains. Rail officials denied this, saying they would increase rail services instead of canceling some as the current services are far from adequate.

Meanwhile, Metro lines and highways are not being left behind. The city's Metro Line 11 is expected to be extended to Jiangsu Province's Kunshan City by 2012. Other neighboring provinces such as Zhejiang are also considering linking their subways with the Shanghai network.

The wider use of electronic toll collection on highways to nearby cities is also a reflection of the blurring of regional borders. The e-toll network has extended to neighboring provinces: Jiangsu Province in 2008 and on to Anhui Province last year. Shanghai vehicles will be able to use e-toll lanes in Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces by the end of this year.









_Passengers take a preview ride on the high-speed train that runs along the Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway yesterday in Nanjing, capital of eastern China's Jiangsu Province. The rail line will start operation on July 1 after two years of construction. The bullet train, with a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour, will cut the trip between the two cities to about an hour from more than two hours. The line's terminal in Shanghai is the Hongqiao Railway Station, part of the Hongqiao transport hub.
_


----------



## chornedsnorkack

*Nanchang-Jiujiang HSR*



chornedsnorkack said:


> It is supposed to open sometime in this June.
> 
> Which day? It is the middle of the month already.


And June is over. Any news?


----------



## sobell2001

regarding NanChang-JiuJiang rail, the construction work is affected by the severe flood throughout JiangXi and neighbor provinces. 

plus, according to Nanchang Railway Bureau, the intercity rail is planned to be operational at the end of this July HOPEFULLY, and there is still no schedule available at this timehno: the previous reports saying that this line would be open in June were just rumors.

here is a recent news piece for those who understand chinese (don't bother trying google translation, it'll give u nothing but crap):
http://house.focus.cn/news/2010-06-30/973586.html



chornedsnorkack said:


> And June is over. Any news?


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Intercity Rail started on July 2*

Changsha-Zhuzhou, Xiangtan

Length: 95.5 km
Stations: 21
Designed speed: 200 km/h
Changsha-Zhuzhou in 24 min, Changsha-Xiangtan in 25 min
Investment: CN¥23.32 billion
Due for operation in 2014


----------



## hkskyline

So the new Nanjing-Shanghai line now costs more but the average travel time won't really fall since there are only 2 nonstop trains a day?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> Changsha-Zhuzhou, Xiangtan
> 
> Length: 95.5 km
> Stations: 21
> Designed speed: 200 km/h
> Changsha-Zhuzhou in 24 min, Changsha-Xiangtan in 25 min
> Investment: CN¥23.32 billion
> Due for operation in 2014


Which high-speed railways shall operate around Changsha by 2015?

Changsha-Wuhan, Changsha-Guangzhou (now running), Changsha-Nanchang-Hangzhou-Shanghai, Changsha-Kunming, Changsha-Xiangtan?

Does anyone have a map of Changsha suburbs where these railways are shown?


----------



## foxmulder

That waiting hall is so small


----------



## hkskyline

*High-speed rail to link Shanghai, east China cities*
Xinhua News Agency
5 July 2010

SHANGHAI -- Tickets went on sale on June 25 for a high-speed rail service linking Shanghai and Nanjing, part of a growing rail network to boost the development of cities around China's financial metropolis.

The trains will shuttle between Shanghai and Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, at a speed of 350 km per hour, faster than a Formula One racing car from July 1, said a statement from Shanghai Railway Bureau.

The 200-meter-long CRH3 (China Railways High-speed) train has eight carriages and 557 seats. About 120 shuttles are scheduled everyday, linking Shanghai, Nanjing and six other cities along the route.

Tickets for the full journey between Shanghai and Nanjing are priced at 146 yuan (21.47 U.S. dollars) for second class seats and 233 yuan for first class.

The railway is expected to enhance the economic ties between Shanghai and nearby cities.

A businessman surnamed Wang said his company's factories are in Nanjing while the headquarters is in Shanghai.

"I heard it will take only 73 minutes to get to Shanghai by the high-speed train, which means I can make a shuttle between the two cities in a morning. It feels like travelling within Shanghai."

With more convenient transport links, more people are choosing to live in less expensive cities near Shanghai while working in the metropolis.

Wang Huaping and his wife are among the commuters. With a monthly income of 20,000 yuan, they spent about 1.16 million yuan on a flat of 137 square meters in Kunshan City, a stop on the high-speed railway.

"The same amount of money could only buy a flat of only 40 square meters in Shanghai. After the high-speed train begins, it will take a little more than 10 minutes to get to Shanghai. It's no different from living in Shanghai," Wang said.

The rail network around Shanghai is expected to get a further boost after the central government approved the construction of a maglev railway linking Shanghai and Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, in March.


----------



## UD2

hkskyline said:


> So the new Nanjing-Shanghai line now costs more but the average travel time won't really fall since there are only 2 nonstop trains a day?


The HSR is to augment the currenty transportation capacity between the two cities, not to replace them. 

The current 200 - 250km/h EMUs are still running on their already established schedules and most will not be affected by the introduction of the HSR.

I believe service stoppage will mainly affect the traditional loco+carriage "fast" trains that operated at 140km/h -> 160km/h. Lower priced trains that operates below 140km/h should not be severely affected either.


----------



## yaohua2000

UD2 said:


> The current 200 - 250km/h EMUs are still running on their already established schedules and most will not be affected by the introduction of the HSR.


Most Shanghai-Nanjing EMU services are suspended. The exceptions are long haul services like Beijing-Shanghai, ShenyangNorth-Shanghai that run through Nanjing.



UD2 said:


> I believe service stoppage will mainly affect the traditional loco+carriage "fast" trains that operated at 140km/h -> 160km/h. Lower priced trains that operates below 140km/h should not be severely affected either.


Not true. Speed is not a factor for price. Air conditioning is. A train with "new-type air conditioning" is nearly twice as expensive as one without air conditioning. A 'pukuai' (general fast) train is only about 20% higher than 'puke' (general passenger) train. The price for K-series, T-series, Z-series are exactly the same.


----------



## hkskyline

_Didn't expect this to happen so soon ... _

*High-speed link on a fast track to nowhere *
6 July 2010
South China Morning Post

Sales of high-speed rail tickets between Shanghai and Nanjing will be suspended indefinitely from Saturday - just days after the multibillion-yuan link was launched amid a blaze of propaganda.

Rail authorities say the indefinite suspension will allow them to "optimise" the service. But the move appears to have been prompted by poor demand amid complaints about high ticket prices for a negligible saving in trip time.

The less-than-enthusiastic welcome to high-speed rail travel in the affluent Yangtze River Delta bodes ominously for the service's future nationwide, with links being constructed between major cities throughout the country.

It also calls into question feasibility studies carried out before the high-profile project was given the green light.

In an embarrassing climbdown for the Shanghai Railways Bureau, train ticket offices in the city yesterday displayed printed notices reading: "Following notification from above, the sale of high-speed rail tickets will be suspended from July 11, 2010, until further notice." Staff on duty said they had not been given any further explanation for the suspension.

The Shanghai-Nanjing link - part of a massive transport infrastructure upgrade spanning the Yangtze River Delta - was fast-tracked as part of the government's financial stimulus package and to help ferry tourists visiting the World Expo in Shanghai. It was launched on Thursday - exactly two years after work began - with headlines in local newspapers boasting it would cut journey times to as little as 73 minutes.

In reality, there is only one direct service per day in each direction scheduled to make the trip in that time, with a second completing the journey in 75 minutes.

Most trips stop at intervening cities and can take as long as two hours and seven minutes - just one minute quicker than the existing D-class express trains, which are much cheaper.

Standard-class, high-speed rail tickets from Shanghai to Nanjing cost 146 yuan, 57 per cent more than the 93 yuan it costs to buy a D-class ticket. Trains on the new route have a maximum speed of 350km/h, but do not actually reach that during commercial operations. Non-direct trains travel at around 200km/h for most of the route, only exceeding 300km/h for a few brief periods.

Shanghai rail officials have blamed the slower-than-anticipated speeds on the complicated route taken by the specially constructed line, which passes through the heart of a number of cities.

High-speed rail services ridden by South China Morning Post journalists on Thursday and during the weekend were reasonably busy but well below maximum capacity, with empty seats in most carriages. Shanghai media reported yesterday that 94,000 passengers travelled on the high-speed line on Thursday, followed by 138,000 on Friday and around 130,000 on Saturday. The city's official media portal, Eastday.com, reported that "close to half the seats were empty" on a Sunday service while "several hundred tickets remained unsold" for other trips that day. By contrast, D-class trains - which were cut back when the high-speed line went into service - were almost all fully booked.

No one at the Shanghai Railways Bureau could be reached for comment yesterday.

A Shanghai government spokesman said he was told that the bureau issued a press release on the ticket suspension yesterday afternoon. But, no notices relating to the decision were on the bureau's website by last night. Eastday quoted a Shanghai Railways Bureau spokesman as saying that the bureau was "taking stock of the situation during operations over in the past few days" in order to "optimise" the scheduling of the high-speed rail service.

Official plans for the Yangtze River Delta network - scheduled to be completed next year - had originally stated it would cut journey times to less than an hour between any of the region's three main cities - Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou .

Officials also predicted that when the network eventually reached Beijing, the trip between Shanghai and the capital would take just five hours.

The experience of the Shanghai-Nanjing link casts doubt on just how realistic those times are.


----------



## UD2

^^

South China Morning post is complete anti-China bullcrap as usual. 

The service was suspended probably due to a safety risk that has been identified along the line that needed to be solved to allow proper operation. 

Not only are you not able to guage the demand and pricing accuracy of a service in 5 days of operation, nor do you need to stop the entire service to do a pricing adjustment.


----------



## binhai

the HSR should be all nonstop trains, the distance is too small to justify stopping at multiple stops, which should be left to the slower trains.


----------



## UD2

yaohua2000 said:


> Most Shanghai-Nanjing EMU services are suspended. The exceptions are long haul services like Beijing-Shanghai, ShenyangNorth-Shanghai that run through Nanjing.
> 
> 
> 
> Not true. Speed is not a factor for price. Air conditioning is. A train with "new-type air conditioning" is nearly twice as expensive as one without air conditioning. A 'pukuai' (general fast) train is only about 20% higher than 'puke' (general passenger) train. The price for K-series, T-series, Z-series are exactly the same.


Article posted in prior pages note that 44 sets of 200km/h trains are still running. Was it not accurate? 

I don't think we are on the same page for my second point. I mean that slower trains are remaining in service and that T and K trains are being replaced by the basket loads.


----------



## Taizu

*Electric railway opens in Xinjiang*

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region's first electric railway line has opened. It runs between Urumqi and Ili. Xinhua News Agency says a Turpan resident had the chance to board the first service. 

He and his wife say they are pleased with the convenience it has brought them. The railway marks a new chapter for public transport in Ili. It reduces the travel time to less than 12 hours overnight with 11 stops between the two cities. The railway has been jointly constructed by China's railway ministry and Xinjiang local government. Construction work began in November, 2004. 

Video at: http://english.cntv.cn/program/newshour/20100706/102271.shtml


----------



## chornedsnorkack

BarbaricManchurian said:


> the HSR should be all nonstop trains, the distance is too small to justify stopping at multiple stops, which should be left to the slower trains.


Well, there is another HSR under construction, the Beijing-Shanghai HSR. So there shall be 3 rail lines in parallel - old Shanghai-Nanjing, the intercity line and the longhaul line. 

Two and a half hours is inconveniently long time for regular commute. And considering that there are still long distances between stops, add the time to travel to actual origin and actual destination by metro or streetcar at both times. There is a real need for HSR capable of accelerating and decelerating fast, to connect metro hubs.


----------



## ANR

*More express trains in service*

shanghaidaily.com
By Zha Minjie 
2010-7-6 

TWENTY-SIX express trains will be added daily to the newly opened Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed railway from July 11 after passengers complained that there was not enough non-stop services along the route, Shanghai railway officials said yesterday.

However, some passengers said they are still upset because they feel there is less choice now and that they are being forced to take the more expensive high-speed trains since most old-generation trains have been canceled. Despite the backlash, rail officials said the high-speed rail line "is welcomed by a large amount of passengers." Turnout along the line, the first high-speed rail in the Yangtze River Delta region, has hit more than 130,000 per day since opening on July 1.

Until July 11, only four non-stop trains will run each day between Shanghai and Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province. Under the new plan, the express trains will depart from both cities every hour between 8am and 7pm. Additional non-stop trains will depart at 9:30am, 1:30pm and 3:30pm in both cities, officials said. There will be 18 express trains between Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station and Nanjing while the other 12 will run between Shanghai Railway Station and Nanjing.

Complaints began mounting soon after the line opened as passengers said that they usually have to board trains that stop at several stations between Shanghai and Nanjing. The biggest complaint: ticket prices. A standard ticket costs 146 yuan (US$21.54) for both express and non-express trains. "It's not worthwhile for me to pay the higher price for slower service," said Pris Wu, deputy editor-in-chief at Map Magazine in Nanjing, who travels between the cities three or four times a week.

An express train takes 73 minutes to travel between the two cities while the trip takes 110 minutes on a non-express train with five stops. Older generation trains took more than 2 hours to complete the trip with a standard ticket costing 93 yuan each. Ticket sales for the high-speed railway resumed yesterday at 8pm after being suspended for a day due to the train schedule changes.


----------



## foxmulder

hkskyline said:


> But the move appears to have been prompted by poor demand amid complaints about high ticket prices for a negligible saving in trip time.


This is just not believable. Anyway, time will tell.


----------



## big-dog

*Shanghai - Hangzhou expressrail to open on Oct 1*

http://sh.sina.com.cn/news/s/2010-07-07/0807147939.html

Length: 160km
Speed: 350kmph
Travel time: 38 minutes
Train interval: 3 minutes

Now it's under track laying. It'll take only 38 minutes from Shanghai to hangzhou. I travelled to Hangzhou on weekend, the current CRH takes more than 1 hour.


----------



## hkskyline

UD2 said:


> ^^
> 
> South China Morning post is complete anti-China bullcrap as usual.
> 
> The service was suspended probably due to a safety risk that has been identified along the line that needed to be solved to allow proper operation.
> 
> Not only are you not able to guage the demand and pricing accuracy of a service in 5 days of operation, nor do you need to stop the entire service to do a pricing adjustment.


That's even scarier - to think there is a safety problem but they still run trains from now until the suspension date. That's quite wreckless disregard for life, and I doubt that's the underlying reason for the stoppage.


----------



## makita09

hkskyline said:


> That's even scarier - to think there is a safety problem but they still run trains from now until the suspension date. That's quite wreckless disregard for life, and I doubt that's the underlying reason for the stoppage.


Its not a wreckless disregard for life, its a suggestion someone made on the internet, subsequently made irrelevent by further information suggesting service continues. 

The internet does not mean reality. Don't panic.


----------



## Restless

I think they now realise that they've screwed up with the timetable and also the pricing, so they've halted ticket sales until this has been revised.

The line was originally designed for 250km/h operation at current price levels, but they've since increased prices to the 350km/h level.

In addition, there isn't a time saving because they don't have enough direct services and Hongqiao station is a lot further away than Shanghai Station. Therefore they're changing the timetable.

It's nothing to do with safety

-------

http://life.globaltimes.cn/travel/2010-07/548701.html

*By Train: sale of high-speed train tickets halt*
Source: Global Times [08:55 July 06 2010]
By Chen Xiaoru

Just days after the launch of the new high-speed rail trains between Nanjing and Shanghai, railway authorities in the provincial capital of Jiangsu Province have suspended the sale of tickets to Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station and Shanghai Railway Station from Sunday onwards.

The move has some questioning why 4.89 billion yuan ($722.2 million) was invested into the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station to develop the surrounding area into a local transportation hub, as passengers frustrated over the inconveniences of its suburban city location say the new high-speed rail route may not provide a more efficient way to travel.

Riders complain that the majority two-thirds of the 60 daily trains destined for the newly constructed Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station instead of the downtown Shanghai Railway Station make for an inconvenient commute with few public transport options available to bring them into the city center upon arriving.

"The Shanghai Railway Station is certainly more convenient for me," Fu Lefeng, a man who lives in Shanghai and frequently travels by train to Nanjing, told the Global Times Sunday. "The Hongqiao station lacks enough public transport nearby, so commuting from there is a hassle."

He added that taking the new, more expensive G-trains, which are priced at 146 yuan ($22) per economy class ticket - rather than the existing D-trains that take some hour longer to go the same distance, but costs 52 yuan ($7.6) less for the comparable fare - really saves him little in the end.

"The extra hour or so gained from taking the G-train is wasted by the time spent on traveling from Hongqiao to the city core," he said. "It's only actually worth taking the new high-speed train if I can get off at Shanghai Railway Station."

The head of operations for the Nanjing Railway Station told the Global Times Sunday that adjustments to the schedule will be made before sales resume.

But the woman who declined to disclose her name said that she could not say when that would be, nor could she provide further details on the matter.

The temporary suspension of the Shanghai-bound ticket sales comes after the high-speed trains connecting Shanghai and Nanjing, which travel faster than any other class of passenger rail trains in China at speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour, halving commuting time between the two cities to 73 minutes, were put into motion on Thursday.

The opening night saw more than 3,000 passengers stuck in transit as the subway line 2, with an extension newly built for Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, had already closed for the day by the time riders arrived to the city around 11 pm.

With fewer buses running on the outskirts of town in Hongqiao, some passengers were left stranded waiting for the subway to open the following morning, according to local media reporting.

Passengers who pull up at Shanghai Railway Station in Zhabei district downtown, however, have greater flexibility with subway lines 1,3 and 4 all within their reach.

According to Shi Lei, a professor of economics at Fudan University, public transport linking railway stations are of vital importance to urban development, and the incident involving over 3,000 passengers being left overnight at the station could be perceived as poor planning by transportation authorities.

"The media has been neglecting the fact that the reduced traveling time of some 70 minutes provided by the new direct high-speed trains between both cities does not include the time needed to travel to and from the new station," he said.

He added that the investments put into Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station have not proven their worth, at least not yet.

"If you take into consideration the additional time passengers need to travel to and from Hongqiao, it takes them roughly the same time as those taking the normal speed trains to Shanghai Railway Station," he said.

Authorities from both Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station and Shanghai Railway Bureau, which oversees train stations in the city, could not be reached for interview Sunday by the Global Times.

Meanwhile, officials plan on using the new Hongqiao station to launch more high-speed train routes in the future, including one linking Shanghai to Beijing by the end of next year, and another connecting the city to Chengdu by 2012.


----------



## Scion

Some pics on the construction of the Beijing-Wuhan line, open 2011


----------



## YelloPerilo

It's just poor planning on Shanghai's side. A city with around 20 m inhabitants that is supposed to run 24/7 smoothly just cannot stop the metro running at midnight. This is totaly provincial. Even the U-Bahn in Hamburg with only 1.7 m inhabitants runs till 1 am during the week (night buses are provided on the same routes thenafter) and from Friday to Sunday the U-Bahn runs 24 h.


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## chornedsnorkack

YelloPerilo said:


> It's just poor planning on Shanghai's side. A city with around 20 m inhabitants that is supposed to run 24/7 smoothly just cannot stop the metro running at midnight. This is totaly provincial. Even the U-Bahn in Hamburg with only 1.7 m inhabitants runs till 1 am during the week (night buses are provided on the same routes thenafter) and from Friday to Sunday the U-Bahn runs 24 h.


I don´t quite see it this way. 20m inhabitants does not rule out shutting down at night. Japan shuts down Shinkansen at night.

But the night shutdowns should then be planned as a whole. That is, the shutdown and startup times should be scheduled according to the shutdown times of destinations like airports and HSR stations, so as to strand nobody.

Does the airport of Hongqiao shut down at night for noise, or does it not?


----------



## hkskyline

24-hour train service isn't a very common feature in big cities worldwide actually.


----------



## pTaMo

*China plans rail link to Pak*

Alarm bells have started ringing in India over a proposed rail link that will connect China with Pakistan through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

China is in advanced stages of discussions with Pakistan over the 700 km rail link and it is believed that details will be finalised during the current visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to China. What is even more worrisome for India is that fact that China and Pakistan have even discussed taking the rail link right upto the Arabian Sea in Pakistan.

In case an MoU is signed during the visit, Chinese companies will start exploring the engineering aspect of the project.

According to plans of the two countries, Pakistan and China will be responsible for laying of tracks in their own territories.

While India has already expressed displeasure at the development, China claims the link is necessary to clamp down on Chinese Islamist terrorists that operate out of Pakistan.

The 700 km rail link has been planned between Kashgar in China and Havelian in Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain ranges and the 4000 metre high Khunjareb pass in Pakistan.

Given the fact that the rail link will pass through PoK, India that claims sovereignty over all of Jammu & Kashmir has already expressed its reservations saying it cannot accept Chinese projects especially in parts of J&K under Pakistan's control.

China's other projects

This is not the first time that China has tried to encircle India with its projects.

- During the 1970s, it built the Karakoram highway between Xinjiang and northern Pakistan.

- Then, the railroad that connected the rest of China to TIbet's capital city Lhasa. China now wants to extend this railroad right up to Nepal.

- And now, the 700 km rail link from Kashgar in Xinjiang province to Havelian near Rawalpindi in northern Pakistan through Karakoram in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.


----------



## pTaMo

*Turkey calls on China for strategic railway cooperation*

Turkish Minister of Transportation Binali Yildirim proposed strategic cooperation to China for railways.

Minister Yildirim met with Chinese Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun in Beijing on Wednesday as part of his talks in China.

In his meeting with Zhijun, Minister Yildirim made a call on the governments of Turkey and China to turn cooperation in railways into a strategic cooperation.

As such, Yildirim said speed train railways would spread all across Turkey.

We must include financial packages as part of the cooperation, Yildirim noted.

It is high time to turn the Silk Road into a Silk Railway, Yildirim said.

Accordingly, a railway beginning from the far eastern point of China and extending to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey could be built and the duration of transportation (of both passengers and cargo) could go down significantly compared to maritime traffic, Yildirim said.

Minister Liu Zhijun said that the Chinese leadership wished to develop cooperation with Turkey.

Following their meeting, Yildirim and Zhijun signed a memorandum of understanding on development of bilateral cooperation in railways and spreading such cooperation onto third countries.


----------



## pTaMo

*China New Media Obtains Concession Rights to Operate Its First LED Screen in Tianjin*

SOURCE: China New Media Corp. 

DALIAN, China, Jul 7, 2010 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- China New Media Corp. /quotes/comstock/11k!cmdi (CMDI 2.00, 0.00, 0.00%) (the "Company"), a fast-growing advertising media company operating the largest outdoor media network in Dalian, China, today announced that it has obtained the contractual concession rights to install and operate a 22 square-meter indoor LED screen in Tianjin Railway Station from June 25, 2010 to August 25, 2014.

The LED screen will be installed at the intersection of the taxi and bus exits to maximize its visibility to travelers. In addition to the LED screen in Tianjin Railway Station, China New Media also operates advertising light boxes along the taxi exit and the waiting area. Tianjin Railway Station is one of the largest railway stations in China in terms of annual passenger volume.

"We are excited at the prospect of operating media platforms in Tianjin Railway Station for the next few years," stated James Wang, Chairman and CEO of China New Media Corp. "Following the closing of our LED acquisition in Shenyang, this long-term contract represents another step forward in our strategic expansion plan. This new contract further strengthens our business in Tianjin, one of the big four municipalities and largest coastal cities in North China. Looking forward, we will continue to pursue opportunities to further expand our media resources in China's first- and second-tier cities, especially in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Shenyang."

About China New Media Corp.

Founded in September 2000, China New Media Corp. is headquartered in Dalian, the commercial center of Northeastern China. The company owns and operates the city's largest outdoor media network encompassing over 600 bus shelters furnished with billboards and displays; 130 taxi stops with displays; and 13 large-size billboards, including 3 large-size LED displays at major traffic conjunctions. The company also furnishes more than 400 buses with advertising posters and 28 metro-trains throughout Dalian Metro Lines. China New Media provides comprehensive advertising services from art design to advertisement publishing, from daily maintenance to technical upgrading. Launched in Dalian in 2009, China New Media's proprietary LED multimedia display network, City Navigator(R), is one of the country's first web-based outdoor advertising networks.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements", including statements regarding the Company's ability to meet its obligations under its various contracts; the timeliness of payments and other economic benefits the Company expects to receive under such contracts; and the Company's ability to maintain its customer relationships and to maintain its ability to pursue its commercial objectives. In addition, the Company's operations are conducted in the PRC and, accordingly, are subject to special considerations and significant risks not typically associated with companies in North America and Western Europe such as risks associated with, among others, the political, economic and legal environment and foreign currency exchange. The Company's results may be adversely affected by changes in the political and social conditions in the PRC and by changes in governmental policies with respect to laws and regulations, anti-inflationary measures, currency conversion, remittances abroad, and rates and methods of taxation. These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects" or similar expressions, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website at http://www.sec.gov. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> http://sh.sina.com.cn/news/s/2010-07-07/0807147939.html
> 
> Length: 160km
> Speed: 350kmph
> Travel time: 38 minutes
> Train interval: 3 minutes
> 
> Now it's under track laying. It'll take only 38 minutes from Shanghai to hangzhou. I travelled to Hangzhou on weekend, the current CRH takes more than 1 hour.



Then which high speed lines are due to open this year?
Yichang-Yanzhou railway?
Shanghai-Hangzhou line as mentioned.
Longyan-Xiamen line?
Nanchang-Jiujiang line - sometime in the end of this month?

Guangzhou-Zhuhai MRT?
Haikou-Sanya eastern line?
Changchun-Jilin line?

Any others?


----------



## maldini

There is nothing wrong with China building railways anywhere within its territories. India should just get used to it.


----------



## foxmulder

hkskyline said:


> That's even scarier - to think there is a safety problem but they still run trains from now until the suspension date. That's quite wreckless disregard for life, and I doubt that's the underlying reason for the stoppage.


Hypothetically, how do you know they didn't stop service immediately after realization of the fault. 

Since the route is still operational it is a null point anyway.


----------



## MarcVD

pTaMo said:


> *China plans rail link to Pak*
> 
> Alarm bells have started ringing in India over a proposed rail link that will connect China with Pakistan through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
> 
> China is in advanced stages of discussions with Pakistan over the 700 km rail link and it is believed that details will be finalised during the current visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to China. What is even more worrisome for India is that fact that China and Pakistan have even discussed taking the rail link right upto the Arabian Sea in Pakistan.
> 
> In case an MoU is signed during the visit, Chinese companies will start exploring the engineering aspect of the project.
> 
> According to plans of the two countries, Pakistan and China will be responsible for laying of tracks in their own territories.
> 
> While India has already expressed displeasure at the development, China claims the link is necessary to clamp down on Chinese Islamist terrorists that operate out of Pakistan.
> 
> The 700 km rail link has been planned between Kashgar in China and Havelian in Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain ranges and the 4000 metre high Khunjareb pass in Pakistan.
> 
> Given the fact that the rail link will pass through PoK, India that claims sovereignty over all of Jammu & Kashmir has already expressed its reservations saying it cannot accept Chinese projects especially in parts of J&K under Pakistan's control.



Very interesting project, although quite challenging. It is not the first time
that it is mentioned, but this is probably the first time that we are so close
of realization.

I do not understand why India feels threatened by this. The Karakorum
Highway is in the north part of Kashmir, that has been administered by
Pakistan since the british empire partition in 1947. The railway would
follow roughly the same route.

On the other hand, this new rail line might become the third rail link between
Europe and China. And if Pakistan agrees to build it with standard gauge, it
might become the first rail link betweem Europe and China that does not
require a break of gauge along the way.


----------



## foxmulder

pTaMo said:


> *China plans rail link to Pak*
> 
> Alarm bells have started ringing in India over a proposed rail link that will connect China with Pakistan through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
> 
> China is in advanced stages of discussions with Pakistan over the 700 km rail link and it is believed that details will be finalised during the current visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to China. What is even more worrisome for India is that fact that China and Pakistan have even discussed taking the rail link right upto the Arabian Sea in Pakistan.
> 
> In case an MoU is signed during the visit, Chinese companies will start exploring the engineering aspect of the project.
> 
> According to plans of the two countries, Pakistan and China will be responsible for laying of tracks in their own territories.
> 
> While India has already expressed displeasure at the development, China claims the link is necessary to clamp down on Chinese Islamist terrorists that operate out of Pakistan.
> 
> The 700 km rail link has been planned between Kashgar in China and Havelian in Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain ranges and the 4000 metre high Khunjareb pass in Pakistan.
> 
> Given the fact that the rail link will pass through PoK, India that claims sovereignty over all of Jammu & Kashmir has already expressed its reservations saying it cannot accept Chinese projects especially in parts of J&K under Pakistan's control.
> 
> China's other projects
> 
> This is not the first time that China has tried to encircle India with its projects.
> 
> - During the 1970s, it built the Karakoram highway between Xinjiang and northern Pakistan.
> 
> - Then, the railroad that connected the rest of China to TIbet's capital city Lhasa. China now wants to extend this railroad right up to Nepal.
> 
> - And now, the 700 km rail link from Kashgar in Xinjiang province to Havelian near Rawalpindi in northern Pakistan through Karakoram in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.


Political controversies aside, this railway should present awesome sceneries above mighty mountains. It can be a very attractive touristic route.


----------



## foxmulder

Scion said:


>


This one is nice. Tnx for sharing


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## Bandit

Not surprising that India would complain after they're putting money for infrastructure projects in territory China claims.


----------



## binhai

hkskyline said:


> _Didn't expect this to happen so soon ... _
> 
> *High-speed link on a fast track to nowhere *
> 6 July 2010
> South China Morning Post
> 
> Sales of high-speed rail tickets between Shanghai and Nanjing will be suspended indefinitely from Saturday - just days after the multibillion-yuan link was launched amid a blaze of propaganda.
> 
> Rail authorities say the indefinite suspension will allow them to "optimise" the service. But the move appears to have been prompted by poor demand amid complaints about high ticket prices for a negligible saving in trip time.
> 
> The less-than-enthusiastic welcome to high-speed rail travel in the affluent Yangtze River Delta bodes ominously for the service's future nationwide, with links being constructed between major cities throughout the country.
> 
> It also calls into question feasibility studies carried out before the high-profile project was given the green light.
> 
> In an embarrassing climbdown for the Shanghai Railways Bureau, train ticket offices in the city yesterday displayed printed notices reading: "Following notification from above, the sale of high-speed rail tickets will be suspended from July 11, 2010, until further notice." Staff on duty said they had not been given any further explanation for the suspension.
> 
> The Shanghai-Nanjing link - part of a massive transport infrastructure upgrade spanning the Yangtze River Delta - was fast-tracked as part of the government's financial stimulus package and to help ferry tourists visiting the World Expo in Shanghai. It was launched on Thursday - exactly two years after work began - with headlines in local newspapers boasting it would cut journey times to as little as 73 minutes.
> 
> In reality, there is only one direct service per day in each direction scheduled to make the trip in that time, with a second completing the journey in 75 minutes.
> 
> Most trips stop at intervening cities and can take as long as two hours and seven minutes - just one minute quicker than the existing D-class express trains, which are much cheaper.
> 
> Standard-class, high-speed rail tickets from Shanghai to Nanjing cost 146 yuan, 57 per cent more than the 93 yuan it costs to buy a D-class ticket. Trains on the new route have a maximum speed of 350km/h, but do not actually reach that during commercial operations. Non-direct trains travel at around 200km/h for most of the route, only exceeding 300km/h for a few brief periods.
> 
> Shanghai rail officials have blamed the slower-than-anticipated speeds on the complicated route taken by the specially constructed line, which passes through the heart of a number of cities.
> 
> High-speed rail services ridden by South China Morning Post journalists on Thursday and during the weekend were reasonably busy but well below maximum capacity, with empty seats in most carriages. Shanghai media reported yesterday that 94,000 passengers travelled on the high-speed line on Thursday, followed by 138,000 on Friday and around 130,000 on Saturday. The city's official media portal, Eastday.com, reported that "close to half the seats were empty" on a Sunday service while "several hundred tickets remained unsold" for other trips that day. By contrast, D-class trains - which were cut back when the high-speed line went into service - were almost all fully booked.
> 
> No one at the Shanghai Railways Bureau could be reached for comment yesterday.
> 
> A Shanghai government spokesman said he was told that the bureau issued a press release on the ticket suspension yesterday afternoon. But, no notices relating to the decision were on the bureau's website by last night. Eastday quoted a Shanghai Railways Bureau spokesman as saying that the bureau was "taking stock of the situation during operations over in the past few days" in order to "optimise" the scheduling of the high-speed rail service.
> 
> Official plans for the Yangtze River Delta network - scheduled to be completed next year - had originally stated it would cut journey times to less than an hour between any of the region's three main cities - Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou .
> 
> Officials also predicted that when the network eventually reached Beijing, the trip between Shanghai and the capital would take just five hours.
> 
> The experience of the Shanghai-Nanjing link casts doubt on just how realistic those times are.


BULLSHIT!


----------



## sickasick

very funny article. after the booking system resumed two days ago, "indefinite suspension" turned out to be just one day suspension due to the train schedule changes. and the change to cope with the "poor demand" is: additional to the existing 2 non-stop trains, 13 more non-stop trains were added to the service for each direction. 

if one is to complain about this intercity rail, it is wiser to focus on asking the railway bureau to keep more options available, not the feasibility of this line--it will definitely be handy for a certain population, and that population won't be small. looks to me this article is on a track to nowhere. 



hkskyline said:


> _Didn't expect this to happen so soon ... _
> 
> *High-speed link on a fast track to nowhere *
> 6 July 2010
> South China Morning Post
> 
> Sales of high-speed rail tickets between Shanghai and Nanjing will be suspended indefinitely from Saturday - just days after the multibillion-yuan link was launched amid a blaze of propaganda.
> 
> Rail authorities say the indefinite suspension will allow them to "optimise" the service. But the move appears to have been prompted by poor demand amid complaints about high ticket prices for a negligible saving in trip time.
> 
> The less-than-enthusiastic welcome to high-speed rail travel in the affluent Yangtze River Delta bodes ominously for the service's future nationwide, with links being constructed between major cities throughout the country.
> 
> It also calls into question feasibility studies carried out before the high-profile project was given the green light.
> 
> In an embarrassing climbdown for the Shanghai Railways Bureau, train ticket offices in the city yesterday displayed printed notices reading: "Following notification from above, the sale of high-speed rail tickets will be suspended from July 11, 2010, until further notice." Staff on duty said they had not been given any further explanation for the suspension.
> 
> The Shanghai-Nanjing link - part of a massive transport infrastructure upgrade spanning the Yangtze River Delta - was fast-tracked as part of the government's financial stimulus package and to help ferry tourists visiting the World Expo in Shanghai. It was launched on Thursday - exactly two years after work began - with headlines in local newspapers boasting it would cut journey times to as little as 73 minutes.
> 
> In reality, there is only one direct service per day in each direction scheduled to make the trip in that time, with a second completing the journey in 75 minutes.
> 
> Most trips stop at intervening cities and can take as long as two hours and seven minutes - just one minute quicker than the existing D-class express trains, which are much cheaper.
> 
> Standard-class, high-speed rail tickets from Shanghai to Nanjing cost 146 yuan, 57 per cent more than the 93 yuan it costs to buy a D-class ticket. Trains on the new route have a maximum speed of 350km/h, but do not actually reach that during commercial operations. Non-direct trains travel at around 200km/h for most of the route, only exceeding 300km/h for a few brief periods.
> 
> Shanghai rail officials have blamed the slower-than-anticipated speeds on the complicated route taken by the specially constructed line, which passes through the heart of a number of cities.
> 
> High-speed rail services ridden by South China Morning Post journalists on Thursday and during the weekend were reasonably busy but well below maximum capacity, with empty seats in most carriages. Shanghai media reported yesterday that 94,000 passengers travelled on the high-speed line on Thursday, followed by 138,000 on Friday and around 130,000 on Saturday. The city's official media portal, Eastday.com, reported that "close to half the seats were empty" on a Sunday service while "several hundred tickets remained unsold" for other trips that day. By contrast, D-class trains - which were cut back when the high-speed line went into service - were almost all fully booked.
> 
> No one at the Shanghai Railways Bureau could be reached for comment yesterday.
> 
> A Shanghai government spokesman said he was told that the bureau issued a press release on the ticket suspension yesterday afternoon. But, no notices relating to the decision were on the bureau's website by last night. Eastday quoted a Shanghai Railways Bureau spokesman as saying that the bureau was "taking stock of the situation during operations over in the past few days" in order to "optimise" the scheduling of the high-speed rail service.
> 
> Official plans for the Yangtze River Delta network - scheduled to be completed next year - had originally stated it would cut journey times to less than an hour between any of the region's three main cities - Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou .
> 
> Officials also predicted that when the network eventually reached Beijing, the trip between Shanghai and the capital would take just five hours.
> 
> The experience of the Shanghai-Nanjing link casts doubt on just how realistic those times are.


----------



## sickasick

bold:lol:


BarbaricManchurian said:


> BULLSHIT!


----------



## yaohua2000

*Trains faster than 160 km/h (Updated: 2010-Jul-11)*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastest_trains_in_China


----------



## Luli Pop

sickasick said:


> very funny article. after the booking system resumed two days ago, "indefinite suspension" turned out to be just one day suspension due to the train schedule changes. and the change to cope with the "poor demand" is: additional to the existing 2 non-stop trains, 13 more non-stop trains were added to the service for each direction.
> 
> if one is to complain about this intercity rail, it is wiser to focus on asking the railway bureau to keep more options available, not the feasibility of this line--it will definitely be handy for a certain population, and that population won't be small. looks to me this article is on a track to nowhere.


^^

+1


----------



## Taizu

*Chinese Enthralled by Pickersgill-Kaye's Lock Making Excellence*

15 July 2010 


Leading UK lock manufacturer Pickersgill-Kaye Ltd's successful export drive into the Far East has been officially recognised after the company was chosen for a visit from a high-powered Chinese trade mission on a fact-finding tour.

Several key figures from the Chinese Embassy, led by economic and commercial minister counsellor Mr Zhou Xiaoming, and the China Chamber of International Commerce visited Yorkshire businesses to get a better understanding of UK companies' potential for breaking into the difficult China market.

A joint China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) and UK Trade Investment (UKTI) initiative to promote the opportunities between the two nations, the itinerary included a tour of the highly-regarded Leeds engineering firm on 8 July 2010.

The Chinese visitors, along with UKTI deputy international trade director for Yorkshire and Humber, Graham Percival, were shown around Pickersgill-Kaye's Pepper Road facility by manufacturing manager Simon Barnes and quality manager Jeff Moore.

CBBC Director Giles Blackburne, who organised the tour, said, "We chose Pickersgill-Kaye because it is a great example of a British company exporting to China. Pickersgill-Kaye is successful because it has unique skills and experience and can manufacture high quality products that meet the specifications required by Chinese rail companies."

Following the tour, Mr Zhou said how impressed he was with the factory operation. He went on to discuss where the company might fit in the Chinese market and what opportunities and pitfalls they could encounter.

"Pickersgill Kaye is a specialist low volume manufacturer which can build licensing agreements with Chinese companies to avoid the cost of investing in new facilities," he said, and added an offer of help in promoting Pickersgill-Kaye products to Chinese companies.

Pickersgill-Kaye already supplies the lion's share of door locks and security systems to the UK rail market but a growing international reputation earned the breakthrough in the lucrative China market two years ago, when China National Rail (CNR) came calling about mechanical cab door locks for its locomotives.

Andy Hewitt, rail product sales manager, explained, "CNR heard of our capability for manufacturing cab door locks through work we had done with Bombardier, the global transportation company, in Canada."

In 2008, CNR ordered just 12 sets of locks in a deal worth around £40,000 for locomotives built at its massive Dalian manufacturing plant in north east China. They were so impressed with the product it was followed by another order last year for 50 sets worth nearly £180,000.

Because of this successful collaboration, the two companies are now in the middle of negotiations for 300 of Pickersgill-Kaye's cab door mechanical locks per year, either supplied from the UK or made under licence in China.

Mr Hewitt added, "CNR could have got the locks made in China at a tenth of the price, but Chinese manufacturers could not match the outstanding quality of our locks. The facility in Dalian alone turns out 500 locos a year – so you can imagine the huge potential for our products in China."

Pickersgill-Kaye's export boom has been spectacular. Fifteen years ago its only overseas customer was Irish Rail. Now it supplies high security custodial locks to the Malaysian police and continues to win orders in the rail sector from European companies including Siemens, Bombardier, Alstom, Irish Rail and CAF, in Asia from companies such as Jiwon Tech and Rotem in Korea, Ocean Eagle Holdings Ltd in Hong Kong and Hitachi in Japan, and in North America from companies such as Axion Technologies & Electro-Motive Diesels.

Backed by excellent levels of service and a solid reputation, the company is confident that it can continue to win new overseas business against stiff international competition.


----------



## pearl_river

What's the latest word on the Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev? I heard it was finally canceled this year.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Tracklaying on Beijing-Shanghai HSR Line to start today*

http://news.xinhuanet.com/photo/2010-07/18/c_12345796.htm



> 7月17日，中国铁建十四局集团京沪高铁铺轨工班的工人们正在铺设通道，为正式铺轨进行准备。京沪高铁先导试验段北段将于7月19日开始率先从徐州向蚌埠铺轨，南段将于8月中旬从南京向蚌埠铺轨，10月底将完成试验段铺轨。京沪高速铁路全长1318公里，全线纵贯京津沪三大直辖市和河北、山东、安徽、江苏四省，是我国目前最长的客运专线之一。


----------



## foxmulder

I thought they have already started  Anyway good news...


----------



## binhai

the tracklaying occurs after they already built the concrete beds, this phase should only take a few months and then they can start testing!


----------



## maldini

foxmulder said:


> I thought they have already started  Anyway good news...


Is the concrete and steel that they use for the foundation and railway tracks of the highest quality available?


----------



## Peloso

maldini said:


> Is the concrete and steel that they use for the foundation and railway tracks of the highest quality available?


More like of the highest quality *necessary*.


----------



## binhai

it's very high quality, far surpassing the quality of any other high speed tracks in the world. though of course they wouldn't waste money on unnecessarily high quality like rebar ties and stuff like that, the rails are still multiple times stronger and more stable than those found elsewhere.


----------



## mingrady

yaohua2000 said:


>






Why do the rails look like severely rusted already? is that normal?


----------



## yommy

I believe that is normal. It would just be surface rust.


----------



## AlexisMD

mingrady said:


> Why do the rails look like severely rusted already? is that normal?


it's normal, the rails were just stored on open air


----------



## maldini

Any railway use stainless steel or alloy for making railway tracks?


----------



## SamuraiBlue

maldini said:


> Any railway use stainless steel or alloy for making railway tracks?


Stainless steel is a soft metal not suited for application requiring to maintain structural integrity under stress.


----------



## makita09

Yeah its normal. Old rails typically look grey, where the rust has been covered in fine dark material and rained on etc.


----------



## Peloso

SamuraiBlue said:


> Stainless steel is a soft metal not suited for application requiring to maintain structural integrity under stress.


...and by the way, strange that someone noticed the rust here, while I don't remember such a remark made about all the structural steel in the big towers (take Shanghai tower for example), although it is rusted exactly in the same way.


----------



## maldini

Peloso said:


> ...and by the way, strange that someone noticed the rust here, while I don't remember such a remark made about all the structural steel in the big towers (take Shanghai tower for example), although it is rusted exactly in the same way.


So the idea is that they will replace the existing tracks with new railway tracks, before the railway tracks become totally rusted?


----------



## SamuraiBlue

To my knowledge they should be oxidized turning into FeO(black rust) insted of FeO3(red rust) since FeO only covers the surface while FeO3 eats away into the core.
They are also method of treating with oil before shipment so it doesn't rust.


----------



## UD2

tracks are sanded and polished prior to use. Rust will be gone.


----------



## maldini

UD2 said:


> tracks are sanded and polished prior to use. Rust will be gone.


But it will start to rust again soon after you polished it.


----------



## K_

UD2 said:


> tracks are sanded and polished prior to use. Rust will be gone.


I doubt they do this, as it is completely pointless, and reduces the expected life of the rails.
The whole point of surface rust is to leave it on, as it protects the underlying steel from further oxydation. 
Stainless steel by the way is also protected by "surface rust" from oxydation, as is aluminium. Only in these cases the rust looks different...


----------



## sasalove

Why China build new HSR? Snow chaos in 2008
Railway, highway and airports were down in Changsha. People were stuck in Guangzhou


----------



## PredyGr

Ariel74 said:


> can you post the article here, especially the part about Zefiro 380's production/design progress?


RGI's article

"Less than 2 years have elapsed between contract signing and the start of test running with bombardier's Zefiro 380. By any
standards this is remarkable, but to achieve such a feat with what may become the world's fastest train makes it truly astonishing.

A contract worth 27.4bn yuan was signed by China's Ministry of Railways and the Bombardier Sifang(Qingdao) joint venture in September
2009. This covers delivery of 60 sets of 16 cars and 20 8-car formations, with the first units entering service in 2012, according 
to Dr. Tjark Siefkes, senior director, Group Engineering. Siefkes says that no prototype will be built, but that the first 3 trains
will undergo an intensive test program starting in May 2011.

The aluminium-bodied trains are being built in China with 70% local content. Eight-car sets will have up to 664 seats and the 16-car version up to 1336 seats, with both versions 
offering a restaurant or bistro and two classes of accommodation in 3368mm wide bodyshells. The fleet will have distributed power with 50% of axles powered on flexx bogies with
a 2700mm wheelbase, but Bombardier has opted for asynchronous traction rather than the permanent magnet motors chosen for the Swiss Twindexx trainsets. A 428m long 16-car set will
have 20MW power rating and a starting acceleration of 0.48m/s^2. Static axle load will be 17 tonnes and total weight 934 tonnes.

Bombardier identified three areas where development work was needed to make the transition from 300kmph to 380kmph. Although the trains will run largely on routes laid with slab
track, copying with flying stones on ballasted track at very high speed was a major challenge, said Christoph Klaes, Director 
of strategic projects in Bombardier's passenger division.

Another "big big issue" was cross-wind stability, especially when dealing with tunnel portals and the vagaries of Asian weather. 
Considerable research into aerodynamic performance had been carried out, and the trains will have inter-car fairings and pantograph 
housings nearly flush with the roof. Siefkes said that his company had "copied nature" to produce mutations that gave the best aerodynamic 
performance overall; using the latest computer algorithms, over 4000 iterations had been tried.

The third challenge was to find ways of keeping interior noise at acceptable levels; one method envisaged is the use of sound absorbent
carpet at critical locations, for example around doors.

A full-scale mock-up of a Zefiro 380 car will be on display at the innotrans 2010 exhibition in September in Berlin, but the world's 
first real 380kmph trainset is already on the rails. This is the first of 100 trains being built for use on the Beijing - Shanghai PDL
by Changchun Railway Vehicles, whose Class 380A was rolled out on May this year.

Bombardier notes that China will need a further 12 16-car trainsets for operation at 380kmph in 2012."


----------



## Ariel74

^^ Thanks for the article. It sounds like they are still in the early stages of getting a detailed design. Let's see if they make it by May next year to get some real trains rolling.


----------



## conc.man

2 pictures of CRH380A from International Railway Journal:
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/irj0710/


----------



## Peloso

Hell it's beautiful!!!!:banana:


----------



## foxmulder

Great pictures, thanks a lot for sharing.


----------



## Pansori

A rather short but truthful article mentioning not just China's current achievements in railways but also how that looks in the perspective of the rest of the world.









*High-speed rail link: China putting the world to shame*
http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/metro-beijing/two-cents/opinion/2010-07/556892.html



> By David Friesen
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> By 2012, we will be able to travel from Beijing to Shanghai in only four hours. Of course, that is assuming the world hasn't ended, with only John Cusack and a few other B-list actors surviving to spawn some hideous Hollywood mutant race. But I digress. The creation of the high-speed rail link across China is nothing short of astonishing, and is the first time that China has really shown how far ahead of the world it is in some areas.
> 
> Not only does China now possess the world's fastest commercial train service, miraculously overtaking the famed Japanese bullet trains with average speeds of over 300 kilometer/hour on long-distance journeys, but they are creating a train network that is second to none in the world. The 1,318 kilometers of track needed for the link is being laid at a speed of around 12 kilometers a day. That figure seems completely insane. It means that even if they work for 24 hours a day, they are laying over eight meters of track every minute.
> 
> This combination of brilliant technology and brutal manpower is something no other country in the world can accomplish now. And whilst I am extremely impressed and fortunate to be able to observe this progress in Beijing, it also makes me feel embarrassed and saddened that my own country is no longer capable of such great feats of engineering.
> 
> I am British, and am rightly proud of our past engineering triumphs. We basically invented the modern rail system nearly 200 years ago. The problem is that we haven't really advanced much past that. I was recently in the UK on our supposedly "fast" trains, which take over two hours to travel the 290 kilometers from London to Man-chester. That's quite pathetic for a country that used to write the book on rail travel. Whilst soon in China, we will be able to travel across the country as if we were maxing out a Formula 1 car.
> 
> We've already seen what this train can do with the creation of the Beijing South Railway Station and the running of the Beijing-Tianjin line. A journey that used to creep along for an hour or two now takes about 30 minutes, meaning that the industrial power of Tianjin is more accessible from the capital. Combined with the fact that Beijing will probably have a bigger subway system than even London in the next 10 years, and that Beijing Capital Airport is now the second busiest in the entire world, the startling transformation of the region is there for all to see. China is going straight from nothing to everything in just a few years, and this will see Beijing rapidly overtake major Western cities in terms of national and inter-national transport links.
> 
> People might say it is simply because China has so many people and so many migrant workers, which means they can push through such huge engineering projects without much thought for labour costs or safety. This may be partly true, but it is by no means the only reason. China has the vision and the foresight to improve itself, and a sense that the entire country can be involved in this. In the West the pioneering ideals are gone and have been replaced with excuses, bureaucratic barriers and huge doses of negativity and cynicism.
> 
> I am genuinely excited by the prospect of being able to travel great distances across China in the time it takes to negotiate traffic in Beijing. The high-speed rail link shows China really means business, and that Western countries cannot simply rest on their achievements of the past.


----------



## riles28

conc.man said:


> 2 pictures of CRH380A from International Railway Journal:
> http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/irj0710/


Very marvelous design for china high speed train family, it's look like mix design of E6 Shinkansen and Velaro train.


----------



## fragel

Being a Chinese, I don't really understand why the British author should feel embarrassed and saddened. If he is embarrassed now, based on the same logic he should have been embarrassed to death when Japan first introduced the Shinkansen in the 60's, provided he was already born at that time. It is generally much harder to update an existent system than build one from scratch, especially when the scale is so large. Also it’s not like we Chinese have invented time traveling, it is just implementation of current HSR techniques. Pretty soon a lot of countries will update their high speed rail systems.

Anyway, I am glad that China is seriously improving its infrastructures, but I will be much happier if Chinese researchers can develop our own new technologies. I guess the best thing to do is to talk less and work harder.



Pansori said:


> A rather short but truthful article mentioning not just China's current achievements in railways but also how that looks in the perspective of the rest of the world.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *High-speed rail link: China putting the world to shame*
> http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/metro-beijing/two-cents/opinion/2010-07/556892.html


----------



## makita09

fragel said:


> Being a Chinese, I don't really understand why the British author should feel embarrassed and saddened. If he is embarrassed now, based on the same logic he should have been embarrassed to death when Japan first introduced the Shinkansen in the 60's, provided he was already born at that time.


I agree. I'm british and I don't feel saddened. I feel excited and wish the Chinese all the best. Its not like the Brits are going backwards, its just not all about us anywmore (hasn't been for a hundred years, we should be used to it by now!)


----------



## HyperMiler

fragel said:


> Being a Chinese, I don't really understand why the British author should feel embarrassed and saddened.


Because Britain doesn't have any high speed rail technology and must rely on French and Japanese.



> I will be much happier if Chinese researchers can develop our own new technologies.


Same feeling here. I do look forward to the day I see a fully Chinese designed bullet train that are kosher for sale in developed nations. 



conc.man said:


> 2 pictures of CRH380A from International Railway Journal:
> http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/irj0710/


It's an ad, and is clearly listed as an ad in the journal.


----------



## Peloso

Hypermiler and his HS train of bullshit is always on schedule


----------



## HyperMiler

Peloso said:


> Hypermiler and his HS train of bullshit is always on schedule


I look forward to a western coverage of CRH380A, but that one was a paid ad by CSR, so it is not objective.


----------



## Restless

HyperMiler said:


> I look forward to a western coverage of CRH380A, but that one was a paid ad by CSR, so it is not objective.


CSR definitely need the publicity.

In 2010 so far, they've produced more subway/local/high-speed/freight rolling stock than Alstom Transport but nobody outside of China appreciates this.

The bigger question is why no-one has bothered to profile CSR before?

Personally, I suspect that railway professionals in the West wants to annoy Siemens, Bombardier or Alstom by publishing how CSR has absorbed all their technology and is now a serious competitor.


----------



## Restless

China Rejects Technology-Transfer Concerns

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704895004575394862028392400.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

BEIJING—China's powerful Ministry of Railways dismissed foreign concerns about the transfer of technology from foreign companies participating in its enormous high-speed rail building binge, saying the country doesn't force such transfers and that it is developing its own technology.

The comments Wednesday, by a senior official during a rare news conference by the normally secretive ministry, came as the World Bank issued a report praising China's high-speed rail plans but also warning that they will be difficult to pay for.

China plans to spend some two trillion yuan, or around $295 billion, by 2020 to build a high-speed rail network totaling 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) that connects all its major cities. The World Bank report called the project, begun in 2007, "perhaps the biggest single planned program of passenger-rail investment there has ever been in one country," and said it could help China's economy grow by speeding up passenger traffic, freeing up overloaded freight routes and reducing dependency on automobiles.

China's rail plans have meant billions of dollars of contracts for foreign companies such as Bombardier Inc., Siemens AG, and Alstom SA. But foreign companies were allowed to enter China's market only as joint-venture partners after China abandoned efforts to develop its own independent super-fast trains in 2003, and foreign executives say their companies were required to transfer technology as part of those ventures in order to gain market access. Some foreign executives say China's new home-made high-speed trains, among the fastest in the world, have borrowed heavily from foreign technology.

He Huawu, chief engineer at the Ministry of Railways, acknowledged at Wednesday's news conference that China's trains are based on foreign technology, but said they had been greatly modified by Chinese engineers to increase speeds from 200 kilometers an hour to 350 kilometers. Calling China's policies "forced" technology transfer "is inaccurate," Mr. He said.

"Indeed, China applied the results of world-wide human development of high-speed railways," Mr. He said. "We did lots of innovation and improvement, and this product can also be shared with the world." He said China chose to "first introduce technology from abroad, produce in joint ventures, and then develop Chinese brands."

Foreign executives and analysts have raised particular concerns about the technology transfers because they fear the transfers could be helping Chinese rivals develop into global competitors. Mr. He said the Railways Ministry is looking at projects in Russia, Brazil, the U.S., Myanmar and Laos, among others.

The World Bank's report noted that the "transfer of technology and know-how, together with the experience of building and operating several thousand route-kilometers of high-speed railway, will make China's one of the most advanced railway industries in the world. This should position the country to compete internationally when other countries adopt high-speed railways."

The World Bank report, while lauding the benefits of China's high-speed rail plan for its economy, warned that in the past, such trains have struggled to pay off their high construction bills because steep ticket prices kept passenger volumes below forecasts. China's densely urban corridors could be better suited for the fast trains, but "even in China, the sustainability of railway debt arising from the program as it proceeds will need to be closely monitored and payback periods will not be short," the report said.


----------



## Luli Pop

Peloso said:


> Hypermiler and his HS train of bullshit is always on schedule


+1 :banana:


----------



## Ariel74

Peloso said:


> Hypermiler and his HS train of bullshit is always on schedule


which is why he is still on my ignore list. You guys should do the same.


----------



## Basshead

Amazing! It seems to be functional and beautiful at the same time!!


----------



## Luli Pop

Ariel74 said:


> which is why he is still on my ignore list. You guys should do the same.


Believe me I'll do!
I don't understand how somebody can be THAT jealous!


----------



## HyperMiler

Ariel74 said:


> which is why he is still on my ignore list.


I know ignore list doesn't work. The temptation to click is just too great.



Luli Pop said:


> I don't understand how somebody can be THAT jealous!


Why do you think I am jealous?


----------



## HyperMiler

Restless said:


> The bigger question is why no-one has bothered to profile CSR before?


IPR issues. Publicizing CSR means condoning its activities.


----------



## binhai

seriously don't you learn, especially after getting banned twice? No one, including the moderators, wants you here, or your input.


----------



## HyperMiler

BarbaricManchurian said:


> seriously don't you learn, especially after getting banned twice?


Well, that's the reason why I am not posting that accident news at Chinese high speed rail construction site.


----------



## makita09

BarbaricManchurian said:


> seriously don't you learn, especially after getting banned twice? No one, including the moderators, wants you here, or your input.


+1


----------



## xXFallenXx

BarbaricManchurian said:


> seriously don't you learn, especially after getting banned twice? No one, including the moderators, wants you here, or your input.


I want him here. He's provided me with much entertainment. :laugh:


----------



## greenlion

*CRH1 Series*

derived from Bombardier Regina, Manufacturer by Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd. (BST)

*CRH1A*: 8 cars per trainset, maximum speed 200km/h,first opend at Feburary 1, 2007, between Guangzhou - Shenzhen, currently 50 trainsets on service

*CRH1B*: 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 250km/h,first opend at April 2009, between Shanghai - Nanjing, & South Shanghai - Hangzhou, currently 20 trainsets on service

*CRH1E*: 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 250km/h,first opend at November 4 2009, between Beijing - Shanghai, currently 20 trainsets on service
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


























*CRH2 Series*

derived from E2 Series 1000 Shinkansen, Manufacturer by Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock

*CRH2A*: 8 cars per trainset, maximum speed 250km/h,first opend at January 28, 2007, between Shanghai - Hangzhou, currently 60 trainsets on service

*CRH2B*: 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 250km/h,first opend at August 1 2008, between Hefei - Ningbo, currently 10 trainsets on service

*CRH2C Stage one*: 8 cars per trainset , maximum speed 350km/h,first opend at August 1 2008, between Beijing - Tianjin, currently 30 trainsets on service

*CRH2C Stage two*: 8 cars per trainset , maximum speed 350km/h,first opend at February 2010, between Zhengzhou - Xi'an, currently 30 trainsets on service, the new series CRH2-380 isderived from CRH2C Stage two

*CRH2E*: 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 250km/h,first opend at December 21 2008, between Beijing - Shanghai & Beijing - Hangzhou, currently 20 trainsets on service
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

















*CRH3 Series*

derived from Siemens Velaro, Manufacturer at Tangshan Railway Vehicle

*CRH3C*: 8 cars per trainset, maximum speed 350km/h,first opend at August 1, 2008, between Beijing - Tianjin, currently 60 trainsets on service, planed to have 186 trainsets
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
















*CRH5 Series*

derived from Alstom Pendolino ETR600, Manufacturer by Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd

*CRH5A*: 8 cars per trainset, maximum speed 250km/h,first opend at July 1, 2008, between Beijing - Tianjin, currently 69 trainsets on service
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

















*CRH1-380 Series*

Manufacturer by Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd.

*CRH1-380A*, also named Zefiro 380, formerly known as CRH1C & CRH1D, 8 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, Will be on service at 2012, planned to manufacture 20 trainsets

*CRH1-380B*, 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, planned to manufacture 16 trainsets









*CRH2-380 Series*

Manufacturer by Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock

*CRH2-380A*, Based on CRH2C stage two, 8 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, the first CRH2-380A will be completed by August 2010, planned to manufacture 60 trainsets

*CRH2-380B*, 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, planned to manufacture 140 trainsets
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---








*CRH3-380 Series*

Manufacturer byt Tangshan Railway Vehicle & Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd

*CRH3-380A*, Formerly known as CRH3D, based on CRH3C, 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, the first CRH3-380A completed by May 27 2010, planned to manufacturer 100 trainsets


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## greenlion

Some of the old high-railway trains, AKA runs as "EXPERSS" at a speed of 180 to 200 km/h between late 1990s' and early 2000s' 

*CRH6 - NDJ3 - "GREATWALL"*
*Beijing - Yanqing (Open at 2008), Shijiazhuang - Qinhuangdao (open at 2009).*

















*designed for running at 160 km/h, Top speed 200 km/h. *

*CBS - Changbai Mountain*
*Shenyang - Dalian (Open at 2007)*

















designed for running at 210 km/h, Top speed 250 km/h.

*XF - Forward*
*Chengdu - Chongqing (Open at 2007)*
















designed for running at 200 km/h, Top speed 292 km/h.

*DJJ1 - "Blue Arrow", Guangzhou - Shenzhen (Opens 2001, retire at 2007, now move to Shaoguan - Pingshi)*
















designed for running at 200 km/h, Top speed 236 km/h.


*X2000 - Epoch Speed*
*opens at Guangzhou - Jiulong line in 1998 at 200km/h, retire in 2007,replaced by CRH1*










*DDJ1 - Great White Shark*
*Opens at Guangzhou -Shenzhen line in 1998 at 200 km/h, retire at 2001, replaced by Blue Arrow*










*DJJ2 - China Star*
*Runs between Shenyang - Shanhaiguan, opens at 2005 at 270km/h retire at 2007*










*DJF1 - Zhongyuan Star*
*Opens at Zhengzhou - Wuchan in 2001 at speed 160km/h, retired at 2007*










*NZJ1 - New First Light*
*Opens at Nanjing - Hangzhou & Shanghai -Nanjing in 1999 at speed 180 km/h, retire at 2007, now running ta Harbin - Qiqihar line at a speed of 160 km/h*









*NZJ2 - Shenzhou*
*nickname "Great White Cat", opens at Beijing - Tianjin in 2000, retire at 2007, now running between Guilin - Nanjing - Liuzhou & Nanchang - Wuchang, Chibi - huangshi, top speed 180 km/h*


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## greenlion

by the way, according to this site, Nickname of the CRH Series are

http://baike.sytlw.com/index.php?doc-view-150.html

CRH1 - Cakebread
CRH2 - Hairtail
CRH3 - White Mouse
CRH5 - Little 5


----------



## Jiangwho




----------



## SokoX

Progress with technique ! =)


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## foxmulder

Nice summary greenlion, tnx.


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## snow is red

*China's new industrial revolution*

1 August 2010 

In its race to provide future growth, the speed at which China is adopting new technologies is breathtaking. 

Take one example: high speed rail. 

Five years ago, there was not a single kilometre of high speed track in China. Today, it has more than Europe and by 2012, it will have more than the rest of the world put together. 

A vast, spotless factory in the port city of Qingdao is in the front line of this new industrial revolution. 

It is here that the giant state-controlled train-making company CSR developed a Chinese high-speed train. 

China's leaders "played a strong role in making all of this happen", says CSR's chairman, Xiaogang Zhao.

Foreign know-how

China's leaders started by demanding that any foreign company bidding for a part of the massive proposed high-speed programme to share its technology with a Chinese partner. 


The Japanese engineering giant Kawasaki accepted this condition. A pioneer of high-speed rail, with almost half a century of development to its name, Kawasaki agreed to share its knowledge with CSR. 

Siemens of Germany struck a similar deal with another Chinese train-maker. 

With access to foreign know-how secured, the government then provided an army of 10,000 engineers and academics to create a Chinese train, Mr Zhao explains.

They did it, he says, in less than three years. 

New train

Inside the Qingdao factory, senior engineer Ding Sansan explains how every aspect of the Japanese train had to be redesigned for the faster 350 kilometres per hour running speed that China's high-speed strategy demanded. 

Everyone worked so hard on the project that he can hardly remember his last holiday.

"It was a very big challenge", he says. 

And it is just the beginning. 

Mr Ding is now working on a new train, due to be tested next year at an astonishing 500 kilometres per hour.

Unacceptable condition

Having acquired the technology, China is already exporting it.

This year, CSR supplanted Siemens as lead contractor on a new 440 kilometre high-speed line in Saudi Arabia.


Outside China, the speed at which such leading-edge technologies are being adopted is causing concern.

But China now plans to go one step further. 

Under a new proposal, "indigenous innovation", foreign companies bidding for Chinese government contracts will not only have to share existing know-how. 

They will also be required to conduct any new research and development work in China. 

For some companies this will prove an unacceptable condition, according to Brenda Foster, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

"It will keep American companies from being able to compete in the Chinese domestic market," she says.

"For some companies, that could actually put them out of business."

Hindering ideas

While America and China argue over "indigenous innovation", China is taking a new, direct approach - encouraging highly-skilled Chinese-born expatriates to return home from overseas, bringing their ideas and expertise with them. 

But some of these experts have found that China's top-down, centrally-controlled culture, so successful in delivering technologies such as high-speed rail, can prove an obstacle to innovation. 

Top medical scientist Professor Guosong Liu, moved from America to take up a post at Tsinghua, China's leading scientific university. 

There, the memory and intelligence-enhancing drugs he has been developing in the US and Germany are being tested on thousands of rats and mice. 

Frightened students

For such meticulous, labour-intensive work, Professor Liu says, China's hierarchical culture is perfect. 

But when it comes to innovation, "this culture inhibits the evolution of new ideas", he says.

Professor Liu finds his Chinese students to be very different from their American counterparts. 

Where American students are active in the lecture hall and constantly challenge what they are told, Chinese respect for hierarchy and authority means that even at a top university such as Tsinghua, it is hard to generate creative debate, he explains.

"I always say there's no stupid question. Ask me something stupid - it's better than nothing", Professor Liu says. 

"But they sit there. Maybe they're scared of me, but they're not challenging me". 

Competitive edge

Another top scientific returnee, Professor Shi Yigong, shocked his colleagues at the top US university Princeton by turning down a $10m research grant to become Dean of Life Sciences at Tsinghua. 

Professor Shi also believes China's hierarchical, top-down environment stifles creative debate. 

"Every time you say something, you have to think whether what I said appeases my superior," he says. 

"You begin to limit your innovation. I think you basically have less innovative factors in your mind".

Companies outside China may fear the break-neck speed at which China is adopting leading edge technologies. 

But when it comes to new ideas and innovation, Professor Shi says, China's top-down, hierarchical culture means Europe and the US look likely to keep their competitive edge for some time yet. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10792465


----------



## z0rg

*China develops record-breaking 600kph maglev trains*
By Quan Li (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-08-02 17:31

Maglev trains that reach a world record breaking speed of 600 kilometers per hour are being developed in China, the Beijing Times reported Monday.

The research, backed up by the theory of the vacuum magnetic suspension train, is being conducted by a state key laboratory research team of Southwest Jiaotong University, said the report. "The speed can be reached by making vacuum pipelines for maglev trains to run through, with no air resistance," said Shen Zhiyun, a member of the research team and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The new technology will use less steel than a normal train and is expected to be put into operation after ten years, says Zhang Yaoping, a member of the research team, adding that the application also depends on the decision of the Ministry of Railways.

Currently, the high speed trains connecting the cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan travel at an average speed of 350 kilometres an hour.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-08/02/content_11083037.htm

*Laboratory working on train to run at 1,000kph*

CHINA is developing a vactrain which will travel at 1,000 kilometers per hour through maglev lines in tubes underground.

According to a national laboratory specializing in the study of traction, the technology could be in daily use in the next 10 years.

The laboratory at Southwest Jiaotong University told Beijing-based Legal Evening News that it was working on a prototype with an average speed of 500 to 600kph.

A much smaller model train traveling at 600 to 1,000kph in a vacuum tube will be introduced in two or three years, it added.

Shen Zhiyun, a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences and one of the lab's research fellows, said a maglev train could ride at astonishing speeds in an airless tube because of zero air friction.

Shen's colleague Zhang Yaoping is a friend of Daryl Oster, who holds the United States patent for Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) technology.

Zhang, Shen and maglev expert Wang Jiasu launched their study in 2002. Oster came to China the same year to join the university's ETT institute.

Shen said the US proposal was for a highly evacuated tunnel. The Chinese version reduces air pressure, making the tunnel easier and cheaper to build.

The tunnel would cost 10 to 20 million yuan (US$2.95 million) more than the current high speed railway for each kilometer but the train would be able to travel at 600kph, Shen estimated.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201008/20100803/article_445162.htm


----------



## foxmulder

I guess this reports may hint at least two airports of Shanghai will be connected with maglev at the end.


----------



## binhai

Tianjin West station is undergoing a huge expansion in preparation for the Beijing-Shanghai HSR:

pics by me


----------



## binhai

probably was a little overzealous with my pic taking, i walked into some worker dorms' courtyard because there was a diagram of the project there then got questioned by some security guards on the spot for a few mins, one of whom seemed to intentionally not understand my chinese (i say something and he's always like aaaaah? in a rising tone), then told to get lost without even getting the pic i wanted (the other one said "no picture" in english lol)


----------



## ANR

*Tianjin pictures*



BarbaricManchurian said:


> probably was a little overzealous with my pic taking


Thanks for sharing the pictures. It is appreciated.


----------



## foxmulder

BarbaricManchurian said:


> probably was a little overzealous with my pic taking, i walked into some worker dorms' courtyard because there was a diagram of the project there then got questioned by some security guards on the spot for a few mins, one of whom seemed to intentionally not understand my chinese (i say something and he's always like aaaaah? in a rising tone), then told to get lost without even getting the pic i wanted (the other one said "no picture" in english lol)


 sorry to hear the story.. thanks for the pictures.


----------



## fragel

The operation schedule of Shanghai-Nanjing HSR has been recently adjusted, again. To serve most of the passengers better, more trains from Shanghai Railway Station to Nanjing were added while some from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station to Nanjing were cut. One thing concerning people the most has not be changed though: the fare.


----------



## derekf1974

Some construction pictures of the Yellow River crossing at Zhengzhou for the Beijing-Shanhai high speed rail. Upper deck is a six lane expressway. Lower deck is for the trains. Looks like it is about to be completed. Images from netease.com.


----------



## greenlion

*HXD1C*

Based on HXD1 & HXD1B, manufacturer by Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd. the first HXD1C was completed in April 30 2009, come in to service on Chongqing - Chengdu line, planned to built 400 HXD1C locomotives. top speed 120km/h, Power output 7,200 Kw


----------



## greenlion

*HXD2 Series*

*HXD2*

Nickname Hippo

derived from Alstom PRIMABB43700, manufacturer by Datong Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd. the first HXD2 was built by Alstom, completed in December 2006, arrived in China by January 21, 2007, come into sercive at Datong-Qinhuangdao line, totally 180 HXD2 locomotives was built. top speed 120km/h, Power output 10,000 Kw


----------



## BE0GRAD

中国万岁！


----------



## Jay

Damn those locomotives looks pretty beasty :cheers:


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## greenlion

*HXD2B*

derived from Alstom PRIMA6000 Co-Co, manufacturer by Datong Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd. the first HXD2B was built by Alstom, completed in 2009, the first China made HXD2B completed by May 24, 2010, will come into service between Beijing-Shanghai line, planned to built 500 HXD2B locomotives. top speed 120km/h, Power output 9,600 KW


----------



## greenlion

*HXD2C*

HXD2C is the simplified version of HXD3C, manufacturer by Datong Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd. the first HXD2C completed by May 24, 2010, planned to built 220 HXD2C locomotives. top speed 120km/h, Power output 7,200kW


----------



## greenlion

*HXD3 Series*

*HXD3*

Nickname Monkey

derived from CNR SSJ3 & Toshiba EH500, manufacturer by CNR Dalian Locomotive Co., Ltd. the first HXD3 was completed in 2006, first come into service between Beijing-Shanghai & Beijing - Guangzhou line, totally 1040 HXD3 locomotives has been built. top speed 120km/h, Power output 7,200 kW

HXD3 is also used as passenger locomotive


----------



## greenlion

*HXD3B*

Nickname Gorilla

derived from Bombardier RE Kiruna, manufacturer by CNR Dalian Locomotive Co., Ltd. the first HXDB3 was completed by December 29 2008, planned to built 500 HXD3B locomotives. top speed 120km/h, Power output 9,600 kW


----------



## greenlion

*HXD3C*

Based on HXD3 & HXD3B, manufacturer by CNR Dalian Locomotive Co., Ltd. the first HXD3C is set to be completed by November 2010, top speed 120km/h, Power output 7,200 kW


----------



## bobke90

Are this locs all for cargo or also for passenger trafic ( 120 km/h is really slow, for passenger trafic is a speed of 160 km/h necessary, I think)?


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## greenlion

bobke90 said:


> Are this locs all for cargo or also for passenger trafic ( 120 km/h is really slow, for passenger trafic is a speed of 160 km/h necessary, I think)?


the HXD locomotives are designed for cargo, but sometimes HXD3 is also used as passenger locomotive, China also has passenger trains running under top speed 120km/h

Chinese passenger train classes

*G trains(CRH)*, long-distance high-speed trains, Top speed 380 km/h or 350km/h
*C trains (CRH)*, Intercity high-speed trains, Top speed 380 km/h or 350km/h
*D trains (CRH)*, The top speed 250 km/h or 200km/h
*Z trains, Direct Express*, "non-stop" overnight train, The top speed is 160 km/h
*T trains, Express*, top speed 160 km/h
*K trains, Fast*, top speed 120 km/h
*Rote Number 1001-5998 trains, General Fast*, top speed 120km/h
*Rote Number 6001-7598 trains, General*, top speed 100km/h


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## fragel

Yichang-Wanzhou Railway is through today. will officially open on Nov. 20, 2010.

The construction of Yiwan Railway is the most difficult and risky ever in China, and thus costs the most: about 60 million RMB/km, which is much more than the 29 million RMB/km for Qinghai-Tibet Railway.


----------



## foxmulder

fragel said:


> Yichang-Wanzhou Railway is through today. will officially open on Nov. 20, 2010.
> 
> The construction of Yiwan Railway is the most difficult and risky ever in China, and thus costs the most: about 60 million RMB/km, which is much more than the 29 million RMB/km for Qinghai-Tibet Railway.



Would love to see more pictures... There should be tons of bridges and tunnels on this route


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## Rail1435

Thanks @ Greenlion for this summary.

@ Bobke90: As it can be seen on the published picture, HXD3c is also provided with sockets for passenger train power supply.


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## fragel

Yeah, there are 159 tunnels and 253 bridges on this 377km railway! I think someone already posted some pictures of this line in this thread. Here they are, in post #2664 by sickasick.




foxmulder said:


> Would love to see more pictures... There should be tons of bridges and tunnels on this route


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## chornedsnorkack

chornedsnorkack said:


> Then which high speed lines are due to open this year?
> Yichang-Yanzhou railway?


20. November


chornedsnorkack said:


> Shanghai-Hangzhou line as mentioned.


Thus 1st of October


chornedsnorkack said:


> Longyan-Xiamen line?
> Nanchang-Jiujiang line - sometime in the end of this month?


End of September now


chornedsnorkack said:


> Guangzhou-Zhuhai MRT?
> Haikou-Sanya eastern line?
> Changchun-Jilin line?
> 
> Any others?


Any updates for the other lines?


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## foxmulder

fragel said:


> Yeah, there are 159 tunnels and 253 bridges on this 377km railway! I think someone already posted some pictures of this line in this thread. Here they are, in post #2664 by sickasick.


Yeah, I remember those pictures. Some of them are breathtaking actually  I was just being greedy and asking for more  Thanks tough


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## rail

Can anyone tell me on which lines of China run new locomotives like HXD3, HXD3B,
HXD1B, HXD1C ?


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## z0rg

foxmulder said:


> Would love to see more pictures... There should be tons of bridges and tunnels on this route


Enjoy this one.

Bridge over the Changjiang. The project's only bridge across the river.


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## fragel

*Changzhou HSR Station of Shanghai-Nanjing HSR*

x-post from the mainland China subforum. Although it is most appropriate for a Chinese railway station thread, but this is a nice station built in such a short time. just want to share the pictures and hope it won't bother anyone reading this thread.

Here are some nice pictures of the new Changzhou Railway Station on the Shanghai-Nanjing HSR (by yzyf_1 on gaoloumi.com). The construction of the station started in early 2009 and took less than 18 months. It will be connected by metro line 1 in the future. There is another Changzhou HSR Station currently under construction, which is on the Shanghai-Beijing HSR. 
This city is on a fast track!

The new station opened in July (located at the north side of the older one): 









This one looks like a rendering picture:









It also has a bus station:









Inside the new station:

Is it so wrong to say that I particularly like this picture?:lol: 


















During construction:


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## z0rg

@greenlion, could you post large renderings of the Shijiazhuang South Station? It looks very promising.
And what's it's original name? I can't find info about it when searching 石家庄南站.
Thanks!


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## foxmulder

Thanks for the updates..


----------



## greenlion

z0rg said:


> @greenlion, could you post large renderings of the Shijiazhuang South Station? It looks very promising.
> And what's it's original name? I can't find info about it when searching 石家庄南站.
> Thanks!


The official name is called Shijiazhuang South Station, because it is located to the south of the old Shijiazhuang Station,but people usually call it Shijiazhuang New Passenger Station 石家庄新客站

Here are some infomations in Chinese
http://hi.baidu.com/sjz929/blog/item/258333a8546890bfca130ccc.html
http://www.autohome.com.cn/news/201008/137264.html
http://www.qqsjz.com/show.asp?id=121798

Infomation of the old Shijiazhuang Station, open service in 1902, and will turn to be a Railway Museum after the New station come into service

http://baike.baidu.com/view/654203.htm?fr=ala0_1


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## z0rg

^^ Thank you very much for sharing


----------



## greenlion

Official News from China MOR today

http://news.21-sun.com/detail/2010/09/2010090309255053.shtml

update to Sepetember 3, 2010, a totaly of 6920 km High-Speed Rail lines come into service in China, includes 4044 km with designed speed 250km/h - 350km/h, and 2876 km with designed speed 200km/h - 250km/h.

from January to July, the chinese railway system transport 975.95 million passengers, about 4.6 million per day, the HSR system transport a average of 881 thousands passengers per day, with a average take-up rate of 120%


and according to this article,

http://goo.yikuo.com/news/2010-08-19/1007_2010819191437100720122365.html

currentlly there are 355 CRH trains in service, with 121 of them runs under top speed of 350km/h, and 234 of them service under top speed of 250km/h


----------



## Geography

I'd like to know more about the Shijiazhuang South Station. I had never even heard of this city before that post. It sounds little like the Hongqiao transport hub minus the airport. The renderings are confusing: is part of the railway station underground? The subway lines are too, presumably. Shijiazhuang is listed on Wikipedia as one of the cities for which a metro is in the planning phase, which means it is several years away. So how can it open in 2011? Why haven't we seen construction pictures?


----------



## fragel

^^ Shijiazhuang (Shi Jia Zhuang) is the capital city of Hebei Province. 

Hongqiao hub is much larger IMO, but still this station is very impressive. It will have three floors underground and two above ground. Its west part and east part will open in 2011 and 2012 respectively, while the metro may take a longer time to finish. It is common that new HSR stations in China open one part at a time.

Some off topic pictures. But when I think of Shijiazhuang construction, this is what come first to my mind:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=39501808&postcount=1413


z0rg said:


> Shijiazhuang. Pics by 臭球儿.
> 
> Feb 2009
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> 
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> Jul 2009


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## foxmulder

I love this type of photo sets where you can see the development.. Tnx.


----------



## greenlion

I'd like to introduce more about Shijiazhuang History, this city is describe as "Train pulls City" by Chinese media, by some means this city is a "Railway City", the history of the city is just like the History of Chinese Railway.

In early 20th century the area of Shijiazhuang was no more than 0.1 square kilometers and had a population of only 600 and 200 households, actually the name Shijiazhuang means "Village of Shi Family" in Chinese, today the Shijiazhuang prefecture has a population of around 10 million, 2.5 million people lives in the urban city, and it also has four star cities around it, each of them has a population of 200 thousand to 300 thousand. the develop of Shijiazhuang is a miracle.

The growth of Shijiazhuang into one of China's major cities began in 1902 as the Luhan (Jinghan, Beijing - Wuhan) Railway, which was invested and built by France and Belgium ran through Shijiazhuang and a station was set up in Shijiazhuang Village, In 1903 Zhengtai (Shitai, Shijiazhuang - Taiyuan) Railway began to be built, Thus Shijiazhuang became the connection of the two railways.

Accompanying with the operation of railway, several morden industries were set up including Zhengtai Mechanical Factory (Now Shijiazhuang Vehicle Factory), Daxing Cotton Mill (Now Shijiazhuang Weave Stock Limited), Jingxing Mine and Zhengfeng Mine, etc. 

Picture:

*Shijiazhuang Railway Station, 1902*









*Zhengtai Hotel, A france style Hotel built in 1907, Both Sun Yat-Sen & Chiang Kai Shek had stayed here during their way to Beijing*









*the Great Stone Bridge, built by france workers and Chinese residents in 1907, linked the east part and west part of the city, now becomes a Symble of the city*

















On 1937 Japanese invaders occupied Shijiazhuang. They paid great attention to Shijiazhuang's transportation position, so they took a series of measures to make Shijiazhuang as their military base for invading the North China.the japanese built the 3rd railway of the city - Shide (Shijiazhuang - Dezhou) railway in 1940 - 1941, and the city's traffic and economic position was further promoted.

*Shijiazhuang Station during the leberation war period*









Since 1949, Shijiazhuang's political, economic and cultural position had been further promoted and it became a special administrative area. Shijiazhuang became the central city of the regions and in 1968, it becomes Capital City of Hebei Province.

*the current Shijazhuang (Center) Station, will turn to be Railway Museum after the New Station completed.*









*Currentlly Shijiazhuang*


----------



## big-dog

Pictures of CRH Shanghai to Wuhan (1255km)

After the *He-wu line* (Hefei-Wuhan) opened in March 2009, the Shanghai - Wuhan travel time is larged reduced.



















































































(bbs.hasea.com)


----------



## greenlion

Main stations of Chinese HSR System



Code:


Station               Platforms  Departure    Subway   floor          open
                                  tracks       lines    area          date
Harbin West               10         18          1    70,000 sq.m     2012
Changchun West            5           9          2    60,000 sq.m     2011
Shenyang South            12         22          2   100,000 sq.m     2013
Dalian North              10         20          3    68,500 sq.m     2011
Tianjin West              13         24          3   104,500 sq.m     2011
Beijing South             13         24          2   226,444 sq.m     2008
Shijiahzuang South        13         24          2   107,059 sq.m     2011
Taiyuan South             10         22          3    56,000 sq.m     2010
Jinan West                 8         14          2   100,000 sq.m     2011
Qingdao  North             6         10          1    54,000 sq.m     2012
Zhengzhou East            15         28          2   114,602 sq.m     2012
Xi'an North               18         34          1   378,425 sq.m     2011
Wuhan                     11         20          2   114,600 sq.m     2009
Nanjing South             14         28          4   281,500 sq.m     2011
Shanghai Hongqiao         16         30          5   221,903 sq.m     2010
Hefei South               12         22          3   100,000 sq.m     2012
Hangzhou East             14         26          2   156,000 sq.m     2012
Bengbu South               7         13          1    20,000 sq.m     2012
Xuzhou East                6         11          1    14,894 sq.m     2012
Ningbo                     8         14          2    62,934 sq.m     2012
Wenzhou South              4         10          2    71,209 sq.m     2012
Fuzhou South               7         12          1    92,473 sq.m     2010
Xiamen North               5         10          1   110,000 sq.m     2010
Shenzhen North            11         20          3   181,000 sq.m     2011
Guangzhou South           15         28          4   179,300 sq.m     2010
Nanchang West             12         22          2   114,508 sq.m     2011
Changsha South             8         16          1   199,000 sq.m     2010
Nanning East              12         22          2   120,000 sq.m     2012
Guiyang North             15         28          2   100,000 sq.m     2015
Kunming South             15         30          1    80,000 sq.m     2015
New Chongqing             14         26          1   120,000 sq.m     2012
Chengdu East              14         26          2   108,000 sq.m     2012
Lanzhou West              13         25          1   160,000 sq.m     2012
New Urumqi                Planning


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> Main stations of Chinese HSR System
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> Station               Platforms  Departure    Subway   floor          open
> tracks       lines    area          date
> Taiyuan South             10         22          3    56,000 sq.m     2010
> Qingdao                    6         10          1    54,000 sq.m     2010
> Nanjing South             14         28          4   281,500 sq.m     2010
> Shanghai Hongqiao         16         30          5   221,903 sq.m     2010
> Fuzhou South               7         12          1    92,473 sq.m     2010
> Guangzhou South           15         28          4   179,300 sq.m     2010
> Changsha South             8         16          1   199,000 sq.m     2010
> Chengdu East              14         26          2   108,000 sq.m     2010


Which of these are open already and which are yet to open this year? (I know Guangzhou South and Shanghai Hongqiao are open.)


----------



## foxmulder

So, now you can travel with high speed train from Shanghai to Guangzhou, right?

Also, will Xi'an North with 378,425 sq.m area be the largest in the World?


Thanks for the updates again guys. This is my favorite thread on skyscrapercity


----------



## greenlion

foxmulder said:


> So, now you can travel with high speed train from Shanghai to Guangzhou, right?
> 
> Also, will Xi'an North with 378,425 sq.m area be the largest in the World?
> 
> 
> Thanks for the updates again guys. This is my favorite thread on skyscrapercity


the Chinese media only confirm Xi'an North station is the largest station in Asia, so honestly we don't know if it is the largest station in the world or not


----------



## greenlion

*Taiyuan South Station, set to be (Partly) open by December 2010*


































*current look*









































*Fuzhou South Station opened by April 26,2010*

































































































*Xiamen North Station opened by April 26,2010*


















































































*Changsha South Station opened at December 29, 2009*


----------



## binhai

Absolutely amazing!


----------



## derekf1974

Thanks for the updates. These pictures are awesome.


----------



## z0rg

Thank you very much. Please keep posting stuff! :master:


----------



## fragel

Thanks for the awesome pictures. All HSR stations are so magnificent :cheers1:


----------



## greenlion

*Hengyang East Station, the largest Class II station of the Wuguang PDL (Wuhan,Changsha South and Guangzhou South are Class I Stations) openen at December 10, 2009*

Floor area 22,128 sq.m, the station has 5 platforms and 9 departure tracks


----------



## HunanChina

*昆山南 Kunshan South Railway Station*

昆山南 Kunshan South Railway Station


----------



## fragel

^^ Thanks HunanChina! Keep the pictures coming


----------



## conc.man

delete


----------



## ANR

*Chinese locomotive company ZELC reaches out to world*

English.news.cn 
2010-08-22









_The photo taken on Aug. 18, 2010 shows locomotives parking in a storage area in Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited ( ZELC) in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province. ZELC, a subsidiary of China South Locomotive & Rolling (CSR) which is one of China's biggest maker of rail vehicles, signed July 23, 2010 a contract of 4 billion yuan (590 million U.S. dollars) with Malaysia's traffic ministry for inter-city trains which will be put into service for the north-south line of Kuala Lumpur, the city's busiest shuttle line. Aside from Malaysia, the locomotives and carriages made by ZELC of CSR will travel in countries like Singapore, which bought 114 subway maintenance vehicles in June 1, 2009, India, which signed a contract to purchase subway trains on June 21, 2010, Saudi Arabia, which ordered locomotives on July 20, 2010, and so on. These successes helped the company earn a total of 760 million U.S. dollars in overseas trade as well as a global brand. The company is at the same time enhanced by its world class key technologies in product design and manufacture. The company plans to raise the proportion of overseas income to gross income from the current 10 percent up to 20 percent in next five years. ZELC of CSR has enough confidence to do so, especially after it brought HXD1B high power AC drive 6-axle (9600kw) freight electric locomotives into its product category on January 16, 2009. This type of locomotive is independently developed by the company itself, the most advanced strong power AC drive electric locomotive.(Xinhua/Zhao Zhongzhi)_









_Workers make efforts on a subway carriage made for Guangzhou metro lines in a manufacturing workshop of Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited ( ZELC) in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province, Aug. 19, 2009.(Xinhua/Zhao Zhongzhi)_









_A newly assembled locomotive enters a storage area in Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited ( ZELC) in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province, Aug. 18, 2010. (Xinhua/ZhaoZhongzhi)









Technicians test a subway carriage in a manufacturing workshop in Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited ( ZELC) in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province, Aug. 18, 2010. (Xinhua/Zhao Zhongzhi)









The photo taken on Aug. 18, 2010 shows locomotives parking in a storage area in Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited ( ZELC) in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province. (Xinhua/Zhao Zhongzhi)









The photo taken on Aug. 19, 2009 shows HXD1B AC drive 6-axle (9600kw) freight electric locomotives in a manufacturing workshop of Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited ( ZELC) in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province.(Xinhua/Zhao Zhongzhi)
_


----------



## conc.man

Breaking news! CRH380A is taking operation test!
from ourail http://bbs.ourail.com/viewthread.php?tid=82124


----------



## fragel

^^ looks better at a train station than at the EXPO site


----------



## napoleon

Cabinet approves draft of Thailand-China negotiations to build high-speed train

วันอังคาร ที่ 07 ก.ย. 2553 BANGKOK, Sept 7 

The Cabinet on Tuesday agreed to a proposed draft framework of Thailand-China negotiations to build a high speed train system linking China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia.

Deputy government spokesman Supachai Jaisamut told a press briefing that the drafted framework of negotiations was aimed at upgrading the rail system to pave the way for building high speed rail lines connecting the four countries of China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia.

The decision was made after officials from China’s Railways Ministry had explored Bangkok-Nong Khai rail route and discussed with senior Lao officials from August 18-24, Mr Supachai said.

Following a feasibility study of the rail development, the high-speed rail lines were expected to serve trains travelling at the speed of at least 200 kilometres per hour in Thailand.

The three high-speed rail routes in Thailand included Bangkok-Nong Khai, Bangkok-Rayong and Bangkok-Padang Besar, a Malaysian town bordering Thailand in Songkhla province.

Meanwhile, the high-speed rail network connects existing routes in southwestern China of Kunming to the Lao capital of Vientiane, Thailand’s Nong Khai, Rayong, Bangkok and the Thai-Malaysian border town of Padang Besar.

Following the Cabinet approval, the Transport Ministry will conduct a public hearing on the rail development project and then will forward it to Parliament for further consideration, Mr Supachai said.

When parliamentary consideration is completed, the ministry will confer with Chinese government officials about the framework of negotiations for further cooperation with Southeast Asian countries.

In a related development, the spokesman added that the Cabinet also approved a plan to borrow US$400 million from the Export-Import Bank of China (China Eximbank), intended to improve the Thai rail system.

The loan will be allocated for three projects. The project is to procure electric locomotives and spare parts aiming to replace 50 aging General Electric locomotives used for over 45 years.

The two other projects are to improve the Phitsanulok-Chiang Mai rail route and the Thung Song-Hat Yai line. (MCOT online news)


----------



## foxmulder

conc.man said:


> Breaking news! CRH380A is taking operation test!
> from ourail http://bbs.ourail.com/viewthread.php?tid=82124


Great news... Thanks for sharing. Looking for more photos


----------



## 2009UNC

napoleon said:


> Cabinet approves draft of Thailand-China negotiations to build high-speed train
> 
> วันอังคาร ที่ 07 ก.ย. 2553 BANGKOK, Sept 7
> 
> The Cabinet on Tuesday agreed to a proposed draft framework of Thailand-China negotiations to build a high speed train system linking China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia.
> 
> (MCOT online news)


:cheers: Very good news, Vietnam is excluded, let them stuck with the Sinkansen dream for 20 years, but please stay away from CRH.


----------



## teddybear

Wow, China is undergoing revolution in train transport! All stations looks so gleaming with shiny granite or marble floors and clean! And beautiful stewardesses too


----------



## HunanChina

*CRH-380*



fragel said:


> ^^ Thanks HunanChina! Keep the pictures coming





some introduce about CRH-380 (not official)

3 versions

CRH1-380A (fuse CRH2 series and CRH3 series) China CNR Corporation Limited






























CRH2-380A (evolve from CRH2 series) China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited












CRH3-380A (Bombardier Zefiro)


----------



## Restless

I think the descriptions got mixed up.

Isn't the first picture a CRH3-380A (originally Velaro-based until Siemens stopped cooperating)

And the 3rd picture a CRH1-380A (a new joint CSR-Bombardier design)




HunanChina said:


> some introduce about CRH-380 (not official)
> 
> 3 versions
> 
> CRH1-380A (fuse CRH2 series and CRH3 series)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CRH2-380A (evolve from CRH2 series)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CRH3-380A (Bombardier Zefiro)


----------



## HunanChina

Restless said:


> I think the descriptions got mixed up.
> 
> Isn't the first picture a CRH3-380A (originally Velaro-based until Siemens stopped cooperating)
> 
> And the 3rd picture a CRH1-380A (a new joint CSR-Bombardier design)


:nuts: It's so complicated. Which is the CRH-380A(Official name), CRH3-380A, right?

That CRH1-380A(according to you), the Bombardier just call it 380 Zefiro, and they have not refer to CSR.


----------



## greenlion

*this morning, CRH2-380A test run on Nanjing Railway Station*


----------



## Taizu

^^Can't view the images.


----------



## ddes

All 3 versions look amazing. There's a streamlined and more standardized look to the new -380A versions....

I also like the fact that the trains have turned out more "Asian" looking, almost Japanese inspired, rather than looking "European". I'm not a fan of the TGV/KTX trains.


----------



## greenlion

Failed to post pictures, but these video shows CRH2-380A test run on Zhengxi PDL in late June or early July

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg0OTUyOTA4.html
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg0OTU0Mzg4.html
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg0OTUzMzIw.html
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg0OTUzOTQ4.html


----------



## greenlion

Restless said:


> I think the descriptions got mixed up.
> 
> Isn't the first picture a CRH3-380A (originally Velaro-based until Siemens stopped cooperating)
> 
> And the 3rd picture a CRH1-380A (a new joint CSR-Bombardier design)


I think this is the right order, according to most of the Chinese railway forums, as my early post in this thread

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=218503&page=146


























*CRH1-380 Series*

Manufacturer by Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd.

*CRH1-380A*, also named Zefiro 380, formerly known as CRH1C & CRH1D, 8 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, Will be on service at 2012, planned to manufacture 20 trainsets

*CRH1-380B*, 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, planned to manufacture 16 trainsets

























*CRH2-380 Series*

Manufacturer by Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock

*CRH2-380A*, Based on CRH2C stage two, 8 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, the first CRH2-380A will be completed by August 2010, planned to manufacture 60 trainsets

*CRH2-380B*, 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, planned to manufacture 140 trainsets








*CRH3-380 Series*

Manufacturer by Tangshan Railway Vehicle & Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd

*CRH3-380A*, Formerly known as CRH3D, based on CRH3C, 16 cars per trainset , maximum speed 380km/h, the first CRH3-380A completed by May 27 2010, planned to manufacturer 100 trainsets


----------



## bobke90

Why so many different types of trains? Isn't it cheaper to make all the trains the same( the construction, but also the maintenance, the trainings etc)? by example one type for 380km/h, one for 350km/h , 250 km/h etc.


----------



## Palatinus

Chinese are buying all HSR technologies on the planet to copy them for the future. This is why they built the MAGLEV in Shanghai borrowing Siemens ThyssenKrupp HOWTO. The aim is the stealing of tech information. 

Chinese are always the same. BEST COPYWORKER IN THE WORLD.


----------



## foxmulder

Geography said:


> This interior looks narrower than other passenger trains that had a 3+2 configuration, often with some seats facing each other across a table. Are the seats extra wide to make this an optical illusion, or is the CRH380A's cabin actually narrower?
> 
> Also, does fastest average operating speed mean the total distance traveled/time? Those trains are going 350 km/hr at some point in their journey, just not the whole way, correct?


Train width is similar to other ones so it is the seats that are larger in my opinion. 

Also, for 350km/h (7000m turn radius) lines, for most of the distance, trains travel faster than 300km/h. Because of the stops average speed decreases. For example, in Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway, non-stop strains cover the ~900km distance less than 3 hours. And, actually, this what makes Chinese network "special", in my opinion.

And, great pictures


----------



## binhai

Geography said:


> This interior looks narrower than other passenger trains that had a 3+2 configuration, often with some seats facing each other across a table. Are the seats extra wide to make this an optical illusion, or is the CRH380A's cabin actually narrower?
> 
> Also, does fastest average operating speed mean the total distance traveled/time? Those trains are going 350 km/hr at some point in their journey, just not the whole way, correct?


I think this is first class, which on existing trains is already 2+2


----------



## mgk920

sasalove said:


> Hong Kong Section of High Speed Rail


Are they tunneling that line under the entire city? WOW!  How far inland will a train have to go before it sees daylight? (Note that I don't know a word of Chinese.)

Impressive looking station area, too.

Mike


----------



## chornedsnorkack

conc.man said:


>


Compare old CRH, first class:









and second class


----------



## carrot1

Palatinus said:


> I would like to partecipate with the EUROPEAN UNION (the best among all UE nations)... i think it'll be "SLIGHTLY" different the final result... and i can't see India... does she partecipate?
> 
> Korean and Chinese are at the moment what Japanese were 50 years ago.
> 
> *COPYWORKERS.*
> 
> Only Indians are serious in Asia.
> 
> Germany above all. But if they could have had the same population (of a medium high nation) and the same extension of soil (of any of this nations) Netherlands and DUTCH people would have been the best in the world. Better than USA, China and India, Brazil, Russia etc...
> 
> P.S:
> 
> It's like the Olympic Games: China has 1,3 bilion inhabitants... but if UE will partecipate united will win easily.
> 
> With the same number of population China would have been one the worst in thw world. Their fortune are the 400 milions of under 15. Only people, not culture neither mentality. Only demographics blackmail, like India, Indonesia, Africa and Brazil.
> 
> BUT EUROPE WILL BE ALWAYS THE BEST. We are the civilization. We are the world. (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are extensions of Europe).



:lol::lol::lol:


----------



## carrot1

Palatinus said:


> Gross Domestic Production isn't civilization. What about RIGHTS IN ASIA (excluded Japan)??? What about EQUALITY? WHAT ABOUT FAIRNESS? WHAT ABOUT JUSTICE? WHAT ABOUT REDUNDANCY? WHAT ABOUT RESPECT? WHAT ABOUT ENVIRONMENT?



:lol::lol::lol:


----------



## ukiyo

conc.man said:


> More CRH380A from metrofans
> http://club.metrofans.sh.cn/thread-133764-1-1.html


It reminds me of a Shinkansen...the painting is exactly the same.


----------



## binhai

mgk920 said:


> Are they tunneling that line under the entire city? WOW!  How far inland will a train have to go before it sees daylight? (Note that I don't know a word of Chinese.)
> 
> Impressive looking station area, too.
> 
> Mike


The entire section in HK is underground, it will be about 50km until it "surfaces" (the station in Shenzhen is also underground)


----------



## Ariel74

NihonKitty said:


> It reminds me of a Shinkansen...the painting is exactly the same.


Well, it's got a Shinkansen mother  

But what do you mean the painting is exactly the same? the same as which series? Do they paint trains in this sky-blue color in Japan at all???


----------



## ukiyo

Sky blue color? :lol:

Look at the entire side of the train, I am not talking about the front. All white with blue line is what Shinkansens use.


----------



## quashlo

Actually, both front and side paint scheme look uncannily similar to the 500 series Shinkansen (perhaps crossed with the typical white / blue scheme of the Tōkaidō / San'yō Shinkansen):









_Source: Wikipedia_

For the sides, both trains have dark grey window area and a blue beltline.
For the front, both trains have a blue / gray face that drops down from the roof of the train.


----------



## Pansori

Series 500 looks much better. Then again, CRH3/Velaro looks better than the 500 Series... or anything else for that matter. Only Zefiro 380 possibly looks better than Velaro.


----------



## foxmulder

Appearance vise, 500 series looks terrible for me because of tube like body.


----------



## Scion

Does anyone know what these are?


----------



## Taizu

^^ CRH1-380 (Zefiro 380)?


----------



## zergcerebrates

sasalove said:


> Hong Kong Section of High Speed Rail



From the looks of it, the Hong Kong highspeed rail station seems to be the most sophisticated in design out of the entire Chinese HSR system.


----------



## LUCAFUSAR

snow is red said:


> ^^ Alstom still has business in China ? I thought they are already barred from entering the Chinese market after their CEO ran amok with his verbal bonanza.


There are 69 CRH5 on service.


----------



## LUCAFUSAR

cal_t said:


> Their CRH5 product (ETR without tilt) is an under-performer in the Chinese market. The trains have been relegated to low temperate operating conditions. Why this happens is beyond me?! I suspect political motives behind this as well.
> 
> You see components (even if its only initial shell design) of the E2 (CRH2), Velaros (CRH3), Reginas (CRH1) being modified for 380km/h operation, yet the Alstom product doesn’t make it through….


Because Alstom offered a Pendolino-derived trainset instead of the AGV. The CRH5 operates on the 200-250 km/h network, i think.


----------



## LUCAFUSAR

Palatinus said:


> I would like to partecipate with the EUROPEAN UNION (the best among all UE nations)... i think it'll be "SLIGHTLY" different the final result... and i can't see India... does she partecipate?
> 
> Korean and Chinese are at the moment what Japanese were 50 years ago.
> 
> *COPYWORKERS.*
> 
> Only Indians are serious in Asia.
> 
> Germany above all. But if they could have had the same population (of a medium high nation) and the same extension of soil (of any of this nations) Netherlands and DUTCH people would have been the best in the world. Better than USA, China and India, Brazil, Russia etc...
> 
> P.S:
> 
> It's like the Olympic Games: China has 1,3 bilion inhabitants... but if UE will partecipate united will win easily.
> 
> With the same number of population China would have been one the worst in thw world. Their fortune are the 400 milions of under 15. Only people, not culture neither mentality. Only demographics blackmail, like India, Indonesia, Africa and Brazil.
> 
> BUT EUROPE WILL BE ALWAYS THE BEST. We are the civilization. We are the world. (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are extensions of Europe).


Please, ban this f*****g troll. Europe was good only with colonialism.


----------



## zergcerebrates

Palatinus said:


> BUT EUROPE WILL BE ALWAYS THE BEST. We are the civilization. We are the world. (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are extensions of Europe).


Right. . . go save your European PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, & Spain) first. They are in such bad shape not even the Germans want to save their butts.


----------



## LUCAFUSAR

^^Don't feed the troll.


----------



## greenlion

LUCAFUSAR said:


> cal_t said:
> 
> 
> 
> Their CRH5 product (ETR without tilt) is an under-performer in the Chinese market. The trains have been relegated to low temperate operating conditions. Why this happens is beyond me?! I suspect political motives behind this as well.
> 
> You see components (even if its only initial shell design) of the E2 (CRH2), Velaros (CRH3), Reginas (CRH1) being modified for 380km/h operation, yet the Alstom product doesn’t make it through….
> 
> 
> 
> Because Alstom offered a Pendolino-derived trainset instead of the AGV. The CRH5 operates on the 200-250 km/h network, i think.
Click to expand...

the CRH5 has it's own advantage compare with other CRH trains, it works well under low temperatures, so it is mainly served in Northeast China and mountain area

http://www.4-traders.com/ALSTOM-460...ment-of-Urban-Mass-Transit-in-China-13454582/

*ALSTOM , CNR & SEC Agree to Jointly Contribute to the Development of Urban Mass Transit in China*
09/13/2010 | 03:45 am

Alstom (Paris:ALO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with two Chinese companies - CNR Corporation Ltd., (CNR) and Shanghai Electric Group Co., Ltd., (SEC) - to form a strategic partnership and jointly develop new markets for mass transit products. The agreement was signed in the presence of Dominique Bussereau, France's Secretary of State for Transport. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Alstom, together with CNR and SEC, will expand the capabilities and competitiveness of their existing two joint ventures – Shanghai Alstom Transport Co., Ltd. (SATCO) and Shanghai Alstom Transport Electrical Equipment Co., Ltd. (SATEE). The collaboration will allow the parties to accelerate the development of complete rolling stock solutions and railway traction systems by the two JVs for mass transit projects. The long-term goal of the partnership is to give SATCO and SATEE the ability to design, build and commercialize new urban transit products for the Chinese market as well as for targeted export markets. 

Philippe Mellier, President of Alstom Transport, declared: China represents one of the most important markets for Alstom Transport. We are committed to succeed in this competitive market by relying on our manufacturing footprint in the country and building the right partnerships. 

The signing of today's MoU is another milestone in our localization drive and commitment in China, said Dominique Pouliquen, SVP, Alstom Transport Asia Pacific and Alstom China Country President. 

As a world leader in rail transport, Alstom is well positioned to contribute to China's development of urban mass transit. Alstom Transport's presence in China dates to 1958 and includes 5 joint ventures, 8 project sites and 3 industrial partnerships (metro, locomotives, EMUs). With offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, Alstom Transport employs over 1,500 people in China.


----------



## greenlion

Official advertisement of the Changjiu ICL which set to open by September 2010
http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/38201619-1410510003.html


----------



## sasalove

favorite CRH videos on Youtube


----------



## greenlion

the Changjiu Intercity line will open on September 20,2010, according to Nanchang Railway Bureau. and will service 17 trains, 9 between Nanchang-Jiujiang and 8 between Nanchang-Wuchang/Wuhan/Hankou


----------



## GreenMonk108

These CRHs are amazingly fast!:nuts:


----------



## LUCAFUSAR

greenlion said:


> the CRH5 has it's own advantage compare with other CRH trains, it works well under low temperatures, so it is mainly served in Northeast China and mountain area
> 
> ...


Thanks for your explanation.


----------



## greenlion

September 14, first carry passenger test run at Changjiu ICL,

CRH1A (train number D6373) takes 45m to finish the 135km journey (Average speed 180km/h), top speed reach 222km/h
CRH2A (train number D6346) takes 43m at the same line (Average speed 188.3 km/h), top speed 250km/h


----------



## tuckerbox

Thank You for posting about this beautifull CRH Train.
China, the sleeping Giant awakes!
Fastest train that I ever drove here in Western Australia was 120KMH!


----------



## greenlion

the MOR of China had ordered 140 CRH380A trains, 80 CRH380B trainsand 240 CRH380C trains, firstly 40 CRH380A & 11 CRH380C trains will come into service in Jinghu PDL. these trains are designed for the Beijing-Shanghai PDL and other newcomer 350km/h lines, but rumor says CRH380A will come into service at the Shanghai-Hangzhou PDL which is set to open at October 1, 2010 as it's first Carry Passenger operating, in other hand, the CRH380B, which is a Bombardier design, will come into service at 2012.

at 350km/h level trains, the MOR had offered 60 CRH3C trains,

at 300 km/h level, the MOR had offered 60 CRH2C trains

at 250km/h level, the MOR offered 320 trains in total, 120 CRH1A, CRH1B & CRH1E, 110 CRH2A,CRH2B & CRH2E, 90 CRH5A


----------



## foxmulder

what a small market


----------



## binhai

that is just a ridiculous amount of high speed trains


----------



## fragel

greenlion said:


> according to Rumors in CHinese forum, the CRH380A-6001 reaches test speed of 440km/h during it's test run at Jiaoji PDL!


seems people are not suprised it can reach 440km/h at all, they are just suprised it can reach that speed on *Jiaoji* line :lol:



> rumor says CRH380A will come into service at the Shanghai-Hangzhou PDL which is set to open at October 1, 2010 as it's first Carry Passenger operating


It was tested on Shanghai-Hangzhou PDL, wasn't it?


----------



## greenlion

BarbaricManchurian said:


> that is just a ridiculous amount of high speed trains


why ridiculous here?


----------



## makita09

^^ Ridiculous in this context means stupendous or huge.


----------



## greenlion

makita09 said:


> ^^ Ridiculous in this context means stupendous or huge.


Thanks, now I understand


----------



## greenlion

This photo takes on Huhang PDL on September 14, it shows a CRH380A test run at a station


----------



## derekf1974

^^Very nice looking train!


----------



## z0rg

Xiamen Railway Station. These pics haven't been posted before I think. By xiaomianlong


----------



## greenlion

greenlion said:


> the MOR of China had ordered 140 CRH380A trains, 80 CRH380B trainsand 240 CRH380C trains, firstly 40 CRH380A & 11 CRH380C trains will come into service in Jinghu PDL. these trains are designed for the Beijing-Shanghai PDL and other newcomer 350km/h lines, but rumor says CRH380A will come into service at the Shanghai-Hangzhou PDL which is set to open at October 1, 2010 as it's first Carry Passenger operating, in other hand, the CRH380B, which is a Bombardier design, will come into service at 2012.
> 
> at 350km/h level trains, the MOR had offered 60 CRH3C trains,
> 
> at 300 km/h level, the MOR had offered 60 CRH2C trains
> 
> at 250km/h level, the MOR offered 320 trains in total, 120 CRH1A, CRH1B & CRH1E, 110 CRH2A,CRH2B & CRH2E, 90 CRH5A


Chinese MOR CRH trains order timetable



Code:


Date         Factory                  Class     Type    Quantity       Amount
2004-10-10   Alstom & CNR Changchun  250km/h   CRH5A      60       620 million ERU
2004-10-12   Bombadier & BST         250km/h   CRH1A      20       350 million USD
2004-10-12   Kawasaki  & CSR Sifang  250km/h   CRH2A      60     9,300 million RMB
2005-05-31   Bombadier & BST         250km/h   CRH1A      20       350 million USD
Jun 2005     CSR Sifang              300km/h   CRH2C      60     8,200 million RMB
Nov 2005     Siemens & CNR Tangshan  350km/h   CRH3C      60    13,000 million RMB
2007-10-31   BST                     250km/h   CRH1B & 1E 20+20  1,000 million ERU
Nov 2007     CSR Sifang              250km/h   CRH2B      10     1,200 million RMB
Nov 2007     CSR Sifang              250km/h   CRH2E       6       900 million RMB
Dec 2008     CSR Sifang              250km/h   CRH2E      14     2,100 million RMB
Jun 2009     CNR Changchun           250km/h   CRH5A      30     4,800 million RMB
2009-03-16   CNR Tangshan            380km/h   CRH380C    70    27,440 million RMB
2009-03-16   CNR Changchun           380km/h   CRH380C    30    11,760 million RMB
2009-09-28   CSR Sifang              380km/h   CRH380A   140    45,000 million RMB
2009-09-28   Bombadier & BST         380km/h   CRH380B    80    27,400 million RMB
2009-09-28   CNR Changchun           380km/h   CRH380C   120    23,500 million RMB
2009-09-28   CNR Tangshan            380km/h   CRH380C    20     3,920 million RMB
2010-07-16   BST                     250km/h   CRH1A      40     5,200 million RMB
2010-09-14   CSR Sifang              250km/h   CRH2A      20     3,400 million RMB


----------



## Heusdens

Palatinus said:


> Chinese are buying all HSR technologies on the planet to copy them for the future. This is why they built the MAGLEV in Shanghai borrowing Siemens ThyssenKrupp HOWTO. The aim is the stealing of tech information.
> 
> Chinese are always the same. BEST COPYWORKER IN THE WORLD.


Now if they buy it they don't steal it.

And Siemens must be very pleased at least SOME country bought their Maglev technology, since not even Germany has any Maglev train.


----------



## big-dog

z0rg said:


> Xiamen Railway Station. These pics haven't been posted before I think. By xiaomianlong
Click to expand...


Looks hugh and modern, another airport style railway station.

Thanks for sharing!


----------



## fragel

^^ At first glance, I thought the watermark was a newly designed station sign. Would have been a great sign.

The station is really nice. I also notice the supporting structure is kinda similar to that of the Chinese Pavillion.


----------



## foxmulder

Great posts guys, thanks for sharing...

Xiamen Station is really nice.

greenlion, very informative post as usual.

It seems China has signed around 28billion dollars worth of deals so far for high speed train sets. 900 hundred of them! 

Although it is a huge amount of money it shows the real investment has been done on the railroad itself. The figure for whole network is around 700billion to 1 trillion so basically, trains will be a fraction of the whole cost.

Also, most expensive one looks like CRH380C.


----------



## Geography

Xiamen is freakin' amazing!! It's my second favorite station after Shanghai South (the circle). I like that the architecture looks distinctly Chinese. I wish more Chinese buildings would incorporate Chinese historical architecture like Taipei 101. The palm trees are nice too, they will be provide much-needed shade and natural atmosphere when they grow out.

China needs to reconsider those huge, empty cement squares that seem to be in front of every new railway station. They are bright, hot, and uncomfortable to stand on for long periods. Instead, to attract people for rest and relaxation and not just walking to the station, they can break up the square with little islands of palm trees and benches. Fountains ringed by benches cool people down as the wind blows the spray into them.


----------



## GreenMonk108

Some of the comments from the forumers are really retarded. 
In his same statement, he claims china buy technologies around the world and then turn around accuse it stealing the technology. 
I don't get it. How can "buy" equate to "steal"?hno:


----------



## Geography

Greenlion, are those figures for each train car, or train set (with 6-8 cars in a set)?


----------



## foxmulder

Geography said:


> Greenlion, are those figures for each train car, or train set (with 6-8 cars in a set)?


set


----------



## greenlion

Geography said:


> Greenlion, are those figures for each train car, or train set (with 6-8 cars in a set)?


set


----------



## laojang

Thanks for your information. Can you or some forumer kindly answer the 
following question?
Is it a good idea to put a concrete or metal barrier between two tracks
in a highspeed line, like what is done on expressways to separate traffic in opposite direction? Would this make HSL safer, in case one train derails and there is another train coming from the other track?
The accident in Shandong province 2-3 years ago happened in this way.

Thanks,

Laojang





greenlion said:


> the MOR of China had ordered 140 CRH380A trains, 80 CRH380B trainsand 240 CRH380C trains, firstly 40 CRH380A & 11 CRH380C trains will come into service in Jinghu PDL. these trains are designed for the Beijing-Shanghai PDL and other newcomer 350km/h lines, but rumor says CRH380A will come into service at the Shanghai-Hangzhou PDL which is set to open at October 1, 2010 as it's first Carry Passenger operating, in other hand, the CRH380B, which is a Bombardier design, will come into service at 2012.
> 
> at 350km/h level trains, the MOR had offered 60 CRH3C trains,
> 
> at 300 km/h level, the MOR had offered 60 CRH2C trains
> 
> at 250km/h level, the MOR offered 320 trains in total, 120 CRH1A, CRH1B & CRH1E, 110 CRH2A,CRH2B & CRH2E, 90 CRH5A


----------



## greenlion

laojang said:


> Thanks for your information. Can you or some forumer kindly answer the
> following question?
> Is it a good idea to put a concrete or metal barrier between two tracks
> in a highspeed line, like what is done on expressways to separate traffic in opposite direction? Would this make HSL safer, in case one train derails and there is another train coming from the other track?
> The accident in Shandong province 2-3 years ago happened in this way.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Laojang


I think it's not a good solution, the accident in 2008 was caused by incorrect dispatch,(a Express was traveling at 131 km/h on a temporary railway and the speed limit was 80 km/h). at this point metal barrier could not do much, and for a concrete wall between railtracks...... that makes the passengers sit on the left side of the trains could only face noting but concrate walls during their travel, that will make the journey boring


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> I think it's not a good solution, the accident in 2008 was caused by incorrect dispatch,(a Express was traveling at 131 km/h on a temporary railway and the speed limit was 80 km/h). at this point metal barrier could not do much, and for a concrete wall between railtracks...... that makes the passengers sit on the left side of the trains could only face noting but concrate walls during their travel, that will make the journey boring


Would a concrete wall with height between carriage floor and lower edge of windows be useful in preventing collisions?


----------



## foxmulder

That will affect aerodynamics. There will be chaotic wind vortexes between train and the wall. I think it will decrease efficiency and maybe even speed.


----------



## HyperMiler

greenlion said:


> Chinese MOR CRH trains order timetable


Contract Price

CRH5A : 10.3 million euro/set
CRH1A : 17.5 million dollar/set
CRH2A : 155 million yuan/set
CRH1A : 17.5 million dollar/set
CRH2C : 136 million yuan/set
CRH3C : 216.6 million yuan/set
CRH1B+E : 25 million euro/set avg
CRH2B : 120 million yuan/set
CRH2E : 150 million yuan/set
CRH2E : 150 million yuan/set
CRH5A : 160 million yuan/set
CNR CRH380C : 392 million yuan/set
CNR CRH380C : 392 million yuan/set
CSR CRH380A : 321 million yuan/set
Bombardier CRH380B(Zefiro) : 342.5 million yuan/set
CNR CRH380C : 195.8 million yuan/set
CNR CRH380C : 196 million yuan/set
CRH1A : 130 million yuan/set
CRH2A : 170 million yuan/set

Dollar Normalized

CRH5A : 13.4 million/set
CRH1A : 17.5 million/set
CRH2A : 23.1 million/set
CRH1A : 17.5 million/set
CRH2C : 20.2 million/set
CRH3C : 32.2 million/set
CRH1B+E : 32.6 million/set avg
CRH2B : 17.8 million/set
CRH2E : 22.3 million/set
CRH2E : 22.3 million/set
CRH5A : 23.8 million/set
CNR CRH380C : 58.3 million/set
CNR CRH380C : 58.3 million/set
CSR CRH380A : 47.7 million/set
CRH380B(Zefiro) : 50.9 million/set
CNR CRH380C : 29.1 million/set
CNR CRH380C : 29.1 million/set
CRH1A : 19.3 million/set
CRH2A : 25.3 million/set

There is little price difference between Siemens brand CRH3C and CRH380C. CRH380C(CRH3C with Chinese supplied parts instead of Siemens parts) is like 10% cheaper(The later batch, not the initial batch), but then again German produced Velaro is cheaper than license produced CRH3C too.

Chinese costs aren't that different from foreigner's cost; it will be loan package and government subsidy that will determine the outcome of China's biddings on3rd world HSR projects.


----------



## binhai

go away, troll


----------



## Bandit

He's just angry because he derailed the US rail thread. Doesn't like how China is the only real market now and the forseeable future for HSR. Meaning no other HSR company is going to survive without Chinese acceptance.


----------



## HyperMiler

Bandit said:


> He's just angry because he derailed the US rail thread. Doesn't like how China is the only real market now and the forseeable future for HSR. Meaning no other HSR company is going to survive without Chinese acceptance.


No, the numbers clearly show that Chinese produced trains aren't cheaper than foreign competitor's; It is the government subsidy that makes Chinese trains cheaper overseas.

This would only escalate loan wars in the future, since it is the amount and term of construction loan attached to the bid that determines the winner in 3rd world countries.


----------



## laojang

Thanks for the input on the air turbulence factor.

I wonder how high is the center of gravity of a CHR train.
Assuming the train is 4 metres high, would the center of gravity be around
1.5m? In that case, a concrete wall of 1.5 metre high should be enough. I have seen sound walls along part of the tracks which are much higer than 1.5 metres, the top portion of which is almost transparent. Is there any serious research done on the effect of air turbulence on trains traveling on tracks bounded by two short walls?
From the video of Japanese maglev, it seems there are two shortwalls
enclosing the track.

Best,

Laojang



foxmulder said:


> That will affect aerodynamics. There will be chaotic wind vortexes between train and the wall. I think it will decrease efficiency and maybe even speed.


----------



## Bandit

HyperMiler said:


> No, the numbers clearly show that Chinese produced trains aren't cheaper than foreign competitor's; It is the government subsidy that makes Chinese trains cheaper overseas.
> 
> This would only escalate loan wars in the future, since it is the amount and term of construction loan attached to the bid that determines the winner in 3rd world countries.


Coming from the guy that said China had no shot of winning US contracts to China being a contender more than the ones you favor. Are you back now to China having no shot? Yeah China has no shot just like no else because HSR throughout the US is a fantasy. And it sounds like you know nothing of US bureaucracy. HSR just as any other infrastructure project is going to cost many times more especially with who you want to win US contracts.


----------



## foxmulder

laojang said:


> Thanks for the input on the air turbulence factor.
> 
> I wonder how high is the center of gravity of a CHR train.
> Assuming the train is 4 metres high, would the center of gravity be around
> 1.5m? In that case, a concrete wall of 1.5 metre high should be enough. I have seen sound walls along part of the tracks which are much higer than 1.5 metres, the top portion of which is almost transparent. Is there any serious research done on the effect of air turbulence on trains traveling on tracks bounded by two short walls?
> From the video of Japanese maglev, it seems there are two shortwalls
> enclosing the track.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Laojang



In Japanese maglev, as you pointed it is on both sides of the train so it is naturally "balanced" hence it will be no problem. 

This discussion reminded me that on Urumqi line there will be wind blockers for ~80km of line so we will see how they designed those. That might give us some clue between wall-train interaction at high speed.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> Aerodynamics may not work as well for a double-decker going at 300+ km/h!


They already work well for doubledeckers going 900+ km/h.


----------



## hkskyline

chornedsnorkack said:


> They already work well for doubledeckers going 900+ km/h.


A plane flying at 35,000 feet encounters far different air resistance and aerodynamic conditions than a train at sea level! You burn _a lot_ more fuel flying at lower altitudes, where air is thicker.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> A plane flying at 35,000 feet encounters far different air resistance and aerodynamic conditions than a train at sea level! You burn _a lot_ more fuel flying at lower altitudes, where air is thicker.


True, but much of the resistance comes from the wing.

There is a reason why very long and thin planes like DC-8-63, Boeing 757-300 and Concorde are not very popular. The balance between form drag and skin friction drag. If you make an aerodynamic shape too long and thin, you are suffering drag all along its sides - a shorter and thicker shape would work better.


----------



## Luli Pop

hkskyline said:


> Aerodynamics may not work as well for a double-decker going at 300+ km/h!


they have been on service for 15 years by now in France at a 320km/h speed.

they consume 12% less energy per passenger than a regular TGV.

there are wonderfull pics on the internet of Alstoms TGV Duplex, and Talgo is working on an even better double decker HST.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS25EoYyxMo

http://membres.multimania.fr/aragorn54/TGV_Duplex.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/6/0/4/8604.1138212000.jpg

don't you think it's China's next step to increase capacity of existing lines?

I imagine a double decker 16 car HST fr overcrowed lines and overnight trains.

I think there's a double decker Shinkansen also.
Of course there isn't a Rotem one.


----------



## fragel

big-dog said:


> *9.20 Nanchang Jiujiang CRH officially opens*
> 
> Length: 135km
> Max speed: 250km/h
> Travel time: 45mins


Finally, it has been delayed for quite a while. People in Jiangxi have been waiting for it.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

*Shanghai-Hangzhou railway*

When, on 1st of October (next Friday) Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway opens, how many stations shall it have?


----------



## Geography

I notice all the Chinese HSR lines have endless electric towers along them that are very unsightly. When trains are not passing, what would be relatively flat ground is covered in electricity poles, permanently ruining the view for those living near railroads. Why don't they build a third rail like Singapore does for its above-ground MRT? The third rail would provide power and keep the railroad clear of obstacles that obstruct the view for passengers and residents.


----------



## gramercy

Geography said:


> I notice all the Chinese HSR lines have endless electric towers along them that are very unsightly. When trains are not passing, what would be relatively flat ground is covered in electricity poles, permanently ruining the view for those living near railroads. Why don't they build a third rail like Singapore does for its above-ground MRT? The third rail would provide power and keep the railroad clear of obstacles that obstruct the view for passengers and residents.


why dont they put every infrastructure underground
it would look so much better


----------



## binhai

Geography said:


> I notice all the Chinese HSR lines have endless electric towers along them that are very unsightly. When trains are not passing, what would be relatively flat ground is covered in electricity poles, permanently ruining the view for those living near railroads. Why don't they build a third rail like Singapore does for its above-ground MRT? The third rail would provide power and keep the railroad clear of obstacles that obstruct the view for passengers and residents.


Umm, that's what ALL HSR systems and electrified railways look like. Let's ban railways everywhere, sounds like a great idea


----------



## foxmulder

Geography said:


> I notice all the Chinese HSR lines have endless electric towers along them that are very unsightly. When trains are not passing, what would be relatively flat ground is covered in electricity poles, permanently ruining the view for those living near railroads. Why don't they build a third rail like Singapore does for its above-ground MRT? The third rail would provide power and keep the railroad clear of obstacles that obstruct the view for passengers and residents.


hehe.. I actually like that view  Especially when line is elevated together with those electric towers, it looks great.


----------



## Geography

> Umm, that's what ALL HSR systems and electrified railways look like. Let's ban railways everywhere, sounds like a great idea


What about a third rail? There ARE other ways to do it.


----------



## gramercy

Geography said:


> What about a third rail? There ARE other ways to do it.


why not batteries, while we're at it

after all, looking down from say a hill, 2 rails provide a better symmetry


----------



## Pansori

Geography said:


> What about a third rail? There ARE other ways to do it.


Isn't it about speed limitations? I can't imagine a train running at 380km/h using a 3rd rail :nuts:


----------



## binhai

Yeah get back to me when someone's developed a viable 3rd rail HSR system. Plus there's more safety problems with 3rd rail, if someone needs to cross the tracks and there's no bridge/underpass nearby, they have to walk a long ways around, it affects the quality of life more than the view of some shitty agricultural field that's blocked that no ones care about anyway except you. Most of the people seeing the view will be inside the train anyway so they wouldn't care at all.


----------



## Luli Pop

don't be mean guys!

Geography is new on the forum, and he doesn't have the obligation to know everything about HSR. It's even possible that he/she is 12 years old.

I prefer 10.000 Geography rather than 1 HyperTroll!

In any case, he/she will learn a lot from all of you and he is very welcame.


----------



## fragel

Geography said:


> What about a third rail? There ARE other ways to do it.


Unfortunately third-rail is not an option. 

I think the suggested speed of trains on third-rail electrification systems is less than 100 mph (160kmph) due to mechanical limitation. Part of Eurostar is electrified by third-rail, but speed on that part is low.

Due to the safety issue, low voltage limit, low speed limit and other issues, third-rail system of electrification is mostly used in rapid transit systems rather than in HSR systems.


----------



## fragel

Actually Geography's question reminds of complaints from some photographers about the overhead lines ruining their pictures, since it is a natural thing to ask why it has to be overhead lines. Well, maybe in the future we'll have more options.


----------



## Pansori

Maglev is a good solution for that: no overhead wires, no 3rd rails...


----------



## fragel

^^indeed:lol:


----------



## G5man

Pansori said:


> Maglev is a good solution for that: no overhead wires, no 3rd rails...


And at three times the cost and not proven


----------



## Bandit

Looking at the other threads of other countries' HSR... what country doesn't have overhead lines? Aren't third rails usually found in metro subway systems? I know someone who works for a transit system with a third rail. You what they find from time to time? Pieces of people who dared to try to cross the third rail but accidentally touched it and exploded. You know like how insects explode when they touch electric pest control devices? Maybe that's a reason why there's no third rail.


----------



## Huhu

Bandit said:


> Looking at the other threads of other countries' HSR... what country doesn't have overhead lines? Aren't third rails usually found in metro subway systems? I know someone who works for a transit system with a third rail. You what they find from time to time? Pieces of people who dared to try to cross the third rail but accidentally touched it and exploded. You know like how insects explode when they touch electric pest control devices? Maybe that's a reason why there's no third rail.


Most modern transit systems should have isolated the third rail so that you don't get electrocuted when you come into contact. However, if you touch both the third rail _and_ another rail, the circuit will be closed and the electricity will flow. Rain and water may also close the circuit.


----------



## fragel

^^ A college student in Beijing recently died of this in a tragic accident. He fell onto the subway track and was killed by electric shock from the third rail (seems impossible for him to touch it from the angle he fell).


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

G5man said:


> And at three times the cost and not proven


Nope, in the meantime, the costs are equal. 
At least for the german Transrapid Maglev System with Boegl guideway


----------



## Gag Halfrunt

fragel said:


> I think the suggested speed of trains on third-rail electrification systems is less than 100 mph (160kmph) due to mechanical limitation. Part of Eurostar is electrified by third-rail, but speed on that part is low..


The Eurostar trains were equipped for third rail because there was no high speed line between London and the Channel Tunnel when the service began in 1994, so the trains had to run on existing lines electrified with third rail. Now that the high speed line has been opened, the third rail hardware has been removed from the trains.


----------



## fragel

I don't think this has been posted, so it would be great to add it to the list below. source: sina.com.cn 
--
Construction of a PDL from Huhehaote (AKA Hohhot), Inner Mongolia to Zhangjiakou, Hebei is planned to start by the end of this year, once the environmental evaluation is done. The 286 km line will have six stations and cost 32.82 billion RMB (about 4.9 billion US dollars). It is scheduled to open in 2014. This line will be connected with the Beijing-Zhangjiakou PDL. 



greenlion said:


> some of the newly planned HSR lines that tend to start construction in second half year 2010.
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> Line          section                 Length     designed  Construction  planned
> Speed      start       open date
> Jingshi ICL   Beijing-Zhangjiakou     174 km      350km/h    2010         2013
> Jingtang ICL  Beijing-Tangshan        163 km      350km/h    2010         2012
> Jingshen PDL  Beijing-Shenyang        684 km      350km/h    2010         2014
> Shiji PDL     Shijiazhuang-Jinan      319 km      350km/h    2010         2012
> Changkun PDL  Changsha-Kunming       1175 km      350km/h    2010         2014
> Hajia PDL     Harbin-Jiamusi          345 km      250km/h    2010.7       2014.6
> Jihun PDL     Jilin-Hunchun           378 km      250km/h    2010         2012
> Hanghuang PDL Hangzhou-Huangshan      262 km      250km/h    2010         2013
> Xicheng PDL   Xi'an-Chengdu           676 km      250km/h    2010         2013
> Zhengluo ICL  Zhengzhou-Luoyang       145 km      200km/h    2010         2012
> ChengMianle   Chengdu-Leshan       323.19 km      250km/h    2010         2012


----------



## fragel

Gag Halfrunt said:


> The Eurostar trains were equipped for third rail because there was no high speed line between London and the Channel Tunnel when the service began in 1994, so the trains had to run on existing lines electrified with third rail. Now that the high speed line has been opened, the third rail hardware has been removed from the trains.


Thanks for the clarification and update!


----------



## makita09

^^ Also to clarify the speed limit on the 3rd rail region in the UK is 100mph.

Further info for Geography, understanding the development of power supplies explains why all HSR needs to use overhead electrification, at least at the moment.

3rd rail was invented first, when all power supplies were DC. Over head power arrived at around the same time, but again this was DC. DC has a transmission problem, in that it loses voltage quite quickly as you move away from the power source - i.e. the supply transformer. Higher voltages allow a better transmission, unfortunately this applies not only the conductor but to the air surrounding it. Engineers increase the voltage to the maximum before arcing can occur from the conductor direct to ground through the air. With a 3rd rail this is around 700-800v DC. At this low mximum voltage a sub-station is required every 2km or so along the line to supply the rails - and this is costly.

Now, the 3rd rail network in the UK can support trains up to 100mph with the current transformers (curves permitting), but a high speed train requires 8 times the amount of power per ton to get to 200mph (and HSR trains are typically longer and therefore heavier than the commuter trains in the UK). A 1000km HSL would need at least 500 extremely high powered transformer supply points dotted along the line. It is not an elegant solution.

Over head power supplies allow the voltage to be increased, reducing the number of supply transformers required. However, DC is inherently lossy, and if you up the voltage you still have the same loss of actual energy being turned into heat and lost to the atmosphere.

AC is the solution to long-distance transmission and avoiding such high transmission losses. This is indeed why the power to your house is supplied in this way. AC allows the voltage to be increased significantly, to 25kV (standard in railways except in Germany/Austria), it allows a significant increase in power output as it is easier to build high power transformers in AC (not sure if this is due to economies of scale in manfacturing as so many more AC ones are built in general) and this means that supply transformers are only needed avery 20-25 km or so along the line. A 1000km line would then only need about 40 transformers.

AC overhead supply is cheaper to build for long distances, is more efficient and it provides higher power for less money.


----------



## GreenMonk108

How about make a straddling HSR/maglev going opposite way of HSR/maglev line?:nuts:


----------



## K_

Geography said:


> Why don't they build a third rail like Singapore does for its above-ground MRT? The third rail would provide power and keep the railroad clear of obstacles that obstruct the view for passengers and residents.


Third rail electrification is not suitable for high speed rail. High speeds trains need a lot of power, that needs to be delivered reliable. This is probably the biggest engineering challenge in high speed rail, and the reason why France first intended to run their TGVs using gas turbines. 
To deliver high amounts of power you need high tension, otherwise the currents get to high. Power (Watt) is Voltage times Amperage. So to deliver the 8MW or so a HSTneeds using say, a 900V third rail you would have a current of almost 9000 Amperes. That is a lot, and a big problem. There have been incidents where a Eurostars' power shoe got welded to the rail.
This is not a problem in mass transit applications where the power demanded by the train is lower, and speeds are lower.
Another problem is to maintain contact between the conductor and the power pickup. With a heave power shoe running along the top of a rail this is a problem at higher speeds. Lots of arcing often results. The best solution is to use a light overhead wire, and a light pantograph. Even then maintaining sufficient contat at high speed remains a challenge. During TGV record runs the pantrograph was continously monitored. 
The last issue is power distribution. Alternating current at high voltages is easily distributed. For a low voltage DC system you need a lot more power feed stations distributed along your line, making it more expensive.

All these factors combine to make 25KV AC overhead electrification the choice for all high speed projects, and even for all new mainline electrifications.


----------



## MarcVD

makita09 said:


> Engineers increase the voltage to the maximum before arcing can occur from the conductor direct to ground through the air. With a 3rd rail this is around 700-800v DC. At this low mximum voltage a sub-station is required every 2km or so along the line to supply the rails - and this is costly.


Not entirely true. In France, there was a line ("la ligne de la Maurienne")
between Chambery and Modane, that was electrified with a third rail
energized at 1500 V DC. Some of the CC 6500 DC locomotives were equipped
with third rail shoes to work on it. But this caused too many problems and
the line was finally re-electrified with a classical 1500 V DC catenary.


----------



## Geography

Thanks for the responses K and makita.


----------



## makita09

^^ No problem



MarcVD said:


> Not entirely true. In France, there was a line ("la ligne de la Maurienne")
> between Chambery and Modane, that was electrified with a third rail
> energized at 1500 V DC. Some of the CC 6500 DC locomotives were equipped
> with third rail shoes to work on it. But this caused too many problems and
> the line was finally re-electrified with a classical 1500 V DC catenary.


Thanks for that, I was unaware. :cheers:


----------



## zergcerebrates

Xiamen station is amazing, but I still think the Wuhan one is the most impressive out of all Chinese HS stations.


----------



## diting

*Asia largest railway station---xi'an north railway station*

xi'an north railway station


----------



## diting

*nanjing south railway station under construction*

nanjing south railway station


----------



## foxmulder

Awsome update, thanks diting.

As a greedy person, is there any recent updates for Guangzhou station?


----------



## fragel

diting said:


> xi'an north railway station


Regarding the title, I've seen various stations in China claiming itself to be the largest in Asia. Very funny but also very confusing, since the title of 'largest in China' is not even determined yet. I hope these stations could provide some evidence before saying so(at least specify 'biggest' in terms of what). I know at least Guangzhou South Station(0.5 million m^2) is bigger than Xi'an North(0.3 million m^2) in terms of area.


----------



## Scion

@ foxmulder, watch from 3:18


----------



## diting

fragel said:


> Regarding the title, I've seen various stations in China claiming itself to be the largest in Asia. Very funny but also very confusing, since the title of 'largest in China' is not even determined yet. I hope these stations could provide some evidence before saying so(at least specify 'biggest' in terms of what). I know at least Guangzhou South Station(0.5 million m^2) is bigger than Xi'an North(0.3 million m^2) in terms of footage.


In terms of platform
xi'an north is the largest high speed railway station: 18 platforms 34 lines
in terms of floor area xi'an north is also the largest station


----------



## diting

look this



greenlion said:


> Main stations of Chinese HSR System
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> Station               Platforms  Departure    Subway   floor          open
> tracks       lines    area          date
> Harbin West               10         18          1    70,000 sq.m     2012
> Changchun West            5           9          2    60,000 sq.m     2011
> Shenyang South            12         22          2   100,000 sq.m     2013
> Dalian North              10         20          3    68,500 sq.m     2011
> Tianjin West              13         24          3   104,500 sq.m     2011
> Beijing South             13         24          2   226,444 sq.m     2008
> Shijiahzuang South        13         24          2   107,059 sq.m     2011
> Taiyuan South             10         22          3    56,000 sq.m     2010
> Jinan West                 8         14          2   100,000 sq.m     2011
> Qingdao  North             6         10          1    54,000 sq.m     2012
> Zhengzhou East            15         28          2   114,602 sq.m     2012
> Xi'an North               18         34          1   378,425 sq.m     2011
> Wuhan                     11         20          2   114,600 sq.m     2009
> Nanjing South             14         28          4   281,500 sq.m     2011
> Shanghai Hongqiao         16         30          5   221,903 sq.m     2010
> Hefei South               12         22          3   100,000 sq.m     2012
> Hangzhou East             14         26          2   156,000 sq.m     2012
> Bengbu South               7         13          1    20,000 sq.m     2012
> Xuzhou East                6         11          1    14,894 sq.m     2012
> Ningbo                     8         14          2    62,934 sq.m     2012
> Wenzhou South              4         10          2    71,209 sq.m     2012
> Fuzhou South               7         12          1    92,473 sq.m     2010
> Xiamen North               5         10          1   110,000 sq.m     2010
> Shenzhen North            11         20          3   181,000 sq.m     2011
> Guangzhou South           15         28          4   179,300 sq.m     2010
> Nanchang West             12         22          2   114,508 sq.m     2011
> Changsha South             8         16          1   199,000 sq.m     2010
> Nanning East              12         22          2   120,000 sq.m     2012
> Guiyang North             15         28          2   100,000 sq.m     2015
> Kunming South             15         30          1    80,000 sq.m     2015
> New Chongqing             14         26          1   120,000 sq.m     2012
> Chengdu East              14         26          2   108,000 sq.m     2012
> Lanzhou West              13         25          1   160,000 sq.m     2012
> New Urumqi                Planning


----------



## diting

foxmulder said:


> Awsome update, thanks diting.
> 
> As a greedy person, is there any recent updates for Guangzhou station?


search the web, there are plenty pics of it:lol:


----------



## yaohua2000

*Construction work of Lhasa–Shigatse Railway started today*

A ceremony was held this morning at the future site of Lhasa South Railway Station.

Video: http://video.sina.com.cn/p/news/c/v/2010-09-26/114461148923.html

Lhasa–Shigatse Railway
- Stations: 13
- Length: 253 km, single track
- Speed: 120 km/h
- Bridges: 96
- Tunnels: 29, longest tunnel at 10.415 km long, 3700 meters above sea level
- 46.5% of total length on bridges or in tunnels
- Due in 2014


----------



## 33Hz

Interesting slide show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEUYCEE8u64


----------



## foxmulder

Scion said:


> @ foxmulder, watch from 3:18



Thanks for sharing, nice video


----------



## hakz2007

*Tibet railway extension under construction*


> China on Sunday began construction on an extension to the world's highest rail link, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The construction will connect the Tibetan capital of Lhasa to Xigaze, Tibet's second largest city.
> 
> The extension, in the southwestern part of the autonomous region, will create a 253-km railway line. The work will take four years, with a budget of 13.3 billion yuan ($1.98 billion), Zhang Ping, head of the National Reform and Development Commission, said on Sunday in Lhasa.
> 
> The extension from Lhasa to Xigaze is the first extension of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which opened in July 2006.
> 
> The new section will pass through five counties and over the 90-km long Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon, to reach Xigaze, a city with a history of more than 600 years and the traditional seat of the Panchen Lamas.
> 
> "It will play a vital role in boosting tourism in the southwestern part of Tibet and promoting the rational use of resources along the line," Liu Zhijun, minister of railways, said at the conference.
> 
> The extended rail line will be a single line with a speed of 120 km per hour. Nearly half of the line, or 115 km, will be laid in tunnels or on bridges.
> 
> "Laying rail tracks in tunnels in the mountains can avoid passing through the fragile natural reserves in Tibet," Wang Mengshu, a railway tunnel expert and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told China Daily on Sunday.
> 
> A news release from the Ministry of Railways said that the extension line avoids four natural reserves in the area.
> 
> In addition, using tunnels can help reduce damage to the railway by earthquakes, since Tibet is prone to earthquakes, Wang said.
> 
> "But the tunnels will add to the difficulty of construction, as it will be impossible to lay the tracks as fast as in the previous construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which was built on top of permafrost," he said.
> 
> The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is the world's highest railway. Some 960 km of its tracks are located 4,000 meters above sea level. About 550 km of the tracks run on frozen earth, the longest of any of the world's plateau railways.
> 
> The Qinghai-Tibet Railway's first section from Xining, capital of Qinghai province, to Golmud of Qinghai was completed and opened to traffic in 1984. Its second section from Golmud to Lhasa started construction in 2001 and opened to traffic in 2006.
> 
> A spokesman with the Ministry of Railways said that the future railway network in Tibet will have a "Y" shape, with two extensions planned.
> 
> In addition to the extension from Lhasa to Xigaze, the other is from Lhasa to Nyingchi in the southeastern part of Tibet. Previous media reports said construction will begin in 2013 at the earliest.
> 
> Xigaze city is the administrative center of the Tibetan prefecture of the same name, a 182,000-sq-km area that neighbors India, Nepal and Bhutan. It is also famous for Qomolangma (known as Mount Everest in the West), which rises up from it.


http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7151679.html


----------



## fragel

diting said:


> In terms of platform
> xi'an north is the largest high speed railway station: 18 platforms 34 lines
> in terms of floor area xi'an north is also the largest station





greenlion said:


> Main stations of Chinese HSR System
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> Station               Platforms  Departure    Subway   floor          open
> tracks       lines    area          date
> Xi'an North               18         34          1   378,425 sq.m     2011
> Guangzhou South           15         28          4   179,300 sq.m     2010


I was mistaken. It is said that Guangzhou South has 500,000 m^2, but I checked out the source, and that number is for the whole station area including parking lots. The station building at Xi'an North alone has a floor area of 378,425 sq.m, very impressive. Thanks for the data, I think that settles the debate.


----------



## z0rg

Keep the updates coming, guys. So many railways, bridges and highways u/c in China, and so few updates. Chinese infrastructures are very unnoticed in SSC.


----------



## Pansori

z0rg said:


> Keep the updates coming, guys. So many railways, bridges and highways u/c in China, and so few updates. Chinese infrastructures are very unnoticed in SSC.


I guess this is because there are quite a few large Chinese-language forums where most of the info is being put. Perhaps simply there aren't many people who bother posting stuff here on SSC (thanks to those who still do!).

To be honest, the HSR expansion in China is more exciting and interesting to me than any of the skyscraper projects. It's a modern project of a scale the world hasn't seen yet.


----------



## tuckerbox

Brilliant, yes more please.
China has become the World leader in Rail Technology.
Even Australia, which has traditionaly purchased U.S. stock is buying Chinese Locomotives and Wagons.


----------



## Geography

I find myself checking this thread several times a day, looking for the latest amazing news of rail transport from China. The most amazing thing to me about this and the metro development in Chinese cities is their speed. Shanghai build the longest metro system in the world in just 15 years. London and New York City's have over a century of expansion in them. How big will Shanghai's be in a century?

To those in America who say it's too late to have a metro system, roads, cars, and buses have already won a monopoly on transportation, I say look at China. Think China in the 1990s and 2000s wasn't/isn't addicted to cars? How many freakin' ring roads does Beijing have? Metros and rail transport can be smart solutions for North American cities as well as Chinese. If American companies can't do it, there are plenty of Chinese, Hong Kong, and Singaporean companies able and eager to build HSRs and metros for us.


----------



## Pansori

Has anyone got some elaborate info on what the train speeds are in China's regular (i.e. non CRH) passenger routes? I was trying to find it online but all I get is news articles about CRH.

For example, what trains and at what speeds are currently running on the Beijing - Shanghai and other important "regular" routes? Also, is it possible that CRH trainsets can be used on non-CRH tracks i.e. on the existing old tracks?


----------



## greenlion

Pansori said:


> Has anyone got some elaborate info on what the train speeds are in China's regular (i.e. non CRH) passenger routes? I was trying to find it online but all I get is news articles about CRH.
> 
> For example, what trains and at what speeds are currently running on the Beijing - Shanghai and other important "regular" routes? Also, is it possible that CRH trainsets can be used on non-CRH tracks i.e. on the existing old tracks?


http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1202549


----------



## hakz2007

*China starts work on Tibet railway line to link Shigatse*


> Dharamsala, September 27: China on Sunday started work on a railway line that will connect Tibet's second largest city, Shigatse, to the capital, Lhasa. The 253 kilometre railway line will promote “tourism and rational use of natural resources” in the occupied country, Liu Zhijun, the Minister of Railways, said.
> 
> China will invest $1.98 billion (13.3 billion yuan) to create the Shigatse-Lhasa railway line, which will be the first extension of the “Qinghai-Tibet” railway that opened in 2006.
> 
> The Qinghai-Tibet railway line is reported to have accelerated a number of mining projects, including the massive Yulong copper mine, under development by Western Mining and Zijin Mining Group Co Ltd, among others.
> 
> Chinese geologists have found deposits of copper, iron, lead and zinc ore along the Qinghai-Tibet Railroad route, Chinese state media confirmed in 2007.
> 
> Beijing is also planning to double its railway links in Tibet, which it refers to as its “Western Treasure House," from 2013, according to Chinese media reports.
> 
> Activists and Tibet advocacy groups say the Tibet railway line will encourage further influx of Han Chinese migrants into Tibet, marginalising the Tibetans in their own country. Tibet activists say China’s primary goal in building the railways is to strengthen its political clout over Tibet and boost efforts to drain Tibet's natural resources.
> 
> “The railway line between Lhasa and Shhigatse will further agrravate the tension between India and China where both the Asian giants have hugely militarized their sides of 4200 Km Himalayan border,” said Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan independence activist.
> 
> The new section of the railway to link Shigatse, expected to complete and be open to traffic after 4 years, is designed with a capacity to transport 8.3 million tonnes of freight annually. Earlier this month, China’s state Council and the National Development and Reform Commission approved the project for the extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway from Lhasa to Shigatse.


http://www.phayul.com/news/article....+Tibet+railway+line+to+link+Shigatse&id=28214


----------



## yaohua2000

Pansori said:


> Has anyone got some elaborate info on what the train speeds are in China's regular (i.e. non CRH) passenger routes? I was trying to find it online but all I get is news articles about CRH.


Fastest non-CRH trains in China:









Slowest trains in China:


----------



## fragel

26 minutes ago, a CRH 380A train during trial operation (not test run) on Shanghai-Hangzhou HSR reached 416.6 km/h.

It's all over the news now.

source: http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2010-09-28/113621186681.shtml

The trial operation seems to be a success despite the drizzle.


----------



## greenlion

*"Z" trains - overnight express, are the best non-CRH trains in China*, it usually use DF11G "Pig Head" locomotive, manufacture by CSR Qishuyan Factory, and 25T carriage, manufactuer by BST Sifang, CNR Tangshan, CNR Changchun & CSR Puzhen factory


----------



## derekf1974

A CRH picture I found


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> "Z" trains - overnight express, are the best non-CRH trains in China, it usually use DF11G "Pig Head" locomotive, manufacture by CSR Qishuyan Factory, and 25T carriage, manufactuer by BST Sifang, CNR Tangshan, CNR Changchun & CSR Puzhen factory


Very nice coachwork. I find the Honda City and visit Japan headrest ads a bit ironic on a couple of levels


----------



## SimFox

^^
true
particularly taking in account how crudely they were photoshoped into the photos.


----------



## Gadiri

edit


----------



## oliver999

hangzhou-shanghai train :416KM/h,NEW record!


----------



## greenlion

well, I did the calculation base on these infomation.

1.according to previous infomations, total lenth Of Huhang PDL (Shanghai Hongqiao station - Hangzhou East station) is 159 km
2.according to most recently news, test run between Shanghai Hongqiao Station - Hangzhou stasion, total length is 202 km.
3. planned travel time through Huhang PDL from Shanghai - Hangzhou is 38 minute.

detailes of yestoday's experiment operating run disclosed on 163.com

10: 27, CRH380A departure from Shanghai Hongqiao Station,
10: 33, Speed reach 300 km/h
10: 40, Speed reach 413.7 km/h
11: 07, Arrive at Hangzhou Staion
11: 10, Departure from Hangzhou Station
11: 34, speed reach 400 km/h
11: 37, speed reach 416.6 km/h


----------



## riles28

CRH 380A is a look of mix design high speed train from Europe and Japan is a combination of Velaro and Shinkansen.


----------



## greenlion

chornedsnorkack said:


> Have the schedule makers learned from experience? What will the schedule be like when the service starts this Friday?


The open date had postpond to around October 20, as CRH380A need to do more test run


----------



## laojang

99&ll=31.269161,121.3694&spn=0.324556,0.878906&z=11"]google map[/URL], the new station in Shanghai is pretty far away from the city center (as far as an airport usually is), why is that? 

The purpose of the train is to get right into the city, and almost all the stations linked by High speed train in Europe and Japan are in city centers. Since Shanghai will be a very common final destination for trains, why can't they schedule train to the old station closer to the city?[/QUOTE]

The station is right by Hongqiao airport's new terminal. In fact one can walk from the platform to the airport terminal without getting out of the building. One purpose of this is to provide 
easy airport access to people living just west of Shanghai, in places like Suzhou, Kunshan. Suzhou, a city with several million people, does not have civilian airport, but it is only 80km west of Hongqiao station. Also, not all highspeed trains from Hangzhou go to Hongqiao, some will go to Shanghai South,
may be a few will go to the central station.

Cheers,
Laojang


----------



## big-dog

*Shanghai-Hangzhou inter-city express rail to open in Oct*

Shanghai-Hangzhou is 202km distance, ticket price will be 80 yuan, the test max speed is 416.6 km/h, design speed is 350 km/h, annual capacity is 80 million one way.


















































































(sina bbs)


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

the balastless elevetated concrete guideway looks amazing.
Especially because its so new and clean and shiny.

The combination of this sort of track with these new CRH 380 trains makes this new line simply one of the best in the world.
In the west, no one would have believed this just 10 years ago....

It will be interessting to see where china will be in ten years from now.
But I am sure that nobody would believe it today, if someone would tell us.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> *"Z" trains - overnight express, are the best non-CRH trains in China*


Comparing Z trains ("zhite") with T trains ("tekuai"), in which ways are Z trains better than T trains?


----------



## plasmalover

> It will be interessting to see where china will be in ten years from now.
> But I am sure that nobody would believe it today, if someone would tell us.


At the rate their HSR network is being built; I wouldn't be surprised if there is a HSR from Beijing to the moon in 10 years! Of course, after they build that proposed Beijing to London.:nuts:


----------



## Knuddel Knutsch

plasmalover said:


> At the rate their HSR network is being built; I wouldn't be surprised if there is a HSR from Beijing to the moon in 10 years! Of course, after they build that proposed Beijing to London.:nuts:


Actually I could imagine China building a system of ultra high speed maglev bypass links between the biggest cities.
With todays technology, CRH trains can go max 380 kmh in everyday service.
With todays maglev technology, trains can go 550-600 kmh in everday service.

Therefore, you could create a whole new network that servers the ultra big cities while the CRH trains have more stops and travel at "lower" speed (max 380)


----------



## greenlion

chornedsnorkack said:


> Comparing Z trains ("zhite") with T trains ("tekuai"), in which ways are Z trains better than T trains?


Z trains use 25T carriage,while only few of the T trains use 25T carriage, most of T trains use 25K & 25 Z carriage,double-deck T trains use S25K, S25B & S25T carriage.

Most of the Z Trains are "None-Stop" trains, only some paticularly long distance Z Trains stops at 1 or 2 big stations.
T trains has at least one stop during the travel.

both Z & T service at top speed between 100 - 160 km/h, depends on the route they run, But usually Z trains are faster than T trains at the same route.

for example, compare with CRH service in the 200km/h level Jingha line, which is a upgrade convientional line,

the fastest D train, D25, which is a CRH5A trainset, spend 7 hours and 55 minutes for the 1,249 km travel from Harbin to Beijing, with 2 stops, Changchun & Shenyang North, average speed is 157.77 km/ h

the fastest Z Train, Z16, which is a none stop train takes 9 hour 44 minutes at the same route, average speed 128.22 km/h

the fastest T train, T158 takes 10 hours 41 minutes, stops at Changchun & Shenyang North, average speed 116.91 km/h


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> by the begining of 2011, China will have 20 HSR lines in service
> 
> Chinese HSR lines Open timeline (2003-2010)
> ICL- Intercity line
> PDL- Passenger Designated Line
> PFL- Mixed passenger & freight HSR line
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> Order Line              Open Date      Length    Designed  Fastest Average
> Speed    Operating Speed
> 
> [color=red][b]
> 16. Huhang PDL           2010/10/01    159 km    350km/h     251.05km/h (expect)
> 17. Guangshen PDL        2010/10/28    116 km    350km/h      278.4km/h (expect)
> [/b][/color]


Now that Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed line is late from 1st of October to around 20th of October, is Guangzhou-Shenzhen high-speed line still on schedule for 28th of October?


----------



## Luli Pop

Knuddel Knutsch said:


> Actually I could imagine China building a system of ultra high speed maglev bypass links between the biggest cities.
> With todays technology, CRH trains can go max 380 kmh in everyday service.
> With todays maglev technology, trains can go 550-600 kmh in everday service.
> 
> Therefore, you could create a whole new network that servers the ultra big cities while the CRH trains have more stops and travel at "lower" speed (max 380)


after developing CRH380, next step is a CRH400 or CRH420 (don't forget new lines are ballastless and with 7km radius), from that point to 550km/h a maglev reaches is not so much difference.

for instance for a 500km trips it would take 1h12 at 420km/h, and 55minutes at 550km/h.

it would be too much infrastructure for a little improuvement of speed with no interoperability.

the future will be maglev, but not at 550km/h but 800 or 900 or even subsonic speed that is only possible in vaccum tubes, and China is already researching on it.

what the other forumers think about CRH420? Will it come anytime soon?


----------



## Ariel74

Luli Pop said:


> after developing CRH380, next step is a CRH400 or CRH420 (don't forget new lines are ballastless and with 7km radius), from that point to 550km/h a maglev reaches is not so much difference.
> 
> for instance for a 500km trips it would take 1h12 at 420km/h, and 55minutes at 550km/h.
> 
> it would be too much infrastructure for a little improuvement of speed with no interoperability.
> 
> the future will be maglev, but not at 550km/h but 800 or 900 or even subsonic speed that is only possible in vaccum tubes, and China is already researching on it.
> 
> what the other forumers think about CRH420? Will it come anytime soon?



If I am not mistaken, I remember reading someone from the Chinese Academy of Sciences saying that the economy of commercial operations based on traditional rail technology makes sense only for speeds up to around 400km/h. 

I have a feeling that 380km/h is about as fast as the traditional technology can go given energy and environment considerations. If Maglev can achieve commercial operation at around 550km/h, the difference is still quite significant. Many routes connecting major cities in China are in the 1500-2500km range. At the average speed of over 500km/h, and city-center to city-center express service, Maglev can compete well with airplanes on these routes. But at the average speed of 350km/h, traditional HSR takes over 5-7 hours to travel such routes.


----------



## Luli Pop

Ariel74 said:


> If I am not mistaken, I remember reading someone from the Chinese Academy of Sciences saying that the economy of commercial operations based on traditional rail technology makes sense only for speeds up to around 400km/h.


that's with actual trains.

I perfectly remember when 10 years ago Alstom was trying to improuve its TGVs speed. the jump from 300km/h to 350km/h consumed 50% more energy at that time.

actual trains consume the same amount of enery runing at 380km/h that an 1990s TGV at 300km/h.

I have no doubt will see HST running at 420km/h very soon requering the same energy of an actual TGVs. the question is when!?


----------



## makita09

I agree. Since the railways were invented there have been numerous supposed upper limits on the technology, either technically or economically. All of them have been broken aparet from the latest. Of course its hard to see how much faster it can get with our current level of technical knowledge. But experience should tell us never say never.


----------



## MWC

Geography said:


> To those in America who say it's too late to have a metro system, roads, cars, and buses have already won a monopoly on transportation, I say look at China. Think China in the 1990s and 2000s wasn't/isn't addicted to cars? How many freakin' ring roads does Beijing have? Metros and rail transport can be smart solutions for North American cities as well as Chinese. If American companies can't do it, there are plenty of Chinese, Hong Kong, and Singaporean companies able and eager to build HSRs and metros for us.


America is broke and is heading for third world nation status within 15-20 years.

There is too much red tape, too expensive and no desire to invest in such projects. The only thing we might get more of is light rail like dallas/portland are doing.


----------



## Jiangwho

CRH 380A Nanjing - Shanghai







































































































































































































PHOTO BY 金色松树


----------



## greenlion

china starts development of CRH420

http://bbs.ourail.com/thread-81960-1-1.html

in order to develope the fifth generation CRH train - CRH420, the MOR planned to built a special trainset - CIT400, this train will be used for speed experimental,signal & communication system inspection,track and overhead line inspection,etc

1. CIT400 will be based on CNR's CRH380B, it will have 8 cars (7M1T) and will be completed by December 2010.
2. top inspection speed will be 400km/h, general operating speed 350km/h.
3. in order for techninal reserch for next generation CRH trainsets, CIT400 will finish 450km/h test by June 2011, complete 500km/h test by September 2011.


----------



## Sopomon

HyperMiler said:


> It is, 350 km/hr is the highest you can go with current generation of train models without causing too much wear and tear on the track.
> 
> To go faster, you need new train models with significant axle load reduction to reduce wear and tear.
> 
> Velaro CN can be driven to 395 km/hr right now, but what does that do to train and track? It's not sustainable.


But then it begs the question, how much is too much wear and tear? If the Chinese government is happy to pay the extra expenses required to maintain the tracks, wiring and trains more often to keep them within saftey margins, then it can't really be called "too much".


----------



## makita09

chornedsnorkack said:


> 1 m/s² acceleration is quite practical to handle on trains. Sustain it for 2 minutes and you are at 432 km/h (the speed of Transrapid), having covered 7200 m. Sustain it for 4 minutes and you are at 864 km/h (near airplane cruise speed), having covered 28 800 m.


Well whilst we're on a mathematic theme, let me add my two cents with the power required.

As force = mass x acceleration and power = force x speed,
then power = mass x acceleration x speed.
(corrections welcome btw)

So for a 700t train, at a speed of 500km/h (or 138 m/s - two thirds to target speed) to have an acceleration of 1m/s/s requires a power of 97MW. To have the same acceleration all the way to 800kmh requires about 155MW. This does not include the power required to overcome friction, which needs to be added on top.

Whereas I think about 35-40MW would get the train to the target speed (in a vacuum), even if sacrificing a little acceleration at the top end.


----------



## Luli Pop

less maths and more updates please!


----------



## Jiangwho

*Beijing South Railway Station*











































































































































































*
PHOTO BY 京长直达Z61 *


----------



## ANR

*Beijing South Railway Station*



Jiangwho said:


> *Beijing South Railway Station*


Wow - great photos - thanks for taking the effort to upload.


----------



## codedj

Guys this may be a stupid question but why are there so less people in some of the stations that have been posted here? Is it because these pics were taken during/immediately after construction? What does rush hour look like. BTW really great pics. Thanks.


----------



## Calorus

Seconded - Jiangwho, lovely photos!


----------



## yaohua2000

codedj said:


> Guys this may be a stupid question but why are there so less people in some of the stations that have been posted here? Is it because these pics were taken during/immediately after construction? What does rush hour look like. BTW really great pics. Thanks.


Passengers are not allowed to be on the platform until 15 minutes (Beijing–Tianjin intercity trains) or 20–30 minutes (long-haul overnight sleeper trains) before departure.

There are 11 island platforms and 2 side platforms in the station, serving in total 24 tracks. In the photos, this part of the station is used by overnight trains from Beijing to Shanghai or Hangzhou. There are six of them every day, depart at 21:16, 21:21, 21:26, 21:36, 21:41, 21:46 respectively. If one take a photo before 20:45, there should not be any passengers there.


----------



## Jiangwho

Hi guys, you are Welcome.



yaohua2000 said:


> Passengers are not allowed to be on the platform until 15 minutes (Beijing–Tianjin intercity trains) or 20–30 minutes (long-haul overnight sleeper trains) before departure.
> 
> There are 11 island platforms and 2 side platforms in the station, serving in total 24 tracks. In the photos, this part of the station is used by overnight trains from Beijing to Shanghai or Hangzhou. There are six of them every day, depart at 21:16, 21:21, 21:26, 21:36, 21:41, 21:46 respectively. If one take a photo before 20:45, there should not be any passengers there.


Indeed. Trains in the photos are all overnight sleeper trains.


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## greenlion

as of October 2, Frequency of CRH service at the 13 Chinese HSR lines, this table only listed CRH service, there is also traditional trains serving in some of the HSR lines

ICL- Intercity High-Speed Line
PDL- Passenger Designated Line
PFL- Mixed passenger & freight HSR line 



Code:


Line                 Length   Trains per day speed level top speed     average speed     trains
                                 (aggregation)             (in 0perating) (by Fastest train)
Wuguang PDL           968 km       160         350km/h    348km/h       299.38km/h   CRH2C CRH3C
Huning PDL            296 km       170         350km/h    351km/h       243.29km/h   CRH1A/B CRH2A/B/C CRH3C  
Jingjin ICL           120 km       178         350km/h    355km/h       240km/h      CRH3C
Zhengxi PDL           455 km       18          350km/h    352km/h       233.33km/h   CRH2C
Yongtaiwen PFL        268 km       54          250km/h    253km/h       220.27km/h   CRH1B/E CRH2A/B/E
Wenfu PFL           298.4 km       40          250km/h    253km/h       215.71km/h   CRH1A/B/E CRH2A/B/E
Fuxia PFL           274.9 km       68          250km/h    252km/h       206.18km/h   CRH1A/B/E CRH2A/E
Shitai PDL            225 km       26          250km/h    233km/h       204.55km/h   CRH5A 
Hening PFL            156 km       24          250km/h    252km/h       173.33km/h   CRH1A/B CRH2A/B
Hewu PFL              351 km       20          250km/h    250km/h       175.5km/h    CRH1A/B CRH2A/B
Jiaoji PDL          362.5 km       42          250km/h    250km/h       163.53km/h   CRH2A CRH5A   
Chengguan PDL          67 km       40          220km/h    222km/h       134km/h      CRH1A
Changjiu ICL          135 km       34          250km/h    220km/h       188.37km/h   CRH1A CRH2A


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## foxmulder

Thanks a lot Jiangwho and greenlion :cheers:


----------



## greenlion

Zefiro 380 - CRH380C at The international trade fair for transport technology, Berlin, Germany, the CHinese MOR had orderd 80 CRH380C trains in 2009 and according to most recently news, the first set eill be ready by 2011.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Laos, China to cooperate in railway construction*



> Minister for Railways of the People’s Republic of China, Mr Liu Kuayue, arrived in Vientiane on October 4 for talks with Lao officials on the construction of a railway from the Chinese border to Vientiane.
> 
> The railway development project is part of the Kunming-Singapore rail link, which aims to boost trade relations between Asean countries and China after the two parties implemented the Asean-China Free Trade Agreement earlier this year.
> 
> Mr Liu paid a courtesy visit to President Choummaly Sayasone and Standing Deputy Prime Minister Somsavat Lengsavad upon his arrival in Laos.
> 
> He also held talks and signed a memorandum of understanding with his Lao counterpart, Minister of Public Works and Transport Sommath Pholsena, on cooperation in the construction of the railway from the Lao-Chinese border in Luang Namtha province to Vientiane.
> 
> Mr Liu and his delegation also visited the Training Centre of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, Thanalaeng train station, Vientiane-Nong Khai Friendship Bridge and the That Luang stupa.
> 
> Lao officials involved in the project told Vientiane Times that Laos and China would establish a joint venture to build the railway.
> 
> The Lao government plans to provide land as its share in the venture while the Chinese partner will provide funding for construction of the railway.
> 
> The Chinese government has promised to provide financial support for the joint venture to build the 400km railway.
> 
> The officials also said Laos and China are now carrying out a survey for the proposed railway, which they hope to complete before the end of this year.
> 
> “The survey will give us information about the cost of construction and where the track is to be laid,” a senior official from the Lao Ministry of Public Works and Transport told Vientiane Times.
> 
> Lao Railway Authority Deputy Director General, Mr Sompong Pholsena, told Vientiane Times earlier the railway would be able to accommodate medium speed electric trains, which can run at about 200km per hour. *The highest speed trains can run at 350km per hour*, he said.
> 
> According to officials from the Lao Ministry of Planning and Investment, the government has included the railway as one of the large-scale investment projects in its 2011-2015 socio-economic development plan.
> 
> The officials said construction would begin within the next five years. However, they were unable to confirm whether the project would be finished within this period of time, saying the decisive factor was funding and cooperation from other Asean countries.
> 
> The Chinese government has a clear policy to invest in the construction of an Asean-China railway as a means to boost trade between the two sides. China has said it will cooperate with the Thai government to build the railway.
> 
> The Thai government has agreed to cooperate with China to build the railway from the Lao-Thai border in Nong Khai province to Bangkok. However, the Thai government will not be able implement the project until it gets approval from Parliament.
> 
> At present Laos’ only railway is a 3.5km track running from the Vientiane-Nong Khai Friendship Bridge to Thanalaeng station on the outskirts of Vientiane.


----------



## Nozumi 300

greenlion said:


> Zefiro 380 - CRH380C at The international trade fair for transport technology, Berlin, Germany, the CHinese MOR had orderd 80 CRH380C trains in 2009 and according to most recently news, the first set eill be ready by 2011.


:uh: :eek2: :master: 
Thanks so much for the update greenlion. The red looks really good on the train, hopefully there will be a use for it.


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## fragel

yaohua2000 said:


> *Laos, China to cooperate in railway construction*





> Minister for Railways of the People’s Republic of China, Mr *Liu Kuayue*


please tell me this is not a formal report. otherwise:lol::lol::lol::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:


----------



## fragel

Nozumi 300 said:


> :uh: :eek2: :master:
> Thanks so much for the update greenlion. The red looks really good on the train, hopefully there will be a use for it.


the color will probably be changed. they will paint the three big Chinese characters there too.


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## foxmulder

greenlion said:


> Zefiro 380 - CRH380C at The international trade fair for transport technology, Berlin, Germany, the CHinese MOR had orderd 80 CRH380C trains in 2009 and according to most recently news, the first set eill be ready by 2011.


Amazing machine.

Do they assign each type of CRH380 to a specific line? For example CRH380A for Beijing Shanghai and 380C for Beijing-Wuhan or there will be a pool of 380km/h capable trains running where ever required.


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## chornedsnorkack

> Lao Railway Authority Deputy Director General, Mr Sompong Pholsena, told Vientiane Times earlier the railway would be able to accommodate medium speed electric trains, which can run at about 200km per hour. The highest speed trains can run at 350km per hour, he said.


When, on 20th of November, Yichang-Wanzhou railway shall open, how long shall the trip take?


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## riles28

*It's look Enviromental and Economically*



greenlion said:


> Z


The Train It's look Enviromental and Economically as the design look's unique among other high speed train and more futuristic feature for next generation of high speed train in the world.


----------



## yaohua2000

*Mount Everest is singing for joy*
Everyone else is worried

http://www.economist.com/node/17204635



> “MOUNT EVEREST is singing for joy and the Brahmaputra River swirling with happiness”. Or so says an official Chinese newspaper (using the Tibetan names, Qomolangma and the Yarlung Tsangpo). After much delay, China has started to extend its controversial railway line in Tibet that will draw more tourists to the mountain and boost trade with South Asia. How happy the outcome will be is not so clear.
> 
> Planning for the 253km (157-mile) line from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, to the region’s second city, Shigatse, began in 2002, four years before Lhasa itself was connected to China’s railway network. The authorities appear not have been deterred by the problems that the railway brought to Lhasa. A tourism boom and a flood of immigrants from China’s interior contributed to an explosion of unrest among embittered Tibetans in March 2008. The launch ceremony in Lhasa of the $2 billion extension on September 26th was celebrated by dancing children in elaborate Tibetan costumes. Chinese television said the line would be of “great significance for the strengthening of ethnic unity”.
> 
> Like the route to Lhasa, which crossed the highest terrain of any railway in the world, the single-track extension will involve considerable technical difficulties. Nearly half of it will go through tunnels or over bridges (96 of them). It will cross areas prone to earthquakes, landslides and sand storms. Whereas the line to Lhasa had to traverse unstable permafrost, the new one will be challenged by geothermal fields with hot springs. All this at an oxygen-starved altitude of 3,550-4,000 metres.
> 
> The railway will make it easier to reach Mount Everest, which can expect to see a lot more tourists eager to be photographed in front of the world’s highest peak (Shigatse is also due to open an airport soon, Tibet’s fifth for civilian use). In 2007 the Chinese side of the mountain recorded 27,476 visits by Chinese tourists, almost twice as many as in 2006, after the new rail service to Lhasa had opened. Environmentalists are worried.
> 
> So are the Indians. The government in Delhi has been nervously watching China’s build-up of infrastructure in Tibet. The extension to Shigatse, besides facilitating military movements near China’s border with India, is likely to boost trade with Nepal, where the two giants are vying for influence in a power struggle that is still going on. China has long-term plans for more extensions of the line, to Nyalam on the border with Nepal and to Dromo near Bhutan and the Indian state of Sikkim. Nepal wants the railway extended to Kathmandu, which India fears would give China more clout in a country India sees as part of its sphere of influence. Another proposed line, from Lhasa east to Nyingchi, would bring the network close to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which most of China claims.
> 
> Tibetans might have mixed feelings too. The rail link to Lhasa brought disproportionate benefits to ethnic Han Chinese whose language and culture enabled them to take quicker advantage of the Han tourist influx. Tibet Business News said the majority of traders in Shigatse were migrants from beyond Tibet. It quoted a woman from neighbouring Sichuan Province saying that the railway would cut her costs of doing business in Shigatse by half. Expect more like her to come.












And some interesting comments:



> Once again, the Economist is degrading itself to be an activist tabloid.
> 
> In fact, many people will be happy about the railway extension.
> 
> The Nepalese will be the most happy. After all, the Nepalese leaders were the ones pushing China really hard to extend the Qinghai-Tibet railway. The rail extension will mean more tourists, businessmen, and revenues for the impoverished Nepalese.
> 
> Many Sikkimese businessmen will be happy, too. The Natula Pass was opened several years ago but trade volumes remained small. If a direct rail link between China and India is implemented via Sikkim, growing trade will benefit a lot of local people, both on the Sikkim and the Tibet side. Well, if the Indians are up to the engineering challenge.
> 
> But the biggest beneficiary will be the local Tibetan population. Granted, more Han tourists will come. but it also means the local Tibetan population will have a chance to visit other parts of China cheaply and open up their horizons and give them more opportunities.
> 
> Of course, the Economist and many westerners won't like it simply because they want the Tibetans to be locked up in a medieval-age state of mind, so that the entire TAR will serve as an anthropology museum for the adventure-seeking westerners and make them feel superior.
> 
> Sorry to disappoint you guys! But a kind reminder that this is the 21th century, not the 19th century when the British troops can bully any other country in the world. Just indulge your nostalgia for the empire on the British isles, or better, in the CWG village.





> Absolutely, India cannot allow Nepal, China, or any other country to develop. If they do, India will be the only country left in the world with sub-Sahara living standards. It will be a lonely life in the dumps. We should persuade the Chinese not to built rails, roads, and ports in their own countries, or any where else in the world and our neighborhood, by the force of arms and democratically of course, if necessary. With so many 1-dollar-a-day companions, we can continue to day-dream in the glory of mutual poverty in our neighborhood, and bask in our greatest democracy and greatest only remaining super power glory. India shines while the world declines.
> 
> No wonder India is the greatest democracy and greatest only remaining super power.
> 
> Submit to your fate under our Hindu colossus, beg our 5 rupee meal middle classes, bow to our super powers.


----------



## SamuraiBlue

greenlion said:


> high-speed test trains
> 
> *CRH2-010A "Doctor White"*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *CIT001 (CRH5-0) "Doctor Yellow"*


Can't you guys at least come up with your own color scheme?
Doc Yellow has been running for ages here in Japan.


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## UD2

^^

I'm sure they don't call em Doctor "colour" in china.

The whole scheme rings no charm in the Chinese language.

It's just the poster's way of explaining what these are. 


all railway maintinance vehicles in China's MOR are yellow, and have been for the better part of the past 40 years.


----------



## foxmulder

SamuraiBlue said:


> Can't you guys at least come up with your own color scheme?
> Doc Yellow has been running for ages here in Japan.


maintenance trains have been mostly yellow all around world dude. Nothing specially to Japan or China. Don't get so excited ..


----------



## hmmwv

SamuraiBlue said:


> Can't you guys at least come up with your own color scheme?
> Doc Yellow has been running for ages here in Japan.


It's funny how most of the world's fire engines are painted in red, huh?


----------



## dumbfword

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Yellow


----------



## greenlion

Jiaxing South Railway Station, thanks to defence.pk forum poster Carnivore



Carnivore said:


> JiaXing railway stations is ready.


----------



## big-dog

Cross post some railway photos



























































































BY 传动syb[/QUOTE]


----------



## ANR

*High-speed link hits the buffers with 2-hour delay*

Shanghai Daily
By Zha Minjie 
2010-10-18 

SPEEDY it may be, but thousands of passengers on the first high-speed rail link between Shanghai and Nanjing were left going nowhere fast on Saturday, following a power glitch. The Shanghai Railway Bureau, the city's train operator, apologized yesterday for the incident, which disrupted services for two hours, but affected passengers have not been offered compensation. "It was even slower than regular trains," complained one passenger, surnamed Liu, who took a train from Jiangsu Province's Nanjing to Shanghai on Saturday. Liu told a local evening newspaper the train stopped for no apparent reason soon after it left Nanjing at 1:15pm. Half an hour later, Liu said passengers were told there was "an emergency repair ahead."

The service resumed at 2:45pm and reached Shanghai at 4pm, almost two hours behind schedule. The trip usually lasts 75 minutes, at a top speed of 350 kilometers per hour. More than ten train services were affected by the disruption. There are around 200 train services between Shanghai and Nanjing each day. Equipment was affected by a power glitch at a stop in Jiangsu Province, according to the railway bureau. The problem was fixed by 2:40pm, officials said. Officials added that the line is still in its one-year shakedown period. 

However, the breakdown has concerned travelers, as another high-speed rail route, Shanghai to Hangzhou, is set to open this month. "It's totally pointless paying such high ticket prices if passengers are going to be stranded on the trains," wrote one passenger online. Passengers saw a 56 percent price jump after the Shanghai-Nanjing route opened. A ticket costs 146 yuan (US$22). 

The Shanghai-Hangzhou line will be city's second high-speed railway whose speed reaches 350 km/h. Authorities said over the weekend that a trip by route is expected to take longer than the previously estimated 38 minutes, as a new stop in Hangzhou is not yet complete.


----------



## hkskyline

*Rail ticket change hints new line will soon open*
15 October 2010
Shanghai Daily

RAIL passengers can only buy tickets five days in advance at present, as schedules are revamped for the opening of a new high-speed route from Shanghai to Hangzhou.

Usually, travelers can purchase tickets up to 10 days before they travel, and the reduced window for buying all tickets has fuelled speculation that the new line will open soon.

Once that happens, existing non-stop fast train services on the route are likely to be withdrawn, raising concerns among passengers who fear they will have to buy more expensive tickets for the high-speed service.

After the Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed route started operation in July, fast train services were withdrawn.

The Shanghai Railway Bureau, the city's train operator, is expected to reveal details of the new operation soon.

However, insiders say the reduced window for advance ticket sales is in preparation for a new schedule and suggest the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed rail will open soon after October 22.

More than 30 fast trains operate daily between Shanghai and Hangzhou in neighboring Zhejiang Province. The current trip lasts about 80 minutes. The trip is expected to be cut by half when the high-speed trains are introduced.

When the Shanghai-Nanjing route opened, prices increased 50 percent. If that is repeated with the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed train, tickets are likely to cost more than 100 yuan (US$15).

Construction on the new high-speed route began in early 2009. It has 12 stops, three in Shanghai and nine in Zhejiang Province.

A recent test showed a train reached a top speed of 416.6 kilometers per hour, the fastest in the world.

The regular speed will be kept at 350 km/h.


----------



## fragel

I'll cross post it here just in case the CRH 380A thread dies.

One video taken inside the CRH 380A on Shanghai-Nanjing HSR leaving Zhenjiang Station:


----------



## Taller Better

*The next person to troll in this thread will be given an automatic infraction. *


----------



## CNGL

I'm trolling now  (Actually I'm not trolling)

But I like all those impresive stations throughout China. I want some of these stations here in Spain, they are sometimes boring...


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> Construction on the new high-speed route began in early 2009. It has 12 stops, three in Shanghai and nine in Zhejiang Province.


Does anyone know the list of stops?


----------



## Railfan

*China's hi-speed railway - Symbol of toil and efficiency of the Chinese people*
With regards to the title "efficiency of the Chinese people".
Germany better.

In fact, China will look more and more like Germany, whether it knows it or not. Germany already practices what China is aiming, capitalism+socialism.

Why Germany Has It So Good -- and Why America Is Going Down the Drain
By Terrence McNally, AlterNet
Posted on October 14, 2010, Printed on October 18, 2010

While the bad news of the Euro crisis makes headlines in the US, we hear next to nothing about a quiet revolution in Europe. The European Union, 27 member nations with a half billion people, has become the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the world's economy -- nearly as large as the US and China combined. Europe has more Fortune 500 companies than either the US, China or Japan.

European nations spend far less than the United States for universal healthcare rated by the World Health Organization as the best in the world, even as U.S. health care is ranked 37th. Europe leads in confronting global climate change with renewable energy technologies, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process. Europe is twice as energy efficient as the US and their ecological "footprint" (the amount of the earth's capacity that a population consumes) is about half that of the United States for the same standard of living.

Unemployment in the US is widespread and becoming chronic, but when Americans have jobs, we work much longer hours than our peers in Europe. Before the recession, Americans were working 1,804 hours per year versus 1,436 hours for Germans -- the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour weeks per year.

In his new book, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?, Thomas Geoghegan makes a strong case that European social democracies -- particularly Germany -- have some lessons and models that might make life a lot more livable. Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. But you've heard the arguments for years about how those wussy Europeans can't compete in a global economy. You've heard that so many times, you might believe it. But like so many things, the media repeats endlessly, it's just not true.

According to Geoghegan, "Since 2003, it's not China but Germany, that colossus of European socialism, that has either led the world in export sales or at least been tied for first. Even as we in the United States fall more deeply into the clutches of our foreign creditors -- China foremost among them -- Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They're beating us with one hand tied behind their back."

Thomas Geoghegan, a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School, is a labor lawyer with Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan in Chicago. He has been a staff writer and contributing writer to The New Republic, and his work has appeared in many other journals. Geoghagen ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Congressional primary to succeed Rahm Emanuel, and is the author of six books including Whose Side Are You on, The Secret Lives of Citizens, and, most recently, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?

Terrence McNally: You start your book Were you Born on the Wrong Continent? with a personal experience, a stopover in Zurich. Could you talk about that?

Thomas Geoghegan: In 1993 I got it in my head, for reasons too long to tell, to go see a woman I'd met who happened to be in Moscow. Because of the coup in October 1993, all the flights to Moscow were canceled, and I ended up in Zurich. I had not been in Western Europe for years, and, while I was waiting for clearance, I happened to walk around the streets and I was just thunderstruck by how nice it was. Every bookstore seemed like a boutique and even the train station was like a perfumery. And I thought, how did this part of the world get so wealthy without my knowing it? That was the epiphany that led me to take a bigger and bigger interest in how Europeans live, and to ask ultimately, were you born in the wrong continent?

McNally: In talking about that walk, you point out that if you don't have much poverty, life is better for everybody. Not just better for the poor, but for everybody.

Geoghegan: You have more of the city available to you. [My hometown] Chicago's fantastic, but there's a huge swath of it that you don't particularly want to go to -- not because of any criminal danger, but just because it's run down. Largely white ethnic neighborhoods on the northwest side are unattractive and dilapidated. Plus there are huge parts of the city that are downright dangerous. Europe isn't like that. It's the argument for social democracy: more equality and less poverty and disorder.

McNally: In their book, The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket point out that on average everything is worse for everybody in the countries with the most unequal distribution of wealth.

Geoghegan: As a labor lawyer, I can see that janitors and truck drivers I represent would be better off in a social democracy. I make the argument in the book that even people who are doing relatively well would be literally, materially better off in a more egalitarian social democracy. Some of the public goods that are available there for free- - university education, for example, are skewed towards the people who are relatively at the top.

McNally: Someone who doesn't go to university doesn't get that benefit, but a family who sends two or three kids gets an enormous benefit.

Geoghegan: Of course, low income sectors do better too. Nonetheless, it could be said, there's a growing amount of poverty in Germany. Especially during the 1990's and the early part of the last decade, there was a scaling back of social democracy. For a while the bubble of casino capitalism in the US and the UK led to an allocation of capital into the US and UK looking for hot returns. Since the collapse of casino type capitalism in 2008, money has shifted back where it should have been in the first place, to the virtuous economies of the world like Germany, based in manufacturing.

McNally: I recall Kevin Phillips pointing out in his book Bad Money that year after year the US shifted more and more of our money and our best and brightest young people into finance. When the casino seemed to be paying off, other countries also shifted in our direction, but when it broke, we didn't have the manufacturing and export base a country like Germany has to fall back on.

Geoghegan: The Germans had a certain amount of schadenfreude about the whole thing. They're basically a very pessimistic people by temperament, and when they saw a world debacle that they weren't responsible for, they actually became a little more upbeat.

They had what they call a good recession. The German government was very quick off the mark, and immediately put in place what they called kurzabeit. Through this short work-week program, the government paid people to stay on the job when they otherwise might have been let go.

We got ahead of the curve," one German labor minister said, "employment didn't drop here the way it did in the US." When the economy recovered, there was no incentive to hold off hiring because the people were already on the job. Their unemployment is now significantly lower than ours and the economy is booming.

McNally: When asked why Obama didn't pursue a similar policy to stem the economic bleeding, Larry Summers dismissed the idea, saying the White House wanted to create new jobs not preserve old ones.

Geoghegan: A pretty lame answer.

Terrence McNally: And an arrogant one. Good for you, Larry. What about the guy who lost his job? And his family and his kids?

Geoghegan: Larry Summers is the villain of my book. He was an architect of deregulation, and was doing a war dance back in the late 1990's about how the US model was triumphant over all. Now, the shoe's on the other foot.

McNally: What's the status of the crisis in Europe right now? The EU includes not only virtuous, productive economies like Germany, but also others not nearly so.

Geoghegan: Those less virtuous economies were the so-called "new Europe" that Donald Rumsfeld was touting. People in the countries that are in trouble now economically were the ones willing to go to Iraq -- and there is a connection. These are the countries that were much more inclined to go the American route, going into debt heavily, using housing speculation as the engine of the economy, and opening their economies big time to global bank debt and finance.

Goldman Sachs poured tons of money into Greece, and other New York, London and German banks poured money into Spain. None of the bubbles occurred in Germany and in the "old Europe" that Donald Rumsfeld wrote off. Part of Europe is in trouble to the extent -- and only to the extent -- that it's involved in the American model. Those countries most resistant to the American model are doing fine.

By the way, why was Goldman Sachs willing to lend money to weak economies like Greece? Because Greece was in the EU. Because Spain was in the EU. These countries would never have gotten all this money from US banks. And what is so important about the EU? At the end of the day the Germans with their trade surplus are able to pay -- and in fact that's what has happened.

McNally: How is the relationship unfolding between Germany and the economies it is bailing out?

Geoghegan: It's working out pretty well. The Germans are doing even better because the Euro fell -- it was overvalued to begin with -- and that made German goods more competitive. After the great debt crisis, the Euro became relatively cheaper, and that made Germany more profitable as an export country. Greece didn't collapse, partly because the Germans bailed it out and partly because there was belt tightening in Greece and plenty of tourists still coming in.

McNally: By the way, Greece represents only 2% of the EU's total GDP, whereas California represents 14% of the US. Yet when California reached out to the federal government for similar help, it didn't get it.

Geoghegan: You see a story in the New York Times every six weeks -- ever since I graduated from college in 1971 -- about how Europe is going to collapse. They come out like clockwork.

McNally: I pulled one of those Times articles in May when the Greek crisis was hot. The headline: "Europeans Fear Crisis Threatens Liberal Benefits." But you point out that when a country like Germany takes something away from the safety net, they usually balance it with a benefit.

Geoghegan: They cut back on holiday and they add a nursing home benefit. But the US press always focuses on the cutback. One of the reasons I wrote this book was to show that there's a leadership class over there that is very clever about these things. I don't mean in a spurious, tricky way, but actually thinking, "What do we have to cut back now so that we can go forward in the future?"

To quote a wonderful line from the Lampedusa novel, The Leopard: as the old order is collapsing, the Sicilian aristocrat says to his young prince, "We have to change so that everything remains the same." How do you change social democracy so that you preserve it, and maybe even create an opportunity to expand it in a year or two when the wheel of fortune turns again?

McNally: Let's talk about some of the contrasts in the book between our culture and theirs. People here work nine more weeks per year.

Geoghegan: In the US, the most driven work 2300 hours a year, and people a notch or two below the most driven are working 1800 hours a year. That doesn't count hours that are off the clock.

McNally: Why do we work so hard? You say one of the reasons is because we don't have unions or job security. People are afraid that if they don't work weekends and overtime, if they don't skip their kid's soccer game, they'll get laid off.

Geoghegan: Nobody knows who's going to be laid off next. It's all arbitrary, Chainsaw Al could knock down your cubicle door at any time. So everyone has an incentive to stay five minutes longer than everyone else, and that creates anarchy. According to labor economists Richard Freeman at Harvard and Linda Bell at Haverford, in the US there's nobody to tell you to go home.

McNally: Given the fact that we work more, are we more productive?

Geoghegan: If you consider productivity as output per hour, working longer probably decreases it. My friend Isabelle came to the US to attend grad school at Northwestern, and was upset when she discovered there were no holidays here. In the middle of the year, I found her very stressed, and I figured out what was happening: she was working American hours with German efficiency. When you look at the fact that Germans rank at the top of the world in terms of export sales -- on a par with the Chinese who work till they drop -- you realize they must be doing something that makes them more efficient.

Leisure time also has material value. The fact that Americans work longer and longer hours increases GDP per capita, but it doesn't necessarily raise our standard of living.

McNally: Americans don't know how things actually work in European countries. For many people the fact that Germany is neck and neck with China as the number one exporting country -- give or take the rise and fall of currency - must be mind blowing. Even progressives in America don't look overseas for models that work. I find it almost pathological that our exceptionalism infects even those who assume they don't believe in it.

Geoghegan: I have a friend who's just come back from being a journalist for a long time in France and now works as a political reporter in Washington DC. She recently told me, "It's become impossible for me to stay in a carpool with other women journalists because all I do is say to them, 'Oh, it's so much better in France This is so much better If this happened we wouldn't' She said, "They're just so sick of me, they don't want to hear anything more about France."

In some ways it's understandable and in some ways it's tragic. Another journalist friend of mine told me, "The three most deadly words in American journalism are 'in Sweden they' People just won't keep going from there, and why is that? These are economies that have developed a level of sophistication and look like the US in so many ways. People say, "Europe's becoming just like America," but it's not.

McNally: Let's make a quick comparison of GDP. The problem with GDP is that it has only an addition side, it doesn't have a subtraction side. So an auto accident increases GDP; crime increases GDP.

Geoghegan: Waste and fraud and gambling; Katrina increases GDP; urban sprawl especially increases GDP. Hours stuck in traffic increase GDP.

McNally: plus the fact that we've monetized so many things that we used to do for ourselves or for our families

Geoghegan: You're shelling out $50,000 in tuition for NYU law school and your counterpart in Europe is getting it for free. How pathetic for the poor European adding nothing to GDP. In America we're increasing GDP, but dragging down people's standard of living.

It's a very perverse system of accounting. You say it's all addition and no subtraction, but it's not even all addition. Nothing increases your well-being or your material standard of living as much as leisure time. Among the untouchables in India, of course, that's absolutely not the case; leisure is a nightmare, unemployment is a nightmare. But for many, a loss of leisure is a loss of material value.

For example, leisure to go to a free concert at Millennium Park in Chicago. It's a glorious experience. People in Europe are gaga about it, because it's the one thing in America that seems to them the most European -- wonderful orchestras, pop bands, jazz bands, playing right in the middle of the city; gorgeous lawns; people picnicking, etc. -- and it's all free. It's so un-American, there's no money going out the door. It makes a mark on your life but you can't turn it into a sum of dollars, so it doesn't mean anything -- even though of course it means everything.

McNally: You say the three building blocks of German social democracy are the works councils, the election of boards of directors by workers as well as by hedge fund managers, and the regional wage setting institutions.

Geoghegan: First: work councils. The analogy I used in the book is fictitious: Imagine you elect a works council from among the employees at the Barnes & Noble bookstore where you work. They don't bargain for wages, that's done by the unions; but they have all sorts of rights that relate to working time, who gets laid off, even whether the store is going to close or not. They can go in and look at the books. The management has to enter into agreements. The works council can't dictate, but they have enormous influence over what working hours will be, who's going to work when and how.

Co-determined boards are mandated at German companies with 2000 employees or more, the global companies that are beating us, although you can have them in other situations. These are maybe more like super boards that don't do as much day-to-day managing as our boards of directors do. It consists one half of people elected by and from the workers, and one half elected by the shareholders.

The chairman of the board is selected by the shareholders and has a double vote so that, if there's a tie between the shareholders and the employees, the shareholders win. But it creates a lot of potential influence over how the debate goes.

McNally: But you also say that the shoe is on the other foot when it comes to choosing the CEO, correct?

Geoghegan: If the shareholders are divided on who should be the next CEO, the clerks get to pick the king.

McNally: In contract negotiations over the last 10, 15, 20 years, American workers have been giving back things, agreeing to two tiers, lowering their pension guarantees. I've never heard of any of them trading a concession for the right to elect members to the board.

Geoghegan: The UAW had somebody on the board once.

McNally: Management can't even say it won't work because Germany's beating our pants in manufacturing, and the codetermined board is also spreading elsewhere, right?

Geoghegan: The German model has made inroads on the US model in other European countries.

McNally: You quote the German labor minister saying, "Our biggest export now is co-determination". Now, third: regional or sector wage settling.

Geoghegan: It's much reduced these days, but they still have some version of regional wage bargaining setting standards that everybody has to comply with. That used to be true here -- to a lesser extent than in Germany -- but it's disappeared.

McNally: Are you talking about a situation where you would negotiate with one of the big three automakers and the others would basically get the same deal?

Geoghegan: I was thinking more of the United Mineworkers negotiating a contract with multiple employer associations to produce a national agreement that covered every employer. That was true in the coal industry and with the Teamsters in the trucking industry.

McNally: Agreements across a whole industry create a sense of transparency, right?

Geoghegan: People know what their wages are. East Germany was a factor in the breakdown. You couldn't really have the same labor costs and labor standards that you had in West Germany because the economy wasn't at the same stage of development.

IMcNally: f you compare your quality of life and the prospective quality of life for your children with the German quality of life, things are only getting worse. To cite just one example, economist Robert Frank talks about the fact that American families end up moving into neighborhoods they can't afford because that's where the good schools are, and I'm sure this played some role in the mortgage collapse.

Geoghegan: We'd be much more competitive globally if Americans had six weeks off, and had a chance to go and see what people are doing in other countries. We'd come back much more sophisticated about them and probably have better ideas about how to sell things to them.

McNally: You point out that as globalization grew, the US chose to compete on the basis of cheap labor by outsourcing. We kept the marketing and executives here and moved the manufacturing elsewhere. We've been playing that game for 20-30 years now. Germany chose to play the opposite game.

Geoghegan: 30 years later the Germans are making money off of China, and China is making big time money off of us. One thing I really try to get across in the book: Many Americans think that we've got a trade deficit because we can't compete with China. We've got a trade deficit because we can't compete with Germany in selling things to China. Until people wake up and look at the kinds of things that the Germans are doing to keep their manufacturing base, we're going to continue to run deficits which leave us in the clutches of foreign creditors and compromise our autonomy as a country.

McNally: This is something that the right wing should be up in arms about.

Geoghegan: Absolutely. And they're clueless. They are mortgaging this country's future and they're too stupid to realize it.

McNally: This seems like a good point to turn to "10 Things the Dems Could Do To Win," a cover story I wrote for a recent issue of The Nation.

Geoghegan: The Democrats have to do something for their base, keep it simple and make it universal. Unlike the healthcare bill which was perceived as a handout for "them", the uninsured, many of them in red states. Democrats should focus on things that either give a direct benefit to people or give them a sense of power.

For example, increase Social Security so that it's a real public pension -- push Social Security benefits up to 50% of people's income. Of course we can't do this overnight, but we can set it as a serious goal.

McNally: Social security in the US is 39% at this point. In Germany it was 67%, but it's dropped?

Geoghegan: To the low fifties. But people have tons of money in the bank over there, there's a high savings rate and, at least in the unions, they also have private pensions that work much better than in the US.

McNally: They also don't graduate college with thousands of dollars of debt that many will carry for the rest of their lives.

Geoghegan: They do have a demographic crisis that they're going to have to get through, but they've protected the system.

McNally: Raising social security to 50% of working income means that when you go on to social security you'll get half of what you were getting when you were working. Currently you get less than two-fifths.

Geoghegan: The top 20 developed countries have an average rate of something like 60%, so we can do this.

My second proposal is simply the most effective way to move ultimately to a single payer healthcare system, which I think we have to do. I would say that even if I didn't think single payer were a better system. You have to have one consistent system of payment to get control of healthcare costs. All the European countries do. It doesn't have to be single payer, but it has to be a consistent system. You can't have a mix of private market and single payer.

Let's lower Medicare's eligibility to 55. What brought back GM and Chrysler? The government came in and took away their retiree healthcare costs. We've got to lower labor costs not by bringing down wages -- that would be a disaster, but by having the government assume wage labor costs that are making us less competitive. People of 55-65 will all vote for you because it will change their lives.

McNally: Folks like Alan Simpson and Pete Peterson are going to say, "Wait a minute, you're going in exactly the wrong direction."

Geoghegan: Social security basically is solvent now even at its current level. And I have ways of paying for it.

First, if you brought back the estate tax and dedicated the proceeds to the Social Security trust--as Robert Ball, former Social Security commissioner, once proposed. Second, lift the cap on the Social Security tax -- it's at $90,000 now -- so it applies to all incomes. After all, Social Security is for everyone. Third, if you did things like eliminate the corporate debt protection for debt that is used in leverage buyouts and non-productive uses right now, you could generate the financial reserve that could pay for this. Finally, I do think people should pay a little more for their Social Security because they're going to get a better deal.

All of these things have two purposes, to do something directly beneficial to the base now, and to do something that reduces the size and influence of the financial sector and increases the viability of manufacturing.

Lowering the age for Medicare, for example, allows employers to substantially lower their labor costs for their most expensive workers. It's not just to make them competitive, but it's also to induce investment into manufacturing which is right now inhibited by the uncertainty of healthcare costs. Ultimately the goal of all of this is to get the US out of debt.

The debt issue ought to be the Democrat's issue not the Republicans. The real debt issue is our external trade deficit. We either have consumers go into debt to make the books balance at the end of the day as we did during the Bush era, or we have the federal government do it when consumers cut back. We don't earn out way in the world, and until we do, we're going to be running either large consumer debts which lead to private financial panics, or federal debt which could lead to a sovereign default. We've got to get out of that box, and the only way to do it is to put in measures that make our economy more competitive globally.

McNally: You're saying that Obama and the Democratic party could transform the issue of debts and deficits by offering solutions that are not just about paying today's bill, but about restructuring our ability to pay the bill in the future.

Geoghegan: We will never get out of debt until we confront our inability to pay our way in the world. Somebody is going to be in debt, whether it's me the taxpayer paying off the federal deficit or me the consumer paying off my Visa card. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference at the end of the day. The Democrats ought to present themselves as the party that has a plan to get the country out of debt.

McNally: You also recommend a usury cap on credit cards.

Geoghegan: You've got to get returns down in the financial sectors and returns up in manufacturing sectors. That's the key. And proposing that will split the business community in this country in a very healthy way. The Democrats can be the party of the manufacturers, even if it's at the expense of Wall Street. For years, the Democrats have slipped the other way. People perceive that and they're frustrated by it.

McNally: The financial sector currently funds both parties. Republicans get to be true to their convictions, while Democrats end up negotiating with themselves. Though they may have some progressive leanings, their funders pull them in the other direction.

Geoghegan: Even progressive Democrats don't have the sophistication of their counterparts on the left in France and Germany in terms of understanding how important it is not to run up a national debt. Here we march against Mexico and put up tariff walls. They don't do that in Europe, they're not that unsophisticated.

McNally: Let me finish with a quote of yours that really struck me: Without an industrial base a democracy dies.

Geoghegan: My own favorite ending line would be: Countries like Germany do both capitalism and socialism better than we do.


----------



## Railfan

*Shanghai-Hangzhou High-Speed Railway makes trial operation *- People's Daily Online October 18, 2010

*A train runs on Shanghai-Hangzhou High-Speed Railway during its trial operation, in Shanghai, east China, Oct. 18, 2010. The train CRH380A, setting a new speed record of 416.6 kilometers per hour, will make its debut operation officially at the end of this month. The ticket prices and the operation time table will be released this week. (Xinhua)*





































*A train stops at Hongqiao station of Shanghai-Hangzhou High-Speed Railway, in Shanghai, east China, Oct. 18, 2010. The train CRH380A, setting a new speed record of 416.6 kilometers per hour, will make its debut operation officially at the end of this month. The ticket prices and the operation time table will be released this week. (Xinhua)*


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## big-dog

^^ CRH380A looks hot at night


----------



## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> Does anyone know the list of stops?


As far as I know there are 9 stations on the new Hangzhou-Shanghai High-speed line.

They are Hangzhou (South)->Yuhang->Haining->Tongxiang->Jiaxing->Jiashan->Jinshan->Songjiang->Shanghai (Hongqiao)










Here're some construction pics of above stations:

Yuhang(South) -- elevated staton










Tongxiang Station










Haining (West)










Jiaxing (South)










Jiashan (South)










Jinshan (North)










Songjiang (South)










(http://yhnews.zjol.com.cn/xwzx/gnxw/201010/t20101016_350032.htm)


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## Ariel74

big-dog said:


> ^^ CRH380A looks hot at night


Like all sexy things do, in fact


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## chornedsnorkack

*Yichang-Wanzhou*

Is Yichang-Wanzhou on schedule for service on 20th of November?

When it opens, what services will use that railway? Shall it be possible to travel direct, on the same CRH train, Wuhan-Yichang on old railway, Yichang-Wanzhou on new railway, Wanzhou-central Chongqing on old railway?


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## foxmulder

Great update post for Hangzhou-Shanghai line, thanks big-dog.


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## Jay

Railfan said:


>



Best. Looking. Train. EVER


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## greenlion

The shanghai-hangzhou PDL will run 50 pairs of G trains and 30 pairs of D trains per day in it's initial service, CRH380A will service on the huhang PDL, it takes 45 minutes to finish the 202 km journey from hangzhou station to shanghai hongqiao station,average speed 269 km/h.


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## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> The shanghai-hangzhou PDL will run 50 pairs of G trains and 30 pairs of D trains per day in it's initial service, CRH380A will service on the huhang PDL, it takes 45 minutes to finish the 202 km journey from hangzhou station to shanghai hongqiao station,average speed 269 km/h.


What are these D trains? Shall they stop at all stations?


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## NCT

I doubt there'd be any train stopping at all stations. There will be a total of 30 pairs of D trains between Shanghai and Hangzhou, which will be faster but keep the same price. Top speed of 250 km/h will be enabled because of the new line (previously only 160 km/h was permitted on the classic line), reducing journey time between Shanghai and Hangzhou to 78 - 109 minutes. The fare will be kept at ￥54, though there are speculations the majority of the D trains kept will be the long-distance ones going beyond Hangzhou, meaning availability within the Shanghai and Hangzhou section will be restricted.

The G trains will travel at a top speed of 350 km/h, completing the fastest journey in 45 minutes. The G trains will cost ￥82 (standard class).

At the moment there's no connection between the PDL and the classic line meaning Shanghai Shouth Station will not see any D or G trains in the immediate future.

This is a good website for checking train schedules, Chinese only though.

http://www.12306.cn/mormhweb/kyfw/pjcx/


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## Jiangwho

Photo by 小蛛依人


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## chornedsnorkack

NCT said:


> The fare will be kept at ￥54, though there are speculations the majority of the D trains kept will be the long-distance ones going beyond Hangzhou, meaning availability within the Shanghai and Hangzhou section will be restricted.


How many high speed trains daily do now continue from Xiamen-Fuzhou-Wenzhou-Ningbo high-speed railway to old railway through Hangzhou to Shanghai or beyond?


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## fragel

Jiangwho said:


> Photo by 小蛛依人


Thanks for posting the train pictures.
very nice! do you know where the pictures were taken?


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## foxmulder

Amazing pictures Jiangwho, thanks for sharing. Especially the ones with two 380s is really nice. (do you have any of these at higher resolution so I can make them desktop pictures?) Hopefully, they will soon finish construction of that elevated line in the pictures


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## Pansori

Great photos. But what line is that? I assume that the line is a shared line because we see some "slow" trains on it as well.


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## Luli Pop

Is there a cat in the tracks?


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## foxmulder

No, signaling equipment, I believe. It is at identical place and shape in both photos. Smt like this;


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## ANR

*Pictures originally posted by Jiangwho*



fragel said:


> Thanks for posting the train pictures.
> very nice! do you know where the pictures were taken?


Also does anyone have any information on the extensive construction in the background of a number of the pictures?


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## makita09

Excellent photos Jiangwho :cheers:


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## The Renitent

foxmulder said:


> No, signaling equipment, I believe. It is at identical place and shape in both photos. Smt like this;


LOL it does look like a cat from afar.


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## Jiangwho

makita09 said:


> Excellent photos Jiangwho :cheers:


Thanks.:cheers:



fragel said:


> Thanks for posting the train pictures.
> very nice! do you know where the pictures were taken?


Near Jianqiao station（笕桥站）in Hangzhou 



foxmulder said:


> Amazing pictures Jiangwho, thanks for sharing. Especially the ones with two 380s is really nice. (do you have any of these at higher resolution so I can make them desktop pictures?) Hopefully, they will soon finish construction of that elevated line in the pictures


Sorry, I donot have.


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## zergcerebrates

Any news if the Chinese are buying the Zefiro?


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## greenlion

zergcerebrates said:


> Any news if the Chinese are buying the Zefiro?


80 sets of Zefiro 380 was contracted by 2009 and will be deliver between 2011 - 2014


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## greenlion

UIC Highspeed 2010 - China Railways


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## foxmulder

OMG! Especially for 380 production line photo... :cheers:


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## binhai

AWESOME post!


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## cmoonflyer

SHANGHAI, Oct. 26 -- China put another high-speed railway into operation Tuesday morning, which links Shanghai, the country's economic hub, and Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

Two bullet trains equipped with China's CRH380A system jumpstarted simultaneously at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday from Shanghai Hongqiao Station and Hangzhou Station, marking the inaugural of the 202-km Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway.

The new railway, with a maximum operational speed of 350 kilometers per hour (kmph), shortens the trip time between the two terminuses to 45 minutes from 78 minutes.


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## chornedsnorkack

Pansori said:


> I guess it's a good idea to have a look at Wikipedia for that. It's got quite a bit of info on opening schedules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China


Yes, but some is erroneous, out of date or unspecific.

Harbin-Dalian PDL - 2011. Which month?
Beijing-Shanghai PDL - now June-October 2011.
Xiamen-Shenzhen PDL - is it on schedule for 1st of January, 2011? This is highly relevant for someone travelling via Hong Kong, since then only Hangzhou-Ningbo would be slow.

Yichang-Wanzhou - to open 20th of November. Is it on schedule?
Guangzhou-Shenzhen high-speed railway - delayed until when?
Longyan-Xiamen railway - 2010. Which month?
Nanchang-Putian railway - 2011. Which month?
Guangzhou-Zhuhai Intercity Mass Rapid Transit - 2010. Which month?
Hainan East Ring Intercity Rail - 30th of November, 2010. Is it on schedule?
Changchun-Jilin Intercity Rail - December 2010. Which day?
Harbin-Qiqihar Intercity Rail - 2011. Which month?


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## zergcerebrates

Suzhou station is nice. Noticed there are no supporting columns at the departure area. Amazing.


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## HyperMiler

fragel said:


> *CRH380A
> *


*









CRH2*


----------



## Luli Pop

every time I see pics of CRH trains it's the same.

a bottle of water, a cel phone, and some random stuff on the control desk.
didn't designers preview this?


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## HyperMiler

Luli Pop said:


> every time I see pics of CRH trains it's the same.
> 
> a bottle of water, a cel phone, and some random stuff on the control desk.
> didn't designers preview this?


Those are supposed to be banned. Texting while driving at 350 km/hr is unacceptable.


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## foxmulder

Awesome pictures. Thanks for sharing. 380A is a great looking train indeed.


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## chornedsnorkack

HyperMiler said:


> Those are supposed to be banned. Texting while driving at 350 km/hr is unacceptable.


Is the mobile phone meant for private text messages, or as a backup to other communication systems?


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## phat100cai

Hi, hypermiller and luli pop!
both of you gives the most stupid and senseless comment. Those CRH pics are awesome. Don't give those such comment again, idiot.


----------



## hkskyline

hzkiller said:


>


I recall First Class between Guangzhou and Shenzhen (70 minutes) was only slightly more expensive than Second Class. What's the price difference for this route?


----------



## fragel

phat100cai said:


> Hi, hypermiller and luli pop!
> both of you gives the most stupid and senseless comment. Those CRH pics are awesome. Don't give those such comment again, idiot.


be nice to luli pop, for he/she is not the troll



Luli Pop said:


> every time I see pics of CRH trains it's the same.
> 
> a bottle of water, a cel phone, and some random stuff on the control desk.
> didn't designers preview this?


I think the equipments are standard (the 'random' stuff are the train keys and record sheets), that is why it always looks the same. you can also see a walkie-talkie beside the water bottle.


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## fragel

hkskyline said:


> I recall First Class between Guangzhou and Shenzhen (70 minutes) was only slightly more expensive than Second Class. What's the price difference for this route?


From Shanghai Hongqiao to Hangzhou, RMB 131 for first class and RMB 82 for second class.

btw, I think Guangzhou-Shenzhen is always regarded as the most expensive rail in terms of cost-effectiveness


----------



## Luli Pop

thanks Fragel!

I'm a girl.


----------



## big-dog

Was *Nanjing-Hangzhou* CRH opened? I read news that it would open on Oct 26.


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## fragel

^^ No. that Nanjing-Hangzhou train travels through Shanghai. Direct HSR between Nanjing and Hangzhou is still under construction and to be completed next year.


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## hkskyline

fragel said:


> From Shanghai Hongqiao to Hangzhou, RMB 131 for first class and RMB 82 for second class.
> 
> btw, I think Guangzhou-Shenzhen is always regarded as the most expensive rail in terms of cost-effectiveness


Actually, Second Class for Guangzhou - Shenzhen is more expensive even though the distance is shorter than Hangzhou - Shanghai. Ironically, the travel time for Hangzhou - Shanghai is much shorter for the longer distance.


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## greenlion

http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2010-10/26/c_13575952.htm

by October 26, a total of 19 CRH380A trainsets service at Huning PDL & Huhang PDL

Rumor: the first set of CRH380AL will roll off in the middle of November.

by th eend of this year, there will be 40 CRH380A, 11 CRH380BL and some uncertainty quantity of CRH380AL in service


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## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> Direct HSR between Nanjing and Hangzhou is still under construction and to be completed next year.


Which month?


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## greenlion

HSR lines that planned to open before 2012




Code:


16. Hainan ER ICL     2010/11/30         308.1 km    250km/h   now testing 
17. Changji ICL       2011/February      108.16 km   250km/h   now testing
18. Guangshen PDL     2011/Apr or May    116 km      350km/h
19. Jinqin PDL        2011/June          257 km      350km/h
20. Jinghu PDL        2011/June         1318 km      350km/h
21. Jingshi PDL       2011/December      281 km      350km/h
22. Shiwu PDL         2011/December      840 km      350km/h
23. Hebeng PDL        2011/December      130 km      250km/h
24. Hada PDL          2011/December      902 km      350km/h
25. Xiashen PDL       2011/December      550 km      250km/h
26. Hangyong PDL      2011/December      149 km      350km/h
27. Ninghang PDL      2011/December      249 km      350km/h


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## foxmulder

2011 will be a nice year for high speed rail.


----------



## Nozumi 300

dp


----------



## ANR

*Shanghai - Beijing HSR*

From news.xinhuanet.com (2010-10-13):

Workers adjust the track after laying the railway track on Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway in Cangzhou City, east China's Hebei Province, Oct. 12, 2010. The track laying operation of Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway will be completed by the end of this October. (Xinhua/Liu Haifeng)


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## greenlion

Official Propaganda film by Chinese MOR - "Harmony Railway"

guys this film is excellent, you should take a look. total length is 11m 27s

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA3MTE0MTAw.html


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## hkskyline

*China Railway Group 3rd-Quarter Net Profit CNY2.14 Bln*
29 October 2010

HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--China Railway Group Ltd. (0390.HK) said Friday its third-quarter net profit rose 17% from a year earlier, supported by a pickup in infrastructure development after Beijing's economic stimulus measures.

The Hong Kong- and Shanghai-listed company said its net profit for the three months ended Sept. 30 totaled CNY2.14 billion, according to Chinese accounting standards, up from CNY1.84 billion a year earlier.

Revenue rose 9.2% to CNY102.04 billion from CNY93.46 billion.

State-run China Railway, which competes with China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. (1186.HK) and China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. (1800.HK), is China's largest construction contractor by revenue.

It has built more than two-thirds of China's 80,000 kilometers of railway, and 95% of the country's electrified railway lines. It also builds expressways, bridges and tunnels.


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## foxmulder

If you look at the amount of infrastructure projects, its revenue is rather small.


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## greenlion

Video: Beijing-Shijiazhuang High Speed rail Shijiazhuang Underground Tunnel

http://sjz.yzdsb.com.cn/system/2009/11/04/010210685.shtml

Video: Beijing - Tianjin Intercity Railway

http://www.chinaftv.com/plus/view.php?aid=508


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## yaohua2000

*Construction work of Jilin–Hunchun HSR line started*

Jilin–Hunchun Passenger Dedicated Line
- Length: 359 km
- Bridges: 106, totaling 87 km
- Tunnels: 86, totaling 149 km
- Maximum speed: 250 km/h
- Investment: CN¥41.6 billion (US$6.24 billion)

This line is an extension of Changchun–Jilin Line, upon completion, it will cut the travel time between Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, and Hunchun, near the border of North Korea and Russia, from 9 hours to 2.5 hours.


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## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> Jilin–Hunchun Passenger Dedicated Line
> - Length: 359 km
> - Bridges: 106, totaling 87 km
> - Tunnels: 86, totaling 149 km
> - Maximum speed: 250 km/h
> - Investment: CN¥41.6 billion (US$6.24 billion)
> 
> This line is an extension of Changchun–Jilin Line, upon completion, it will cut the travel time between Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, and Hunchun, near the border of North Korea and Russia, from 9 hours to 2.5 hours.


Are there any plans for high speed railway from Hunchun across some border?


----------



## greenlion

Patrick Kron (left), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alstom and newly appointed Alstom China President, Dominique Pouliquen in China,

Alstom appointed it's new China president in september, on October 20, Patrick Kron visited china.

Chinese news and a interview with Patrick kron.

http://www.eeo.com.cn/industry/shipping/2010/10/20/183193.shtml.

most interesting news is, though it's not reported by public media, he visited Chinese MOR, Rumor says Alstom & MOR tend to develope new series of 380 trains for Northeast China lines, as the CRH5 is currently serving well in North China & Northeast.

Chinese MOR had offered 110 trainset of CRH5A so far, more than CRH1A (80 ordered) & CRH2A (80 ordered), as 8-car 250km/h trainset.equal to a combination of CRH2A/B/E (110 sets), less than combination of CRH1A/B/E

another news is US industrial group ITT Corp had won a series of contracts from China’s high-speed rail market, with total value of more than $30 million. It will supply connectors, VIP seating actuation systems, shock absorbers, pump systems and other products for China’s high-speed trains.

http://www.eeo.com.cn/industry/shipping/2010/09/21/181471.shtml


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> most interesting news is, though it's not reported by public media, he visited Chinese MOR, Rumor says Alstom & MOR tend to develope new series of 380 trains for Northeast China lines, as the CRH5 is currently serving well in North China & Northeast.


When, in December 2011, Dalian-Shenyang-Harbin high-speed railway shall open, shall there be any trains suitable for 350 km/h service in Northeast China?


----------



## greenlion

chornedsnorkack said:


> When, in December 2011, Dalian-Shenyang-Harbin high-speed railway shall open, shall there be any trains suitable for 350 km/h service in Northeast China?


man it is still a rumor, I guss the Hada PDL may use CRH380B


----------



## venom6

Very cool pictures! I hope to travel with this trains once i will visit China


----------



## cobbles

greenlion said:


> Official Propaganda film by Chinese MOR - "Harmony Railway"
> 
> guys this film is excellent, you should take a look. total length is 11m 27s
> 
> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA3MTE0MTAw.html


Yes indeed, that is some pretty good propaganda, great music to go with the scene as well.


----------



## big-dog

*2010.11.1 Baotou-Xi'an railway completed the Inner Mongolia section*










Baotou-Xi'an railway construction started on Nov 25 2007, running across Shaanxi Province and Inner Mongolia. Total length is *800.9km*. The new railway will be double-lined, electrified line with designed speed of *160km/*h, with capacity to upgrade to 200km/h.

The Inner Mongolia section (177km long) costs 5.44 billion yuan. It includes 16 mega-bridges and 19 bridges. The Yellow River bridge is 3.918km, Huoshatu Tunnel is 4.254km.

The Shaanxi section (624km) costs 16.7 billion, including 70 mega-bridges and 94 tunnels. The project will complete by the end of 2010.

Source


----------



## big-dog

*2010.11.1 Crossing Qinling Mountain HSR to start construction by year end*

Chengdu (Sichuan Province) - Xi'an (Shaanxi Province)
Length: 510.5km, 10 stations
Design speed: 250km/h (with upgrading capacity to higher speed)

The HSR will cross 135km Qinling mountains, a total 127km tunnel will be built, 6 of which are 10km+ tunnels.

The construction will start by the end of 2010.

source


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> HSR lines that planned to open before 2012
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> 21. Jingshi PDL       2011/December      281 km      350km/h
> 22. Shiwu PDL         2011/December      840 km      350km/h


That is a Big News. For the completion of Beijing-Guangzhou High Speed Railway used to be planned for 2012 - now it is brought forward to 2011.

In December 2011, high speed railway shall be complete from Beijing through Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Guangzhou to Shenzhen. How long shall it take to travel all the way?


----------



## greenlion

chornedsnorkack said:


> That is a Big News. For the completion of Beijing-Guangzhou High Speed Railway used to be planned for 2012 - now it is brought forward to 2011.
> 
> In December 2011, high speed railway shall be complete from Beijing through Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Guangzhou to Shenzhen. How long shall it take to travel all the way?


yes the MOR want the whole Jingguang PDL to come into service before 2012, travel time suppose to be 8 hours to in the 2230km journey。

travel time between Beijing and main other big cities on the line:

Beijing - Shijiazhuang 1 hour, current 2 hours by D trains
Beijing - Zhengzhou 2.5 hours, current 5 hours by D trains
Beijing - Wuhan 4.5 hours, current 8 hour 43 minutes by D trains
Beijing - Changsha 6 hours, current 13 hours by Z trains
Beijing - Guangzhou 8 hours, current 20.5 hours by T trains


----------



## greenlion

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2009451,00.html

*China's high speed rail*

Beijing puts all its muscle into building a massive, state-of-the-art high-speed railroad network 

Photographs for TIME by Michael Christopher Brown

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2009451,00.html#ixzz141etcCaK









*
Engine of Growth
In the past three decades, China has more than doubled the mileage of new track in its railroad system. In the coming year, it will spend $120 billion on the construction of new lines, many of which will handle high-speed rail.*








*
Terminal
The system offers a vast improvement over the aging, traditional rail network, which was known for being filthy and overcrowded.*








*
Need for Speed (picture CRH2C)
Railroad authorities have focused intently on upgrading the system's speed. In July 2010, the fastest train (CRH380A) to date — it can travel as fast as 220 m.p.h. (355 km/h) — went into service, linking Shanghai to Suzhou and Nanjing. By comparison, Japan's fastest train reaches speeds of just 160 m.p.h. (260 km/h), while the Acela, America's fastest rail link, averages an anemic 72 m.p.h. (116 km/h).*









*Vast Land
Critics of the system complain that high-speed rail poorly serves the country. They say that most Chinese, especially the vast rural population, travel infrequently and are perfectly content to pay less for slower service.*








*
Market
Still, the Chinese middle class is growing rapidly, and the service has created a new class of intercity commuters. In this photo, passengers wait to board high-speed trains leaving the railway station in Suzhou, pop. almost 6 million.
*








*
Tickets
Passengers buy tickets for high-speed trains leaving Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station. The machines have instructions in both Chinese and English.*








*
On Board
A train operator and two train officials sit in front of the first-class cabin, en route to Suzhou.*








*
Well-Traveled
The Shanghai-Nanjing route is one of the busiest railway corridors on earth.*








*
Reflected
The new trains have reduced the travel time between Shanghai and Nanjing from two hours to 73 minutes, with nonstop service.*








*
Work in Progress
Fewer than half of the railway lines entering the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station are currently in operation.*








*
Memories
Travelers photograph themselves in front of the new train (CRH3C).*








*
Window on the Future
Chinese officials say the current high-speed rail network is only the beginning. The domestic system will continue to expand, while Chinese firms will participate in constructing rail projects in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Turkey. There are also reports that Beijing wants to build a high-speed link between China and Europe.*


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> yes the MOR want the whole Jingguang PDL to come into service before 2012, travel time suppose to be 8 hours to in the 2230km journey。


Which would spend a day.

On Beijing-Shanghai old railway limited to 200 km/h, which takes 10 hours, there are CRH sleeper trains in service, which are popular and depart at 5 minute intervals.

Are the Chinese building any sleeper trains capable of sustaining 350 km/h for 8 hours, that would be ready for service by December 2011?


----------



## Restless

chornedsnorkack said:


> Which would spend a day.
> 
> On Beijing-Shanghai old railway limited to 200 km/h, which takes 10 hours, there are CRH sleeper trains in service, which are popular and depart at 5 minute intervals.
> 
> Are the Chinese building any sleeper trains capable of sustaining 350 km/h for 8 hours, that would be ready for service by December 2011?


I don't think so. 8hours just means everyone doesn't get enough sleep, whereas 10hours is about right.


----------



## worldrailfan

why is it wrong.You spiting information about all CRH while I ask about CRH1E and CRH2E.

Wrong for you but it is the quastion I see ansewer!


----------



## greenlion

worldrailfan said:


> why is it wrong.You spiting information about all CRH while I ask about CRH1E and CRH2E.
> 
> Wrong for you but it is the quastion I see ansewer!


sorry, but I mean I've posted a wrong post here and after I deleted it I have to leave some words so that people could understand


----------



## greenlion

2010.10.30, CRH2 test run at Hainan East Ring ICL


----------



## foxmulder

worldrailfan said:


> why is it wrong.You spiting information about all CRH while I ask about CRH1E and CRH2E.
> 
> Wrong for you but it is the quastion I see ansewer!


relax... not everything about this world is about you. 

I and most of the people visiting this topic is here because we want to read posts with information like greenlion is posting.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

worldrailfan said:


> I do not mean when they are completed but In Guangzhou-Beijing, Beijing-Harbin and Beijing-Shanghai are finished,then is in not true that those high speed sleepers(at 250km/h) could esentially easly travel Hongkong-Beijing or ever bit more and Shanghai-Harbin within 10 hours at night?


The question is that these railways will have 350 km/h trains. When 350 km/h sleepers are travelling, where will the exising 250 km/h sleepers go?


----------



## diting

*hangzhou to shanghai hongqiao video*

41 minutes video
Include 24 seconds AD LOL
0~9:45 on old line
9:45~41:00 on High speed line

click here -->> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjE5NjI3MTQ4.html

enjoy

other related video(took by CRH380A driver)
-->>http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/vaeWkA8oXsI/
-->>http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/_7T3qLwWBB0/
-->>http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/95To9YohOWs/


----------



## worldrailfan

foxmulder said:


> relax... not everything about this world is about you.
> 
> I and most of the people visiting this topic is here because we want to read posts with information like greenlion is posting.


Relax too...I am entering this site only to see interesting post and learn some more....I do not enter to read what is the reason you enter.What,you think that everything in the world is all about you?Another words...I do not care why you enter this site.Understood?


----------



## Geography

> China has approved plans for a 70.8 billion yuan ($10.6 billion) link to connect its inland cities of *Chengdu and Xi'an* just days after inaugurating what it says is the world's fastest intercity high-speed rail line.
> 
> The National Development and Reform Commission okayed the Xi'an-Chengdu high speed rail plan last week and construction is due to begin later this year, the China Railway First Survey and Design Institute said in a notice seen on its website.
> 
> ....
> 
> The 510-kilometer (320 mile) railway, one-quarter of which will run through tunnels, will *cut travel time between the two cities to about two hours from the current 13*, it said.
> The Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway will run at *250 kilometers per hour* (156 miles per hour), slower than the super rapid Shanghai-Hangzhou link, which operates at a maximum 350 kph (220 mph) and opened for business last week.


From ABCNews.com.


----------



## wharton2010

diting said:


> 41 minutes video
> Include 24 seconds AD LOL
> 0~9:45 on old line
> 9:45~41:00 on High speed line
> 
> click here -->> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjE5NjI3MTQ4.html
> 
> enjoy
> 
> other related video(took by CRH380A driver)
> -->>http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/vaeWkA8oXsI/
> -->>http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/_7T3qLwWBB0/
> -->>http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/95To9YohOWs/


Found the YouTube version of your video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjQHexlC0oo


----------



## diting

wharton2010 said:


> Found the YouTube version of your video!
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjQHexlC0oo


you cann't upload 41 minutes video to youtube
the video you posted is just the first 7 minutes of the video i posted (the train haven't reach the high speed line yet in your video)
so i think everyone should watch the full version video i posted 
thx :cheers:


----------



## fragel

^^
you can easily find all six parts on youtube. it is a little inconvenient, but a lot faster for many viewers.

anyway, thanks to both of you for posting the video


----------



## binhai

Tianjin West Station is getting MASSIVE:


----------



## big-dog

^^ the century old station building will be preserved and is being displaced from the current location.























































(sina.com)


----------



## :jax:

fragel said:


> ^^
> you can easily find all six parts on youtube. it is a little inconvenient, but a lot faster for many viewers.
> 
> anyway, thanks to both of you for posting the video


Youtube is quite inconvenient on the Chinese mainland as Youtube is blocked by the firewall, necessitating workarounds.


----------



## Restless

There are youku and tudou links to the full 41min video above

NB. youku and tudou are individually both bigger than youtube


----------



## hkskyline

*China OKs high speed rail link for Chengdu-Xi'an; project to cut through rugged mountain range *
2 November 2010

SHANGHAI (AP) - China has approved plans for a 70.8 billion yuan ($10.6 billion) link to connect its inland cities of Chengdu and Xi'an just days after inaugurating what it says is the world's fastest intercity high-speed rail line.

The National Development and Reform Commission okayed the Xi'an-Chengdu high speed rail plan last week and construction is due to begin later this year, the China Railway First Survey and Design Institute said in a notice seen on its website.

The 510-kilometer (320 mile) railway, one-quarter of which will run through tunnels, will cut travel time between the two cities to about two hours from the current 13, it said.

Running through the rugged Qinling mountains, it is expected to carry some 70 million passengers a year once it is finished in four years.

The Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway will run at 250 kilometers per hour (156 miles per hour), slower than the super rapid Shanghai-Hangzhou link, which operates at a maximum 350 kph (220 mph) and opened for business last week.

Xi'an, capital of north-central China's Shaanxi province, will be a hub for several high-speed rail lines, part of an effort to improve infrastructure in vast inland regions that have lagged behind China's affluent coastal areas.

China already has the world's longest high-speed rail network and aims to more than double its length to 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) by 2020.


----------



## GreatChina2006

hkskyline said:


> *China OKs high speed rail link for Chengdu-Xi'an; project to cut through rugged mountain range *
> 2 November 2010
> 
> SHANGHAI (AP) - China has approved plans for a 70.8 billion yuan ($10.6 billion) link to connect its inland cities of Chengdu and Xi'an just days after inaugurating what it says is the world's fastest intercity high-speed rail line.
> 
> The National Development and Reform Commission okayed the Xi'an-Chengdu high speed rail plan last week and construction is due to begin later this year, the China Railway First Survey and Design Institute said in a notice seen on its website.
> 
> The 510-kilometer (320 mile) railway, one-quarter of which will run through tunnels, will cut travel time between the two cities to about two hours from the current 13, it said.
> 
> Running through the rugged Qinling mountains, it is expected to carry some 70 million passengers a year once it is finished in four years.
> 
> The Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway will run at 250 kilometers per hour (156 miles per hour), slower than the super rapid Shanghai-Hangzhou link, which operates at a maximum 350 kph (220 mph) and opened for business last week.
> 
> Xi'an, capital of north-central China's Shaanxi province, will be a hub for several high-speed rail lines, part of an effort to improve infrastructure in vast inland regions that have lagged behind China's affluent coastal areas.
> 
> China already has the world's longest high-speed rail network and aims to more than double its length to 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) by 2020.


Xi'an-Chengdu HSR will definitely be 350kph according to Chinese railway periodical.


----------



## fragel

Restless said:


> There are youku and tudou links to the full 41min video above
> 
> NB. youku and tudou are individually both bigger than youtube


tudou is fine, but youku, sigh, how can I put this, slower than a snail!
but youku is where most people upload the latest Chinese high speed train videos, so I guess we have to put up with its low speed.


----------



## Restless

fragel said:


> tudou is fine, but youku, sigh, how can I put this, slower than a snail!
> but youku is where most people upload the latest Chinese high speed train videos, so I guess we have to put up with its low speed.


Are you based inside China?


----------



## Hubert Pollak

GreatChina2006 said:


> Xi'an-Chengdu HSR will definitely be 350kph according to Chinese railway periodical.


Yes but because of the mountains (even 12 degrees) CHR380 train running at full power will go 250 kmh not 350 kmh.

Anyway it will be one of most amazing rail line in the world!


----------



## big-dog

off topic again


----------



## z0rg

> Critics point out that bullet train services, such as the 1,000km Wuhan to Guangzhou connection that opened this year, are operating at less than half their full capacity and will never make enough money to repay the large bank loans used to build them.


Wow, this is so obviously ridiculous. Those lines are operating at half their capacity because the whole system is still u/c. No large infraestructure project operates at full capacity as soon as it opens, airports, subways, highways... Normally it takes years till the natural demand assimilates the new service, especially when there're still more projects in the pipeline that will integrate with the current lines. Look at the airports, they protested a lot when Pudong and Beijing launched their monster airport projects. Now Beijing is reaching its maximum capacity within 2012-2013 and Pudong is operating above its current capacity either so that they are accelerating extension plans.


----------



## makita09

z0rg said:


> Wow, this is so obviously ridiculous. Those lines are operating at half their capacity because the whole system is still u/c.


Yeah this so blindingly obvious. There may still be issues with the finished system, but so far it looks as if the HSR network will probably run out of capacity within a few years/decades, just like the airports you mention.


----------



## big-dog

*11.8 South Xinjiang railway Kashi-Hetian line completed*










Length: 488.27km
Project started: 2008.12
Cost: 5.073 billion yuan
Connecting 10 cities in south Xinjiang of west China











source


----------



## big-dog

*Lanzhou-Baoji CRH to construct by the end of 2010*

Length: 400km, crossing Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces
Speed: max 350km/h
Cost projection: 64 billion yuan
Project duration: 4.5 years

The travel time will be reduced from 8 hours to 2 hours










source


----------



## Mika Montwald

greenlion said:


> Discovery: Beijing - Shanghai High Speed Railway and CRH380 trains
> 
> http://www.imgo.tv/player/ref_imgo_player.swf?tid=122&cid=68282&fid=78353&snd=1&fst=1&pic=0



Source: Video above ( Mr ZHANG SHU GUANG , CHIEF DESIGNER , PRC Ministry of Railway )

---------------------------------------

Beijing -- Shanghai CRH380 -- HST corridor will generate many, many economic benefits, the obvious among them:

1) Huge Saving of (3.2 Billion USD) / year for China in terms of the cost of Energy Usage 
in moving passengers between Beijing -- Shanghai. (Green Transportation Method)

2) Linking the cities along the HST corridor to generate economic activities 
that produce so many unmeasurable long term economic and cultural benefits.


----------



## stingstingsting

Mika Montwald said:


> We know one country (in North America) is begging China to finance and build this CRH380 system for them, and pay the whole projects in WORTHLESS monopoly money.
> 
> :colgate::rofl: :lol:
> 
> ---------------------------------------------


*SHUT UP TROLL.*​Stop with your annoying nonsense. Enough with Canada and China. And try to find some manners while getting rid of your arrogance that will sure land you in hot boiling soup someday. WTF is wrong with you Mika? I've reported you to the mods already.

Anyway, with Kashgar to Haotan, what is actually the reason behind connecting with Haotan? It seems very remote and interesting considering Kashgar doesnt seem to be connected to other rail networks in neighbouring countries. Is it more of freight (incl. resources mining) or passengers where the demand lies?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

stingstingsting said:


> Anyway, with Kashgar to Haotan, what is actually the reason behind connecting with Haotan? It seems very remote and interesting considering Kashgar doesnt seem to be connected to other rail networks in neighbouring countries. Is it more of freight (incl. resources mining) or passengers where the demand lies?


Remote, but Hotan looks like one of most populous cities in Xinjiang that did not already have a rail connection of any kind. As for why Kashgar rather than, say, Aksu, note that the population is concentrated in a string of oases at the foot of mountains between Kashgar and Hotan.


----------



## greenlion

greenlion said:


> Discovery: Beijing - Shanghai High Speed Railway and CRH380 trains
> 
> http://www.imgo.tv/player/ref_imgo_player.swf?tid=122&cid=68282&fid=78353&snd=1&fst=1&pic=0


anyone has links to the English version of the documentary movie? every time I watch a discovery documentary movie, I prefer English version much more than the Chinese version.


----------



## foxmulder

WatcherZero said:


> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a109764-eaa8-11df-b28d-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz14egvjy9L



This shows how busy the line is;



yaohua2000 said:


> Incorrect. How can rush hour interval be 15 minutes if average interval is only 11 minutes?
> 
> Guangzhou South station departures (northward):
> - 06:50 to Wuhan
> - 06:55 to Changsha South
> - 07:05 to Wuhan
> - 07:17 to Wuhan
> - 07:22 to Changsha South
> - 07:32 to Wuhan
> - 07:39 to Wuhan
> - 07:55 to Wuhan
> - 08:05 to Changsha South
> - 08:15 to Wuhan
> - 08:22 to Changsha South
> - 08:36 to Wuhan
> - 08:44 to Wuhan
> - 09:00 to Wuhan
> - 09:08 to Wuhan
> - 09:13 to Changsha South
> - 09:22 to Wuhan
> - 09:36 to Wuhan
> - 09:52 to Wuhan
> - 10:00 to Wuhan
> - 10:06 to Wuhan
> - 10:20 to Wuhan
> - 10:29 to Changsha South
> - 10:45 to Wuhan
> - 10:57 to Wuhan
> - 11:07 to Changsha South
> - 11:20 to Wuhan
> - 11:33 to Wuhan
> - 11:46 to Wuhan
> - 12:00 to Changsha South
> - 12:16 to Wuhan
> - 12:28 to Wuhan
> - 12:33 to Wuhan
> - 12:51 to Wuhan
> - 12:57 to Changsha South
> - 13:05 to Wuhan
> - 13:30 to Wuhan
> - 13:36 to Wuhan
> - 13:51 to Changsha South
> - 14:00 to Wuhan
> - 14:10 to Wuhan
> - 14:20 to Changsha South
> - 14:25 to Wuhan
> - 14:36 to Wuhan
> - 14:43 to Changsha South
> - 15:00 to Wuhan
> - 15:05 to Wuhan
> - 15:15 to Wuhan
> - 15:28 to Changsha South
> - 15:38 to Wuhan
> - 15:49 to Changsha South
> - 16:00 to Wuhan
> - 16:10 to Wuhan
> - 16:21 to Changsha South
> - 16:34 to Wuhan
> - 16:45 to Wuhan
> - 17:00 to Wuhan
> - 17:05 to Changsha South
> - 17:10 to Wuhan
> - 17:22 to Changsha South
> - 17:32 to Wuhan
> - 17:44 to Changsha South
> - 17:54 to Wuhan
> - 18:00 to Wuhan
> - 18:15 to Changsha South
> - 18:25 to Wuhan
> - 18:40 to Changsha South
> - 18:50 to Changsha South
> - 19:20 to Changsha South
> - 19:28 to Changsha South
> - 19:38 to Wuhan
> - 20:00 to Wuhan
> - 20:25 to Changsha South
> - 20:50 to Changsha South
> - 21:30 to Changsha South






yaohua2000 said:


> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/dfpd/hunan/2010-10-04/content_961953.html
> 
> According to report, the Wuhan–Guangzhou HSR line transported 118 thousand people on October 1, 2010, in a single day.


----------



## WatcherZero

Doesnt matter how many are carried if it cant meet the commercial loan repayments, The governments concern is the second wave of locally promoted HSR lines lack joined up planning and will cannibalise each others potential users. When you also factor in that 70% of all local councils are insolvent according to official state figures due to overspeculation in property the governments really worried of a big infrastructure and banking collapse.


----------



## foxmulder

WatcherZero said:


> Doesnt matter how many are carried if it cant meet the commercial loan repayments, The governments concern is the second wave of locally promoted HSR lines lack joined up planning and will cannibalise each others potential users. When you also factor in that 70% of all local councils are insolvent according to official state figures due to overspeculation in property the governments really worried of a big infrastructure and banking collapse.


So is this about current high speed main trunk lines or some future lines hence just about speculation?

*If* this is about *current *main trunk lines, numbers are here and they cannot be better.


----------



## Luli Pop

Who cares if repayment is not assured if there's:


1) Huge Saving of (3.2 Billion USD just for Beijing -- Shanghai) / year for China in terms of the cost of Energy Usage 
in moving passengers between Beijing -- Shanghai. (Green Transportation Method)

2) Linking the cities along the HST corridor to generate economic activities 
that produce so many unmeasurable long term economic and cultural benefits.

It's macroeconomics idiots!!!


----------



## wharton2010

greenlion said:


> Discovery: Beijing - Shanghai High Speed Railway and CRH380 trains
> 
> http://www.imgo.tv/player/ref_imgo_player.swf?tid=122&cid=68282&fid=78353&snd=1&fst=1&pic=0


Anybody has the original English version of this Man Made Marvels on Discovery Channel?


----------



## Bandit

If you believe the statistics the average Chinese can't buy a car yet China is the largest car market in the world. And the majority pays cash and don't get a car loan. Look at the "coming collapse of China" because of the real estate bubble. Now they're saying the real estate bubble has been safely deflating. Interesting how the theme is somehow China can't control anything when it comes to economy because they want to believe China is not as advanced as they are and yet it has handled everything in a very pragmatic manner. Not saying China is advanced. Just saying the critics ain't as advanced as they think. They also believe corruption is there somewhere but their's is actually worse. They've just made it official so it can't be called corruption. And the final nail on the coffin is this financial crisis. What they said couldn't happen and it did. What more exposes the "official" corruption than this at a scale never before?


----------



## hmmwv

Frankly speaking in today's China building infrastructure is like playing SimCity with a unlimited money patch, I'm Lovin' it! The initial build up is the hard part, once the system is in place revenue will start to come like there is no tomorrow.


----------



## Bandit

double post deleted


----------



## Nozumi 300

Back in August I had the chance to take the CRH from Shanghai to Wuhan and then down to Guangzhou. When I was looking at the schedule for the CRH between Shanghai and Wuhan, there only seems to be one train that go to Wuhan station and the rest go to Wuchang (2 trains) and Hankou. Does anyone know why there is only one trip to Wuhan? In the future will there be more trips to Wuhan once the Beijing-Guangzhou line is complete? Thanks in advance.


----------



## Pansori

z0rg said:


> Wow, this is so obviously ridiculous. Those lines are operating at half their capacity because the whole system is still u/c. No large infraestructure project operates at full capacity as soon as it opens, airports, subways, highways... Normally it takes years till the natural demand assimilates the new service, especially when there're still more projects in the pipeline that will integrate with the current lines. Look at the airports, they protested a lot when Pudong and Beijing launched their monster airport projects. Now Beijing is reaching its maximum capacity within 2012-2013 and Pudong is operating above its current capacity either so that they are accelerating extension plans.


Hmm. Knowing that the minimum interval for hi-speed trains is around 5 minutes or less I wonder why FT is not reporting that most other HSR lines in the world are operating at far less than 1/2 of their capacity?

If you look at this map it's obvious that Guangzhou-Wuhan cannot operate at full capacity at the moment and if it would it would probably face colossal capacity issues after opening new lines between Wuhan and Beijing and Changsha-Shanghai link plus there may be other direct services which will use the same track? It's amazing that a newspaper as serious as FT could write such nonsense. 

It would be suicidal to build less capacity and slower trains in China at the moment. It's not really rocket science to see why: population and population density along with massive urban centers. Unless it wants to entrap itself into insufficient and inadequate infrastructure (as some big countries in Asia already did) it MUST build it and do it ASAP because cost of not-doing that will far exceed any "debts" mentioned in that article which was obviously written by someone who never even bothered to look at China's population and HSR map.


----------



## :jax:

Luli Pop said:


> Who cares if repayment is not assured if there's:
> 
> 
> 1) Huge Saving of (3.2 Billion USD just for Beijing -- Shanghai) / year for China in terms of the cost of Energy Usage
> in moving passengers between Beijing -- Shanghai. (Green Transportation Method)
> 
> 2) Linking the cities along the HST corridor to generate economic activities
> that produce so many unmeasurable long term economic and cultural benefits.
> 
> It's macroeconomics idiots!!!


There are good reasons to care about repayment, otherwise we would end up with projects that would be little use to anyone. The current projects definitely are, though I am a little less sure about a few of the planned ones, there is some exuberance in the system.

The two goals above are in conflict. Yes, rail saves energy, as long as it isn't too high-speed anyway, but this saving will be offset by greater use of these traffic corridors (that should give rise to "long term economic and cultural benefits", most which should be possible to measure).


----------



## hmmwv

Funny thing is, both explosions in rail road construction are largely done by Chinese labor.


----------



## fragel

WatcherZero said:


> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a109764-eaa8-11df-b28d-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz14egvjy9L
> 
> 
> 
> Beijing reviews high-speed rail plans
> By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
> 
> Published: November 7 2010 19:56 | Last updated: November 7 2010 19:56
> 
> China’s Ministry of Railways is conducting a review of the country’s ambitious high-speed rail proposals after _an influential state-backed think-tank raised questions about the affordability and practicality of the planned network._
> ...
> The review – and _possible scaling back_ – comes as provincial officials appear to have caught bullet train fever.
> ...
Click to expand...

*
Ministry of Railways: The Financial Times report is false. *

Chinese report link



> 针对近日英国媒体抛出的“中科院专家表示高铁建设不实用，中国可能负担不了”的言论，记者采访了铁道部工程管理中心工程部高级工程师廖云奇，他说，国外的说法是虚假的。
> 
> In response to the recent British report on 'an influential state-backed think-tank raised questions about the affordability and practicality of the planned network', Yunqi Liao, senior engineer at the Engineering Department of Engineering Management Center of MOR, said in an interview that the foreign report was false.





> 今天上午，铁道部新闻发言人王勇平表示，中国铁路现代化按照既定目标正健康有序推进，《中长期铁路网规划》目标一定会实现。
> 
> 王勇平是就“外国媒体报道中国铁道部可能缩减兴建高铁计划规模一事”做出上述表示的。
> 
> MOR spokesman Yongping Wang said this morning that modernization of China's rail system is being carried on in a healthy and orderly way according to plans, and the Mid & Long-term Railway Network Plan will definitely be accomplished.
> 
> Yongping Wang made those comments in response to the foreign report on 'possible scaling back of Chinese HSR construction'.


----------



## Luli Pop

FT is shameless


----------



## Pansori

Oh dear what a fail by FT... on the other hand, who could deny that someone hasn't made a few (dozens) of millions of $ due to the fallen share price after the FT's "news" about that "report"? Well done. 
That's how the media works and that's how some are making millions out of nothing.


----------



## aleantik

ANR said:


> BEIJING - China will set up an 85,000-km national freeway network and a 40,000-km high-speed railway network during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), said a leading official from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The freeway network will cover all cities with a population of at least 200,000(ADB).


I hope that China will base his grown on railways ( people ( conmuters ans HSL ) and freight ) and no in freeways that tends to promote unsustainable way on transport, its a key question for the future. China used to have a huge quantinty of people moving by bicycle, that´s the image we had of China now cities has been transformed and not alway for better we can see now more freeways as barriers that tends to get saturated more quick than we can think, wasted money,


----------



## WatcherZero

fragel said:


> *
> Ministry of Railways: The Financial Times report is false. *
> 
> Chinese report link


Hehe, true PR answering a different question to that which was asked, the FT report wasnt about the national rail building program but the local stimulus based ones.


----------



## fragel

^^ 'true PR answering'? the FT report claimed that MOR was reviewing their network plan, which would lead to possible scaling back. Now official responses from MOR said both were not true, as MOR will continue carrying out the existing plan. That is clarification of false reporting, not answering questions.

Also I didn't see that FT report was about the local stimulus based ones. If anything, it was the report that linked the local stimulus fund to the Chinese national HSR network in the first place. Why would they use Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR as an example (failed example anyway) if they were talking about local stimulus based ones?(and no railway will be completely locally funded since MOR always invests partially) They could have done a valid news report if they had focused on the so called Academic of Science report, but they spent more effort on making false claims without verification. They succeeded in a way because the claims had caught many eyeballs in China. And see the Bloomberg news about the damage of this false report to the CSR stock price:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...china-is-reviewing-high-speed-rail-plans.html



> *China Trainmaker CSR Falls on Report China Reviewing High-Speed Rail Plans*
> By Bloomberg News -
> 
> CSR Corp., a Beijing-based railcar maker, fell the most in more than 14 months in Hong Kong trading after the Financial Times reported that China was reviewing plans to expand its high-speed rail network.
> 
> The shares dropped 6.6 percent, the biggest decline since Aug. 17, 2009, to HK$9.02 at the 4 p.m. close in Hong Kong.
> 
> China’s Ministry of Railways is reviewing high-speed rail proposals after a report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the State Council raised questions about their practicality and affordability, the Financial Times said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. China’s Premier Wen Jiabao has seen the report and asked for further talks on the project, according to the report.
> 
> The rail ministry declined to comment by phone today.
> 
> China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, said in July it needed about 800 billion yuan ($120 billion) to complete high-speed rail projects as the country invests in train services to pare pollution and travel times.
> 
> The country plans to increase high-speed railroads to 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) by the end of 2012 and to 18,000 kilometers by 2020 from the current 3,676 kilometers, according to Citigroup Inc. analyst Zhen Ni.
> 
> A 1,318-kilometer rapid railroad linking Beijing and Shanghai, due to open in 2012, will cut journey times to about four hours from 10 hours, according to the rail ministry.
> 
> --Ying Tian in Beijing. Editors: Dave McCombs, Terje Langeland.


----------



## Bandit

Remember how the newspaper of record, the New York Times, helped lie about WMDs in Iraq? They make up sh*t! That's a fact.

Just look at how they keep complaining how China is not transparent yet they seem to know everything happening in China. What does that mean? They make up sh*t all the time! It's not someone is going to go fact check. Look at the New York Times scandals where writers completely made up stories and all it would've taken to confirm was a little fact checking and the editors didn't even bother. And those were stories at home. You think they would care if their writers made up crap about countries half way around the world?


----------



## Luli Pop

Every single year since 2001 FT and NYT lied saying that China was about to overheat its economy, and that next year GDP growth would be lower.

Those false statements were intentioned.

New Nobel Prize is intentioned.

I'm not even chinese but I'm tired of occidental newspapers lying about China, Irak, Russia.


----------



## phat100cai

Luli Pop!
Everything you said is stink. I don't want to see your comment agian, idiot!!


----------



## UD2

phat100cai said:


> Luli Pop!
> Everything you said is stink. I don't want to see your comment agian, idiot!!


^^

troll warning...


----------



## Mika Montwald

phat100cai said:


> Luli Pop!
> Everything you said is .... I don't want to see your comment agian, idiot!!


Luli Pop is nice and wonderful posters who is showing the true color of (90% of the pro Anglo Saxon media). 

We all enjoy Luli Pop postings. 

There is no denying the fact that many, many (pro American+ese) Anglo Saxon are trembling and 
extremely jealous at the prospect of Peaceful Rising China, thus many, many (pro American+ese) Anglo Saxon
are bending over backward to create malicious manipulation and outright lies when it comes to 
all good things in China. 

They always show up with the back door evil hope of sabotaging China amazing progress. 

-------------------------------------------------------

Those who attack Luli Pop --- could very well be an UNEMPLOYED Joe Blow 
from US or UK who is living off on a welfare line. :bash:

Stop being a lower life parasite, and get to work as a general laborer. 

I am not sure if "Watchernada" is also on the same category as the above ??

-------------------------------------------------------


Now back to the thread INVIGORATING topic of "*China Railway Development News*" :banana: epper:


----------



## :jax:

What about getting back on topic? Chinese railway developments are fascinating, infantile rantings are not.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> And see the Bloomberg news about the damage of this false report to the CSR stock price:
> 
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...china-is-reviewing-high-speed-rail-plans.html





Bloomberg said:


> The country plans to increase high-speed railroads to 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) by the end of 2012 and to 18,000 kilometers by 2020 from the current 3,676 kilometers, according to Citigroup Inc. analyst Zhen Ni.
> 
> A 1,318-kilometer rapid railroad linking Beijing and Shanghai, due to open in 2012, will cut journey times to about four hours from 10 hours, according to the rail ministry.


Is Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway due to open in 2012 or in 2011?


----------



## dumbfword

Mika Montwald said:


> Luli Pop is nice and wonderful posters who is showing the true color of (90% of the pro Anglo Saxon media).
> 
> We all enjoy Luli Pop postings.
> 
> There is no denying the fact that many, many (pro American+ese) Anglo Saxon are trembling and
> extremely jealous at the prospect of Peaceful Rising China, thus many, many (pro American+ese) Anglo Saxon
> are bending over backward to create malicious manipulation and outright lies when it comes to
> all good things in China.
> 
> They always show up with the back door evil hope of sabotaging China amazing progress.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Those who attack Luli Pop --- could very well be an UNEMPLOYED Joe Blow
> from US or UK who is living off on a welfare line. :bash:
> 
> Stop being a lower life parasite, and get to work as a general laborer.
> 
> I am not sure if "Watchernada" is also on the same category as the above ??
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> Now back to the thread INVIGORATING topic of "*China Railway Development News*"  :banana: epper:


Why doesn't anything ever happen to this troll? He offers up baseless stuff and insults without proof with the sole purpose of trying to start a flame war.


----------



## fragel

chornedsnorkack said:


> Is Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway due to open in 2012 or in 2011?


I am not sure if this was posted already, but apparently a recent news piece reported that the Beijing-Shanghai HSR construction was ahead of schedule. So it is originally scheduled to open in 2012, but will possibly open in 2011.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7193403.html



> Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway may open next October
> 15:12, November 09, 2010
> 
> *Track construction for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Jiangsu Province and Shanghai has been finished ahead of schedule, drastically shortening the planned construction time, which means it is possible for the high-speed railway to open by the National Day on Oct. 1, 2011, according to sources from the Ministry of Transportation.
> *
> The construction of the 1,318-kilometer-long Beijing-Shanghai high-Speed railway began in March 2008. The railway adopts ballast-less tracks that are already used on the Shanghai-Nanjiing Intercity Railway. The 500-meter-long tracks are welded together so there will be no gaps on the 1,318-kilometer-long track. This guarantees a smooth and comfortable ride for passengers.
> 
> After open to traffic, a ride from Beijing to Shanghai will take just four hours, 10 hours less than the current time. It will transport more than 80 million passengers on the one-way railway one year.
> 
> The high-speed Railway is compatible with the 200-kilometer-long existing railway, which allows trains running at 200 kilometers per hour or above use the high-speed railway too.
> 
> Sources said a new-generation bullet train that will travel up to 380 kilometers per hour is now under development for the high-speed rail link.
> 
> The high-speed railway between China's two most important metropolises is part of China's ambitious high-speed railway program. Ministry of Railways Vice-Minister Wang Zhiguo said China will complete an 110,000-kilometer railway network by 2012, including 13,000 kilometers of high-speed rail.
> 
> Ultimately, China plans to construct a 120,000-kilometer railway network, including 50,000-kilometers of high-speed rail track, by 2020.
> 
> By People's Daily Online





> Track construction for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Jiangsu Province and Shanghai has been finished ahead of schedule...The railway adopts ballast-less tracks that are already used on the Shanghai-Nanjiing Intercity Railway.


My understanding is that they probably share the same track and concrete bed manufacturing and laying facilities set up for the Shanghai-Nanjing ICL, so they didn't have to start from scratch. This may have greatly sped up the track-laying procedure.


----------



## Bandit

dumbfword said:


> Why doesn't anything ever happen to this troll? He offers up baseless stuff and insults without proof with the sole purpose of trying to start a flame war.


Baseless stuff? :lol::lol::lol: Have you looked in the mirror?


----------



## dumbfword

Bandit said:


> Baseless stuff? :lol::lol::lol: Have you looked in the mirror?


Please take white knighting to pms.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Every new news is a new and contradictory plan:



greenlion said:


> HSR lines that planned to open before 2012
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> 20. Jinghu PDL        2011/June         1318 km      350km/h


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...china-is-reviewing-high-speed-rail-plans.html


Bloomberg said:


> A 1,318-kilometer rapid railroad linking Beijing and Shanghai, due to open in 2012,


http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7193403.html


People's Daily Online said:


> Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway may open next October
> 15:12, November 09, 2010
> 
> Track construction for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Jiangsu Province and Shanghai has been finished ahead of schedule, drastically shortening the planned construction time, which means it is possible for the high-speed railway to open by the National Day on Oct. 1, 2011, according to sources from the Ministry of Transportation.


...this last story is actually 2 contradictory dates: "next October" means *after* 1st of October, while "by the National Day" means before 1st of October, in *september*.

Which month is planned, then? June 2011, September 2011, October 2011, sometime in 2012?


----------



## binhai

June 2011


----------



## fragel

chornedsnorkack said:


> Every new news is a new and contradictory plan:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...china-is-reviewing-high-speed-rail-plans.html
> 
> http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7193403.html
> 
> 
> ...this last story is actually 2 contradictory dates: "next October" means *after* 1st of October, while "by the National Day" means before 1st of October, in *september*.
> 
> Which month is planned, then? June 2011, September 2011, October 2011, sometime in 2012?


The 'June 2011' date comes from the optimists. October 2011 sounds more realistic to me, since they have to spend quite some time doing all the testing. If anything, it should open way ahead of the original scheduled open date which is late 2012.

All the *speculated* open dates were based on how well the construction was going on. Different agencies report on the same line with different sources, some are ridiculous, like yesterday's FOX news said China 'announcing just last week its plan to build an 820-mile high-speed railway from Beijing to Shanghai'.

Seriously, I don't think anyone can come up with a precise open date if the workers are trying to beat the deadline by a large amount of time. I say at this stage if one wants a precise date, then he/she shall not trust all the media reports and wait for official open date from the authorities, which is probably not available till some 10 days before the actual open date.


----------



## binhai

Basically the tracks are almost completed, just track testing and stations need to be completed (the 2 terminus stations are already complete anyway)


----------



## SimFox

But Tianjin West is very far from being complete.


----------



## fragel

construction site of Shanghai section on the Beijing-Shanghai HSR
pic source: xinhua (taken by Niu Yixin on Nov 10th)


----------



## foxmulder

fragel said:


> construction site of Shanghai section on the Beijing-Shanghai HSR
> pic source: xinhua (taken by Niu Yixin on Nov 10th)



This small picture is one of the best. I loved it, hope to see a larger version. Elevated, electrified tracks, high speed train... it is just awesome.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> Seriously, I don't think anyone can come up with a precise open date if the workers are trying to beat the deadline by a large amount of time. I say at this stage if one wants a precise date, then he/she shall not trust all the media reports and wait for official open date from the authorities, which is probably not available till some 10 days before the actual open date.


It is 13th of November now, so there is 7 days before 20th of November. 

Is Yichang-Enshi-Wanzhou railway on time to open on 20th?


----------



## binhai

SimFox said:


> But Tianjin West is very far from being complete.


They can easily finish it within 7 months, it's the China speed you know (Beijing South looked very incomplete just weeks before it opened), plus not all stations have to be complete by the time the line opens


----------



## k.k.jetcar

Restless said:


> I'd qualify that with the following statement:
> 
> The Tokaido (Tokyo-Osaka) Shinkansen has a huge operating profit and easily repaid its construction costs. There is no dispute about this.
> 
> However, most/all of the other Shinkansens have an operating profit, but this is unable to repay the construction costs.
> 
> The Shinakansens also promote growth in the rest of the economy, so the net benefit to society may be positive (eg. additional growth and tax revenue), although the railway company itself may run at a loss.


Highways and airports don't repay their operating costs-they are tax payer supported, so the relevant yardstick is whether a transport system covers its operating costs. 

JR East's financial statements, page 68 shows a net income of 1.29 billion USD at the end of Mar. 2010.
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/investor/ar/2010/pdf/ar_2010_12.pdf

A private urban railway case, Keihin Kyuko, which serves the Tokyo/Yokohama area as well as Haneda AP, net income of 72 million USD in 2009.
http://www.keikyu.co.jp/worldwide/financial.html


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> China's high-speed train project was first planned in 1992 and was officially launched in 2004. The project adheres to independent innovation and has made significant achievements. *Part of the design has been transferred to the United States.*


I wasn't aware of this example of Chinese technical largesse. Where (or what) is this in the United States specifically?


----------



## Restless

k.k.jetcar said:


> Highways and airports don't repay their operating costs-they are tax payer supported, so the relevant yardstick is whether a transport system covers its operating costs.
> 
> JR East's financial statements, page 68 shows a net income of 1.29 billion USD at the end of Mar. 2010.
> http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/investor/ar/2010/pdf/ar_2010_12.pdf
> 
> A private urban railway case, Keihin Kyuko, which serves the Tokyo/Yokohama area as well as Haneda AP, net income of 72 million USD in 2009.
> http://www.keikyu.co.jp/worldwide/financial.html


Wow... (toll) highways and airports can't even meet their operating costs in Japan???

In China:
1. the railways always post an operating profit, but generally not enough to repay construction costs
2. the 65000km network of toll expressways that was built in the past 10years generates enough profits to repay the construction debts. That's why the network expanded so fast.
3. the airports also generate large operating profits, which do cover construction debts.

References below (even if the title says India)
http://www.trend-news.com/default.asp?newsid=7857
http://www.thomaswhite.com/explore-the-world/BRIC-spotlight/2010/china-toll-roads-expressways.aspx
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3509828/Financial-turnaround-of-the-Indian-Railways


NB. It is very rare in China/India/UK etc for an infrastructure project to be UNABLE to meet its operating costs. This is because viable projects normally require a large operating profit to repay the huge debts that arise during construction.


----------



## Gag Halfrunt

k.k.jetcar said:


> I wasn't aware of this example of Chinese technical largesse. Where (or what) is this in the United States specifically?


IIRC, GE has signed an agreement with the Chinese government to gain access to Chinese high speed rail technology.


----------



## riles28

fragel said:


> construction site of Shanghai section on the Beijing-Shanghai HSR
> pic source: xinhua (taken by Niu Yixin on Nov 10th)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is the one biggest loop of a high speed line, it will link the different lie of China high speed railway.


----------



## Restless

k.k.jetcar said:


> I wasn't aware of this example of Chinese technical largesse. Where (or what) is this in the United States specifically?


*China Is Eager to Bring High-Speed Rail Expertise to the U.S.*

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/global/08rail.html

BEIJING — Nearly 150 years after American railroads brought in thousands of Chinese laborers to build rail lines across the West, China is poised once again to play a role in American rail construction. But this time, it would be an entirely different role: supplying the technology, equipment and engineers to build high-speed rail lines.

The Chinese government has signed cooperation agreements with the State of California and General Electric to help build such lines. The agreements, both of which are preliminary, show China’s desire to become a big exporter and licensor of bullet trains traveling 215 miles an hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced past the United States in the last few years.

“We are the most advanced in many fields, and we are willing to share with the United States,” Zheng Jian, the chief planner and director of high-speed rail at China’s railway ministry, said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has closely followed progress in the discussions with China and hopes to come here later this year for talks with rail ministry officials, said David Crane, the governor’s special adviser for jobs and economic growth, and a board member of the California High Speed Rail Authority.

China is offering not just to build a railroad in California but also to help finance its construction, and Chinese officials have already been shuttling between Beijing and Sacramento to make presentations, Mr. Crane said in a telephone interview.

China is not the only country interested in selling high-speed rail equipment to the United States. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Spain, France and Italy have also approached California’s High Speed Rail Authority.

The agency has made no decisions on whose technology to choose. But Mr. Crane said that there were no apparent weaknesses in the Chinese offer, and that Governor Schwarzenegger particularly wanted to visit China this year for high-speed rail discussions.

Even if an agreement is reached for China to build and help bankroll a high-speed rail system in California, considerable obstacles would remain.

China’s rail ministry would face independent labor unions and democratically elected politicians, neither of which it has to deal with at home. The United States also has labor and immigration laws stricter than those in China.

In a nearly two-hour interview at the rail ministry’s monolithic headquarters here, Mr. Zheng said repeatedly that any Chinese bid would comply with all American laws and regulations.

China’s rail ministry has an international reputation for speed and low costs, and is opening 1,200 miles of high-speed rail routes this year alone. China is moving rapidly to connect almost all of its own provincial capitals with bullet trains.

But while the ministry has brought costs down through enormous economies of scale, “buy American” pressures could make it hard for China to export the necessary equipment to the United States.

The railways ministry has concluded a framework agreement to license its technology to G.E., which is a world leader in diesel locomotives but has little experience with the electric locomotives needed for high speeds.

According to G.E., the agreement calls for at least 80 percent of the components of any locomotives and system control gear to come from American suppliers, and labor-intensive final assembly would be done in the United States for the American market. China would license its technology and supply engineers as well as up to 20 percent of the components.

State-owned Chinese equipment manufacturers initially licensed many of their designs over the last decade from Japan, Germany and France. While Chinese companies have gone on to make many changes and innovations, Japanese executives in particular have grumbled that Chinese technology resembles theirs, raising the possibility of legal challenges if any patents have been violated.

All of the technology would be Chinese, Mr. Zheng said.

China has already begun building high-speed rail routes in Turkey, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It is looking for opportunities in seven other countries, notably a route sought by the Brazilian government between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Mr. Zheng said.

International rail experts say that China has mastered the art of building high-speed rail lines quickly and inexpensively.

“These guys are engineering driven — they know how to build fast, build cheaply and do a good job,” said John Scales, the lead transport specialist in the Beijing office of the World Bank.

The California rail authority plans to spend $43 billion to build a 465-mile route from San Francisco to Los Angeles and on to Anaheim that is supposed to open in 2020. The authority was awarded $2.25 billion in January in federal economic stimulus money to work on the project.

The authority’s plans call for $10 billion to $12 billion in private financing. Mr. Crane said China could provide much of that, with federal, state and local jurisdictions providing the rest. Mr. Zheng declined to discuss financial details.

China’s mostly state-controlled banks had few losses during the global financial crisis and are awash with cash now because of tight regulation and a fast-growing economy. The Chinese government is also becoming disenchanted with bonds and looking to diversify its $2.4 trillion in foreign reserves by investing in areas like natural resources and overseas rail projects.

“They’ve got a lot of capital, and they’re willing to provide a lot of capital” for a California high-speed rail system, Mr. Crane said.

Later plans call for the California line to be extended to Sacramento and San Diego, while a private consortium hopes to build a separate route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Toyota is shutting a big assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that it once operated as a joint venture with General Motors, and one idea under discussion is converting the factory to the assembly of high-speed rail equipment, said Mr. Crane, who is also a member of the state’s Economic Development Commission.

Rail parts from China would then come through the nearby port of Oakland, in place of auto parts from Japan.

“High-speed rail requires a lot of high technology — we would send many high-end engineers and high-end technicians” to California, Mr. Zheng said.

G.E. estimates that the United States will spend $13 billion in the next five years on high-speed rail routes. China, with a much more ambitious infrastructure program, will spend $300 billion in the next three years on overall expansion of its rail routes, mainly high-speed routes, according to G.E.

China’s long-term vision calls for high-speed rail routes linking Shanghai to Singapore and New Delhi by way of Myanmar, and someday connecting Beijing and Shanghai to Moscow to the northwest and through Tehran to Prague and Berlin, according to a map that Mr. Zheng keeps on a bookshelf behind his desk. He cautioned that there were no plans to start construction yet outside China.

A high-speed rail link for passengers from Beijing to Shanghai will be finished by the end of 2011 or early 2012, and cut the journey to four hours, from 10 hours now, Mr. Zheng said.

New York to Atlanta or Chicago is a similar distance, and takes 18 to 19 hours on Amtrak, which must share tracks with 12,000-ton freight trains and many commuter trains.

For the American market, Mr. Zheng said, “we can provide whatever services are needed.”


----------



## gincan

Restless said:


> A high-speed rail link for passengers from Beijing to Shanghai will be finished by the end of 2011 or early 2012, and cut the journey to four hours, from 10 hours now, Mr. Zheng said.
> 
> New York to Atlanta or Chicago is a similar distance, and takes 18 to 19 hours on Amtrak, which must share tracks with 12,000-ton freight trains and many commuter trains.


Mr Zheng obviously lives in a plastic bubble in the land of pink elephants :lol:

To even compare railway construction in China where de government simply bulldoze anything in the path of the railway and force evacuate anyone that resist or simply make them disappear hno:

In the US of A, just the cost of expropriating the land needed between New York and Chicago would deem the project uneconomical, then of cause there are the 15 to 20 years of legal battles the state need to win even before starting any construction.

And forget about building hundreds of kilometers of ugly concrete bridges that destroy the landscape, environmentalists would go postal over such a project. Not to mention the noise pollution laws which would kill any effort to run the trains at speeds high enough to complete the trip in 4 hour.


----------



## fragel

gincan said:


> Mr Zheng obviously lives in a plastic bubble in the land of pink elephants :lol:
> 
> To even compare railway construction in China where de government simply bulldoze anything in the path of the railway and force evacuate anyone that resist or simply make them disappear hno:
> 
> In the US of A, just the cost of expropriating the land needed between New York and Chicago would deem the project uneconomical, then of cause there are the 15 to 20 years of legal battles the state need to win even before starting any construction.
> 
> And forget about building hundreds of kilometers of ugly concrete bridges that destroy the landscape, environmentalists would go postal over such a project. Not to mention the noise pollution laws which would kill any effort to run the trains at speeds high enough to complete the trip in 4 hour.



senseless crap again and again. unless you live in another parallel universe, I can't imagine any normal person would say anything like your last paragraph...

if you don't know anything about China (apparently you don't and you are only imagining what it is like) and only have the ability to repeat what the biased media fed you, stop polluting this thread.


----------



## Pansori

Another media pearl 

*An emerging but fragile China*
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111206538.html


> Yet word is emerging here that China's Ministry of Railways is rethinking its ambitious plans to expand the high-speed-rail system after experts found that it is dreadfully expensive and already deep in debt and cannot be efficiently connected to the rest of the country's transportation infrastructure.


Whut? :lol:
I guess the allegations that journalists may simply make anything up and then write it as a "news" may be not that far from truth. It is really amazing how such utter nonsense could ever make it to a "respectable" newspaper. Sounds very tabloid.


----------



## mgk920

fragel said:


> senseless crap again and again. unless you live in another parallel universe, I can't imagine any normal person would say anything like your last paragraph...
> 
> if you don't know anything about China (apparently you don't and you are only imagining what it is like) and only have the ability to repeat what the biased media fed you, stop polluting this thread.


Several lengthy sections of such a Chicago-NYC line could use the medians of interstate highways, especially on the western half, for ROW.

I would anticipate the I-5 median providing a major portion of the ROW for a Los Angeles-San Francisco line, too (along with tunneling under the 'Grapevine' and the hills in the Hollister area).

Mike


----------



## foxmulder

gincan said:


> Mr Zheng obviously lives in a plastic bubble in the land of pink elephants :lol:
> 
> To even compare railway construction in China where de government simply bulldoze anything in the path of the railway and force evacuate anyone that resist or simply make them disappear hno:
> 
> In the US of A, just the cost of expropriating the land needed between New York and Chicago would deem the project uneconomical, then of cause there are the 15 to 20 years of legal battles the state need to win even before starting any construction.
> 
> And forget about building hundreds of kilometers of ugly concrete bridges that destroy the landscape, environmentalists would go postal over such a project. Not to mention the noise pollution laws which would kill any effort to run the trains at speeds high enough to complete the trip in 4 hour.


Who was living in a plastic bubble? :nuts:


----------



## fragel

mgk920 said:


> Several lengthy sections of such a Chicago-NYC line could use the medians of interstate highways, especially on the western half, for ROW.
> 
> I would anticipate the I-5 median providing a major portion of the ROW for a Los Angeles-San Francisco line, too (along with tunneling under the 'Grapevine' and the hills in the Hollister area).
> 
> Mike


I figure you are replying to gincan's post.

The interstate highway network does provide a nice grid even for HSR. However, if US is to develop HSR, it should focus on the California line, Florida line and the northeastern corridor. Midwest(especially the Great Lakes area) is not really the best place to think about HSR, since Ohio and Wisconsin do not even want the federal HSR money. Although I enjoyed Amtrak's service from Detroit to Chicago (slow, unpunctual but still quite comfortable) and would love to see a HSR connecting these two cities, I think it is too premature to discuss the realization of such line. Anyway, I think this is well discussed in US HSR threads, and we probably should not spend too much time in this thread, as it was proven a troll magnet before.


----------



## gincan

mgk920 said:


> Several lengthy sections of such a Chicago-NYC line could use the medians of interstate highways, especially on the western half, for ROW.
> 
> I would anticipate the I-5 median providing a major portion of the ROW for a Los Angeles-San Francisco line, too (along with tunneling under the 'Grapevine' and the hills in the Hollister area).
> 
> Mike


Impossible, the interstates are not designed with enough curve radius for the HSR lines to run along them, you need 5 miles curv radius for 250 miles/hour trains.


----------



## SimFox

fragel said:


> ... His proof is quite straightforward:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A first look at the pictures does give you the impression that no one is taking the HSTs. *However, the original poster have twisted the facts to tell his story.* The truth is that he took the G7312(mentioned in his post) train which is a non-stop train on Shanghai-Hangzhou HSR starting at 12 at noon (non-rush hour for this line). His seat was in the sixth coach(as is also indicated in his post), and he took the pictures in the 7th or 8th coach. That means at least the previous six coaches were full (the ticketing system is updating but by the time he took those pictures, tickets were assigned in sequence). So even during the low ridership period of the whole day, that HST still had at least 75% (6 out of 8 coaches) of full ridership. Remember that this line was not in service until Oct. 26th and he took the pictures on Nov 2nd, so I'd say such ridership is not that bad at all. However, he successfully convinced many people that the whole train was empty and ridership was 'appalling'.


well this picture is to small to tell anything really... But the second one...
actually tells very interesting story!
Look at the very back of the picture. What do you see there? Well there is a man standing there. He appears to be in uniform (train stuff?) I remember seeing only girls working as coach attendants, only guys I've see were actual drivers...
At any rate this is clearly personnel of sorts. the fact that he stands like the in that place (entrance to the car) is an indication that this picture is taken not during actual run of the train but at the station.
Another proof for this is the light. The brightness level at the entrance very strongly indicates (I would even go as far as to say proves) that train door is open.
What does it tells us? Well the train is at the station and very likely boarding hadn't started yet. Normally in China you would be allowed to the platform just few minutes before the departure of the train. So there is normally big crown rushing in and train fills in a matter of minutes. But there are ways to sneak to the platform ahead of time - done so myself in Nanjing about a month ago. Once you're on the platform there is nobody there to stop you getting in to yet empty car and make some "proof" shots. Actually there are all sort of people around - cleaners, and even train stuff but they typically don't really get involved. If you are there they sort of assume you can/have to be there... Particularly if you have a camera (especially a big one). Also on both pictures you can very clearly see station platform through the windows of the train.

So what do we have there? Well a train at the station. So as such these could in NO way be any kind of proff for ridership figures.





fragel said:


> This is a very popular post. When people talked about low ridership of Shanghai-Hangzhou HSR, that is the one post they refer to. And even journalists wrote articles based on it. The truth behind the pictures is so hard for people to understand. Those people don't care about the fact that for some HSTs during the peak time, even the standing tickets are sold out. Similar posts appeared before for Wuhan-Guangzhou and Shanghai-Nanjing HSRs. But the thing is, even on the busiest metro system in the world, you will still be able to take a picture of a half-empty train during the non-rush hour, let alone a HST.
> 
> I don't believe washington post would do their own research on this matter, they probably just looked through the internet, and 'hey, come look at these pictures!'
> 
> washington post only referred to the financial times report, I think you already posted one of their reports. I noticed they now quoted a Chinese website instead of FT directly, but apparently that website quoted/repeated the FT report. They obviously neglected the MOR clarification(not sure if they were intended to).


That article is a really shameful piece of c..p! I mean such a apparently respectable newspaper should really filter it's sources. Using some random site on the net as a source... well. I'll write here that I have been on Mars. Will WP publish an article stating that first maned Mars expedition had already taken place (using this my statement as a source)?

If they claim Chinese Academy of Science had stated something source should be... right Chinese Academy of Science. Or the state office to which this report had been submitted. Otherwise... Well WP is quite a conservative paper isn't it? 

As for being in the red. Well I have heard this from many sources, including Chinese official ones. So I readily accept it. But one must put this into perspective. Yes these lines are in the red. Today.
But this is a massive infrastructure undertaking. It essentially creates entirely new ways to get around. So it is, in a way, supply that creates demand. Also one must keep in mind that we are talking about economy that grows at 8-10% per year. Or more! (Last 3 years Tianjin economy had been growing at about 16% per year!)... So even if demand is not there yet it will be in a matter of few years.

BTW ridership on JingJin (Beijing-Tianjin) HS PDL although said to be "disappointing" in it's first year of operation (according to China's audit office or something like this - don't remember official name) - at about 50% of estimated number (may be that is the ultimate source of all those "half empty trains" stories), was none-the-less 18,7mln passengers. In the second year this number had risen to 22,3 mln. And now in it's 3rd year the numbers for September (on average 69000 per day) suggest yearly figure of 25,2 mln.

Yet line still looses money. About 0.5 bln rmb per year. Estimates suggest that it will break even at about 30 mln passengers a year (at current prices).

This said, I have never seen half empty CRH train, and I have been on dozens and dozens of those (CRH1, CRH2, CRH3) at all times from yearly morning to late night. Most empty train I ever saw was about 75-80% full.

Another thing when talking about ridership numbers it is important to understand that there many various issues that may affect it. For instance at the same JingJin line. Lower than expected numbers could have been due to the relatively rare running of the train - one each 30 minutes or so. I assume it had been done to avoid "empty" trains - that would be quite embarrassing, now wouldn't it? Yet trains (well most of them) were paired ones eg 2x8carrage trains. To this day I can't understand the logic for such a decision. Could have there be some valid reason for it. May be. But knowing how things run in China there doesn't need to be one... Sadly there are very many examples of unprofessionalism and inexperience you see in China every day. And before all the "patriots" get together to bash me, know this - I'm just about biggest Sinophile there ever been! Yet one shouldn't be blind! For instance why on Earth there is no explicit schedule of HSR trains anywhere online? Not schedules made and published by individual fans, but the official one from MOR? Why it is impossible to buy tickets online? There are explanation to these, of course! Here is one given to the first question by an official at Hangzhou train station - "it all changes so fast..." (that is an explanation why there is no up to date schedule online!!!! What else should I say. China is growing country... so one must understand the pains of the process.
So back to trains... One improvement on JingJin line is that they have decoupled all the trains and set them running twice as often! I'm pretty sure that this measure alone had contributed quite a bit to the increase in ridership figures!

On the other hand- it is true that many are angry at increased fares that CRH brings. Particularly when these don't really come with any significant increase in speed - like in the situations when trains has to make many stops, and at some even stand and wait while faster non-stop one will pass it by (line on Nanjing-Shanghai line). Mind you, people on both ones, one that zips by at 300 km/h and one standing for 15 minutes at the station pay same fee! So, if you don't need to get directly from Nanjing to Shanghai, but instead are going from say Nanjing to Suzhou your price went up- yet you haven't really gotten anything, or much in return...

Plus... you would need to come to the station personally to buy a ticket. And if you want to make sure you get on train you need, you would need to do so few days ahead ... Those who are familiar with the situation on roads in major Chinese cities would understand what it entails! For others - it cold take half of your day! Yes, traffic is that bad!
Or course there are some local offices that can assist you with this, but there is no guarantee you'll have it nearby, you need to know where it is (where you suppose to get that info?!) plus you'd pay premium for "pleasure". Why there are NO sales over the internet (like for the plane tickets) is beyond me!

So to cut very long story short. 
1. I seriously doubt that there are ANY CRH trains that run empty or half empty (they would simply cancel those) on regular basis.
2. The proof-pictures are hoax/lie - choose what ever you want along these lines.
3. Yes the whole CRH system still goes through growth/birth pains and there are many things that should be adjusted and improved. But there is a progress... may be not quite as fast as one would want, but it is there.
4. Yes some, quite many actually, who are pissed at the whole thing. Because of increasing prices, and declining (as some say, and sometimes They are correct) quality of service - on G31 train from Beijing to Shanghai train only half of toilets were open. (in every second car) so people on these long (9+ hour) trip serviced by CRH1 had to do a lot or running and toilets became dirty and smelly rather fast.

But all-in-all it is still great system with huge potential! Especially if they increase subsidies for tickets to increase ridership!


----------



## foxmulder

fragel said:


> I just found some pictures of high speed rail construction on a Chinese photograph forum (bbs.xiangshu.com). Seems there are a few photographers interested in rail construction. I am going to post some of their work here(pic credits given to each photographer), hope this would not interrupt any ongoing discussion.


Are you kidding me?  Please post as many as you can. They are awesome.



About the ridership, there are a few official reports about ridership, you can find them in this topic. And you can find the ticket prices everywhere, again even in this very topic. Judge for yourself.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> *Yichang-Wanzhou PDL*
> photos taken by suangyun in Yichang


When shall it open for service?


----------



## fragel

@SimFox： very well said! You covered many topics and I agreed to most of what you said.

MOR (or TDB) is constantly under criticism by Chinese passengers. many people link unreasonable things done by MOR with its market dominance and outdated bureaucratic system. For instance, the online booking system was said to be ready at least next year, well I figure they didn't have the motivation to do so earlier, and there are concerns about those 'Huang Niu' (ticket scalpers) abusing such systems. But had they been as dedicated as the construction workers, this would already have been solved. management is indeed far from first-class and there is so much space for improvement.


but when it comes to railway construction, that is a different story. MOR gives better hardwares than softwares, something makes wonder if they really need to break up into two companies.


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## fragel

chornedsnorkack said:


> When shall it open for service?


I knew you were gonna ask:lol: But I am as clueless as you. My guess is the end of this month.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> MOR (or TDB) is constantly under criticism by Chinese passengers. many people link unreasonable things done by MOR with its market dominance and outdated bureaucratic system.





fragel said:


> But had they been as dedicated as the construction workers, this would already have been solved. management is indeed far from first-class and there is so much space for improvement.
> 
> but when it comes to railway construction, that is a different story. MOR gives better hardwares than softwares, something makes wonder if they really need to break up into two companies.


But the dedication of construction workers cannot repair poor decisions as to where they are told to build railways.


----------



## fragel

^^I don't understand what you mean by 'poor decisions as to where they are told to build railways', maybe you could share some examples? from my understanding the criticism and complaints are rather focused on the pricing, booking and general service.


----------



## stoneybee

Luli Pop said:


> ^^
> +1
> 
> I agree!
> 
> Please asian friends, don´t keep thinking of ¨west¨ as a whole.
> On one side it´s US and UK with they're particular cosmovision, and on the other side continental Europe.
> 
> Their social systems and educational levels are very diffent as well as moral standards. UK+US have double standards.
> 
> The it's latin America, and even some countries of former URSS that are definitively not eastern.
> 
> shitty press of UK and US is not press but governments right wing propaganda. as well as Nobel Prize and the Vatican.
> 
> I´m ¨western caucasian¨ but I´m not an idiot and know last Nobel Prizes from literatura one to peace one are almost McArthists and given by the extreme right of the US to its servents (even if it´s ceremony and foundation are in Scandinavia).
> 
> Regarding the Vatican, I perfectly remember when the pope did a massive beatification of 100 chinese that fought against comunism (beatification have never been done in mass before).
> 
> I´m sad to say that people behind this are evil, but it´s true.
> 
> I wonder if Hypertroll will recieve a Nobel Prize anytime soon...


Agree, and point taken, should'nt paint all media in a single brush.

I agree with you and I mainly refer to the "American & sometime UK" media, particularly the so call main stream media in these countries (and Canada is also taking a turn for the worse in recent years). 

I guess I (and I suspect many asians living in the west like me) am just gettng quite frustrated after 30 years of observing how they performed in this category. You would think that they would have learned something from after being wrong on China for 30 years. And yes, I get that they are also politically motivated in their reporting too.


----------



## stoneybee

fragel said:


> ^^I don't understand what you mean by 'poor decisions as to where they are told to build railways', maybe you could share some examples? from my understanding the criticism and complaints are rather focused on the pricing, booking and general service.


We need to take some of these complaints and criticism on the MOR with a grain of salt here. Normal Chinese people complaints about a lot of things just lile citizens from everywhere. That is just part of the human condition.

Some of them don't like what the MOR is doing simply because it is big and powerful, and probably because it is the only game in town. It is like a lot of people don't lile New York or a lot of people in Canada hates Toronto. People have a natural dislike for the big and strong, again part of the basic human condition.

Of course, not everything that MOR does is right or good. However, based on my own personal experience alone, China's MOR is a lot better than Amtrak and Via Rail of Canada, and even some of the European railway services that I have riden on, and that goes for both infrastructure and personal service, yes I do mean personal service.

Generally speaking, I found that I actually get better service in China than in the "west", again not to generalize for all the "west". This is especially true when it comes to governmental agencies.


----------



## 33Hz

Bird01 said:


> The railway on viaduct saves 50-60% of land compared with the ground based railway, eliminates level-crosses, reduces the risk of accidents, lets the animal pass through the railway freely, lets the trains run more smoothly, and finally it looks gorgeous.


While all this is true, it also hugely increases the amount of concrete used in the construction and hence the CO2 emissions. The amount given off by concrete is big enough that if the reason for the route's construction is environmental, then this kind of huge viaduct should not be used. You may not pay back the "carbon debt" vs. equivalent plane flights, even in 100 years.





Luli Pop said:


> I´m ¨western caucasian¨ but I´m not an idiot and know last Nobel Prizes from literatura one to peace one are almost McArthists and given by the extreme right of the US to its servents (even if it´s ceremony and foundation are in Scandinavia).


You mean like Barack Obama?




stoneybee said:


> Agree, and point taken, should'nt paint all media in a single brush.


I do not think this recent bad press is anti-Chinese. I think it is anti-HSR.

Most of the press in the UK and US is right wing. Both countries are proposing to spend a lot of public money on HSR projects, but the true right wing in both countries do not want this (insert your own oil conspiracies etc here).

So do not take this personally China - they are attacking our projects too. They think that if they can show your own mega-projects are not viable, it will discredit our own schemes.


----------



## hmmwv

fragel said:


>


What idiot is gonna fall for those two pics? The first one you can see the train station's pillar outside the right hand windows, and a person's feet outside the left side window. The second pic you can see light shine at where that train attendant stands, indicating the door is open. Both pics were taken when the train is at the station, probably before boarding starts. Right now it's still pretty difficult to secure a HSR ticket for lines running around the Yangtze river delta. Low ridership?! Give me a break.


----------



## Geography

A few weeks or months after an HSR line opens is the wrong way to evaluate whether they are a success. Transportation infrastructure is always a long-term investment, one of the longest term investments anywhere except maybe building a dam. If the trains were 90+% full at the beginning, that would be nice but indicate poor planning for expansion. China is less than 60% urban, still growing about 0.2% a year (0.2% out of 1.3 billion is a lot of people), and the HSR network is left than have completed.

The American interstate highway system is often compared to China's HSR system. It opened in the 1950s and has been wildly popular and economic successful. Take a look at pictures from my hometown of Austin when it first opened:

1959:









1957:









Look how empty it was! Today it is packed from 7 AM to 9 PM, bumper to bumper many times. It would have been wrong to deem I-35 a failure and waste of money in 1957, so don't do the same thing for China's HSR network until at least five years have passed.

SimFox and Fragel, email the Washington Post. The piece everyone is criticizing was an op-ed and it is normal for papers to publish letters to the editor in response. Better yet, write you own articulate defense and justification of the HSR network to publish as it's own full length op-ed. Few laypeople read SSC but a lot read the Washington Post. Defending China's HSR network on SSC is preaching to the choir, you should take your case to the larger public.


----------



## dumbfword

Luli Pop said:


> ^^
> +1
> 
> I agree!
> 
> Please asian friends, don´t keep thinking of ¨west¨ as a whole.
> On one side it´s US and UK with they're particular cosmovision, and on the other side continental Europe.
> 
> Their social systems and educational levels are very diffent as well as moral standards. UK+US have double standards.
> 
> The it's latin America, and even some countries of former URSS that are definitively not eastern.
> 
> shitty press of UK and US is not press but governments right wing propaganda. as well as Nobel Prize and the Vatican.
> 
> I´m ¨western caucasian¨ but I´m not an idiot and know last Nobel Prizes from literatura one to peace one are almost McArthists and given by the extreme right of the US to its servents (even if it´s ceremony and foundation are in Scandinavia).
> 
> Regarding the Vatican, I perfectly remember when the pope did a massive beatification of 100 chinese that fought against comunism (beatification have never been done in mass before).
> 
> I´m sad to say that people behind this are evil, but it´s true.
> 
> I wonder if Hypertroll will recieve a Nobel Prize anytime soon...


The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is a puppet of the American right wing? lol. The right wing that just doesn't like Obama, but hates him with the passion you put to anti-american trolling. 

try better next time with the conspiracy theories.


----------



## Olov

dumbfword said:


> The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is a puppet of the American right wing? lol. The right wing that just doesn't like Obama, but hates him with the passion you put to anti-american trolling.
> 
> try better next time with the conspiracy theories.


Hey the swedes doesn't give the peace price, that's our brothers in norway responsibility. :cheers:


----------



## Bandit

The Washington Post had one of their columnists declare China was at fault for the Western financial crisis. How? Because China invested in US treasuries, it kept interests rates low. People who couldn't afford an over-price house bought one anyway because of the attractiveness of low interest loans. How is China to blame for that? Did China put a gun to American's head at some point? Did China force American banks to give loans to people they knew couldn't pay? What they're saying is basically an oil company can be held responsible for a drunk driver hitting and killing a little girl with his car. If the oil company didn't produce gasoline for the drunk driver to use, he would have never hit the little girl with his car and killed her. The Washington Post basically declared tha no one in the US is personally responsible for their own decisions. Anyone else is to be blamed for their bad decisions. Bernie Madoff is not at fault for his Ponzi scheme nor those on Wall Street and London who came up with the loan schemes knowing full well that the US governemnet was going to pay them back for any losses from bad loans. Yeah, nothing of this financial crisis was their fault because they can't be held responsible for their own decisions. And right before this financial crisis, they were bragging about how their system was so advanced that it was self-regulating. Doesn't that require someone at least to have responsible decision making powers? And yet what they say couldn't happen did.

The New York Times and the Washington Post are the most esteemed newspapers in the US. And look at the bull they dish out. If they can't have a critical self-reflecting view of problems of their own system's making like a child trying to point the finger at someone else for their own bad behavior, can anyone really think they have a sound view of a country half way around the world? And on top of that they both clearly are trying to shape US policy like William Randolph Hearst did when he started the Spanish-American War. Non-bias responsible press my azz!


----------



## dumbfword

Olov said:


> Hey the swedes doesn't give the peace price, that's our brothers in norway responsibility. :cheers:


The Norwegian Nobel Committee is just another arm of the American right wing. Didn't you know?


----------



## fragel

hmmwv said:


> What idiot is gonna fall for those two pics?


sadly many. well they are not idiots, they just believe what they wanna believe.


----------



## Pansori

Bandit said:


> The New York Times and the Washington Post are the most esteemed newspapers in the US. And look at the bull they dish out. If they can't have a critical self-reflecting view of problems of their own system's making like a child trying to point the finger at someone else for their own bad behavior, can anyone really think they have a sound view of a country half way around the world? And on top of that they both clearly are trying to shape US policy like William Randolph Hearst did when he started the Spanish-American War. Non-bias responsible press my azz!


One thing I learnt over a few years is that one should never, NEVER rely on a single newspaper, channel or other source of information. This is regardless what political stream or interest groups it represents. Even if we would assume that there is no possibility to publish false information on purpose there is always a chance of a human error or simply lack of professionalism. I have noticed this too many times. 

Media is a tool for manipulation and it's good to understand that and take into account when reading ANY piece of information. Articles about expansion of hi-speed railways is no exception.


----------



## Nozumi 300

I think we should get back on topic now. 
Are there other maintance/research trains (ie Dr. Yellow) other than the CRH5?


----------



## Bandit

Pansori said:


> One thing I learnt over a few years is that one should never, NEVER rely on a single newspaper, channel or other source of information. This is regardless what political stream or interest groups it represents. Even if we would assume that there is no possibility to publish false information on purpose there is always a chance of a human error or simply lack of professionalism. I have noticed this too many times.
> 
> Media is a tool for manipulation and it's good to understand that and take into account when reading ANY piece of information. Articles about expansion of hi-speed railways is no exception.


These days most newspapers in the US get their stories from the Associated Press, New York Times, and the Washington Post. When one writes it, everyone else follows.


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## LHCHL

I've been reading this thread for a while and feel like signing up to comment, I think what appear obvious to internet observers isn't going to be lost on MOR and city planners, in any engineering projects vast amount of reports and studies would have been written trading off pros and cons of all major decisions, and they made a decision based on those studies. People writing those reports likely have access to more information than internet observers do, so one should be careful when using the word "obviously". Now it is possible they made a mistake, if so the effects, in terms of ridership and revenue isn't going to be lost on anyone, and MOR planners will have to deal with it accordingly. As an engineer I know the last thing I want to see is some arm-chair strategist without a full picture of what I'm doing influencing high level decisions, so unless you are ready to commit to conducting extensive and rigorous engineering studies, let's just keep comments to the speculation level and focus on more pictures.


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## foxmulder

NCT said:


> With due respect, I don't think you understand Shanghai very well. You seem to think that tourism and businesses don't mix, and you couldn't be more wrong. While it is true many touristy places in China are devoid of originical characters, London and Paris are examples of people living and working in culture, and that's what make those cities great.
> 
> The areas around the bund are still the most sought after locations for high-end businesses and government locations. Within the Bund - River Suzhou - Xizang Road - Yan'an road rectangle, as old Shikumens are demolished, high-rise grade A offices, hotels and high-end apartments are popping up everywhere. Far from being an romantic and touristy place, this old core is already highly developed in terms of modern business activities. Bund Centre, Shimao Plaza, Tomorrow Square, Raffles City ... are but a few examples. If you skim through this yet incomplete thread  you'll find Shanghai's old core is growing faster than anywhere else.
> 
> The old core is growing, as you say, vertically and horizontally, i.e. its spreading outwards. The bund is growing both ways as Shiliupu and North Bund are being developed; the whole section between Middle Huaihai Road and Xintiandi is completely mixed use and highly business orientated (HK Plaza, PwC offices etc); the Nanjing Road axis is fattening and the Jing'an Temple area is balooning (Huamin Tower, Wheelock Square and Gerry Centre Phase Two). Detached from the old core you have Lujiazui and the Century Avenue axis stretching all the way to the Science Museum, which are all growing, and most ironically the area round Shanghai Station is undergoing a massive amount of transformation. Yes the city is growing, but very much in a *concentric* mannor - there is *no* shift! Businesses are moving IN, not out! As you can see a lot of the development are simply on the wrong side of Hongqiao, and Shanghai Station is in a perfect location to serve all of these business districts. There is absolutely no sense whatsoever in removing trains from Shanghai Station.
> 
> It's not so much I _want_ everything to be in the centre, but rather most activities are happening in the centre. People don't always realise how much the centre is being transformed because there is no hype around such developments - they happen *organically*. Only politicians and certain developers with vested interests want meddle with natural development patterns and make a song and dance about a shift from old to new, because they can then be seen doing something and make a fast buck from developing greenfield sites and leave the problems of vacancy and waste to the society at large. Cities grow in this concentric way for most obvious reasons - economies of scale - *businesses and services feed on each other and take advantage of the invisible networks built up through decades and centuries*, and a concentric pattern is the best pattern for public transport provision because of its simplicity. Those who believe it's easier to all uproot and settle into a new place are like those hardcore old Keynesian economists who think it's cheaper to alter production than reprint price tags.


I think we are drifting a little bit, last thing I want to write is in my view you are underestimating development rates of Chinese cities. You are missing the whole picture and what is trying to be achieved by 4+4 high speed rail network. It is not a part of current rail network. If you want to do that you will end up with a slow network likes in Europe. This is completely new mode of transportation and it has been built from scratch. I believe this is the only way to have a future-proof network serving 1.3 billion people with 300km/h+ average speed.


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## chornedsnorkack

LHCHL said:


> Now it is possible they made a mistake, if so the effects, in terms of ridership and revenue isn't going to be lost on anyone, and MOR planners will have to deal with it accordingly. As an engineer I know the last thing I want to see is some arm-chair strategist without a full picture of what I'm doing influencing high level decisions, so unless you are ready to commit to conducting extensive and rigorous engineering studies, let's just keep comments to the speculation level and focus on more pictures.


They made one undeniable mistake. Indefinite suspension of ticket sales a few days after opening a line is no sign of good planning.

What other mistakes have they made?


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## FazilLanka

Chinese Railways are gearing up on mass scale.


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## NCT

foxmulder said:


> I think we are drifting a little bit, last thing I want to write is in my view you are underestimating development rates of Chinese cities. You are missing the whole picture and what is trying to be achieved by 4+4 high speed rail network. It is not a part of current rail network. If you want to do that you will end up with a slow network likes in Europe. This is completely new mode of transportation and it has been built from scratch. I believe this is the only way to have a future-proof network serving 1.3 billion people with 300km/h+ average speed.


What's the purpose of building a new railway system? To serve the needs of the _people_, and you need to take into account where people ARE. People need to _travel_ to and from stations and they can't just apparate like in Harry Potter. 9 of 10 growing cities also have rapidly gentrifying city centres so it absolutely makes no sense to _reduce_ service provision for existing centres. The growing _footprint_ of cities is in fact suburbanisation - dormitory residential areas, though sometimes in amongst some specialised industrial and science parks. Alright, forget about all the rest, just answer me these question - _are you still disputing Shanghai city centre's strategic importance is growing and do you still feel removing services from Shanghai Station is justified?_

You cannot discount everything that's old in pursuit of the new. You'll end up with a sorry mess of a 2-tiered society. In 50 years' time will the current generation of 'new' things be considered old again then you start up something else completely new? Are we going then to see two generations of half abandoned, crime ridden old settlements and infrastructure blotted over the landscape? The pursuit of 'big' and 'new' has no rational basis and is nothing more than political dogma.

To say European networks are slow is a gross simplification. I don't need to remind you what TGV is - a comprehensive network with trains primarily serving city centres, and the network certainly isn't slow with typical top speeds of 300km/h. UK and Germany don't have dedicated high-speed lines as such, but the networks are dense, with trains operating clock-face timetables and passenger-friendly flexible ticketing. And because stations are in town and city centres you can walk to your destinations easily.

I travel up and down the UK frequently and it's just remarkable how I don't even need to take a taxi after getting off the train at the other end. My dad commutes to London (200 km away) every week, and he walks to the Beeston Station which is 20 minutes from this house, and upon getting off London St Pancras, walks for 15 minutes to get to his place of work. The train journey itself might be pathetically slow (the Midland Main Line if anyone is interested) but you save the 30-minute metro journey either end.

Of course China is building state of the art new mainline railways, with the highest operational speed on earth. However, we must ask ourselves these questions too:

1. Will there be clockface timetables and flexble ticketing and journey options?
2. Will there be a large pool of prime destinations close to railway stations that will minimise access times?
3. Are there provisions for a comprehensive network of regional network for the hundreds of towns and cities not connected with railways, and would such a network be able to integrate with the HSLs that are currently being built?
4. As the Chinese people get richer will they be able to convince themselves to leave the car at home at take the train instead?
5. Will faster raw travelling speed actually translate to a faster journeys overall _door to door_?

The answers to these questions are uncertain at best. The Shanghai - Beijing and Shanghai - Nanjing will still have passenger-unfriendly timetables and I can't see how the smaller cities will grow to completely consume the parkway stations 15km away, and this raises serious questions how parkway cities will be able to cater for shorter regional journeys and how railways will effectively serve the current unconnected cities. And this is what happens when you blindly chase headlines of top-speed and forget what building railways are actually for.


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## foxmulder

Ok.. let's continue... 



NCT said:


> What's the purpose of building a new railway system? To serve the needs of the _people_, and you need to take into account where people ARE.


Also, you have to consider where people *will be*. That's the point of future proofing. I am sorry, but you are again ignoring future development, really low urbanization rate in China and last 20 years of China. Every city in China developed couple folds in last 20 year. There are some extreme examples out there like Shenzhen too. 



NCT said:


> People need to _travel_ to and from stations and they can't just apparate like in Harry Potter.


No, they will use subways. 



NCT said:


> 9 of 10 growing cities also have rapidly gentrifying city centres so it absolutely makes no sense to _reduce_ service provision for existing centres.


Reducing? They have built the largest subway system in the world for Shanghai! And it is not even finished yet.



NCT said:


> The growing _footprint_ of cities is in fact suburbanisation - dormitory residential areas, though sometimes in amongst some specialised industrial and science parks. Alright, forget about all the rest, just answer me these question - _are you still disputing Shanghai city centre's strategic importance is growing and do you still feel removing services from Shanghai Station is justified?_


I dont see any problem for majority of the population because of subway system. There is limitations of Shanghai Station. Most important is its size. Shanghai Station would have been just a barrier for high speed rail.



NCT said:


> You cannot discount everything that's old in pursuit of the new. You'll end up with a sorry mess of a 2-tiered society.


I am not discounting anything. I am not suggesting any demolition On contrary I like historical places 



NCT said:


> In 50 years' time will the current generation of 'new' things be considered old again then you start up something else completely new?


Absolutely, Yes! 



NCT said:


> Are we going then to see two generations of half abandoned, crime ridden old settlements and infrastructure blotted over the landscape?


I am lost here. Of course not, if I have to answer.



NCT said:


> The pursuit of 'big' and 'new' has no rational basis and is nothing more than political dogma.


Look around again. People work for new and better. (big is not always better but in China, it is kind of requirement.)




NCT said:


> To say European networks are slow is a gross simplification. I don't need to remind you what TGV is - a comprehensive network with trains primarily serving city centres, and the network certainly isn't slow with typical top speeds of 300km/h.


Top speed means little. 



NCT said:


> UK and Germany don't have dedicated high-speed lines as such, but the networks are dense, with trains operating clock-face timetables and passenger-friendly flexible ticketing. And because stations are in town and city centres you can walk to your destinations easily.


This situation might be "enough" for Europe. What China will have at the end will be faster and better. Simply because it is "new". China needs faster trains and more capacity because of demand and much longer distances. 



NCT said:


> I travel up and down the UK frequently and it's just remarkable how I don't even need to take a taxi after getting off the train at the other end. My dad commutes to London (200 km away) every week, and he walks to the Beeston Station which is 20 minutes from this house, and upon getting off London St Pancras, walks for 15 minutes to get to his place of work. The train journey itself might be pathetically slow (the Midland Main Line if anyone is interested) but you save the 30-minute metro journey either end.


All you need 20 min subway trip for God's sake, you are saying he spends 20min to reach station anyway. Also, are we really comparing a small town to large cities in China?



NCT said:


> Of course China is building state of the art new mainline railways, with the highest operational speed on earth. However, we must ask ourselves these questions too:
> 
> 1. Will there be clockface timetables and flexble ticketing and journey options?
> 2. Will there be a large pool of prime destinations close to railway stations that will minimise access times?
> 3. Are there provisions for a comprehensive network of regional network for the hundreds of towns and cities not connected with railways, and would such a network be able to integrate with the HSLs that are currently being built?
> 4. As the Chinese people get richer will they be able to convince themselves to leave the car at home at take the train instead?
> 5. Will faster raw travelling speed actually translate to a faster journeys overall _door to door_?


IMHO, Yes, for all of them. Time will tell... Hopefully in 5-6 years, we will be seeing the numbers for the whole 4+4 network 



NCT said:


> The answers to these questions are uncertain at best. The Shanghai - Beijing and Shanghai - Nanjing will still have passenger-unfriendly timetables and I can't see how the smaller cities will grow to completely consume the parkway stations 15km away, and this raises serious questions how parkway cities will be able to cater for shorter regional journeys and how railways will effectively serve the current unconnected cities. And this is what happens when you blindly chase headlines of top-speed and forget what building railways are actually for.


You expect to see everyone to have walk to stations? If the city large, they will have subways, if not trams, if not buses. Especially for large cities, this discussion is really meaningless. Even if the station is in the center, almost everyone has to take the subway to reach there anyway. It is just a matter of direction


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## particlez

> Originally Posted by NCT
> I travel up and down the UK frequently and it's just remarkable how I don't even need to take a taxi after getting off the train at the other end. My dad commutes to London (200 km away) every week, and he walks to the Beeston Station which is 20 minutes from this house, and upon getting off London St Pancras, walks for 15 minutes to get to his place of work. The train journey itself might be pathetically slow (the Midland Main Line if anyone is interested) but you save the 30-minute metro journey either end.





> Originally Posted by NCT
> The growing footprint of cities is in fact suburbanisation - dormitory residential areas, though sometimes in amongst some specialised industrial and science parks. Alright, forget about all the rest, just answer me these question - are you still disputing Shanghai city centre's strategic importance is growing and do you still feel removing services from Shanghai Station is justified?


Another reason to not argue with NCT. It's not really an argument when the points don't make sense. Suburbanization? What city in the world has been able to not expand its footprint, especially one with ultra high densities, severe overcrowding, a growing standard of living and an increasing population? It's much easier to make that argument against the North American cities and the commuter towns outside of London's greenbelt when it comes to wasteful suburbanization. High rise dormitory towns with mixed uses and provisions for mass transit may not comport with your aesthetic sensibilities, but they are the most efficient form of development right now. 

Every possible journey anywhere is compared to a provincial city with a stagnant population. What are the odds of the average commuter in a much larger city with a growing population to WALK to the city's main train station? Even with ultra high densities, it's not physically possible. It's just not a plausible argument.

Guess what? If you lived in an even smaller village, your everyday needs would be even more convenient. 'Cept of course, you're still in a village. But for a variety of reasons, people continue to live in large metropolitan areas. People living in London would most likely not be able to walk to Victoria or King's Cross or St. Pancras, whereas the folks in Nottingham have that advantage. But the larger cities have and will continue to have their appeal.


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## particlez

Right now, I'm still awaiting a response by a Megan McArdle fan. Sadly she has plenty of supporters, especially amongst the Anglo-American neoliberal crowd. Imagine railing (no pun intended) against intercity trains and urban transit, yet turning a blind eye towards even more road and suburban shopping centers.


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## Pansori

Isn't the traditional "one city center" model is being abolished in China? I mean projects like Qian Hai Water City in Shenzhen is a good example of a "New City Center" being built in the... outskirts? Same will happen with Shanghai. It can't carry on expanding at its current location. It will have to have high density center elsewhere (most probably somewhere on the current outskirts of the city or even further away).

Therefore building the central rail hub in the existing center doesn't make sense. In fact, that would be a very short sighted decision. A hub (such as Hongqiao) should be built away from the center and be well connected to it as well as have plenty of space for expanding connections to the new forming centers. China is too populous and too dynamic to afford building railway stations in the city centers like the European cities (which won't grow by another 10+ million over the next few decades) do. And building a comprehensive transportation hub in a center of a 20+ million city (which is already overcrowded) would be a plain stupidity.

It's a philosophy of urban development. The question is whether such development is a pre-planned strategy or not? Even if it is, China hasn't got any experience in this area (and neither does anyone else). One important thing is that so far China did pretty well in developing its cities. In fact, perhaps better than anyone else managed to do it over such a short period of time: from the 3rd world slums to world-class urban developments and transport in less than 30 years. I really doubt there is any reason for it to fail all of a sudden for not following the 19th century European model of railway station construction and "one city center" ideology.


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## LHCHL

Real engineering decisions likely faces far more constraints than remote observers can see, especially if it concerns future plans on a larger scale that you can not be aware of. High speed rail construction in China isn't isolated, MOR is part of central government, and I presume its coordinated with city and regional governments to, by completion, setup a comprehensive network of rail and subway network connecting all major Chinese cities, and that network is far from completion.

Come back when 4+4 plus peripheral is completed and then we can judge weather it was good planning, we are only looking at one piece of a much larger machinery, and sometimes individual pieces in these machines don't work that well by themselves until the whole machine is built


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## chornedsnorkack

foxmulder said:


> No, they will use subways.


Impractical.
Look at Shanghai Metro line 2. From Pudong to Hongqiao, 62 km, takes 100 minutes. From Hongqiao to Nanjing, 300 km, 73 minutes. You would be better off flying these 362 km, could take less than 173 minutes. From Hongqiao to Hangzhou, 158 km, 40 minutes.
When shall the extension of maglev between Longyang Road and Hongqiao start actual construction?


foxmulder said:


> Reducing? They have built the largest subway system in the world for Shanghai! And it is not even finished yet.


Yes, counting the lines called "subway". If you compare with suburban commuter rails of Tokyo, though...



> Suburbanization? What city in the world has been able to not expand its footprint, especially one with ultra high densities, severe overcrowding, a growing standard of living and an increasing population?


Some have not done much of it. Such as Hong Kong or Singapore.


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## greenlion

BST Official News about CRH1-081A, 082A and 083A (second stage of CRH1A)

http://en.bsp.cn/info/content.asp?infoId=572










Spet.21, 2010, BST’s first 250km/h 8-consist EMU completed its type test of overall performance and adaptation test on main line. The results show that each indicator meets the requirements.

Sept.10-12, CRH1081A EMU headed for Qinshen line and completed dynamics test, current collection test, interior and railway noise test, etc. The maximum running speed was 278km/h. Sept.17-21, the traction, braking and automatic passing neutral section tests were done on Jiaoji Line with maximum running speed 252km/h.Sept.27, the coupled EMU (CRH1082A and CRH1083A) conducted current collection test and running resistance in Fuzhou EMU depot of Nanchang Railway Administration. 

During the testing period, Engineering, Method, QA, After sales and other departments jointly participate the test, especially all the tests on Jiaoji Line were done at night, while our people overcame all kinds of hardships and tackled all the problems in a timely manner so that the tests were finally finished as scheduled. 

By Sept.30, BST has delivered 5 EMUs to Nanchang Railway Administration.


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## NCT

foxmulder said:


> Ok.. let's continue...
> 
> Also, you have to consider where people *will be*. That's the point of future proofing. I am sorry, but you are again ignoring future development, really low urbanization rate in China and last 20 years of China. Every city in China developed couple folds in last 20 year. There are some extreme examples out there like Shenzhen too.
> 
> No, they will use subways.
> 
> Reducing? They have built the largest subway system in the world for Shanghai! And it is not even finished yet.


Yes reducing, Hongqiao Hub is not getting its dedicated subway lines to the centre, so train passegners have to share capacity with commuters who on their own would pack the metro trains to the rafters. This linear travel pattern between Hongqiao and city centre will only increase, putting impossible pressure on lines 2 and 10. Those 2 lines just will not cope with the 20-30 16-car trains arriving into Hongqiao every hour. The good people of Beixinjing and Tianshan are already struggling to get onto the metro trains in the morning peaks as they are full from the first stop of Hongqiao. 

It's just not efficient for people of Pudong and central Shanghai to use subways all the way to Hongqiao! You do realise overall journey time is *longer* using Hongqiao than Shanghai Central for people in Central, North, East and South Shanghai don't you?

And unfortunately, while semantically Shanghai has the largest subway system, in terms of total urban rail Shanghai is totally dwarfed by the likes of Tokyo and even London. 

Ironically Shanghai Station will become better connected with higher capacity as lines 3 and 4 are getting remodelled, and 12 and 13 due to open soon. What will be better is extending the HSR itself into the centre, so people can spread out upon getting off, and more can walk and use buses because of shorter distances. The metro system are already working at full capacity so it makes sense to maximise other options too. Shanghai Station is in a mix-use area with a lot of fluidity - a lot of people get off the metro trains here as it is a business destination in its own right. This means the passengers getting off the mainline trains will suffer less overcrowding.



> I dont see any problem for majority of the population because of subway system. There is limitations of Shanghai Station. Most important is its size. Shanghai Station would have been just a barrier for high speed rail.


Now this doesn't make any size at all. Shanghai Station still has a lot of untapped potential, which could be easily realised by adding platforms either side and better station management. The Old North Station not far away, currently used as sidings, could be restored to passenger use, the opportunities are endless. Of course there is nothing wrong in having a Hongqiao station for air passengers and people of Western Shanghai. 

For most business travellers Hongqiao and Shanghai Central present a difference of 30 and 10 minutes on the metro connection, and this 20 minutes is important for business travellers, and I doubt the approach into Shanghai Central takes longer than the approach to Hongqiao. Those banks and other multinationals are not going to suddenly relocate en mass to a souless cultureless new centre under flight paths. While prime business districts in central Shanghai are best serviced by Shanghai Station what sense does it make in forcing them onto a slower journey through Hongqiao? 



> I am not discounting anything. I am not suggesting any demolition On contrary I like historical places
> 
> Absolutely, Yes!
> 
> I am lost here. Of course not, if I have to answer.
> 
> Look around again. People work for new and better. (big is not always better but in China, it is kind of requirement.)


I'm sorry, but that is utterly nonsensical. Shanghai's city centre will not be just 'some historical place' - it will be a prime business location with centuries-old business networks, otherwise what are they building all those shiny glass towers for? This prime business district needs the best transport access it needs, and that means having national rail access on its doorstep.

It takes *decades* for a business centre to mature - a large pool of workers, business networks, cultural supplements, and so on. And it's not just about building the damn things - time is needed to nurture the market. It will be at least 50 years before Hongqiao fully matures, yet in those 50 years those relying on the existing, mature central business network loses out on substandard transport access. In 50 years time Hongqiao will be obsolete again so the process starts all over again. Business nomadism doesn't work. It's makes much more long-term sense to build on what you have.

If a place doesn't serve its intended function then it will decline, and become derelict and crime ridden. You cannot increase the physical footprint of cities forever - you need farmland to grow food and forests to soak in urban carbon dioxide. That's why the only brownfield sites you can have are the highly-functional, high-quality ones.



> Top speed means little.
> 
> This situation might be "enough" for Europe. What China will have at the end will be faster and better. Simply because it is "new". China needs faster trains and more capacity because of demand and much longer distances.
> 
> All you need 20 min subway trip for God's sake, you are saying he spends 20min to reach station anyway. Also, are we really comparing a small town to large cities in China?


Indeed, top speed means little - simplicity and accessibility are much more important. Compared with a parkway station, an access journey to a city centre station takes a smaller amount of time, and a higher proportion of passengers would come on foot.

20 minutes is the lower end of access travel time - for people working and living on the other side of town this figure baloons to 60 minutes, whereas the most you'd expect with a city centre station is 30 minutes. And what if the metro is down? Shanghai metro especially line 2 are increasingly prone to temporary closures because it just cannot cope with demand. Now walking and buses are completely out of the question, and the taxi bill would be far too extortionate. 



> IMHO, Yes, for all of them. Time will tell... Hopefully in 5-6 years, we will be seeing the numbers for the whole 4+4 network
> 
> You expect to see everyone to have walk to stations? If the city large, they will have subways, if not trams, if not buses. Especially for large cities, this discussion is really meaningless. Even if the station is in the center, almost everyone has to take the subway to reach there anyway. It is just a matter of direction


City centres for medium-sized cities are actually completely walkable - business travellers into Birmingham, Manchester, Wuxi and Changzhou actually walk to their city centre offices. For residents in the suburbs it usually means 1 bus/tram without change.


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## Jaroslaw

NTC is quite right about the poor integration of China's HSR into its urban centers, as I myself have observed first-hand. One reason for this poor planning is quite simply the graft and corruption (on international measures, China is one of the most opaque economies in the world) related to land speculation. New stations are built on distant greenfield sites because that drives profits for the connected few when farmland is rezoned for high density redevelopment. The same principle has been observed with the development of HSR in Taiwan and in Korea (Cheonan Asan Staion), but China has taken this to a new degree.

As for the claims that China is "unique," that what worked for Europe will not work for China, I've heard it twenty years ago about Japan, and we know how that ended. Rules of urbanity, just like the rules of economics or gravity, apply everywhere equally.


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## foxmulder

China urbanization 40%, Britain 90%. World average is 70%. Population of China is 1.3 billion. Even now, it has more than half a billion urban population. I have no question mark in my mind that planning for current would have been a big failure. 

NCT, you failed to understand much of what I wrote, it might be my fault explaining it but anyway I dont want to repeat myself again. What most of you saying does not make any sense for me either.

Jaroslaw, please be more specific about your experience. Tell us which line did you use? What was the problem?


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## foxmulder

chornedsnorkack said:


> Impractical.
> Look at Shanghai Metro line 2. From Pudong to Hongqiao, 62 km, takes 100 minutes. From Hongqiao to Nanjing, 300 km, 73 minutes. You would be better off flying these 362 km, could take less than 173 minutes. From Hongqiao to Hangzhou, 158 km, 40 minutes.
> When shall the extension of maglev between Longyang Road and Hongqiao start actual construction?
> 
> Yes, counting the lines called "subway". If you compare with suburban commuter rails of Tokyo, though...
> 
> 
> 
> Some have not done much of it. Such as Hong Kong or Singapore.


???

If subway is impractical, what is practical?

Also, your example (Pudong airport - to Nanjing) is really for a low percentage of potential passengers. In any case, they have a plan to connect Pudong to Hongqiao .


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## highway35

chornedsnorkack said:


> Impractical.
> Look at Shanghai Metro line 2. From Pudong to Hongqiao, 62 km, takes 100 minutes. From Hongqiao to Nanjing, 300 km, 73 minutes. You would be better off flying these 362 km, could take less than 173 minutes. From Hongqiao to Hangzhou, 158 km, 40 minutes.


Who would take a metro line from Pudong to Hongqiao? How can we use this as a reason to be against the location of Hongqiao Railway Station?

Also, NCT is talking to himself and wouldn't listen to other people's arguments. Shanghai is a huge city and and still expanding. Doesn't matter where you build a train station, there will be people who are bound to find that station is inconvenient. Forget about city center argument, Shanghai needs many train stations, but that's not an argument against Hongqiao.


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## highway35

Jaroslaw said:


> NTC is quite right about the poor integration of China's HSR into its urban centers, as I myself have observed first-hand. One reason for this poor planning is quite simply the graft and corruption (on international measures, China is one of the most opaque economies in the world) related to land speculation. New stations are built on distant greenfield sites because that drives profits for the connected few when farmland is rezoned for high density redevelopment. The same principle has been observed with the development of HSR in Taiwan and in Korea (Cheonan Asan Staion), but China has taken this to a new degree.
> 
> As for the claims that China is "unique," that what worked for Europe will not work for China, I've heard it twenty years ago about Japan, and we know how that ended. Rules of urbanity, just like the rules of economics or gravity, apply everywhere equally.


With all due respect, you're not reading the discussion carefully. You sounded to me like one of those clueless foreigners with preconceived notions coming to China. All your senseless accusations about China are cliche and are pretty irrelevant to the discussions here.

Let me boil down the arguments here to you: China is a rapidly growing economy that is undergoing the largest urbanization in human history. The Chinese railway network planners have to make all kinds of trade-offs, in order to serve the current city residents and to shape and anticipate the future developments. The national railway network is incomplete, cities' metro systems are largely under construction and yes, the networks might not be always optimized for the *exiting* urban patterns which will be quite different 10, 20 years from today.

Always keep in mind, we're talking about a very dynamic and fast-moving country with a huge population. You simply can not compare it to very mature and established cities in more developed countries. In that sense, China is "unique:" the largest, the fastest, the most dynamic, the most ambitious, the capability to plan and execute on large scale and with a vision.


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## chornedsnorkack

foxmulder said:


> If subway is impractical, what is practical?


Look at it this way: Shanghai is over 62 km across (subway line 2). It takes 100 minutes to travel all the way - average speed 37 km/h. Which is far slower than the 250 km/h average speed of HSR lines.

What is needed is a network of lines through the Shanghai urban area, that could make reasonably frequent stops yet travel at over 100 km/h including stops. So maximum speed at least 200...250 km/h.


foxmulder said:


> Also, your example (Pudong airport - to Nanjing) is really for a low percentage of potential passengers.


Pudong airport was supposed to be developed as the new international hub of Shanghai.

But what are the people travelling longhaul from Nanjing, Hangzhou etc. going to do? HSR to Hongqiao, then subway Line 2 to Pudong? That is 100 minutes extra. Fly a short-hop flight from Nanjing or Hangzhou airport right to Pudong airport terminal and then connect to the longhaul flight? That adds an inefficient short hop flight. Fly direct longhaul flights from Nanjing or Hangzhou airports? Also inefficient. HSR to Hongqiao airport, then longhaul flight out of Hongqiao? That makes Pudong airport a waste.

The HSR networks straight out off Hongqiao terminal allow people from remote parts of Jiangnan to travel straight to Hongqiao airport quickly and conveniently. Beats any airport express.


foxmulder said:


> In any case, they have a plan to connect Pudong to Hongqiao .


How? Transrapid extension, something else or both?


----------



## NCT

highway35 said:


> Who would take a metro line from Pudong to Hongqiao? How can we use this as a reason to be against the location of Hongqiao Railway Station?
> 
> Also, NCT is talking to himself and wouldn't listen to other people's arguments. Shanghai is a huge city and and still expanding. Doesn't matter where you build a train station, there will be people who are bound to find that station is inconvenient. Forget about city center argument, *Shanghai needs many train stations, but that's not an argument against Hongqiao.*


Quite right, but it is an argument against mass withdrawal of services from Shanghai Station isn't it?

You are also quite correct that whatever location you choose to build a station, there will be people who find it inconvenient. You can however maximise convenience for the maximum number of people. The shorter average distance you have travel to reach the station, the more option people can choose (buses, cycling, walking etc), the better on the whole. And you have to plan for extreme cases too - and parkway stations produce much more severe extreme cases than central stations.

The Pudong - Hongqiao case isn't irrelevant, as taking the Metro is the only viable public transport option. There are a number of industrial parks in Pudong and they generate a lot of demand for HSR travel. It makes much more sense for those to change onto Line 4 at Century Avenue to release capacity on Line 2 going through Lujiazui, People's Square and Jing'an Temple.



foxmulder said:


> China urbanization 40%, Britain 90%. World average is 70%. Population of China is 1.3 billion. Even now, it has more than half a billion urban population. I have no question mark in my mind that planning for current would have been a big failure.
> 
> NCT, you failed to understand much of what I wrote, it might be my fault explaining it but anyway I dont want to repeat myself again. What most of you saying does not make any sense for me either.


I have tried to be very specific and provided many evidence for increasing importance of Shanghai city centre and the folly in removing rail services from Shanghai Station. It is also clear that the existing and growing business districts and existing population are collectively *worse off* as a result of MOR's attempt to beef up Hongqiao. I have also clearly explained why 2 metro lines into central Shanghai just will not cope with 30-odd 16-car trains arriving into Hongqiao each hour, and that a city centre location with more choice will be much superior, especially if it already exists.

Not once have you managed to provide any *evidence*, or any reasoned argument, to support your claim that Shanghai's centre of mass will _shift_, or to support your assertion that removing services from Shanghai Station is beneficial. You are hooked up by the fancy notions of 'change' and 'new' and have no understanding of how cities work and how people interact.

The only way planning for current would be failure, is if the existing settlements are declining, but the *evidence* clearly suggests the contrary. If the existing is not declining then infrastructure provision for the existing must improve. I have also explained why the existing simply cannot be allowed to decline as China cannot afford derelict brownfield sites taking up valuable land.

I'll give you another contradiction in your argument. Perhaps you haven't realised, but Shanghai's Metro network is (thankfully) very much centred on the old core - all major lines penetrate the Inner ring road and the circular line (Line 4) tracks the inner ring road. Huangpu, Jing'an and Luwan have the highest Metro density and 4 lines will run parallel between Jing'an Temple / Changshu Road to People's Square/Huangpu, the 4 lines being 1, 2, 10 and 14. So, are the Metro and national HSR networks planning for two different futures for Shanghai?


----------



## NCT

chornedsnorkack said:


> How? Transrapid extension, something else or both?


There are plans to connet the two airports with Maglev, though there is a bit of a political battle going on behind the scenes so no-one knows exactly what's going to happen. Space is safeguarded in Hongqiao Hub for a Maglev Station.

That said, there are a huge number of science, industrial and logistics parks dotted across Pudong, generating a lot of intercity travel demand, e.g. meeting with supplier/client head office etc.


----------



## highway35

NCT said:


> Quite right, but it is an argument against mass withdrawal of services from Shanghai Station isn't it?
> 
> You are also quite correct that whatever location you choose to build a station, there will be people who find it inconvenient. You can however maximise convenience for the maximum number of people. The shorter average distance you have travel to reach the station, the more option people can choose (buses, cycling, walking etc), the better on the whole. And you have to plan for extreme cases too - and parkway stations produce much more severe extreme cases than central stations.
> 
> The Pudong - Hongqiao case isn't irrelevant, as taking the Metro is the only viable public transport option. There are a number of industrial parks in Pudong and they generate a lot of demand for HSR travel. It makes much more sense for those to change onto Line 4 at Century Avenue to release capacity on Line 2 going through Lujiazui, People's Square and Jing'an Temple.


I agree with you that mass withdrawal of services from Shanghai Station is wrong, at least from a better service and convenience standpoint. I can understand MOR wants to shift the passenger to Hongqiao and more expensive HSRs, to generate more revenue and to relieve capacity for freight on the existing lines. But they should allow for a transition period. In my opinion, MOR has a lot of room to learn and improve service. But the bigger reality is that China is simply short of railway capacity, compared with Europe and relative to the demand. Therefore the current mad dash to build more railways.

The Hongqiao-Pudong scenario is indeed not a convenient example, and there is a need to build a rapid connection line between Hongqiao and Pudong (Maybe the Mag-Lev line from Pudong should be extended to city center, Hongqiao, Shanghai South Railway Station, and eventually to Hangzhou, but it'll depend on the cost ...). But then again, this is yet another example that Shanghai is still evolving and has not completed its infrastructure construction. In fact, London, with less than half of Shanghai's population, has five airports. Shanghai may need more airports, too, instead of only two airports and try to connect them. Same arguments can be made about train stations.

All that mean that things are still moving, evolving and we will continue to see new infrastructure are needed and built. By the way, Disney Shanghai is under construction now, should shanghai consider to add/expand transportation network around it!?


----------



## particlez

chornedsnorkack said:


> The HSR networks straight out off Hongqiao terminal allow people from remote parts of Jiangnan to travel straight to Hongqiao airport quickly and conveniently. Beats any airport express.
> 
> How? Transrapid extension, something else or both?


The plan was for the Maglev to go from Pudong to Hongqiao. It makes sense, but then was scrapped for a variety of reasons. You could speculate that it was about high cost, the falling out of its political proponents, some nasty NIMBYism, whatever. The route from Pudong to Hongqiao would have also gone through central Shanghai. Supposedly a revised plan is being worked out.

Having two airports in one metropolitan area is usually a pain. But there are synergetic effects if said airports are joined by a high speed rail line. The situation between Pudong and Hongqiao is not so different than the relationship between the Shenzhen and Hong Kong airports. There, a plan exists for a connection between the two, allowing for the smooth connection between mostly domestic SZX and HKG. 

I fly regularly through Chicago. I often have to transfer between Midway and O'Hare. I either take a shuttle on surface streets, or I can switch between the Orange and Blue lines with a loop through downtown. Either way it is a pain. There have been talks about putting commuter rail between the two airports, but unfortunately they've been shot down for a variety of reasons. On a tangent, I have often been stranded in Chicago because of bad weather and its resulting missed connections. It's really a nice place to waste some time.

Megan McArdle and her ilk are funded by some libertarian oil billionaires. Thus I've come across quite a few of similarly themed articles in the media over here in the US. Ask yourself, does it make sense for public transit projects in another country to receive so much (often negative) attention? All this invective about throwing away money and empty trains, but they do not mention that the various train lines are halfway finished and do not yet benefit from induced demand. I'm sure there's always some nugget of truth. Yet at the same time, would you want the alternative of continuing reliance solely on the car and short haul flights?


----------



## particlez

... Sadly a lot of 'critics' have been drinking the kool aid in the media. I can't get past the Financial Times' critique.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a109764-eaa8-11df-b28d-00144feab49a.html#axzz16E5GQZIc

with these two nuggets of wisdom:



> a lack of integration between transport services across the country, leaving highways, subways, train stations and airports not properly connected...
> 
> Critics point out that bullet train services, such as the 1,000km Wuhan to Guangzhou connection that opened this year, are operating at less than half their full capacity and will never make enough money to repay the large bank loans used to build them


Why would a newspaper that is ostensibly in the business of reporting news and selling advertising to investment banks and luxury goods makers care about railroads elsewhere?


----------



## NCT

highway35 said:


> I agree with you that mass withdrawal of services from Shanghai Station is wrong, at least from a better service and convenience standpoint. I can understand MOR wants to shift the passenger to Hongqiao and more expensive HSRs, to generate more revenue and to relieve capacity for freight on the existing lines. But they should allow for a transition period. In my opinion, MOR has a lot of room to learn and improve service. *But the bigger reality is that China is simply short of railway capacity, compared with Europe and relative to the demand. Therefore the current mad dash to build more railways. *


Blimey, glad I wasn't just talking to myself then. 
And I agree with your last point too. I never questioned the need to build, for example, the Shanghai - Nanjing and Shanghai - Beijing lines. My points were about how those excellent pieces of infrastructure could be better designed or utilised to get the maximum benefit out of them.



> The Hongqiao-Pudong scenario is indeed not a convenient example, and there is a need to build a rapid connection line between Hongqiao and Pudong (Maybe the Mag-Lev line from Pudong should be extended to city center, Hongqiao, Shanghai South Railway Station, and eventually to Hangzhou, but it'll depend on the cost ...).


The original plan was to extend the Maglev to Hongqiao, through Shanghai South Station. Before the political change there was going to be a stop in the Expo site too. Sadly politics got in the way of that.



> But then again, this is yet another example that Shanghai is still evolving and has not completed its infrastructure construction. In fact, London, with less than half of Shanghai's population, has five airports. Shanghai may need more airports, too, instead of only two airports and try to connect them. Same arguments can be made about train stations.
> 
> All that mean that things are still moving, evolving and we will continue to see new infrastructure are needed and built. By the way, Disney Shanghai is under construction now, should shanghai consider to add/expand transportation network around it!?


Shanghai is evolving, but it can't just evolve willy nilly. You need to capitalise what you have and build on/around it, which makes infinitely more sense than dumping the old and starting the new from scratch. Shanghai Station is a fantastic piece of legacy infrastructure, so it needs to have its potential unlocked rather than shoved to the wayside. Infrastructure and businesses developments have all got to be coornidated, because they directly rely on each other. You can't have business here and railway station there with a thin thread of a metro line connecting the two places, which was my point all along.


----------



## cbz

chornedsnorkack said:


> Impractical.
> 
> Some have not done much of it. Such as Hong Kong or Singapore.


Dont know too much about Hong Kong, but Singapore did do much of it. Many of new towns, commercial districts, CBD didn't exist before Singapore economy took off in 70s,80s. Even though Singapore is small island country and cannot expand like crazy as some cities of China, Singapore land area has grown from 580 km2 to more 700 km2 and will continue to grow another 100km2 by 2030


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## particlez

> Originally Posted by chornedsnorkack
> Impractical.
> 
> Some have not done much of it. Such as Hong Kong or Singapore.


Hong Kong did it as well. The new towns were formed as dormitory towns with factories. Places like Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong were intended to house the blue collar industries and their related housing. 

Later on as the city grew in population, the new towns spread further into the previously secluded New Territories. These towns were intended to be self-sustaining like their British cousins. Unfortunately people still commuted between the new towns and the existing urban area. Now as a mature city, Hong Kong has connections between the old urban area and the new towns further out. The many commercial areas in the New Territories haven't detracted from the appeal of the old city. But then there will always be someone who has to find another argument...


----------



## NCT

Seeing as we are back on the subject of suburbanisation again, I might as well clarify my earlier comment that got particlez worked up so much. I wasn't criticising Chinese cities for expanding their footprint, but pointing out that at this late stage of urbanisation, land use is becoming more specialised, with the core-periphery relationship increasingly apparent. This was to reinforce the point that while cities grow, they don't necessarily shift.

Some trivial bit of statistics.

The UK, with a population of about 60 million, and an urbanisation rate of 90%, has but a mere third of its population in the 10 largest urban areas by population.

Southern Jiangsu + Shanghai (Shanghai and all 5 prefecture level cities the Shanghai - Nanjing line passes through) has a population of 43 million, and approximately 40% of that live in the cities proper (i.e. discounting rural and disjointed town and county-level city population), which happen to be the 6 most populated urban areas of the region. The case for significant further growth of these big cities isn't actually at all that big.


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## particlez

NCT said:


> but pointing out that at this late stage of urbanisation, land use is becoming more specialised, with the core-periphery relationship increasingly apparent.


Late stage of urbanization. Someone needs to head back to school. 

Can you make a reference to Shanghai without interjecting your own idealized Nottingham as an example to follow?


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## chornedsnorkack

NCT said:


> Southern Jiangsu + Shanghai (Shanghai and all 5 prefecture level cities the Shanghai - Nanjing line passes through) has a population of 43 million, and approximately 40% of that live in the cities proper (i.e. discounting rural and disjointed town and county-level city population), which happen to be the 6 most populated urban areas of the region. The case for significant further growth of these big cities isn't actually at all that big.


The biggest urban centre in Japan, Tokyo+3 Prefectures, has administrative boundaries covering 13 500 square km (including sparsely settled mountains and remote islands) and with 35 million inhabitants. China has ten times the population of Japan. While China is not going to be as centralized as Japan, I expect that China would have at least three urban centres each significantly bigger than Tokyo.

(BTW, what do you think is the Number 4 city of China?)


----------



## particlez

NCT said:


> Seeing as we are back on the subject of suburbanisation again, I might as well clarify my earlier comment that got particlez worked up so much. I wasn't criticising Chinese cities for expanding their footprint, but pointing out that at this late stage of urbanisation, land use is becoming more specialised, with the core-periphery relationship increasingly apparent. This was to reinforce the point that while cities grow, they don't necessarily shift.
> 
> Some trivial bit of statistics.
> 
> The UK, with a population of about 60 million, and an urbanisation rate of 90%, has but a mere third of its population in the 10 largest urban areas by population.
> 
> Southern Jiangsu + Shanghai (Shanghai and all 5 prefecture level cities the Shanghai - Nanjing line passes through) has a population of 43 million, and approximately 40% of that live in the cities proper (i.e. discounting rural and disjointed town and county-level city population), which happen to be the 6 most populated urban areas of the region. The case for significant further growth of these big cities isn't actually at all that big.


Dear Lord, why do you play fast and loose with statistics? Britain is hardly the poster boy for decentralized development. London was the example of a primate city. The London agglomeration's urban area and population extend well beyond the boundaries of Greater London. The London agglomeration has places like Essex and Surrey. Yet they weren't part of your calculations for Greater London. Wouldn't the London agglomeration itself account for close to a quarter of the UK's total population?

Then Chinese cities conversely include many rural inhabitants within city boundaries. Since China is still in the midst or urbanization and many farmers will move off their land...


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## NCT

particlez said:


> Dear Lord, why do you play fast and loose with statistics? Britain is hardly the poster boy for decentralized development. London was the example of a primate city. The London agglomeration's urban area and population extend well beyond the boundaries of Greater London. The London agglomeration has places like Essex and Surrey. Yet they weren't part of your calculations for Greater London. Wouldn't the London agglomeration itself account for close to a quarter of the UK's total population?
> 
> Then Chinese cities conversely include many rural inhabitants within city boundaries. Since China is still in the midst or urbanization and many farmers will move off their land...


The Great London Urban Area includes areas like Croydon, Romford and Watford, but excludes the likes of Brentford, Luton and Slough that are phycially detached from the core conurbation.

The 43 million refers to the _entire_ population of southern Jiangsu, i.e. those living within the administrative boundary of Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou and Shanghai. The 40% *excludes* all the rural population, as well as the disjoint towns like Jiading and Qingpu, and county-level cities. What's fast and loose about those statistics?

And Shanghai isn't primate enough?


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## cbz

chornedsnorkack said:


> (BTW, what do you think is the Number 4 city of China?)


Hands down, chong qing


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## chornedsnorkack

cbz said:


> Hands down, chong qing


Sure, Chongqing is the most populous city in the world - as well as the biggest city. But how much of the city is actually densely settled?


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## cbz

NCT said:


> The old core is growing, as you say, vertically and horizontally, i.e. its spreading outwards. The bund is growing both ways as Shiliupu and North Bund are being developed; the whole section between Middle Huaihai Road and Xintiandi is completely mixed use and highly business orientated (HK Plaza, PwC offices etc); the Nanjing Road axis is fattening and the Jing'an Temple area is balooning (Huamin Tower, Wheelock Square and Gerry Centre Phase Two). Detached from the old core you have Lujiazui and the Century Avenue axis stretching all the way to the Science Museum, which are all growing, and most ironically the area round Shanghai Station is undergoing a massive amount of transformation. Yes the city is growing, but very much in a *concentric* mannor - there is *no* shift! Businesses are moving IN, not out! As you can see a lot of the development are simply on the wrong side of Hongqiao, and Shanghai Station is in a perfect location to serve all of these business districts. There is absolutely no sense whatsoever in removing trains from Shanghai Station.
> 
> It's not so much I _want_ everything to be in the centre, but rather most activities are happening in the centre. People don't always realise how much the centre is being transformed because there is no hype around such developments - they happen *organically*. Only politicians and certain developers with vested interests want meddle with natural development patterns and make a song and dance about a shift from old to new, because they can then be seen doing something and make a fast buck from developing greenfield sites and leave the problems of vacancy and waste to the society at large. Cities grow in this concentric way for most obvious reasons - economies of scale - *businesses and services feed on each other and take advantage of the invisible networks built up through decades and centuries*, and a concentric pattern is the best pattern for public transport provision because of its simplicity. Those who believe it's easier to all uproot and settle into a new place are like those hardcore old Keynesian economists who think it's cheaper to alter production than reprint price tags.



NCT, not sure whether you are aware of big hongjiao project (or big rainbow) project), shanghai government is trying to build another city center pretty much like pudong liujiazhu, if it is complete, the gravity center of the city will be changed for sure. This make building a mega transportation hub like hong qiao perfect sense.


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## particlez

...

You used the Greater London area which cuts out the commuter belt. Check the stats for places like the London commuter belt. Let's see, coming close to 14 million? That's not even counting the other metropolitan cities of the UK. Bottom line is, *you used the wrong set of statistics. Thus you were 'fast and loose'*. 

I could have used similar statistical cherry picking to point out California as decentralized. After all, only Los Angeles and San Diego have populations over one million, and there are many smaller cities. Yet for the sake of its inhabitants, there are only four large metropolitan areas in the state. 

40% of 43 million people sure is a lot of people, but that still entails 60% outside of the main urban areas. Unless China stops development or does a Khmer Rouge ands sends people back to the countryside, you're still going to have more migrants to the cities. Then you're also ignoring many other millions in the hinterland, who may be lured by the appeal of the metropolis. Countless rural residents of the South and Midwest moved to New York and Los Angeles. Why would Shanghai not hold a similar appeal to people far away in Gansu or Hubei?

I don't see why you're consciously applying a double standard. We all know the UK and other post industrial nations have highly concentrated populations and high rates of urbanization. Why would you get your undies in a bunch over this?


----------



## NCT

cbz said:


> NCT, not sure whether you are aware of big hongjiao project (or big rainbow) project), shanghai government is trying to build another city center pretty much like pudong liujiazhu, if it is complete, the gravity center of the city will be changed for sure. This make building a mega transportation hub like hong qiao perfect sense.


I am well aware of that and I think it's political hype. The site is totally unsuitable for a CBD because it doesn't have a surrounding pool dense residential areas, and if the area does become densely populated then you have a major airport completely surrounded by settlements. It takes time for culture and business networks to develop, and when you already have a highly developed central Shanghai, businesses are not going to suddenly give up their city centre offices to somewhere lonely under flight-paths. Even if in 20 years time Big Hongqiao matches the size of today's Lujiazui, Lujiazui will have expanded, Huangpu, North Bund, Jing'an Temple, Buyecheng, Xintiandi will all grown to become much more mature, so Big Hongqiao will still be but a little satellite outside Shanghai Core, and fail miserably to fundamentally shift the centre of gravity.

An industrial and logistical centre with a low-profile station would have made perfect sense for this so called Greater Hongqiao, and I won't be surprised if this is what it turns out to be, though probably under some ostentatious exterior.


----------



## cbz

chornedsnorkack said:


> Sure, Chongqing is the most populous city in the world - as well as the biggest city. But how much of the city is actually densely settled?


If we talk about urban area which is considered as chongqing city traditionally, it is not that big, but it is very densely settled to me (i was there last year). or just take look at cityscape of it.


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## cbz

NCT said:


> I am well aware of that and I think it's political hype.


hey, when you are saying this, don't forget both pudong,shenzhen used to be such "political hype" that were circles on map drawn by political leaders


----------



## binhai

^^totally agree. People have to remember that this is China that we're talking about, miracles can happen!


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## NCT

particlez said:


> ...
> 
> You used the Greater London area which cuts out the commuter belt. Check the stats for places like the London commuter belt. Let's see, coming close to 14 million? That's not even counting the other metropolitan cities of the UK. Bottom line is, *you used the wrong set of statistics. Thus you were 'fast and loose'*.
> 
> I could have used similar statistical cherry picking to point out California as decentralized. After all, only Los Angeles and San Diego have populations over one million, and there are many smaller cities. Yet for the sake of its inhabitants, there are only four large metropolitan areas in the state.
> 
> 40% of 43 million people sure is a lot of people, but that still entails 60% outside of the main urban areas. Unless China stops development or does a Khmer Rouge ands sends people back to the countryside, you're still going to have more migrants to the cities. Then you're also ignoring many other millions in the hinterland, who may be lured by the appeal of the metropolis. Countless rural residents of the South and Midwest moved to New York and Los Angeles. Why would Shanghai not hold a similar appeal to people far away in Gansu or Hubei?
> 
> I don't see why you're consciously applying a double standard. We all know the UK and other post industrial nations have highly concentrated populations and high rates of urbanization. Why would you get your undies in a bunch over this?


You missed my point completely, and as usuall, utterly fail to draw the distinction between the physical landscape and the way people move and interact. The point is a large proportion of urban population can live *outside* the biggest urban areas. Economically, these little clusters can be closely linked.

Increasing the sphere of influence doesn't equate physically growing outwards. Rural Shanghai with its own satellite towns like Jiading and Qingpu are very much within the commuter belt but are not physically joined to Shanghai proper (though they are dangerously close). Shanghai's commuter belt is fast extending to Taicang, Kunshan, Huaqiao and Jiashan, and will probably soon include Suzhou, Wujiang and Jiaxing.

Don't you see the point - that growth does not need to take the form of increasing the _physical_ core footprint. Just like in your London and California examples, you can consolidate small towns county-level cities and link them to the core city with mass transit. There's no doubt that Shanghai will continue being the dominant Metropolitan area of the Yangtze River delta, but the core conurbation population need only be half of the metropolitan area population.

Where do the other 60-odd percent go? Regenerated and connected Taicang, Wujiang, Changshu, Zhangjiagang, Danyang, Ma'anshan, just like Brentford, Guildford, Peterborough, Derby, Coventry which are outside of the 34% for the UK.

*Physical centralisation can be far lower than economic centralisation. *


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## NCT

cbz said:


> hey, when you are saying this, don't forget both pudong,shenzhen used to be such "political hype" that were circles on map drawn by political leaders


Shenzhen is ONE city in the entire China with next to no comparable examples. It also developed at a time when all other nearby established cities were in their infancy - early-stage urbanisation, so relatively Shenzhen didn't have too much disadvantage. It also had regulations and financial resources massively biased towards it. These days conditions are totally different, Hongqiao will be competing against an already highly-developed core still with massive momentum, and the days of massive financial resources and preferential regulations are long gone.

It took Lujiazui 20 years to reach the current semi-completed stage, and it's only across the river from the Bund! If it were not for the proximity to Puxi Lujiazui wouldn't even get where it is now. Just look across to the other end of Century Avenue, Huamu, the Science Museum area - yes a couple of highrises and some specialist functions, yet rather insignificant in terms of shifting the centre of gravity east. Big Hongqiao will be lucky to be on par with Huamu, and it makes absolutely no sense to have the majority of high-speed trains terminating there instead of further into town.


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## cbz

NCT said:


> Shenzhen is ONE city in the entire China with next to no comparable examples. It also developed at a time when all other nearby established cities were in their infancy - early-stage urbanisation, so relatively Shenzhen didn't have too much disadvantage. .


you kidding, right? one of nearby cities is hong kong


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## NCT

cbz said:


> you kidding, right? one of nearby cities is hong kong


HK was totally irrelevant when the borders were closed off! It didn't matter whether HK was on the doorstep or somewhere in Mars.


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## particlez

NCT said:


> Where do the other 60-odd percent go? Regenerated and connected Taicang, Wujiang, Changshu, Zhangjiagang, Danyang, Ma'anshan, just like Brentford, Guildford, Peterborough, Derby, Coventry which are outside of the 34% for the UK.


See, you mess up because you're comparing every other damned thing in the world with present-day Britain. The other 60% of the population around Shanghai lives primarily in small towns and rural areas. The proportion of rural residents in present-day China, including the comparatively wealthy areas around Shanghai is still much higher than it is in post-industrial Britain and other wealthy areas of the world. *There are still farmers moving to Shanghai and other Chinese cities. There is no comparable rural exodus in present-day Britain*.

Thus when others state that Shanghai will continue to add residents and can afford to develop newer commercial areas, they have a point. 

But then you never actually READ what others have to say. Otherwise you would not have persisted in the same counterintuitive arguments.


----------



## NCT

particlez said:


> See, you mess up because you're comparing every other damned thing in the world with present-day Britain. The other 60% of the population around Shanghai lives primarily in small towns and rural areas. The proportion of rural residents in present-day China, including the comparatively wealthy areas around Shanghai is still much higher than it is in post-industrial Britain and other wealthy areas of the world. *There are still farmers moving to Shanghai and other Chinese cities. There is no comparable rural exodus in present-day Britain*.
> 
> Thus when others state that Shanghai will continue to add residents and can afford to develop newer commercial areas, they have a point.


Still don't get it do you. It is perfectly sensible for the geographic notion of Shanghai Metropolitan Area to add residents, but in forms other than growing the core conurbation. The next wave of urbanisation should focus on the currently under-developed towns and county-level cities. Net population movement will be from villages to county-level cities like Taicang, and Zhangjiagang which are much better candidates for expansion, provided they are well linked to prefecture-level core cities. As Shanghai becomes increasingly tertiary-sector focused manufacturing is indeed moving to and growing in those small towns. It is not some grand ideology of mine - it's what's already started to happen now. Just like in the 50s London and Birmingham's growth slowed while satellite towns grew.

EDIT:

Also, as Shanghai is becoming dirtier, noisier and more expensive (just like London in the 50s), a lot of people are beginning to find alternatives to clogging up the matropolis. While in the last 30 years or so it is all about the big cities, my Chinese friends are telling me now that the big cities are becoming saturated and that real money lies in the untapped hinterlands. As standards of living in the surrounding places are improving considerably an increasing number of Shanghai retirees are in fact moving out. While it is still to early to talk about de-urbanisation, this is a sure signal for what future trends are to be. For all the talk about future-proof such little signals are being completely ignored.


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## particlez

...

Right now your thinking is cribbed from British planning circa 1963. Back then the plan was to develop areas far outside of the existing urban areas as independent, self-contained urban areas. Thus arose places like Cumbernauld. Not saying Cumbernauld should or should not be repeated, but there were definite 'issues' with its implementation. Namely, the planners did not configure for the residents of these supposedly independent new towns often making long, autocentric commutes to the older established centers for work, recreation, etc.

The same thinking pervaded Hong Kong planners in the 70s when areas of the New Territories were planned as independent new towns. Places like Tuen Mun were designed to be independent of the existing urban areas. Unfortunately the same problems arose, as new towns are effectively subservient to established areas. Thus transport corridors were built later on to relieve congestion.

Personally I don't care if the new residents are housed at the near outskirts of Shanghai or in some town 15 kilometers away. However, being physically closer to the core has its advantages, namely convenience and commute times. As long as they have access to efficient public transit to an from the other population and commercial nodes, they should be fine. They're living in a largely, densely populated, overcrowded city with a growing population. These agglomerations do need to expand their footprint. Yet you inevitably went off on a tangent and compared things to your idyllic provincial town. 

Now, let's get back to your *ahem* arguments. 

-You see why Shanghai's population will inevitably expand? You see why it never makes sense to compare an urbanizing area in the developing world to a mostly stagnant one in the developed world? 

-You see why your use of Greater London, Greater Manchester, Greater Liverpool etc. is not an accurate representation of the UK's urban concentration?


----------



## foxmulder

NCT, in almost all the cities in China, growth rate has been comparable to Shenzhen. Shenzen was special because it started from "0" and reached "100", others were started from may be like "5"  Okay, Shanghai might have started from "25" 

Even if you just look at old Shanghai pictures you will be shocked by the development. I am really having a hard time how a person can fail to see this. Please, compare following two pictures of Shanghai: 



















Now let's compare Shanghai station to Hongqiao;



















One can appreciate the size difference. Now tell me how Shanghai station could have done this? How much investment would have been required for a huge underground station in the city center?



By the way capacity is required because of this: 










Since you emphasized word "evidence" a lot, here is another hard fact underlying potential future development, *again*: Not even *50%* of Chinese population is urban. Chinese cities ought to become larger.


Last but not least; one has to think 4+4 main high speed trunk as a new mode of transportation, "a new way of air travel" if you will. It is under construction for *future*.


----------



## subspace

It's about time you all actually READ what NCT is saying, as much of it makes very much sense. Using Hongqiao from the city center is a pain in the neck, there is no doubt about that. It may be new, huge and shiny, but so what, I' not impressed if I have to endure 15 or what it is stops on a slow subway from People's square until I can reach it. Then you have a hard time finding the right escalators to the waiting hall because even the station employees have no idea and guide you around in circles...
The point is right now pretty much everything about HSR in China is extremely unfriendly to passengers, with the exception of the journey itself. That includes ticketing, getting to the stations, boarding the train, transferring from train to subway, etc...
Hongqiao specifically is a good traffic hub, but it needs to be much better integrated into a proper urban transportation system, i.e. continue express services to other stations, build an urban express rail (20-stops-until-downtown subways that are shared with ordinary commuters don't do it for me).


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## hmmwv

I think we are a little bit off topic when we started to talk about other aspects of urban development.


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## subspace

foxmulder said:


> By the way capacity is required because of this:


It is fascinating how inefficient Chinese Railway stations are when size is compared to passenger throughput. Zurich Main station handles I think about 500'000 passengers every day. Check how small it is. 

Chinese stations are huge because of the ridiculous ticketing system, schedules, security controls and because big is cool in China. I know, it may not be possible right now to change to a more user-friendly ticketing system, but the scary part is the Chinese seem more than happy to crank out huger and huger train stations almost week by week, while nobody ever seems to point out that the system itself is inherently inefficient.


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## chornedsnorkack

Going back on topic:


LHCHL said:


> so unless you are ready to commit to conducting extensive and rigorous engineering studies, let's just keep comments to the speculation level and focus on more pictures.


Not my interest. I would rather like to know schedules, station locations, and the plans for closer future.

Yichang-Wanzhou railway. Has it opened or been delayed?

Changchun-Jilin high speed railway. Which year shall it open?

Guangzhou-Shenzhen high speed railway. The Pearl River tunnel has been delayed. Which month shall it open?

Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway. Which month shall it open?


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## NCT

foxmulder said:


> NCT, in almost all the cities in China, growth rate has been comparable to Shenzhen. Shenzen was special because it started from "0" and reached "100", others were started from may be like "5"  Okay, Shanghai might have started from "25"
> 
> Even if you just look at old Shanghai pictures you will be shocked by the development. I am really having a hard time how a person can fail to see this. Please, compare following two pictures of Shanghai:


I'm not shocked at all. And it reinforces my point of growing not shifting. It is you who is thinking that all this central Shanghai developement can be crammed into Line 2 and does not need a central Shanghai transport hub.



> Now let's compare Shanghai station to Hongqiao;
> 
> One can appreciate the size difference. Now tell me how Shanghai station could have done this? How much investment would have been required for a huge underground station in the city center?


You are comparing one station to two stations. The Shanghai - Nanjing / Beijing part of the station is only 200 metres, the other 200 are for Shanghai - Hangzhou / Kunming. So there really isn't all that much of a difference.

What's all that stuff north and south of Shanghai Station? Oh yeah space. You could EASILY add platforms both sides of the station. There has been numerous facelifts to Shanghai Station both sides and redesigning of squares, yet not once did somebody actually think 'oh let's increase the actual station capacity while we can'. One could probably still encroach into the new coach station to the north by reallocating coach parking, and the buildings south of the station are not really of any architecural merit and can easily go.

The Old North Station site can easily accommodate a station with 10 platforms, and North Bund could have had a 6-platform commuter terminus. That's an extra 16 platforms sorted. Similarly Shanghai South has a lot of space to the north, and the Expo site (Xizang Nanlu) is a great place for a commuter terminus.

Costs might be slightly higher, but nowhere near astronomically higher than the ostentatiously engineered Hongqiao Station. There are no extra demolition and relocation costs as they were needed for wider development anyway. Higher initial costs _pay dividends_, as they serve travelling needs much more efficiently in the long term. Otherwise why did Berlin rebuild their main station to become double deck? Why did London rebuild St. Pancras, why is it rebuilding Cannon Street, Blackfriars, and why is it going to rebuild London Bridge and Euston? And why is Tokyo's busiest station multi-level and smack bang in the centre? There are a lot of huge stations in this list, and one common thing is that their ground footprint are actually quite small. Something to think for the future eh?

With a bit of coordinated planning Shanghai could be having something like this in North Bund and the Expo site:










Yet we are only capable of expanding ground footprint.



> By the way capacity is required because of this:


And you think this is a good thing? :bash:

Have you heard of Internet ticketing, turn up and go, and straight onto the platform? As line capacity is drastically increased, the problem of ticket touts will become insignificant, and there's no technological barrier to Internet ticketing AT ALL. For all the talk about the future you are in fact living _in the past_.



> Since you emphasized word "evidence" a lot, here is another hard fact underlying potential future development, *again*: Not even *50%* of Chinese population is urban. Chinese cities ought to become larger.


Yet in all highly urbanised countries, the share of population in big cities is consistently low. The big cities are big enough, what's now needed is to grow the smaller ones.



> Last but not least; one has to think 4+4 main high speed trunk as a new mode of transportation, "a new way of air travel" if you will. It is under construction for *future*.


Seems you know nothing about the future beyond how to spell the 6-lettered word.


----------



## particlez

NCT said:


> And why is Tokyo's busiest station multi-level and smack bang in the centre? There are a lot of huge stations in this list, and one common thing is that their ground footprint are actually quite small. Something to think for the future eh?


The central area of Tokyo way back when, was in Chuo (中央区). Shinjuku was on the periphery. You do realize much of Shinjuku's development occurred AFTER the station? Blah blah blah. Most of London's stations (St. Pancras was an exception) were built this way too. Others have addressed this in the past, yet you don't read.




NCT said:


> Yet in all highly urbanised countries, the share of population in big cities is consistently low. The big cities are big enough, what's now needed is to grow the smaller ones.
> 
> 
> 
> Seems you know nothing about the future beyond how to spell the 6-lettered word.


WTF? *How many times do you have to read this*? The share of population in big cities in urbanized countries is not low, and will not get low. London is a prime example of it. It may only appear low because you're using disingenuous stats and not including the multitude of commuters from outside the historical boundaries. If you used the proportion of British residents in the AGGLOMERATIONS OF London, Manchester, West Midlands, Glasgow, etc., you'd realize the urban areas are not tiny, and take up a large percentage of total inhabitants. Who knows? Maybe you think rural living in Cornwall is the future? Ironic you used TOKYO at the same time. You aren't even cognizant of your own backyard, but make sweeping generalizations of places elsewhere.

That, and you don't address others' points, but you continue writing.


----------



## foxmulder

NCT said:


> I'm not shocked at all. And it reinforces my point of growing not shifting. It is you who is thinking that all this central Shanghai developement can be crammed into Line 2 and does not need a central Shanghai transport hub.
> 
> 
> 
> You are comparing one station to two stations. The Shanghai - Nanjing / Beijing part of the station is only 200 metres, the other 200 are for Shanghai - Hangzhou / Kunming. So there really isn't all that much of a difference.


Pardon?  How come the final destinations are important? At the end a huge capacity increase was required for Shanghai. 



> What's all that stuff north and south of Shanghai Station? Oh yeah space. You could EASILY add platforms both sides of the station.


Can you please point the space you are talking about. All I see is high rises here.. 










Yellow current high rises, red is under construction. There is no space around this station. 






> There has been numerous facelifts to Shanghai Station both sides and redesigning of squares, yet not once did somebody actually think 'oh let's increase the actual station capacity while we can'. One could probably still encroach into the new coach station to the north by reallocating coach parking, and the buildings south of the station are not really of any architecural merit and can easily go.
> 
> The Old North Station site can easily accommodate a station with 10 platforms, and North Bund could have had a 6-platform commuter terminus. That's an extra 16 platforms sorted. Similarly Shanghai South has a lot of space to the north, and the Expo site (Xizang Nanlu) is a great place for a commuter terminus.
> 
> Costs might be slightly higher, but nowhere near astronomically higher than the ostentatiously engineered Hongqiao Station. There are no extra demolition and relocation costs as they were needed for wider development anyway. Higher initial costs _pay dividends_, as they serve travelling needs much more efficiently in the long term. Otherwise why did Berlin rebuild their main station to become double deck? Why did London rebuild St. Pancras, why is it rebuilding Cannon Street, Blackfriars, and why is it going to rebuild London Bridge and Euston? And why is Tokyo's busiest station multi-level and smack bang in the centre? There are a lot of huge stations in this list, and one common thing is that their ground footprint are actually quite small. Something to think for the future eh?
> 
> With a bit of coordinated planning Shanghai could be having something like this in North Bund and the Expo site:
> 
> 
> Yet we are only capable of expanding ground footprint.
> 
> 
> 
> And you think this is a good thing? :bash:


?? That shows the *demand*. Even if you ban ticket sales in stations, same crowd will be there.



> Have you heard of Internet ticketing, turn up and go, and straight onto the platform? As line capacity is drastically increased, the problem of ticket touts will become insignificant, and there's no technological barrier to Internet ticketing AT ALL. For all the talk about the future you are in fact living _in the past_.
> 
> 
> 
> Yet in all highly urbanised countries, the share of population in big cities is consistently low. The big cities are big enough, what's now needed is to grow the smaller ones.
> 
> 
> 
> Seems you know nothing about the future beyond how to spell the 6-lettered word.


China passenger numbers is *3 times* more than Japan and *ten times* more than Germany yet you keep comparing China with those countries to show China is building excessively. This is just ignoring the facts.



Anyway, happy thanksgiving folks  I am going to attack my turkey now


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## quashlo

Just correcting misconceptions and twisting of fact... There also seems to be some numbers thrown around that aren't anywhere near correct, either.



particlez said:


> The central area of Tokyo way back when, was in Chuo (中央区). Shinjuku was on the periphery. You do realize much of Shinjuku's development occurred AFTER the station?



You cannot compare Tōkyō back then to Shanghai now. Different level of development.
*NCT* is still correct in that the actual footprint of Shinjuku Station is quite small for the ridership it handles. Much of the station is underneath streets and buildings and in a stacked configuration both aboveground and underground.
Shinjuku Station is located in a dense mixed-use area and is completely built out with skyscrapers on the west and midrises everywhere else... It is also extremely walkable, no ridiculous setbacks, and the surrounding neighborhoods are well-connected to the station complex. Hongqiao is an airport, with wide roads and limited building heights. You cannot expect they will turn out the same.



foxmulder said:


> China passenger numbers is *3 times* more than Japan and *ten times* more than Germany yet you keep comparing China with those countries to show China is building excessively. This is just ignoring the facts.


This is just factually wrong...

China: 1.524 billion annual passengers (2009) (source)
*Japan: 22.72 billion annual passengers (FY2009)* (source)

Perhaps you were talking about passenger-kms, but that's not 3x either...

China: 787.889 billion passenger-kms (2009)
Japan: 393.903 billion passenger-kms (FY2009)
(same sources)


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## chornedsnorkack

How does the vicinity of Haneda compare against Hongqiao?


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## NCT

particlez said:


> The central area of Tokyo way back when, was in Chuo (中央区). Shinjuku was on the periphery. You do realize much of Shinjuku's development occurred AFTER the station? Blah blah blah. Most of London's stations (St. Pancras was an exception) were built this way too. Others have addressed this in the past, yet you don't read.


All stations are outside pre-industrial cities. Post-industrialisation, *after modern urban structure is established*, Tokyo Station was expanded many fold as new services were added, with the latest partial rebuilt being as late as 1991. They did not go 'hey Tokyo Station is so last century let's build an ostentatious monster in somewhere like Saitama and remove services from Tokyo' did they?

*EDIT*

Actually scrap even that you are trying to confuse me between Tokyo Station and Shinjuku Station. The Shinkansen actually use the former, which is right on the border of Chuo district. Shinjuku is more of a commuter train hub and doesn't even have Shinkansens.

/EDIT



> WTF? *How many times do you have to read this*? The share of population in big cities in urbanized countries is not low, and will not get low. London is a prime example of it. It may only appear low because you're using disingenuous stats and not including the multitude of commuters from outside the historical boundaries. If you used the proportion of British residents in the AGGLOMERATIONS OF London, Manchester, West Midlands, Glasgow, etc., you'd realize the urban areas are not tiny, and take up a large percentage of total inhabitants. Who knows? Maybe you think rural living in Cornwall is the future? Ironic you used TOKYO at the same time. You aren't even cognizant of your own backyard, but make sweeping generalizations of places elsewhere.
> 
> That, and you don't address others' points, but you continue writing.


How many times do I have to explain *grow the agglomeration*, not the core?! The whole point is that much of the agglomeration population need not be in the core! No need to question my numbers - your _agglomerations_ of Birmingham and Manchester include places like Lichfield and Chorley, which are not included in my 'third', just like Taicang and Kunshan were not included in that 40%.

Actually, the entire population of the Shanghai - Nanjing - Hangzhou is 70 million, and that within the Shanghai administrative boundary is just under 20 million. What's the proportion? quite a bit over 1/4.

It's unhealthy to confine too many people to too little space. *The good people of Shanghai are absolutely fed up with this overcrowding and a solution other than keep piling up must be found.* You need _breathing space_ between places, and break up the hustle and pollution. Satellites will be subservient to Shanghai economically, but they will still be independent to an extent, with local specialities, manufacturing for example. The degree of subservience will be in the order of 4 tph into Shanghai rather than 20.


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## NCT

foxmulder said:


> Pardon?  How come the final destinations are important? At the end a huge capacity increase was required for Shanghai.


I can't believe I'm reading this. Go back and study my post again.



> Can you please point the space you are talking about. All I see is high rises here..
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yellow current high rises, red is under construction. There is no space around this station.


Apart from the coach station the North Station Square is completely clear. The 'construction site' with your red arrow was just groundwork for the new square. One of the buildings has already been demolished. And your yellow arrows are at least 6 platforms long and are sitting on empty space.

Let this picture do the explaining:










With platforms being slightly 'banana shaped' there is easily room for 20 platforms, that is 6 extra compared to present. You can shove the Metro lines 3/4 station underground witht new commuter platforms. You can build the new station on the old North Station site first, and move trains there while work is carried out at Shanghai Station. [/QUOTE]



> ?? That shows the *demand*. Even if you ban ticket sales in stations, same crowd will be there.


The crowd shows *inefficiency*. With better flexibility passengers arriving would be absorbed onto trains straightaway. Given short ticket supply and one train per day to far destinations many people spend hours at stations before travelling. As an illustration, if 3 hours (not an unreasonable assumption) were reduced to 30 minutes, given the same numbers of entry the crowd would be reduced to 1/6 the original level.


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## NCT

chornedsnorkack said:


> How does the vicinity of Haneda compare against Hongqiao?


They are almost exactly the same, just over 15 km from the centre.


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## whatever123

India has been having internet ticketing for almost like 6-7 years i reckon. That is buy ..take a print out..and travel . Why does china not have it ?


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## cbz

quashlo said:


> Just correcting misconceptions and twisting of fact... There also seems to be some numbers thrown around that aren't anywhere near correct, either.
> 
> This is just factually wrong...
> 
> China: 1.524 billion annual passengers (2009) (source)
> *Japan: 22.72 billion annual passengers (FY2009)* (source)
> 
> 
> (same sources)


The numbers you throw here are correct. But i am afraid that Japan's 22.72 billion passengers number is not really the same sense of the railway passenger number in china. Japan's number seemly also include some monorail,streetcar and metro system, e.g Tokyo metro which daily ridership is 6 millions


p.s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_lines_in_Japan
Gallery

These modes of transport are all classified as railway in Japan.

Conventional railway


Conventional railway (freight)


Tramway


Trolleybus


Handcar


Horsecar


Funicular


Monorail


New transit system (people mover)


New transit system (maglev)


New transit system (skyrail)


New transit system (guideway bus)

These are not classified as railway in Japan, thus not covered in this article.

Airport people mover


Slope car


Attraction ride


Industrial railway (some of them)


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## quashlo

cbz said:


> The numbers you throw here are correct. But i am afraid that Japan's 22.72 billion passengers number is not really the same sense of the railway passenger number in china. Japan's number seemly also include some monorail,streetcar and metro system, e.g Tokyo metro which daily ridership is 6 millions


I'm surprised you caught that, I was wondering if someone would... At least I know someone is reading what I post.  

Without boring people with all the details, there is no easy way to break up the 22.72 billion. Japan does not break down the number, except into JR (8.84 billion) and non-JR (13.88 billion)... Problem is that while the Chinese numbers are pretty much only intercity and HSR services because urban transport is left to the metro systems, the JR number is that plus commuter / urban networks. Plus a fair share of the non-JR ridership is also on "intercity" trips. So there will never be an "equivalent" comparison.

But ultimately, even if you added all the urban rail ridership in China from all the metro systems, you would probably not get something 3x the number for Japan. In fact, I suspect it would be only be 1x at best currently (not to say it won't grow in the future).


----------



## cbz

quashlo said:


> I'm surprised you caught that, I was wondering if someone would... At least I know someone is reading what I post.
> 
> Without boring people with all the details, there is no easy way to break up the 22.72 billion. Japan does not break down the number, except into JR (8.84 billion) and non-JR (13.88 billion)... Problem is that while the Chinese numbers are pretty much only intercity and HSR services because urban transport is left to the metro systems, the JR number is that plus commuter / urban networks. Plus a fair share of the non-JR ridership is also on "intercity" trips. So there will never be an "equivalent" comparison.
> 
> But ultimately, even if you added all the urban rail ridership in China from all the metro systems, you would probably not get something 3x the number for Japan. In fact, I suspect it would be only be 1x at best currently (not to say it won't grow in the future).


22.7 billions seems way too big for a country's conventional railway, guess other will have doubt on this as well.

Not sure what JR stands for, Japan Railway? but i am still wondering whether that 8.84 billion is the number on conventional railway.


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## quashlo

I already said it has urban transport ridership...
I don't want to make this into a pissing match, but the 3x times number seemed to be pulled out of thin air. That's all. Using that as justification for having the large stations doesn't hold up when other stations can handle much more ridership just fine with a smaller footprint.

The real issues are the ticketing and scheduling, as other posters have noted. The system they have right now is inefficient... That's the only reason they need the huge plazas outside to hold everyone.


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## greenlion

http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/foreign-view/2010-11/596741.html

Speed isn't everything on China's new rails 

Source: Global Times [08:23 November 26 2010] Comments 

Editor's Note: 
China's high-speed rail trains are now the fastest in the world, but there are questions from the international market over its safety and it hasn't yet proved popular with travelers. Is large-scale construction of high-speed rail in China necessary? What challenges are China's bullet trains facing in the global marketplace? Global Times (GT) reporter Yu Jincui talked to Sun Zhang (Sun), a rail expert and a professor with the Railway & Urban Rail Transit Institute of the Shanghai-based Tongji University, on these issues.

*GT: Why is China developing high-speed rail so fast?*

Sun: Joseph E. Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics winner, once said there were two focuses in the 21st century, China's urbanization and America's high-tech. I think this well illustrates China's engagement in high-speed railway construction.
The development of Chinese urbanization calls for high-speed rail. With the deepening of urbanization, the connection between cities needs to be intensified.
To close the distance between different cities, bullet trains should be developed as a mass transportation tool to meet people's travel needs. 
The 21st century is seeing fierce high-tech competition. Developing bullet trains could inspire China's technological innovation and increase its global technological competitiveness, so China's decision to develop high-speed railway is a far-sighted strategy.
Here are 10 advantages of bullet trains: huge capacity, fast, good safety record, punctual, low energy consumption, occupy less land, comfortable, environmentally friendly and automation of ticket sale. Developing high-speed rail satisfies China's demand for sustainable development.
Another concern is to optimize the passenger transport structure. According to the statistics in 2009, road capacity took up 93.3 percent of China's total passenger capacity, railway 5.11 percent, civil aviation 0.76 percent and water transport 0.75 percent. Road transportation takes too big a slice of the pie and it is not an optimal structure.
We started introducing advanced foreign rail technology and equipment during the seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-1990), and independently manufactured high-speed trains such as the China Star and the Pioneer in the 1990s. Although they were never put into operation, the related research cultivated talent and created favorable conditions for new developments.

*GT: High-speed bullet trains are sometimes criticized as impractical. Why are there so many empty seats on some trains?*

Sun: The reasons are complicated.
Take the Shanghai-Hangzhou high railway. People in Shanghai previously took the T, K, or D high-speed trains to go to Hangzhou from the Shanghai South Railway Station. After the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway was unveiled, the railway authorities cancelled all these trains and people have to go to Hongqiao Railway Station to take bullet trains.
Although bullet trains are much quicker than the usual high speed trains, as Hongqiao Railway Station is located in the suburb of Shanghai, far away from the downtown, passengers need to spend much more time on traveling in the city. It is not convenient for them, so more and more are taking coaches as the bus station is downtown.
Rail development in our country started fairly late and freight lines developed before passenger lines. Passenger rail should be in the center of the city, and freight rail on the outskirts, but the situation in China is the opposite. 
Some experts have suggested upgrading the existing freight rail lines into high-speed rail and rebuilding freight lines in the suburbs, but whether this is feasible is still under discussion.
We should look at Taiwan's high-speed rail as a warning, where the bullet trains, thanks to improper planning, have already lost over NT$70 billion ($2.32 billion).
Chinese passengers are cost sensitive. The development of transportation products and services should be in accordance with the demands of the market.

*GT: Some critics argue high-speed rail is a waste of resources. Is that true?*

Sun: We should admit the necessity of developing railways in China. Rail is the main artery of the national economy, a popular means of transport, and plays an important role in improving people's livelihood.
However, when proceeding railway construction, the proportion of various train services should be carefully handled.
High speed rail mostly serves a small group who are not sensitive to ticket prices. Large-scale construction of high-speed rails not necessarily feasible in China. The value of time is directly proportional to the net income level of a country. Our bullet trains are the fastest in the world, but income levels don't even break the top hundred globally. 
What we should do is to make an overall railway development plan. We need to develop high-speed rail, but at the same time we should upgrade the existing lines and promote the development of various other fast trains.
The current plan is to finish 16,000 kilometers high-speed rail by 2020, I am not advocating slowing down the construction speed, but the key point is that we should optimize the investment in railway, and more importantly, provide the people with a varied rail network.

*GT: China's bullet trains are the fastest in the world, but some Western countries question their safety. Is this fair?*

Sun: Questioning our bullet trains' safety is understandable. We have only developed bullet trains for six years, but are aiming at the same level as developed countries. Leapfrog development has some problems. The upgrade of the bullet train's speed should be based on a mass of experiment data, a sufficient safety factor and a long period of testing.
There's some risk involved with bullet trains at the moment. The highest experimental speed of the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway is 416.6 kilometers per hour (kph), and the real running speed is as 350 kph. The gap between the two speeds is too small.
We only reached the speed of 350 kph with our trains on August 1, 2008. I think we'd better take more time to consolidate the speed. Although upgrading speed has great significance for technological progress and innovation and China is eager to win world recognition and improve international competitiveness, we need to be more cautious.

*GT: How are our bullet trains positioned in the international market?*

Sun: There is no doubt that we have a world-class technological level and speed.
The technology development route of our country is introducing foreign technology first, then jointly designing and manufacturing with foreign companies and finally innovating ourselves.
We introduced the foreign technology to help develop bullet trains with a speed of 250 kph and 300 kph (Siemens), and then make a breakthrough to develop trains with a speed of 350 kph. Although we claim full intellectual property rights, foreign countries think differently.
In the Chronicle of World Railways issued by Germany in 2009, the words under a picture of China's CRH-3 read "China's ICE-3 Velaro." China's CRH-3 was developed based on technologies of the German firm Siemens. We should try to avoid the risk of intellectual property disputes.
Another challenge is the international worries about speed. Not long ago, the Ministry of Railways bid on a program in Saudi Arabia with the 350 kph bullet trains but failed.
It was mainly because China's speed safety was not totally recognized. It is understandable. After all, such a speed has been managed in China for about two years.
We should take gradual steps to enter into the global market. First, we export 250 kph bullet trains, then we can export 350 kph ones. Both China and the international community need time to test the safety.
It is better for us to cooperate with other countries so we could share the risks.


----------



## Restless

*China introduces first fuel cell light rail locomotive*
13:19, November 26, 2010 
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/7212443.html

China's first new energy fuel cell light rail locomotive, which is powered by the world advanced permanent-magnet motor and jointly developed by the China North Vehicle Yongji Electric Motor Corporation and the Southwest Jiaotong University, was successfully introduced.

China's first new energy fuel cell light rail locomotive adopts hydrogen as the energy for the fuel cells as well as the world advanced permanent-magnet synchronous motor and frequency converter independently developed by the China North Vehicle Yongji Electric Motor Corporation as its main source of power. 

Meanwhile, China North Vehicle Yongji Electric Motor also independently took on the tasks of vehicle design and research and development. As the comprehensive performance test results meet the requirements of various indicators, this new energy fuel cell light rail locomotive has many potential applications as well as huge economic and environmental benefits in fields such as railways, subways, urban-suburban light rail railways and mining.

The permanent-magnet synchronous motor adopted by the China's first new energy fuel cell light rail locomotive has advantages, such as high power, high efficiency, remarkable energy conservation and low vibration and noise. 

It can achieve the high performance that traditional motors cannot achieve and also can be developed into a special motor and highly-efficient energy-conservation motor to meet specific operational requirements. It can conserve 10 percent to 20 percent of integrated energy on average and has been successfully applied in many fields. It is also an important development direction for China's motor industry to adjust its industrial structure.

Experts believe the successful application of the permanent-magnet synchronous motor in China's first new energy fuel cell light rail locomotive has provided a solution for the electrification of China's urban public transportation and the traffic congestion panic. It is also conducive to the promotion of China's new energy industry in a larger scope.

By People's Daily Online


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/foreign-view/2010-11/596741.html
> 
> Take the Shanghai-Hangzhou high railway. People in Shanghai previously took the T, K, or D high-speed trains to go to Hangzhou from the Shanghai South Railway Station. After the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway was unveiled, the railway authorities cancelled all these trains and people have to go to Hongqiao Railway Station to take bullet trains.
> Although bullet trains are much quicker than the usual high speed trains, as Hongqiao Railway Station is located in the suburb of Shanghai, far away from the downtown, passengers need to spend much more time on traveling in the city. It is not convenient for them, so more and more are taking coaches as the bus station is downtown.


Emphasized. Short distance rail, such as under 200 km Shanghai-Hangzhou, competes against bus and private car. While bus at under 90 km/h is slower, if the passengers need a long bus trip to parkway station anyway, they can take bus all the way. 

What is being done about Shanghai South?


greenlion said:


> Rail development in our country started fairly late and freight lines developed before passenger lines. Passenger rail should be in the center of the city, and freight rail on the outskirts, but the situation in China is the opposite.
> Some experts have suggested upgrading the existing freight rail lines into high-speed rail and rebuilding freight lines in the suburbs, but whether this is feasible is still under discussion.
> We should look at Taiwan's high-speed rail as a warning, where the bullet trains, thanks to improper planning, have already lost over NT$70 billion ($2.32 billion).
> Chinese passengers are cost sensitive. The development of transportation products and services should be in accordance with the demands of the market.
> 
> *GT: Some critics argue high-speed rail is a waste of resources. Is that true?*
> 
> Sun: We should admit the necessity of developing railways in China. Rail is the main artery of the national economy, a popular means of transport, and plays an important role in improving people's livelihood.
> However, when proceeding railway construction, the proportion of various train services should be carefully handled.
> High speed rail mostly serves a small group who are not sensitive to ticket prices. Large-scale construction of high-speed rails not necessarily feasible in China. The value of time is directly proportional to the net income level of a country. Our bullet trains are the fastest in the world, but income levels don't even break the top hundred globally.


Yes, but high speed train ticket prices are still lower than plane ticket prices. The high speed trains are alternative to excessive expansion of flights.


greenlion said:


> What we should do is to make an overall railway development plan. We need to develop high-speed rail, but at the same time we should upgrade the existing lines and promote the development of various other fast trains.
> The current plan is to finish 16,000 kilometers high-speed rail by 2020, I am not advocating slowing down the construction speed, but the key point is that we should optimize the investment in railway, and more importantly, provide the people with a varied rail network.





greenlion said:


> We should take gradual steps to enter into the global market. First, we export 250 kph bullet trains, then we can export 350 kph ones. Both China and the international community need time to test the safety.
> It is better for us to cooperate with other countries so we could share the risks.


China needs to build 250 km/h rail lines, too.


----------



## hkskyline

*Railway freightage with China will double over 10 yrs, RZD predicts*

MOSCOW. Nov 24 (Interfax) - OJSC Russian Railways (RZD) (RTS: RZHD) projects that railway freightage with China will increased by 50% to 100% over the coming ten years.

"The prospective volume of freight moved along direct railway lines with China could increase by 1.5-2-fold in the next decade," RZD President Vladimir Yakunin is quoted in a company statement as saying.

The rails carry a significant portion of the foreign-trade goods moved between the two countries, he said. In Jan-Oct of this year, the amount of cargo moved by rail both ways increased 33% year-on-year to 53 million tonnes.

Around 94% was export oil, timber, chemicals and mineral fertilizers. Factoring in the increased shipments of mechanical and technological goods from China, Russia's imports from its southern neighbor have begun to increase.

RZD expects a substantial increase - about 50% - in the amount of heavy containers moved by rail between the two countries, as well as in that of Chinese shipments transiting Russia westward to the EU.


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## foxmulder

quashlo said:


> Just correcting misconceptions and twisting of fact... There also seems to be some numbers thrown around that aren't anywhere near correct, either.
> 
> 
> 
> You cannot compare Tōkyō back then to Shanghai now. Different level of development.
> *NCT* is still correct in that the actual footprint of Shinjuku Station is quite small for the ridership it handles. Much of the station is underneath streets and buildings and in a stacked configuration both aboveground and underground.
> Shinjuku Station is located in a dense mixed-use area and is completely built out with skyscrapers on the west and midrises everywhere else... It is also extremely walkable, no ridiculous setbacks, and the surrounding neighborhoods are well-connected to the station complex. Hongqiao is an airport, with wide roads and limited building heights. You cannot expect they will turn out the same.
> 
> This is just factually wrong...
> 
> China: 1.524 billion annual passengers (2009) (source)
> *Japan: 22.72 billion annual passengers (FY2009)* (source)
> 
> Perhaps you were talking about passenger-kms, but that's not 3x either...
> 
> China: 787.889 billion passenger-kms (2009)
> Japan: 393.903 billion passenger-kms (FY2009)
> (same sources)


My numbers are (billion passenger km):

India 770 2008
China	769 2008 
Japan	259 2008
Russia	175 2008

http://www.uic.org/com/IMG/pdf/cp5_en-2.pdf


Fright traffic (billion tons km)

USA 2273
Russia 2400 
China 2338
India 521
Europe 401

same source.


----------



## foxmulder

quashlo said:


> I'm surprised you caught that, I was wondering if someone would... At least I know someone is reading what I post.
> 
> Without boring people with all the details, there is no easy way to break up the 22.72 billion. Japan does not break down the number, except into JR (8.84 billion) and non-JR (13.88 billion)... Problem is that while the Chinese numbers are pretty much only intercity and HSR services because urban transport is left to the metro systems, the JR number is that plus commuter / urban networks. Plus a fair share of the non-JR ridership is also on "intercity" trips. So there will never be an "equivalent" comparison.
> 
> But ultimately, even if you added all the urban rail ridership in China from all the metro systems, you would probably not get something 3x the number for Japan. In fact, I suspect it would be only be 1x at best currently (not to say it won't grow in the future).


wow.. I just read this. So you used statistics to misinform people in your first post.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> *Railway freightage with China will double over 10 yrs, RZD predicts*
> 
> MOSCOW. Nov 24 (Interfax) - OJSC Russian Railways (RZD) (RTS: RZHD) projects that railway freightage with China will increased by 50% to 100% over the coming ten years.
> 
> "The prospective volume of freight moved along direct railway lines with China could increase by 1.5-2-fold in the next decade," RZD President Vladimir Yakunin is quoted in a company statement as saying.


How many direct railway lines are there between Russia and China? Manzhouli, Suifenhe, Hunchun... any others?


hkskyline said:


> RZD expects a substantial increase - about 50% - in the amount of heavy containers moved by rail between the two countries, as well as in that of Chinese shipments transiting Russia westward to the EU.


How much freight shall travel between China and Russia via the railways of Mongolia and Kazakhstan?


----------



## NCT

foxmulder said:


> My numbers are (billion passenger km):
> 
> India 770 2008
> China	769 2008
> Japan	259 2008
> Russia	175 2008
> 
> http://www.uic.org/com/IMG/pdf/cp5_en-2.pdf


That means Chinese regional passenger numbers are a tiny fraction of the Japanese number. Given that China's population is more than 10x the population of Japan, only when China's passenger km is more than 10x that of Japan will comparison with Japan cease to be relevant. So central + efficiency + small footprint please.


----------



## foxmulder

NCT said:


> I can't believe I'm reading this. Go back and study my post again.


I think you should read what you wrote again...



> Apart from the coach station the North Station Square is completely clear. The 'construction site' with your red arrow was just groundwork for the new square. One of the buildings has already been demolished. And your yellow arrows are at least 6 platforms long and are sitting on empty space.
> 
> Let this picture do the explaining:
> 
> ]
> 
> With platforms being slightly 'banana shaped' there is easily room for 20 platforms, that is 6 extra compared to present. You can shove the Metro lines 3/4 station underground witht new commuter platforms. You can build the new station on the old North Station site first, and move trains there while work is carried out at Shanghai Station.


You know what the funny thing is in 1980s Shanghai Station was in suburbs too. 




> The crowd shows *inefficiency*. With better flexibility passengers arriving would be absorbed onto trains straightaway. Given short ticket supply and one train per day to far destinations many people spend hours at stations before travelling. As an illustration, if 3 hours (not an unreasonable assumption) were reduced to 30 minutes, given the same numbers of entry the crowd would be reduced to 1/6 the original level.


It *does *show the demand. Inefficiency only can be a "comment", an "indirect interpretation of data" . Internet ticketing will sure help but the fact is probably half of those people do not have internet. They should (AFAIK they will) sell tickets online. It will help. The demand for rail travel is mostly seasonal in China. That's why you see these crazy crowds at certain times. My point was to show what train stations in China should be able to cope.


----------



## cbz

quashlo said:


> The real issues are the ticketing and scheduling, as other posters have noted. The system they have right now is inefficient... That's the only reason they need the huge plazas outside to hold everyone.


I don't think better ticketing and scheduling system will solve the issues that china railway system faces during the peak seasons. When people talking about how efficient western countries' railway station handle large traffic volume, but i believe that none of western countries rail systems or transport systems will experience extremely surging traffic load like china during chunyun, Oct, May long holiday and summer time, when daily rail passenger ridership will jump from 3 millions to 5 millions, or even more than 8 millions (this year Oct 1st). Do we really expect millions of migrant workers well plan in holiday season and book tickets in advance. To me, gigantic waiting hall, concourse, huge outside space are really needed for all the railway stations in major cities of china to handle these scenarios, it is not over/bad planning, or about bragging right, showing off the world we have the biggest and largest. 

Also, if you just take look at the terminus of hong qiao railway station, the footprint is not that unreasonably large considering its 30 tracks and 16 platforms which need relatively large space anyway, unless it is built underground - but please think about 4 billions cost of hong qiao railway station versus 7 billons cost of underground shenzhen futian station which has only 8 tracks and 4 platforms.


----------



## foxmulder

NCT said:


> That means Chinese regional passenger numbers are a tiny fraction of the Japanese number. Given that China's population is more than 10x the population of Japan, only when China's passenger km is more than 10x that of Japan will comparison with Japan cease to be relevant. So central + efficiency + small footprint please.


How is the population is a factor here? Demand for railroad is much more in China, especially when you include freight. I didn't write anything for "per person" data. Of course, a person in Japan is using railroad more than a person in China. :cheers:


----------



## chornedsnorkack

quashlo said:


> But ultimately, even if you added all the urban rail ridership in China from all the metro systems, you would probably not get something 3x the number for Japan.


Does China publish urban rail passenger numbers?


----------



## cbz

NCT said:


> That means Chinese regional passenger numbers are a tiny fraction of the Japanese number. Given that China's population is more than 10x the population of Japan, only when China's passenger km is more than 10x that of Japan will comparison with Japan cease to be relevant. So central + efficiency + small footprint please.


funny how i draw opposite conclusion - Chinese HSR system is not only built for local/regional daily commuters hopping on and off trains and rushing to office in the early morning like Japan, it should focus more on serving long distance commuters, if you check schedules of shanghai station, most of destinations are outside nearby provinces. Even with HSR backbone in place, most of journeys starting from Shanghai will be more than couple of hours, does extra 20 minutes on subway really matter to those passengers. So capacity+distance+efficiency please


----------



## NCT

foxmulder said:


> I think you should read what you wrote again...


Oh for goodness sake. If you wanted to compare existing infrastructure with the whole Hongqiao then you have to include Shanghai South Station too.



> You know what the funny thing is in 1980s Shanghai Station was in suburbs too.


Read up on stages on urban development.



> It *does *show the demand. Inefficiency only can be a "comment", an "indirect interpretation of data" . Internet ticketing will sure help but the fact is probably half of those people do not have internet. They should (AFAIK they will) sell tickets online. It will help. The demand for rail travel is mostly seasonal in China. That's why you see these crazy crowds at certain times. My point was to show what train stations in China should be able to cope.


They will be able to cope when there are more trains and if people can just walk onto the platform taking whichever train leaves first on an open ticket.

Unfortunately the green-skins used by migrant workers don't get to enjoy the shiny new stations do they, which are 'reserved' for the upper class high-speed trains. Also, this trend will disappear in the future as China gets richer and hopefully more equal. So the huge rail ports are neither necessary for the present or the future.



foxmulder said:


> How is the population is a factor here? Demand for railroad is much more in China, especially when you include freight. I didn't write anything for "per person" data. *Of course, a person in Japan is using railroad more than a person in China.* :cheers:


:bash: Utterly unbelievable. Journeys between Xi'an and Chengdu are totally irrelevant to how Shanghai stations should be designed. Just think of it this way - the part of demand involving, say Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang - is that 3x that of Japan?


----------



## foxmulder

NCT said:


> Oh for goodness sake. If you wanted to compare existing infrastructure with the whole Hongqiao then you have to include Shanghai South Station too.
> 
> 
> 
> Read up on stages on urban development.
> 
> 
> 
> They will be able to cope when there are more trains and if people can just walk onto the platform taking whichever train leaves first on an open ticket.
> 
> Unfortunately the green-skins used by migrant workers don't get to enjoy the shiny new stations do they, which are 'reserved' for the upper class high-speed trains. Also, this trend will disappear in the future as China gets richer and hopefully more equal. So the huge rail ports are neither necessary for the present or the future.
> 
> 
> 
> :bash: Utterly unbelievable. Journeys between Xi'an and Chengdu are totally irrelevant to how Shanghai stations should be designed. Just think of it this way - the part of demand involving, say Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang - is that 3x that of Japan?



Poffff.... When we boiled it down, your argument is Shanghai would have been OK with upgrading current stations it has. My argument is needed capacity and probable future needs is much more demanding that only upgrading current stations won't be enough. The rationale is huge potential for future development (you didnt buy it that is why the numbers, pictures etc.....). Demand is only going to increase in China hence in the biggest city of China, Shanghai, too. Upgrading current station will be only temporary and short sighted solution. 

New stations serving for 4+4 high speed railroads is part of a master plan creating a new mode of transport. It will induce future development, cope with huge demand and will have opportunity for even further upgrades.

Specifically for Hongqiao station; the idea of merging an airport to high speed network is simply brilliant. This should have more examples. 

And dont :bash: make love  :cheers:


----------



## NCT

cbz said:


> funny how i draw opposite conclusion - Chinese HSR system is not only built for local/regional daily commuters hopping on and off trains and rushing to office in the early morning like Japan, it should focus more on serving long distance commuters, if you check schedules of shanghai station, most of destinations are outside nearby provinces. Even with HSR backbone in place, most of journeys starting from Shanghai will be more than couple of hours, does extra 20 minutes on subway really matter to those passengers. So capacity+distance+efficiency please


While you are correct that proportionally commuter travel will be lower than in Japan or Europe, but in absolute numbers this part of the demand will still be huge. In catering for longer-distance travellers you can't forget the commuters either.

It's not so much the extra 20 minutes, but the sheer volume of passengers who will travel in a highly linear fashion between town and station, and the two Metro lines just won't cope on top of serving urban commuters. Extra capacity into town is desperately needed, and what better way than extending the whole line further in? The whole point of HSR is that more destinations are reachable in under 4 hours like Hefei and Jinan, so the prospects for day office trips are wider. It'd be such a shame if a whole extra hour is added on the Metros, then you might as well book an overnight sleeper which would save more time and forget HSR has ever existed.



foxmulder said:


> Poffff.... When we boiled it down, your argument is Shanghai would have been OK with upgrading current stations it has. My argument is needed capacity and probable future needs is much more demanding that only upgrading current stations won't be enough. The rationale is huge potential for future development (you didnt buy it that is why the numbers, pictures etc.....). Demand is only going to increase in China hence in the biggest city of China, Shanghai, too. Upgrading current station will be only temporary and short sighted solution.
> 
> New stations serving for 4+4 high speed railroads is part of a master plan creating a new mode of transport. It will induce future development, cope with huge demand and will have opportunity for even further upgrades.
> 
> Specifically for Hongqiao station; the idea of merging an airport to high speed network is simply brilliant. This should have more examples.
> 
> And dont :bash: make love  :cheers:


I said city centre resources should be fully utilised rather than abandoned, and pointed out many *potential possibilities for more central Shanghai options*. My Shanghai expansion + Old North Station + North Bund Station suggestion actually adds *more* platforms to the Shanghai - Nanjing corridor than Hongqiao has managed, and would serve current and future travel needs much better than shoving everything to Hongqiao. The idea of Hongqiao airport having a railway connection is good, but the demand for airport transfer onto railways is far lower than the demand from all the business destricts in the city centre, hence the need for better balancing. Hongqiao becoming the MAIN railway station is like 烧香的赶走和尚. Hey the professor from Tongji University seems to agree with me.


----------



## quashlo

cbz said:


> When people talking about how efficient western countries' railway station handle large traffic volume, but i believe that none of western countries rail systems or transport systems will experience extremely surging traffic load like china during chunyun, Oct, May long holiday and summer time, when daily rail passenger ridership will jump from 3 millions to 5 millions, or even more than 8 millions (this year Oct 1st).


Perhaps this is true for Western countries, but Japan manages to do just fine with railway surges during peak periods including the New Year's. Peak-direction travel on just the Tōkaidō Shinkansen on the peak days of the 2009-2010 New Year's period was 233,000 pax in the down direction (2009.12.31) and 269,000 pax in the up direction (2010.01.03) (source). And this is actually down from previous years. For reference, the average daily ridership (across both directions) for FY2009 is 378,000 pax (source), which translates to average 189,000 pax per direction per day. So the "surge" is equivalent to as much as a *42% increase* in daily unidirectional ridership demand, on top of a system that is already pretty much at capacity under regular service. JR adds a few more trains each hour and calls it good... No need for large dead spaces outside the station to contain passengers, even during peak travel days.

The peak travel is a factor, but is not unique to China and is still solvable without the need for the large plazas... The "brute-force" solution of designing everything for the peak works, but as China's railway network expands, more efficient ticketing systems are implemented, and the scheduling improves, these large spaces both inside and outside the station will eventually not be needed and sit empty. From a regular passengers' perspective outside of the peak travel periods, having to walk 10-15 minutes just to get in and out of the station and then another 10-15 minutes (if not more) through the plaza and to any connecting modes (for a parkway station) or to nearby buildings (for an urban station) is hardly a convenience.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

quashlo said:


> The peak travel is a factor, but is not unique to China and is still solvable without the need for the large plazas... The "brute-force" solution of designing everything for the peak works, but as China's railway network expands, more efficient ticketing systems are implemented, and the scheduling improves, these large spaces both inside and outside the station will eventually not be needed and sit empty. From a regular passengers' perspective outside of the peak travel periods, having to walk 10-15 minutes just to get in and out of the station and then another 10-15 minutes (if not more) through the plaza and to any connecting modes (for a parkway station) or to nearby buildings (for an urban station) is hardly a convenience.


Can the space under the plazas be employed for stations of connecting subways?


----------



## cbz

quashlo said:


> From a regular passengers' perspective outside of the peak travel periods, having to walk 10-15 minutes just to get in and out of the station and then another 10-15 minutes (if not more) through the plaza and to any connecting modes (for a parkway station) or to nearby buildings (for an urban station) is hardly a convenience.


if you are referring to hong qiao,10-15 minutes walking is an exaggeration, for departure, taxi can pretty much drops you off at entrance of departure hall, maximum walking distance from subway station to either end of departure entrance should be less than 200m. For 10 minutes, you can walk from west side of railway station to east side for T2 (less than 1000m)


----------



## cbz

NCT said:


> It's not so much the extra 20 minutes, but the sheer volume of passengers who will travel in a highly linear fashion between town and station, and the two Metro lines just won't cope on top of serving urban commuters. Extra capacity into town is desperately needed, and what better way than extending the whole line further in?


not sure what you mean by linear fashion between town and station. You know existing line 2 is already connected to line 4,3,11,7 before reach Nanjing west road. Most of passengers from hong qiao will be distributed to other lines before reach overcrowd city center. With future metro expansion, hong qiao hub will be connected directly or indirectly to line 10,1,5,9,17,13,20,22,15,16,12,14 (wow! great job, shanghai) before reach down town.

let's look at at Hong qiao railway station/airport design daily capacity: 160000+80000=240000, assuming all of passengers will use metro system even though there will be quite amount of them will use bus,taxi or just exchange between trains and airlines, i don't think there is any issue for existing metro line to handle such flow. Keep in mind that some lines of shanghai metro are handling nearly 50000 section passenger flow per hour.


----------



## NCT

cbz said:


> not sure what you mean by linear fashion between town and station. You know existing line 2 is already connected to line 4,3,11,7 before reach Nanjing west road. Most of passengers from hong qiao will be distributed to other lines before reach overcrowd city center. With future metro expansion, hong qiao hub will be connected directly or indirectly to line 10,1,5,9,17,13,20,22,15,16,12,14 (wow! great job, shanghai) before reach down town.
> 
> let's look at at Hong qiao railway station/airport design daily capacity: 160000+80000=240000, assuming all of passengers will use metro system even though there will be quite amount of them will use bus,taxi or just exchange between trains and airlines, i don't think there is any issue for existing metro line to handle such flow. Keep in mind that some lines of shanghai metro are handling nearly 50000 section passenger flow per hour.


On the line 2, the first significant interchange opportunity is Zhongshan Park, by which point the train would be full of commuters from Qingpu, Xinjin and Tianshan. This means train passegers would have to share capacity with almost the ENTIRE commuter pool of the western section of line 2. Some will change onto 3/4 for Shanghai Station and Shanghai Stadium areas, and some will get onto line 11 for Xujiahui. But the majority of business travellers will continue to at least People's Square, so have to put up with everyone chucked off lines 11 and 7 from Jiangsu Road. Trust me I've travelled as a commuter on line 2 between Zhongshan Park and Lujiazui for 5 weeks this summer and horrible would be an understatement to describe the experience.

Line 10 goes through the more cultural and leisury areas so probably wouldn't help line 2 _that_ much.


----------



## cbz

NCT said:


> I said city centre resources should be fully utilised rather than abandoned, and pointed out many *potential possibilities for more central Shanghai options*. My Shanghai expansion + Old North Station + North Bund Station suggestion actually adds *more* platforms to the Shanghai - Nanjing corridor than Hongqiao has managed,


it is kind of overkill since you already have shanghai west and shanghai for nanjing corridor. if you want well balance, you might consider converting north freight station to passenger station.


----------



## NCT

cbz said:


> it is kind of overkill since you already have shanghai west and shanghai for nanjing corridor. if you want well balance, you might consider converting north freight station to passenger station.


To be honest Foxmulder would be right in saying Shanghai Station alone wouldn't be enough, as you'd have to accommodate regional intercity, national intercity and commuter trains. The new Shanghai - Nantong railway would probably need to share terminating capacity with the Nanjing corridor too.

Shanghai West is next to useless as it's a through station so doesn't contribute to terminating capacity. The Old Shanghai North Station is currently used as sidings, which IMO is slightly silly for such a prime location. You can rebuild a passenger station on this readily available site, and North Bund Station isn't an engineering pie in the sky either (though probably a political one). Then it is of course sensible to have a Hongqiao Station (smaller) to serve local needs.

There ought to be a new line going West through Qingpu and Huzhou, to take away the Wuhan services from the busy Nanjing corridor and relieve associated terminating capacity. There is still a site to the West of Zhongshan Park Metro Station that's been sitting empty for years.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

NCT said:


> Shanghai West is next to useless as it's a through station so doesn't contribute to terminating capacity.


Yes, but it could handle some crowds. Are there any subways getting built to Shanghai West?


----------



## Jaroslaw

highway35 said:


> With all due respect, you're not reading the discussion carefully. You sounded to me like one of those clueless foreigners with preconceived notions coming to China. All your senseless accusations about China are cliche and are pretty irrelevant to the discussions here.
> 
> Let me boil down the arguments here to you... China is "unique:" the largest, the fastest, the most dynamic, the most ambitious, the capability to plan and execute on large scale and with a vision.


This is what passes for argument for the defenders of the way China is urbanizing? hno: I haven't lived in China (only in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam), but I've visited countless times. Going again next week, to Qingdao. _Ad personam _arguments never really work.

Ah, Japan was also "unique," 20-30 years ago. And how did they turn out? 

The only unique thing about China is the way that it will become a prisoner of its own flawed infrastructure. The first time I noticed the flaws was in 2005, I was visiting Nanning and we had to get on a bus to Guilin. And the bus station, brand spanking new, was some 20km away from the city!


----------



## highway35

Jaroslaw said:


> Ah, Japan was also "unique," 20-30 years ago. And how did they turn out?


These days, all China skeptics were hoping/wishing is that somehow China turns into another Japan. A lot of Chinese would be ecstatic if China reached Japan's per capita income. Or do you mean China is going to stuck at current level of development? Don't count on it. Ain't going to happen.

This is not the right forum to engage in such a debate. Suffice it to say that most people who had such a fantasy just could not face/accept reality. 



Jaroslaw said:


> The only unique thing about China is the way that it will become a prisoner of its own flawed infrastructure. The first time I noticed the flaws was in 2005, I was visiting Nanning and we had to get on a bus to Guilin. And the bus station, brand spanking new, was some 20km away from the city!


Like I said before, Chinese planner are struggling with a lot of trade-offs when dealing with a very dynamic, fast-changing super-society like China. They do make mistakes, sometimes pretty stupid ones, but more often than not, foreigners who have had no clue about the challenges that China faces are all too quick to jump into criticism and accusation based on bias and preconceived notions - haven't we seen enough of them?!


----------



## Pansori

Is there no way to keep these "dabates" elsewhere and concentrate on the news of Chinese HSR? Or maybe the moderators could extract a new thread where all those wishing to "dabate" further could do it there among themselves without ruining this thread? All trolls, "experts" and the likes could also be sent there to stage their fights while this thread could stay for news and pictures only. I (and I'm sure most of those interested in China's HSR) find it really annoying to track the information through all those endless posts "explaining" how "bad" or how "great" is the x and y...

Are there no news on new lines opening?


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## chornedsnorkack

Pansori said:


> Are there no news on new lines opening?


My question too.

Does Yichang use an old railway station or a new built station?


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## greenlion

http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news15990.html

80% of Xiamen-Shenzhen High-speed Railway construction finished
Updated: 27 Nov 2010Share this news?...Click box 

The closely watched Xiamen-Shenzhen High Speed Railway has completed 80% of its total construction and is expected to be put into full operation by the end of 2011, reports Shenzhen Economic Daily. 

The project is under intense construction at present.

Confronted with the fact that there is no direct train from Shenzhen to Xiamen, passengers need to make stopovers at Dongguan, Huizhou or Longchuan in Guangdong province. The whole journey will take 15 hours. It also takes 11 hours to drive from Shenzhen to Xiamen. 

However, only 3 hours will be needed for the journey from Shenzhen to Xiamen upon the completion of the Xiamen-Shenzhen High Speed Railway as the average speed for the Xiamen-Shenzhen High-speed Railway will be 250 kilometers per hour with reserved conditions for 300 kilometers per hour.

As soon as the 502-kilometer Xiamen-Shenzhen High-speed Railway is completed, the main coastal cities in the southeast of China will be linked together and form a powerful transportation line, giving convenience and benefit for the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone and Pearl River Delta Economic Zone and bringing development opportunities for the real estate industry and tourism industry along these lines.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> The closely watched Xiamen-Shenzhen High Speed Railway has completed 80% of its total construction and is expected to be put into full operation by the end of 2011, reports Shenzhen Economic Daily.





greenlion said:


> However, only 3 hours will be needed for the journey from Shenzhen to Xiamen upon the completion of the Xiamen-Shenzhen High Speed Railway as the average speed for the Xiamen-Shenzhen High-speed Railway will be 250 kilometers per hour with reserved conditions for 300 kilometers per hour.


What is the trip time now on the high speed railway Xiamen-Ningbo? When Shenzhen-Xiamen and Ningbo-Hangzhou shall be open, what shall be the trip time Shenzhen-Xiamen-Shanghai?


----------



## mgk920

chornedsnorkack said:


> How many direct railway lines are there between Russia and China? Manzhouli, Suifenhe, Hunchun... any others?
> 
> 
> How much freight shall travel between China and Russia via the railways of Mongolia and Kazakhstan?


The other obvious question is 'What are the latest plans regarding the break in rail standards between the two countries?". As they stand now, Russian and Chinese railroads are 100% incompatible with each other.

Mike


----------



## greenlion

Alstom's new contract with CNR Changchun and Yongji Electric, November 7, 2010


----------



## yaohua2000

*Track-laying on Shijiazhuang–Wuhan HSR started*

http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2010-11/29/content_1755671.htm

Track-laying on Shijiazhuang–Wuhan High-Speed Rail start on November 29, 2010.

Shijiazhuang–Wuhan
- Length: 840 km
- Maximum operating speed: 350 km/h
- Part of 2300-km long Beijing–Hong Kong HSR corridor
- Due to open in 2012


----------



## chornedsnorkack

greenlion said:


> HSR lines that planned to open before 2012
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> 22. Shiwu PDL         2011/December      840 km      350km/h





yaohua2000 said:


> Shijiazhuang–Wuhan
> - Length: 840 km
> - Maximum operating speed: 350 km/h
> - Part of 2300-km long Beijing–Hong Kong HSR corridor
> - Due to open in 2012


Which year and month shall it open?


----------



## NCT

Sources say that MOR has confirmed the introduction of new EMU services for Chengdu, to and from Beijing and Shanghai in 2011. The new services are expected use 16-car CRH2E stock, formed by 13 sleeper cars, 2 ordinary cars and 1 dining car. There will be 1 pair of journeys per day for Chengdu - Beijing and Chengdu - Shanghai. Exact stopping patterns and timings are still to be determined.

Source in Chinese for those interested.


----------



## Fan Railer

LHCHL said:


> Can you elaborate?


nothing to really elaborate on, since that's what the chinese say they will do... so we'll have to see if they can actually pull that off...


----------



## LHCHL

Fan Railer said:


> nothing to really elaborate on, since that's what the chinese say they will do... so we'll have to see if they can actually pull that off...


I was referring to the source of that statement, we know CIT400 based on the CRH380A will aim for 500-600 kph next year, sometimes between March and September based on different statements, but I'm not aware there's any plans to have a 16 car CRH380AL run at 550 kph by next April by testing or operation. As far as I know the next generation will be called CRH420s.


----------



## Fan Railer

LHCHL said:


> I was referring to the source of that statement, we know CIT400 based on the CRH380A will aim for 500-600 kph next year, sometimes between March and September based on different statements, but I'm not aware there's any plans to have a 16 car CRH380AL run at 550 kph by next April by testing or operation. As far as I know the next generation will be called CRH420s.


i see.... china is known for its ambiguity when it comes to matters such as this..... as of now, i don't believe they have released any specific enough information that is verifyable by more than one consistent source, so like i said, we'll have to wait and see.... a few more months maybe.


----------



## Mika Montwald

LHCHL said:


> I was referring to the source of that statement, we know CIT400 based on the CRH380A will aim for 500-600 kph next year, sometimes between March and September based on different statements, but I'm not aware there's any plans to have a 16 car CRH380AL run at 550 kph by next April by testing or operation. As far as I know the next generation will be called CRH420s.


Opps, my mistake. let me clarify. --- what I meant was one of (CSR Sifang , CNR Tangshan , CNR Changchun -- they are competing fiercely among themselves) will introduce another 16 Car set -- CRH train (as of now -- the CRH designation is unknown) that will breakthrough the 550km/h. 

It is probable that it will be named as CRH480xxx, because the normal operating speed of the train will increase to (480 km/h) on the Beijing -- Shanghai PDL. 

Which means the traveling time between Beijing -- Shanghai PDL will be reduce significantly down to less than 4 hours. 

From the way things are unfolding, traveling by CRH HST will use less time than airplane. :applause:


----------



## LHCHL

Mika Montwald said:


> Opps, my mistake. let me clarify. --- what I meant was one of (CSR Sifang , CNR Tangshan , CNR Changchun -- they are competing fiercely among themselves) will introduce another 16 Car set -- CRH train (as of now -- the CRH designation is unknown) that will breakthrough the 550km/h.
> 
> It is probable that it will be named as CRH480xxx, because the normal operating speed of the train will increase to (480 km/h) on the Beijing -- Shanghai PDL.
> 
> Which means the traveling time between Beijing -- Shanghai PDL will be reduce significantly down to less than 4 hours.
> 
> From the way things are unfolding, traveling by CRH HST will use less time than airplane. :applause:


Is this based on inside source or rumor? I know they are aiming for it but I'm not aware any statements has been made so far.


----------



## 33Hz

Is this for real or from your imagination?


----------



## gramercy

and i have a bridge to sell


----------



## gramercy

going from 380 to 480 requires 101,5 % more energy which would double the prices

let alone wear & tear


----------



## 33Hz

Electricity is a very small fraction of your ticket price.


----------



## Mika Montwald

gramercy said:


> and i have a bridge to sell


:lol: Next year 2011 May is just around the corner. 
We shall see if I am just boasting or not.

You all can see if I over-promise and under-deliver or 
I under-promise and over-deliver. :dunno:

This is so much fun. epper:


----------



## Mika Montwald

*China welcome Spain*!! :bowtie: :bowtie:

*Spain and China Cooperation on HST R&D*

----------------------------------------------



> ... ...
> in Beijing today by a delegation from the Ministry of Public Works, headed up by the secretary general for Public Relations, Fernando Puig de la Bellacasa.
> 
> China's sub-director for railway planning, Yan Hexiang, said that cooperation to and from Spain and China could be seen in a number of sectors and "we hope that the railway sector will contribute to the friendship to and from the two countries". ... ...
> 
> From December 18th, when the high-speed link to and from Valencia and Madrid opens, Spain will have 2,665km of high-speed railway lines, making it the European leader with the country's six most important cities linked to 15 provincial capitals. ... ...


Source: http://thereader.es/en/spain-news-s...technology-being-promoted-to-the-Chinese.html


----------



## Ariel74

someone is on drug today.... the forum is overflown with delirium....


----------



## gramercy

Mika Montwald said:


> :lol: Next year 2011 May is just around the corner.
> We shall see if I am just boasting or not.
> 
> You all can see if I over-promise and under-deliver or
> I under-promise and over-deliver. :dunno:
> 
> This is so much fun. epper:



you said normal operation speed will be 480

they will conduct tests at around 500 that much is clear from several orders of equipment, who knows, probably even break the record


operating trainsets and pdls for 480? i think not


----------



## hmmwv

LHCHL said:


> Is this based on inside source or rumor? I know they are aiming for it but I'm not aware any statements has been made so far.


What do you think, obviously it's rumor, possibly started by Mika in the first place.


----------



## Nozumi 300

This just came to my mind, with the new CRH380 generation trains are the pantographs still the same type used on the previous CRH2, CRH3, and CRH5 series? At what point will we see a new type of pantograph being developed/testing? From the looks of the CRH380A the pantograph seems like the ones that are found on the CRH2. With a operational speed of 380km/h and testing speed surpassing 400km/h I'm kind of suprised they haven't developed a new one as opposed to like the Shinkansen E5 and E6 series which only travel up to 320 that have a new design of pantograph.


----------



## LHCHL

^^
I can only guess either new materials were used or the original pantograph was operating below its rated limits. Its more likely new materials since there were official statements mentioning new materials has been used in the overhead cables.

I'm guessing aerodynamically it wasn't a limiting factor.


----------



## AdamChobits

Mika Montwald said:


> *China welcome Spain*!! :bowtie: :bowtie:
> 
> *Spain and China Cooperation on HST R&D*
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> Source: http://thereader.es/en/spain-news-s...technology-being-promoted-to-the-Chinese.html


Nice, one of few technological things Spain has to offer. Other than that, we can only tell how to breed pigs to make good jam and chorizo  :lol:


----------



## antovador

^^ I don't think spanish firms as Gamesa or Acciona are "aficionados" .


----------



## yaohua2000

chornedsnorkack said:


> Notably, what has NOT changed is the status of Yichang-Enshi-Wanzhou railway and Hainan East Ring. Both are completed, yet to open and delayed.
> 
> Any news about these two?
> 
> More observations:
> There is a railway in construction a short stretch east of Zhenjiang. What is it?
> Why is Guangzhou-Shenzhen completed? What is the status of the Pearl River tunnel?
> Besides the Golmud-Korla line, was there some list of planned railways in Xinjiang?


Yes. There is a four north-south and four east-west railway corridors planned in Xinjiang. The environmental impact assessment has been finished.

Four north-south routes:
• Altay–Fuhai–Karamay–Kuytun
• Fuhai–Wucaiwan–Urumqi
• Turpan–Korla–Kashgar
• Hami–Ruoqiang–Hotan

Four east-west routes:
• Lanzhou–Urumqi–Jinghe–Yining–Khorgas (border with Kazakhstan)
• Jiangjunmiao–Hami–Eiin (in Inner Mongolia)
• Korla–Ruoqiang–Golmud (in Qinghai)
• Kashgar–Hotan–Shigatse (in Tibet)


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> Yes. There is a four north-south and four east-west railway corridors planned in Xinjiang. The environmental impact assessment has been finished.
> 
> Four north-south routes:





yaohua2000 said:


> • Hami–Ruoqiang–Hotan


Looked for it, cannot see it, even in green.


yaohua2000 said:


> Four east-west routes:
> • Lanzhou–Urumqi–Jinghe–Yining–Khorgas (border with Kazakhstan)


Completed, blue


yaohua2000 said:


> • Korla–Ruoqiang–Golmud (in Qinghai)


Soon to start, seen in yellow


yaohua2000 said:


> • Kashgar–Hotan–Shigatse (in Tibet)


Looked for it as well, cannot find it either even in green.


----------



## yaohua2000

chornedsnorkack said:


> Looked for it, cannot see it, even in green.


The red line between Hami and Lop Nur is part of the corridor.



chornedsnorkack said:


> Looked for it as well, cannot find it either even in green.


It's in MOR's “Mid-to-Long Term Railway Development Plan (Revised in 2008)”.


----------



## greenlion

Distribution News:

CRH380A 6020, 6030- 6032, distribute to Wuhan railway breau, CRH380A 6033-6036 distribute to Guangzhou Raiway Group.

CSR has delivered 36 sets of CRH380A so far, totally 40 ordered,

Shanghai Railway Bureau 20 sets, serving Huning PDL、Huhang PDL 
Wuhan Railway Bureau 12 sets, serving Wuguang PDL 
Guangzhou Railway Group 4 sets, serving Wuguang PDL 

CRH380B-6403L - 6412L distribute to Guangzhou Railway Group, will serve Wuguang PDL,

CRH380B-6201L-6203L set to roll off line on December 15.

CRH1-091A, 092A, CRH2-151A distribute to Nanchang Railway Breau


----------



## Nozumi 300

HunanChina said:


> Hainan East Ring Intercity Rail(302km, 250km/h) will put it into commercial operation next month.


Does anyone know why the Hainan East Ring Intercity Rail uses a different style cantenary? As opposed to the rest of the high speed network.


----------



## mingrady

Nozumi 300 said:


> Does anyone know why the Hainan East Ring Intercity Rail uses a different style cantenary? As opposed to the rest of the high speed network.



The high speed network you referred to are passenger dedicated lines with ballast-less concrete slab tracks. This Hainan Rail clearly has different rail design. 

they are different systems so i am not surprised by the different catenaries.


----------



## General Huo




----------



## foxmulder

^^ Nice one. Especially 380A scenes are really cool.


----------



## HunanChina

*Sanya Railway Station (CRH Hainan East Ring)*

a month ago


----------



## HunanChina

*Test Run Hainan East Ring*

First tropical High-speed railway of China


----------



## LHCHL

^^
Nice, although I was under the impression Hainan would be using CRH2s


----------



## alexzhen

HunanChina said:


> First tropical High-speed railway of China


^^
what did photographer intend focus on :lol:, why not use flat bed track (ballistic track) instead stone track, i heard > 200kmh its not safe & couldnt damage train.


----------



## makita09

alexzhen said:


> ^^
> what did photographer intend focus on :lol:, why not use flat bed track (ballistic track) instead stone track, i heard > 200kmh its not safe & couldnt damage train.



more like >300-350km/h.


----------



## CarlosBlueDragon

From Haikou to Sanya

how hours??


----------



## fragel

Zhang Yimou is really a good cinematographer.



General Huo said:


>


----------



## VECTROTALENZIS

fragel said:


> Zhang Yimou is really a good cinematographer.


+1


----------



## Huhu

fragel said:


> Zhang Yimou is really a good cinematographer.


Don't really like the opening music. It's a train, not the end of the world.


----------



## Manu84

alexzhen said:


> ^^
> why not use flat bed track (ballistic track) instead stone track, i heard > 200kmh its not safe & couldnt damage train.


You can drive until 320 km/h with stone track


----------



## UD2

alexzhen said:


> ^^
> what did photographer intend focus on :lol:, why not use flat bed track (ballistic track) instead stone track, i heard > 200kmh its not safe & couldnt damage train.


France and Germany both run their TGVs and ICE on ballist. 

China's early 200km/h tracks were concrete flat bed, but those were more like overkills that people opt in for when they are inexperienced with the technology. 

Canada still use wooden sleepers to run their 160km/h trains.


----------



## Arul Murugan

CarlosBlueDragon said:


> From Haikou to Sanya
> 
> how hours??


I heard from people there, it will be one hour from Haikou to Sanya on high speed rail.

b/w is construction going on for west ring high speed rail just like west expressway from Haikou to Sanya?

Last year, when I was in Hainan i remember elevated bridge works were U/C on western part of Haikou city where the west expressway meets the city!

Also is there any proposal to connect the mainland and Hainan with high speed rail?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Arul Murugan said:


> Also is there any proposal to connect the mainland and Hainan with high speed rail?


Qiongzhou Strait is 26 km wide - for comparison Dover Strait is 34 km. How deep is Qiongzhou Strait? Is it better suited for a tunnel or a bridge? And is any high speed railway under construction Haian-Zhanjiang-Guangzhou?


----------



## mingrady

Arul Murugan said:


> b/w is construction going on for west ring high speed rail just like west expressway from Haikou to Sanya?
> 
> Last year, when I was in Hainan i remember elevated bridge works were U/C on western part of Haikou city where the west expressway meets the city!
> 
> Also is there any proposal to connect the mainland and Hainan with high speed rail?


yes I believe so. The Western Ring rail is undergoing another upgrade again, this time for electrification and increasing the speed to 25o kmh to match the just finished Eastern Ring Rail.


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Qiongzhou Strait is 26 km wide - for comparison Dover Strait is 34 km. How deep is Qiongzhou Strait? Is it better suited for a tunnel or a bridge? And is any high speed railway under construction Haian-Zhanjiang-Guangzhou?


Condition in the Qiongzhou Strait is much worse than Hangzhou Bay, so a 26km bridge would be insanely expensive, and I doubt there will be enough traffic generated in Hainan to justify the spending. Britain and France has far more passenger and freight traffic to justify the Chunnel.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Condition in the Qiongzhou Strait is much worse than Hangzhou Bay, so a 26km bridge would be insanely expensive, and I doubt there will be enough traffic generated in Hainan to justify the spending. Britain and France has far more passenger and freight traffic to justify the Chunnel.


Population of Hainan is over 8,6 million. Population of Hokkaido is under 5,6 millions, and Hokkaido has no high speed railways. Tsugaru Strait is narrower than Qiongzhou Strait, 19,5 km narrower, but deep (about 140 m) and nasty geology full of faults - the tunnel needs to go to 240 m below sea level.


----------



## zergcerebrates

Can't believe even Hainan island gets the HSR treatment. Amazing


----------



## sfan

According to Chinese reports, the Qiongzhou Strait Crossing Project is now near final decision among following three proposals:

1. West line: A double deck highway-railway mixed bridge with four tracks (160kph for passenger line and 120kph for cargo line). The sea crossing part is 41.3km long. Max water depth is about 50m. Its mid main span is a 1408m suspension bridge, and the north and south main spans are 1056m cable stayed bridges. Total investment is about 120 billion RMB.
2. Mid line: similar to the west line with sea crossing length shorten to 21.9km. But max water depth of 75m is more technically challenging. Total investment is about 91.3 billion.
3. Mid line railway tunnel and west line highway bridge. The tunnel is about 27.8km long. The bridge is 43km on sea, including three suspension bridges - one with 2800m main span and two with 2200m span. Total investment 137.7 billion RMB.

The completion date is expected by 2020. It seems the proposal 1 and 3 are getting more supports recently. BTW, the bridge in proposal 3 has large chance to be the world's largest bridge (in terms of main span), if Italians do not speed up their long-waited project.


----------



## hmmwv

USD20B sounds like a pretty reasonable price for such a project, I think since China is investing a lot in making Hainan an aerospace and military base, the tunnel/bridge combination will be the most survival plan.


----------



## Luli Pop

gramercy said:


> going from 380 to 480 requires 101,5 % more energy which would double the prices
> 
> let alone wear & tear


in 2002 running a TGV at 350km/h spent 100% more energy than running it at 300km/h.

It´s call technology progress!!! And happily does happen!!!


----------



## UD2

Question on the CRH1

I heard that the this model have trouble running at 200km/h and mostly hovers at around 180km/h. is this true?


----------



## Pansori

UD2 said:


> Question on the CRH1
> 
> I heard that the this model have trouble running at 200km/h and mostly hovers at around 180km/h. is this true?


Isn't it supposed to run at maximum 250km/h?


----------



## UD2

Pansori said:


> Isn't it supposed to run at maximum 250km/h?


yeah on paper.. but i heard that the platform for this train wasn't designed for that so it's having trouble. 

just what i've heard though.


----------



## The Chemist

UD2 said:


> yeah on paper.. but i heard that the platform for this train wasn't designed for that so it's having trouble.
> 
> just what i've heard though.


I've taken CRH1 from Shanghai to Hefei via Nanjing, and on the new stretch between Nanjing and Hefei, the train was running smoothly at around 250km/h for almost the entire distance.


----------



## ruffaramboo

Will there ever be a CRH-Duplex? Any plans coming?


----------



## sasalove

Recent Videos


----------



## linmalth

hmmwv said:


> My guess would be standard main line speed, 160kph max.


Class I main line can reach 200kph now.


----------



## Galactic

http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2010/12-19/2731599.shtml
Using Google Translate, the Yichang-Wanzhou railway will be open on December 22. Until January 10 there will be five pairs of passenger trains daily on the line, and after that 14 pairs.


----------



## mgk920

When is the Hong Kong line expected to open?

Mike


----------



## sasalove

mgk920 said:


> When is the Hong Kong line expected to open?
> 
> Mike


2015


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Galactic said:


> http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2010/12-19/2731599.shtml
> Using Google Translate, the Yichang-Wanzhou railway will be open on December 22. Until January 10 there will be five pairs of passenger trains daily on the line, and after that 14 pairs.


Shall any of the 5 continue from Yichang to Wuhan on the old railway?
Shall any trains travel Chongqing-Enshi and then on Yichang-Wanzhou railway?


----------



## hmmwv

ruffaramboo said:


> Will there ever be a CRH-Duplex? Any plans coming?


Well China already tried with double deck DMUs in the past decade, for example the pictures below, but most of them can only go up to 180kph, I'm sure sometime down the road a double deck CRH380 will be justified when demands start to outpace supply.

Lushan









Jinlun









Shenzhou









Xinshuguang


----------



## Jay

wow, China's trains are massive, just like North America's


----------



## mgk920

Jay said:


> wow, China's trains are massive, just like North America's


The two systems share nearly identical basic technical standards (track gauge, loading gauge, maximum axle loading, coupling, braking, etc).

In fact, whenever a North American locomotive builder ships new locomotives bound for China (also Australia and a few other places), they go to the sea port on their own wheels, coupled into their trains with their normal gear, just like any other 'native' equipment.

Mike


----------



## ANR

*Expensive railway set for its maiden journey*

By Guo Rui (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-22 









_A train makes a trial run on Sunday across the Qingjiang Bridge in
the Enshi Tujia-Miao autonomous prefecture of Central China's Hubei
province. [Photo / Xinhua]_

BEIJING - The Yichang-Wanzhou railway, which goes through some of the most difficult terrain in the country and is considered one of China's most expensive rail projects, will begin operations on Wednesday, though the line will not become fully operational until Jan 11, said Guo Bing, an official of the Yichang section of the Wuhan Railway Bureau. The maiden journey on the line will depart from Yichang city of Hubei province on Wednesday morning and arrive two hours later in Wanzhou district of Chongqing municipality. The railway will cut the travel time between Chongqing and the central industrial hub of Wuhan in Hubei province from 22 hours to just five hours. Journeys from other central or eastern Chinese cities to Southwest China will also be greatly reduced, railway officials said. 

A 22.57 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) project, the 377-kilometer railway features 253 bridges and 159 tunnels, including 34 that run through karst topography, or landscape formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks. The length of track that runs through bridges and tunnels is 278 km, or 73 percent of the line's total length. "It was the hardest project I have ever worked on," Hu Ziping, the railway's chief designer, told China Daily. Initially begun in 1909, the project was repeatedly abandoned due to technical problems, until the central government decided to relaunch it in 2003. "Karst collapse was something we worried about the most," Hu said. Engineers and workers took seven years to complete the railway, which runs along a stretch of mountains on the eastern edge of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. In one of the most difficult phases of the project, it took nearly six years to drill a tunnel for the route through the Qiyue Mountain. Hu said the railway's designed speed in 2003 was 160 km per hour - the fastest for its time. "It seems much slower now in this high-speed age," he said. 

The Yichang-Wanzhou Railway is China's most expensive railway in terms of cost per km. It cost about 60 million yuan to build each km of the railway, compared to 29 million yuan for each km of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which began operations in 2006. Officials hope the trains will open up new opportunities for residents who live in the steep and remote Wuling Mountains.


----------



## big-dog

^^ Yichang-Wanxian railway is marked as the "most difficult railway having built", "bridge/tunnel museum". With 253 bridges (highest 140m) and 159 tunnels, Yichang-Wanxian railway sepnt 50,000 workers 7 years to build.


----------



## cbz

ANR said:


> By Guo Rui (China Daily)
> Updated: 2010-12-22
> 
> The Yichang-Wanzhou Railway is China's most expensive railway in terms of cost per km. It cost about 60 million yuan to build each km of the railway, compared to 29 million yuan for each km of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which began operations in 2006.


I guess any HSR costs more than 60 million yuan per km. Why they keep saying it is most expensive railway? (probably conventional railway?)


----------



## aodili

cbz said:


> I guess any HSR costs more than 60 million yuan per km. Why they keep saying it is most expensive railway? (probably conventional railway?)


That is a good point. The Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR has cost 116.6 billion yuan for a length of 968 km (according to Wikipedia). That makes 120 million yuan per km and is twice as much. The Beijing-Shanghai HSR is even 168 million yuan per km (220.9 billion yuan for 1318 km).


----------



## cbz

aodili said:


> That is a good point. The Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR has cost 116.6 billion yuan for a length of 968 km (according to Wikipedia). That makes 120 million yuan per km and is twice as much. The Beijing-Shanghai HSR is even 168 million yuan per km (220.9 billion yuan for 1318 km).


Does anyone have an idea what is the most expensive railway in china? I digged a little bit further and found the answer is surprising. 

Beijing tianjin HSR (350 km/h) 20.42 billions 117KM 174.5 millions/km
Shanghai Hangzhou HSR (350 km/h) 29.29 billions 202KM 145 millions/km
Wuhan Guangzhou HSR (350 km/h) 116.6 billions 968km 120 millions/km
Beijing shanghai HSR(350 km/h) 220.9 billions 1302km 169 millions/KM
Zhenzhou Xian HSR (350 km/h) 35.31 billions 456 km 77 millions/km
*Chengdu Dujiangyan HSR (220 km/h) 13 billions 65 km 200 millions/km*

Chengdu Dujiangyan HSR is the most expensive railway, only hong kong section of guangzhou-hong kong HSR can top that. Comparing chengdu DujiangYan HSR with Zhenzhou Xian HSR, CCP should investigate this project, some corrupt local officers should be executed. :bleep:


----------



## foxmulder

I dont know the cost side of it but even that single picture in ANR's post shows the challenge of Yichang-Wanzhou railway; river, mountain etc... but a straight railroad  Cool picture.


----------



## fragel

cbz said:


> Chengdu Dujiangyan HSR is the most expensive railway, only hong kong section of guangzhou-hong kong HSR can top that. Comparing chengdu DujiangYan HSR with Zhenzhou Xian HSR, *CCP should investigate this project*, some corrupt local officers should be executed. :bleep:


Before you rush to your conclusion, you gotta understand this is a political project.

As one of the post-earthquake reconstruction projects, its construction only started in Nov. 2008 and it *must* be operational before May 12, 2010(two year anniversary of the earthquake) at any cost. To finish a high speed ICL in about 1.5 years naturally costs more, much more since it is in an earthquake zone. As a matter of fact, the construction company did not make profit on this line because it is a political task. It is still not making any money during operation but that is not the concern. The government is subsidizing heavily on it because it is a earthquake-hit zone and this is only part of the disaster relief program.


----------



## fragel

foxmulder said:


> I dont know the cost side of it but even that single picture in ANR's post shows the challenge of Yichang-Wanzhou railway; river, mountain etc... but a straight railroad  Cool picture.


Other than the possibility of using different standards of 'the most expensive' for conventional railway and HSR, I am suspecting that the RMB 60-70 million/km may refer to pure construction cost for Yiwan railway. HSR such as Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR sure had a higher overall cost per km, but a lot of the money goes to relocation and land acquisition.

PS: Is the '22.57 billion yuan' budget money in 2003 or is it converted to money in 2010?


----------



## cbz

fragel said:


> Before you rush to your conclusion, you gotta understand this is a political project.
> 
> As one of the post-earthquake reconstruction projects, its construction only started in Nov. 2008 and it *must* be operational before May 12, 2010(two year anniversary of the earthquake) at any cost. To finish a high speed ICL in about 1.5 years naturally costs more, much more since it is in an earthquake zone. As a matter of fact, the construction company did not make profit on this line because it is a political task. It is still not making any money during operation but that is not the concern. The government is subsidizing heavily on it because it is a earthquake-hit zone and this is only part of the disaster relief program.


Yeah, i know it is a kind of white elephant political project but didn't pay too much attention to its price tag

It is reasonable that cost is higher if it was built from wreck, but majority of the line is outside of earthquake badly hit area. 

shanghai hangzhou line with triple length only took 20 months to complete. 

None of reason you list above should be the excuse of very high cost.

Considering no tough terrain in chengdu plain, no big rivers, no tunnel, no underground section, no mega railway station to built, much less relocation expense comparing with Yangtze delta, it should be one of the cheapest HSR in China.

BTW, i am from chengdu.


----------



## hmmwv

I doubt the relocation expense is much less than Yangtze delta, both Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou lines are on viaduct to minimize land usage.


----------



## cbz

hmmwv said:


> I doubt the relocation expense is much less than Yangtze delta, both Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou lines are on viaduct to minimize land usage.


Most part of ChengDu Dujiangyan line is on viaduct too. Guess all the HSR lines are like that. 

I don't have statistics of land expense. But if you compare suburb property price of Chengdu to Shanghai, Dujiangyang to Hangzhou, Pixian to Jiangxing, the price will be 1/2-1/3 cheaper NOW, keep in mind that the property price along ChengDu Dujiangyan line line has almost doubled since it was opened.


----------



## fragel

cbz said:


> It is reasonable that cost is higher if it was built from wreck, but majority of the line is outside of earthquake badly hit area.


It costs more because it has higher anti-earthquake standard. even if the construction site was not hit by earthquake, it lies in an earthquake zone.



cbz said:


> shanghai hangzhou line with triple length only took 20 months to complete.


Shanghai-Hangzhou HSR built 169 km from Hangzhou to Hongqiao. 

The 13 billions budget for Chengdu Dujiangyan ICL covers the cost for renovating Chengdu Railway Station and constructing additional platforms etc in Chengdu. You cannot simply compare it to Shanghai-Hangzhou HSR since the latter budget does not include the cost to build Hongqiao Railway Station--it is hard to break the cost to three HSRs anyway.


----------



## fragel

cbz said:


> Beijing tianjin HSR (350 km/h) 20.42 billions 117KM 174.5 millions/km


also this budget does not include construction cost of Beijing South Station.


----------



## cbz

fragel said:


> It costs more because it has higher anti-earthquake standard. even if the construction site was not hit by earthquake, it lies in an earthquake zone.


I read some news of adding special measures to enhance earthquake resistance for this line. But it doesn't explain its high cost.

As matter of fact, any new expressway, HSR, major train station are among one of highest earthquake resistance categories (9 degree damage proof) in China's construction code (just second to major hospital) regardless where they are built, this line cannot be that special



fragel said:


> The 13 billions budget for Chengdu Dujiangyan ICL covers the cost for renovating Chengdu Railway Station and constructing additional platforms etc in Chengdu.


This might be one of reasons why it is so costly. But as i know, chengdu north railway station renovation hasn't started yet, it is hard to believe it will be still part of earthquake relief package, you have source for this?


----------



## fragel

cbz said:


> This might be one of reasons why it is so costly. But as i know, chengdu north railway station renovation hasn't started yet, it is hard to believe it will be still part of earthquake relief package, you have source for this?


this is part of the official environmental impact assessment for that line.
http://www.schj.gov.cn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&Itemid=2985&id=7178



> 4、主要建设内容：
> 
> （1）线路：安靖至青城山新建正线双线长59.135km，引入成都枢纽相关工程涉及的增建二线、改建线长15.415km;
> 
> （2）轨道：安靖至青城山段正线为抗震型框架板式无渣轨道;
> 
> （3）路基、桥梁：新建路基28.177km，桥梁18座；涵洞119座；
> 
> （4）车站：新建金牛、犀浦、红光、郫县东、郫县、郫县西、安德、聚源、都江堰、青城山10座车站，预留崇义、中兴2个车站，*改建成都*、郫县（即改建后的安靖站）2个*车站*。
> 
> 5、项目总投资及环保投资：总投资1100000万元，其中环保投资24374.52万元，占总投资的2.22%。


I am not sure if it is part of the earthquake relief package, but it is definitely part of the ICL project.

Just for comparison, this is from the environmental impact assessment for Shanghai-Hangzhou HSR:
(the official link is expired, but here is a copy:http://club.metrofans.sh.cn/thread-51027-1-1.html)


> 2 工程概况与工程分析
> 2.1工程概况
> 2.1.1项目范围：
> （一）正线
> 上海虹桥站（不含）CK2+210至杭州东站（不含）CK155+016.85，新建线路长度约153.427km。
> ....
> 2.1.9主要工程项目简况
> （1）车站概况
> 本工程沿线新设松江南、枫泾南、嘉兴南、桐乡、余杭南等5个车站，车站性质、类型见表。
> （2）轨道工程
> ①轨道类型
> 上海虹桥站（不含）～杭州东站（不含）正线采用框架板式无碴轨道，道岔区采用轨枕埋入式无砟轨道；春申至莘庄联络线、笕桥联络线、动车走行线采用有碴轨道。


----------



## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> From
> http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7193403.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ministry of Railways Vice-Minister Wang Zhiguo said China will complete an 110,000-kilometer railway network by 2012, including 13,000 kilometers of high-speed rail.
> 
> Ultimately, China plans to construct a 120,000-kilometer railway network, including 50,000-kilometers of high-speed rail track, by 2020.
> 
> 
> 
> So, China shall have 97 000 km slow railways by 2012 and 70 000 km slow railways by 2020.
> 
> Does this mean that China shall close 27 000 km railways in 8 years?
Click to expand...

I guess slow railways will be upgraded to HSRs. Many slow railways were built with upgrading capacity in considerations.

by 12/24 (today), 7,531km HSR has been built and opened in China. (source)


----------



## General Huo

Hongqiao


----------



## zergcerebrates

^ That is just massive


----------



## hkskyline

*Green light for city to Nantong rail link*
21 December 2010
Shanghai Daily

WORK on a direct railway link between Shanghai and Nantong in neighboring Jiangsu Province is expected to start early next year - cutting the journey time from five hours to barely 60 minutes.

The 250-kilometer link will connect the cities directly by a railway bridge over the Yangtze River. Its construction has just been approved.

Vehicles will also be able to use the bridge, according to Nantong railway authorities.

At the moment, most people take buses to Nantong, in the north of Jiangsu, as there's no direct railway route between Shanghai and the city. People have to transfer in Nanjing if they want to travel by train, meaning a journey of around five hours.

The direct railway, designed with a traveling speed of about 200 kilometers per hour, will cost an estimated 48.68 billion yuan (US$7.50 billion), and tickets will be priced at about 70 yuan, Shanghai Evening Post reported yesterday.

Meanwhile, bullet trains will be available to rail travelers by next month along the Shanghai-Sichuan and Shanghai-Chongqing routes, rail authorities said.

The fast train services are expected to cut the journey from more than 25 hours to about 15 hours.

One service will be based at city's Hongqiao Railway Station. Each train carries around 600 passengers.


----------



## ruffaramboo

hmmwv said:


> Well China already tried with double deck DMUs in the past decade, for example the pictures below, but most of them can only go up to 180kph, I'm sure sometime down the road a double deck CRH380 will be justified when demands start to outpace supply.
> 
> Lushan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Jinlun
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shenzhou
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Xinshuguang


 wow great info man! im really wishing they really do a double decker CRH. ^^


----------



## greenlion

Chinese MOR 120 km/h HXD/HXN freight locomotives order timetable, update



Code:


Date         manfacturer  Tech.Cooperator    Power output  Type    Quantity    Amount
2004-10      CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3     60     873 m RMB
2004-12      CSR Zhuzhou    Siemens           7200 kw      HXD1    220   7,340 m RMB
2005-2       CNR Datong     Alstom            9600 kw      HXD2    180   7,500 m RMB
2005-9       CNR Dalian     EMD               6000 HP      HXN3    300   6,642 m RMB
2005-11      CSR Qishuyan   GE                6000 hp      HXN5    300   6,800 m RMB
2006-12      CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3    180   2,620 m RMB
2007-3       CNR Datong     Alstom            9600 kw      HXD2B   500  11,200 m RMB
2007-3       CNR Dalian     Bombardier        9600 kw      HXD3B   500  11,300 m RMB
2007-8       CSR Zhuzhou    Siemens           9600 kw      HXD1B   500  11.200 m RMB
2008-2       CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3    400   5,822 m RMB
2009-6       CSR Zhuzhou                      7200 kw      HXD1C   400   5,800 m RMB
2009-10      CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3    400   5,822 m RMB
2010-7       CNR Datong                       7200 kw      HXD2C   220   3,000 m RMB
2010-7       CNR Dalian                       7200 kw      HXD3C   390   6,000 m RMB
2010-7       CSR Zhuzhou                      7200 kw      HXD1C   590   8,600 m RMB
2010-11      CSR Qishuyan   GE                6000 hp      HXN5          5,700 m RMB 
(2010-11 contract with CSR, quantity not confirmed yet)

Congratulations to GE.


----------



## foxmulder

These numbers are huge. I dont know any official figures but Chinese market might be larger than rest of the world put together for "after 2008 period" especially for 2010.


----------



## ANR

*China’s coal transport pattern may change by 2013*

2010-12-24
energychinaforum.com

China’s rail capacity for coal shipment may be eased by 2013 with expansion on rail lines and construction of more power grid, China Securities Journal reported. Presently, China’s coal supply is still being constrained by limited rail transport capacity, and effective coal production capacity could only increase at a lower rate than actual growth in production capacity. Few rail lines connecting coal-rich areas in Shanxi, Shaanxi and western Inner Mongolia to central, southern and southwestern China has been the main factor for the tight supply in central and southern China. 

From Jan to Nov of 2010, China’s railways transported a total of 1.827 billion tonnes of coal, a year-on-year rise of 15.3%. Newly added coal rail capacity in main production areas is expected to increase 230 million tonnes in 2010, the report said. In the next two year, the increase of China’s rail capacity would depend on capacity expansion of Daqin (Datong-Qinhuangdao) and Shuohuang (Shuozhou-Huanghua port) rail lines. Coal transport capacity of Daqin Line would reach 410-420 million tonnes by the end of 2010 and further increas to 450 million tonnes by 2011, according to the report. And, Shuohuang Line will expand its coal capacity to 350 million tonnes, but would be mainly determined by coal handling at Huanghua port, it said.

Meanwhile, the single transport pattern would be replaced by both coal shipment and power transmission. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region hopes the central government to construct at least three ultra-high voltage power transmission lines in the region during the 12th Five-Year plan (2011-2015). This could transmit 30-million-kilowatt power to the other provinces, equivalent to 100 million tonnes of coal. Shanxi also plans to transport 30-million-kilowatt power to the outside through ultra-high voltage power transmission lines, which would consume 50 million tonnes of raw coal.









_Map of Daqin (Datong-Qinhuangdao) and Shuohuang (Shuozhou-Huanghua port) rail lines_


----------



## drunkenmunkey888

I'm guessing this is a suburban/commuter rail type line that would probably use those CRH6 trains? In addition to the Jinshan line, I love how Shanghai is actually building suburban rail sneakily instead of having a comprehensive integrated S-train system the way Beijing does. Makes its development more organic in a way.



hkskyline said:


> *Green light for city to Nantong rail link*
> 21 December 2010
> Shanghai Daily
> 
> WORK on a direct railway link between Shanghai and Nantong in neighboring Jiangsu Province is expected to start early next year - cutting the journey time from five hours to barely 60 minutes.
> 
> The 250-kilometer link will connect the cities directly by a railway bridge over the Yangtze River. Its construction has just been approved.
> 
> Vehicles will also be able to use the bridge, according to Nantong railway authorities.
> 
> At the moment, most people take buses to Nantong, in the north of Jiangsu, as there's no direct railway route between Shanghai and the city. People have to transfer in Nanjing if they want to travel by train, meaning a journey of around five hours.
> 
> The direct railway, designed with a traveling speed of about 200 kilometers per hour, will cost an estimated 48.68 billion yuan (US$7.50 billion), and tickets will be priced at about 70 yuan, Shanghai Evening Post reported yesterday.
> 
> Meanwhile, bullet trains will be available to rail travelers by next month along the Shanghai-Sichuan and Shanghai-Chongqing routes, rail authorities said.
> 
> The fast train services are expected to cut the journey from more than 25 hours to about 15 hours.
> 
> One service will be based at city's Hongqiao Railway Station. Each train carries around 600 passengers.


----------



## hkskyline

drunkenmunkey888 said:


> I'm guessing this is a suburban/commuter rail type line that would probably use those CRH6 trains? In addition to the Jinshan line, I love how Shanghai is actually building suburban rail sneakily instead of having a comprehensive integrated S-train system the way Beijing does. Makes its development more organic in a way.


200 km/h suburban railway is pretty good!


----------



## Toronto999

Is anybody here a member of http://bbs.ourail.com/? I desperately need an invitation code to register on that forum. If I become a member there, I will spend my time to re-post those wonderful pictures on ourail to this thread.


----------



## hmmwv

greenlion said:


> Chinese MOR 120 km/h HXD/HXN freight locomotives order timetable, update
> 
> Congratulations to GE.


GE is definitely one of the most advanced internal combustion locomotive makers in the world, so far there is still no domestic replacement for its NJ2 locos on the Qinghai-Tibet line.


----------



## Ariel74

Toronto999 said:


> Is anybody here a member of http://bbs.ourail.com/? I desperately need an invitation code to register on that forum. If I become a member there, I will spend my time to re-post those wonderful pictures on ourail to this thread.


If there are members from ourail.com here, couldn't they themselves post those "wonderful pictures"?


----------



## Toronto999

^^ why ourail.com requires such freaking invitation code? too much sabotage from rival forums? is there any other Chinese rail forums you can recommend to me? So far I know ditiezu.com, which is from greenlion's signature.


----------



## greenlion

Toronto999 said:


> ^^ why ourail.com requires such freaking invitation code? too much sabotage from rival forums? is there any other Chinese rail forums you can recommend to me? So far I know ditiezu.com, which is from greenlion's signature.


http://www.railwayfan.net/index.php
http://bbs.railcn.net/

regarding ourail.com, there are some stupid reason for the invitation code thing......


----------



## greenlion

"Mao Zedong" Locomotives!









First Generation, in service 1946.10.30-1978.10.21









Second Generation, DF4-0002, in service 1978.10.21-1991.8.9









Third Generation, DF4B-1893, in service 1991.8.9-2000.11.2









1996.1.21, opening ceromony of Beijing West Station, "Mao Zedong" service the first passergern train departure from Beijing West, Train No. 特1 (Now T1) from Beijing West to Changsha.

















Fourth Generation, DF4D-1893, in Service 2000.11.2-2010.12.26









*Fifth Generation, HXD3B-1893, come in to service on 2010.12.26!
Cheers!*

Picture from Railwayfan.com


----------



## greenlion

Discovery Channel: Qinghai - Tibet Railway

http://www.56.com/u80/v_NDE1MTkxNzM.html


----------



## Restless

IBM came to the same conclusion. That's why they built their Global Rail Innovation Center in Beijing



foxmulder said:


> These numbers are huge. I dont know any official figures but Chinese market might be larger than rest of the world put together for "after 2008 period" especially for 2010.


----------



## Toronto999

greenlion said:


> http://www.railwayfan.net/index.php
> http://bbs.railcn.net/
> 
> regarding ourail.com, there are some stupid reason for the invitation code thing......


Many thanks, greenlion!


----------



## fragel

greenlion said:


> http://www.railwayfan.net/index.php
> http://bbs.railcn.net/
> 
> regarding ourail.com, there are some stupid reason for the invitation code thing......


the invitation registration thing was fine to me, but they should allow guests to view their forum posts like before. well, it is a private forum, I guess they have all the right to do whatever they want.


----------



## hammersklavier

Mao Zedong on a Siemens Eurosprinter...? Lol for the day.


----------



## greenlion

hammersklavier said:


> Mao Zedong on a Siemens Eurosprinter...? Lol for the day.


and actually the first generation locomotive is a Japanese locomotive


----------



## gdolniak

hkskyline said:


> *Green light for city to Nantong rail link*
> 21 December 2010
> Shanghai Daily
> 
> WORK on a direct railway link between Shanghai and Nantong in neighboring Jiangsu Province is expected to start early next year - cutting the journey time from five hours to barely 60 minutes.
> 
> The 250-kilometer link will connect the cities directly by a railway bridge over the Yangtze River. Its construction has just been approved.
> 
> Vehicles will also be able to use the bridge, according to Nantong railway authorities.
> 
> At the moment, most people take buses to Nantong, in the north of Jiangsu, as there's no direct railway route between Shanghai and the city. People have to transfer in Nanjing if they want to travel by train, meaning a journey of around five hours.
> 
> The direct railway, designed with a traveling speed of about 200 kilometers per hour, will cost an estimated 48.68 billion yuan (US$7.50 billion), and tickets will be priced at about 70 yuan, Shanghai Evening Post reported yesterday.
> 
> [...]


Nantong is much closer to Shanghai than 250km. Looking at Google maps, the trip by car from Nantong city centre, through (already build) Yangtze bridge, to Shanghai Hongqiao is... 103km. Also Nantong is in the south of Jiangsu, not north, unless I cannot find that town on the map. Can anyone clarify this information???


----------



## fragel

^^ main line of Nantong-Shanghai rail is from Pingdongzhen, Nantong to Situanzhen, Shanghai. There is also a branch line from Taicang to Anting, Shanghai as well. google maps would then tell you that the total length of 248.9 km does make sense (although no way it is going to be precise, for the rail route differs a lot from usual car trip route).

Nantong is traditionally thought to be in the north of Jiangsu, because it is at the north bank of the Yangtze river.


----------



## big-dog

*12.28 Harbin - Dalian high speed rail construction completed*



















The NE China high speed rail, 903.9km crossing 3 provinces 10 cities, laid last rail at 10am December 28 2010. The construction took 3 years 130 days.

The HSR will open in late 2011.

source


----------



## hmmwv

Wow, another 900+km 350kph PDL, by the time this one finishes China will have about 4000km of 350kph rated line.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Wow, another 900+km 350kph PDL, by the time this one finishes China will have about 4000km of 350kph rated line.


Which ones?

The 350 km/h lines now are Beijing-Tianjin, Guangzhou-Wuhan, Zhengzhou-Xian, Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou.

The 350 km/h lines that may open in 2011 are Guangzhou-Shenzhen, Hangzhou-Ningbo, Beijing-Zhengzhou-Wuhan, Beijing-Shanghai, Dalian-Harbin... any others?

Which 350 km/h lines shall be open when Dalian-Harbin opens, which shall open in 2011 but after Dalian-Harbin line?


----------



## hmmwv

I was referring to the Dalian-Harbin line, it will open at around the same time Beijing-Shanghai opens late next year. By the end of 2011 China's 350kph rated line will top 4000km.


----------



## UD2

greenlion said:


> and actually the first generation locomotive is a Japanese locomotive


Question

Why is the MoZedong plaque always installed onto freight locomotives and never passenger dedicated models?


----------



## cmoonflyer

*China Northeast** first intercity express railway between Changchun (Jilin provincial capital ) and Jilin city (the second largest city in Jilin province )- High-Speed Railway was running for its first test on Dec. 30, 2010 . And it will officially begin run on Jan.11,2011...........Take Time : 29Mins 
Speed: 250Km/H 
Distance: 110Km Changchun City -Jilin city *


----------



## General Huo

Railway linking major Silk Road towns opens in NW China 

English.news.cn 2010-12-30 20:59:53 FeedbackPrintRSS 

URUMQI, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) - A railway linking Kashi and Hotan in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region opened Thursday for cargo transportation, and passenger transport is expected to begin in June, according to a local official.

The railway, with a cost about 5.1 billion yuan (773 million U.S. dollars), covers 488.27 kilometers running through the south part of Xinjiang, an important section of the ancient Silk Road.

The railroad is expected to have an annual freight volume of 15 million tons, and carry ten passenger trains every day, said Tang Shisheng, director of the Urumqi Railway Bureau..

The Kashi-Hotan railway will help promote the development of Xinjiang' s mining industry, tourism and agriculture, said Tang.

Construction of the railway began in December 2008.

The Ministry of Railways and Xinjiang regional government will invest 310 billion yuan to build more than 8,000 kilometers of railway in Xinjiang during the next 10 years


----------



## ANR

*Chungchun - Jilin express rail*



cmoonflyer said:


> *China Northeast** first intercity express railway between Changchun (Jilin provincial capital ) and Jilin city (the second largest city in Jilin province )- High-Speed Railway was running for its first test on Dec. 30, 2010 . And it will officially begin run on Jan.11,2011*


*

Thanks for posting this picture from a relatively unreported new high speed line.

I enhanced the picture per below, but I still don't recognize the style of equipment. Can anyone help identify?








*


----------



## binhai

CRH5?


----------



## greenlion

ANR said:


> Thanks for posting this picture from a relatively unreported new high speed line.
> 
> I enhanced the picture per below, but I still don't recognize the style of equipment. Can anyone help identify?


CRH5, the only Chinese EMU that could works well under -40℃


----------



## foxmulder

Really nice picture, snow cloud behind the train makes it quite unique.


----------



## hmmwv

UD2 said:


> Question
> 
> Why is the MoZedong plaque always installed onto freight locomotives and never passenger dedicated models?


Mr. Mao's head will definitely compromise the aerodynamics of CRH380A.


----------



## skyridgeline

hmmwv said:


> Mr. Mao's head will definitely compromise the aerodynamics of CRH380A.


http://www.tranzformer.de/blog/?p=441


----------



## chornedsnorkack

General Huo said:


> Railway linking major Silk Road towns opens in NW China





General Huo said:


> URUMQI, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) - A railway linking Kashi and Hotan in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region opened Thursday for cargo transportation, and passenger transport is expected to begin in June, according to a local official.
> 
> The railway, with a cost about 5.1 billion yuan (773 million U.S. dollars), covers 488.27 kilometers running through the south part of Xinjiang, an important section of the ancient Silk Road.





General Huo said:


> The Ministry of Railways and Xinjiang regional government will invest 310 billion yuan to build more than 8,000 kilometers of railway in Xinjiang during the next 10 years


Which lines are in these 8000+ km?

Is Hotan-Ruoqiang railway included?


----------



## cbz

*Beijing, Shanghai High-speed rail will open ahead of schedule*

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-01/04/c_13676041.htm

High-speed rail linking Beijing, Shanghai to open in June

English.news.cn 2011-01-04 13:55:19	


BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway will be put into operation by the middle of June this year, Chinese Railways Minister Liu Zhijun said at a conference Tuesday.

The high-speed link connecting the country's two most important cities will open ahead of its original schedule, previously set in 2012.

The construction of the 1,318-km railway was started in April 2008 with total investment estimated at 220.9 billion yuan (around 32.5 billion U.S. dollars).

The railway is expected to cut travel time between Beijing, China's capital in the north, and Shanghai, the country's economic center in the east, to less than five hours, compared with the current 10-hour rail journey.

On Dec. 3, 2010, a China-made CRH380A train set a new speed record of 486.1 km per hour on a test run on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway.

Also at the conference, Liu said the combined length of China's operating high-speed railways had reached 8,358 km by the end of 2010.

Total length of high-speed railways would reach 13,000 km by 2011, and 16,000 km by 2015, Liu said.

China plans to invest 700 billion yuan for the construction of railways this year, Liu said.

He said the total length of China's railways had reached 91,000 km by 2010, and the railways would reach 120,000 km in five years.

In 2010, 1.68 billion passenger journeys were conducted through the nation's railways, up 9.9 percent year on year. The railways had also transported 3.63 billion tonnes of goods, up 9.3 percent.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Mr. Mao's head will definitely compromise the aerodynamics of CRH380A.


Yes, thick relief plaque would.

But since the CRHs do wear livery of flat paint, couldn´t the head of Comrade Mao be painted on their noses?


----------



## hmmwv

There is another problem, bugs and possibly even birds will splash on his face when you are going 350kph.


----------



## big-dog

*Expert: China's rail spending spree has looming risks*

17:11, January 07, 2011 



> China is on an investment spree in terms of railway construction, including high-speed rail and urban rail. It has taken the country a decade to build the kind of railway network that took developed countries a century to achieve. However, there are risks, warned some experts, of rising public deficits in local governments.
> 
> According to the blueprint for the development of China's railway, some 700 billion yuan will be spent on railway construction annually during the next five years. The total of 3.5 trillion yuan for the five years is 1.3 trillion yuan more than the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010). Another analysis shows that 270 billion yuan is expected to pour in urban rail transportation annually between 2009 and 2020.
> 
> While that staggering expansion of railways could boost the country's urbanization process and GDP growth, it could also trigger the risk of an alarming increase in local budget deficits.
> 
> In an article published in the Beijing Times, Ye Tan, a noted commentator on China's economy, warned that the investment spree in high-speed rail and urban rail transportation could push the inflation and tax burden higher, which is not good for the economy as a whole.
> 
> It is crucial to take fiscal capability into account when the government makes decisions on railway investment, Ye said.



By Li Jia, People’s Daily Online


----------



## big-dog

Friday January 7, 2011
*New rail link connects China with Malaysia*



> CONSTRUCTION work on railroad linking China and South-East Asia would start this year, Nanyang Siang Pau reported on its front page.
> 
> Quoting China Economics Weekly, the report said the railroad would start from China and would link the country to Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
> 
> The paper reported that the construction of the railway would stimulate and consolidate the economies of China and countries in the Asean region.
> 
> The entire route would be 5,000km long and have three lines – east, central and west.
> 
> The link would also improve access to China by rail.
> 
> China had signed agreements with Thailand and Laos for the rail link which is expected to be completed by 2015.
> 
> > Malaysia Quarry Association chairman Tan Sri Tee Hock Seng has refuted claims that the increase in the price of houses is due to the higher cost of construction materials, Sin Chew Daily reported.
> 
> He said the price of bricks had been 30 sen a piece for two years and the price of cement had been reduced to boost sluggish sales.
> 
> Tee also said it was unlikely that the price of construction materials would increase in the future.


source


----------



## big-dog

*1.7 Guangzhou-Zhuhai CRH opens*























































(sina.com)


----------



## asif iqbal

i really like how in china everything is very clean and organised, i would like to take a train journey inside china


----------



## binhai

I thought it was 1990 or 1991? Whatever, I'm not old enough to remember anything from then.


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## fragel

^^Here is one example. Ticket fare for train 1461(from Beijing to Shanghai, one famous ‘miraculous train’) was increased to RMB 46 in 1990, it was later increased to RMB 88 in 1996, and then remained the same till June 2010. After June 2010 it was changed to an air-conditioned train and is no longer a 'green skin'.


----------



## cbz

Pansori said:


> Is it really true? That just doesn't sound possible! If so in 1990 it must have looked very expensive.
> 
> Anyway if this _is_ true and there were no fare rises for a decade or so then I guess it is laughable to complain about anything. Especially once you get a faster and generally better mean of transport.


It is very true, ticket price of shanghai-chengdu in 1983 was about 50 yuans, now, the ticket price with the similar type of service (no air condition, 40 hours) only costs 124 yuans. 50 yuans was two month salary of a worker with average income in 1983 

a low income worker in shanghai today should be able to afford this most luxurious service between shanghai-chengdu with his/her one month salary (little bit more than 2000 yuans). This reminds me of the time when i can only stand on ONE FOOT on overcrowded shanghai-chengdu train for 5-6 hours. People are spoiled too much now


----------



## SoroushPersepolisi

wow, they truely mean it when they say china has built a country in 20 years


----------



## big-dog

*1.11 Changchun-Jilin HSR open for operation*

111km, max speed 250km/h, 3 stations (including an airport), shortening the travel time from 1.5 hrs to 29 mins.





































by 新浪, sina.com


----------



## hmmwv

I agree that people are not happy with the Shanghai Nanjing PDL price, which I have used many times a year (I miss the D trains too), but I really don't see the problem here. The reason they build the PDL is to relieve pressure on the main line for freight traffic, because it's part of the Beijing-Shanghai line, freight traffic pressure is way higher than Shanghai-Hangzhou line. That's part of the reason there are a lot more D trains remaining on the aforementioned line. 

The new Shanghai-Nanjing PDL sure save a lot of travel time, with a 50% price hike, the speed increased 50% as well. This line serve Yangtze Delta's richest cities, so if a passenger travels frequently among them, he or she sure can afford the ticket, I mean really, how many "migrant workers" earning minimum wage in Shanghai came from Nanjing? If money is really a issue, there are loads of coaches available. 

Having said that, MOR is stupid to abruptly cancel all D trains when the PDL opened, if the process is more gradual and the price increase is incremental, I'm sure the public outcry will be far less severe.


----------



## big-dog

*1.11 Xi'an North Railway station south hall opens*

The whole station will open by June 2011. By prediction, its annual capacity will be 82.6 million.










(by 张喆 孙昊, sohu.com)


----------



## HunanChina

Vote for the worst design of NEW Railway Station in China. I think, Xi'an North Railway station will be the winner, and the Changsha South Railway Station would be second place.

Too big. ugly and no originality.


----------



## NCT

Pansori said:


> Only thing I understand is that an instant 50% fare rise may be a little bit shocking from a psychological point of view. It may have needed a transitional period lasting one year or so... still ultimatelly this is by no means a bad deal. The question is how the fares will be kept in the future? Are they going to rise like crazy (like in London area) or are they going to be kept at a level not to stir public anger.
> 
> And the ordinary folk who really cannot afford the extra 50 Yuan will have to use the 4hr buses then... that's the reality. Just like I rent a VW and not an Audi when looking for a rental car during my holidays... those who still cannot afford even a coach will have to resort to cycling or walking. Unless you are trying to imply that everyone should get everything for free? I thought China abandoned the hardline communism 30 years ago?


Railways are supposed to be for the ordinary people not the rich few. Quite frankly your example of VW vs Audi is a shocking one because you wouldn't be going any slower, and I find your 'let them eat cake' attitude extremely patronising and one even David Cameron wouldn't dare to take (publically at least).

The fact is fares have risen too fast compared to salaries, and the recent rise is immediately after the first rise when D trains were rolled out and ￥47 K trains cancelled, only in a space of 5 years (and no London travel cards and Advanced intercity train fares haven't risen by the same percentage). The first time there were significant improvements to rolling time and journey times, but the second time there were not. As things currently stand there are G trains slower than D trains.


----------



## HunanChina

That it is why the Beijing-Tianjin ICL is the only one 350km/h grade ICL. and now, All the new ICL are 250km/h grade. It's sensible, I think. 250km/h grade D train is best in performance price ratio.


----------



## cbz

NCT said:


> Railways are supposed to be for the ordinary people not the rich few.


I am sure that you know better than us about how much ordinary people in shanghai make now monthly. Probably 140 yuan of Shanghai-Nanjing HSR ticket just costs 3-4% (or even less) of an ordinary shanghainese monthly income. You don't expect those migrant workers to take Nanjing-shanghai HSR for daily commute, right?



NCT said:


> The fact is fares have risen too fast compared to salaries



This is because the fare hasn't risen too much for 2-3 decades, it was just catching up recent years


----------



## NCT

cbz said:


> I am sure that you know better than us about how much ordinary people in shanghai make now monthly. Probably 140 yuan of Shanghai-Nanjing HSR ticket just costs 3-4% (or even less) of an ordinary shanghainese monthly income. You don't expect those migrant workers to take Nanjing-shanghai HSR for daily commute, right?
> 
> This is because the fare hasn't risen too much for 2-3 decades, it was just catching up recent years


3-4% is still too high, and when companies instruct their workers to take the company car instead of the train because it is cheaper, clearly something is wrong.

Of course a sizable chunk of the demand is business travel and multinational companies are not so sentitive to these prices. Not all companies are rich and a lot of people still have to pay out of their own pocket. It would have made sense if the slower trains could be priced lower closer to ￥100， even if the fast ones charged ￥170 or more, then at least it gives the poorer sections of the society a meaningful option.


----------



## fragel

^^


> companies instruct their workers to take the company car instead of the train because it is cheaper


I also read about such posts, but isn't it natural since such companies sent more than 3 people at a time to the same place? It is definitely cheaper to for three passengers to carpool for merely 300km. Maybe you have more examples that I don't know, but I suspect most likely those people are traveling together in such cases.

maybe we shall quit ranting on it, at least for a while. Or maybe we could start a ranting thread in Chinese tea house specifically for bashing Nanjing-Shanghai ICL.


----------



## foxmulder

big-dog said:


> *1.11 Xi'an North Railway station south hall opens*
> 
> The whole station will open by June 2011. By prediction, its annual capacity will be 82.6 million.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (by 张喆 孙昊, sohu.com)



This should be one of the biggest, I hope you can share more pictures


----------



## hmmwv

fragel said:


> ^^
> I also read about such posts, but isn't it natural since such companies sent more than 3 people at a time to the same place? It is definitely cheaper to for three passengers to carpool for merely 300km. Maybe you have more examples that I don't know, but I suspect most likely those people are traveling together in such cases.
> 
> maybe we shall quit ranting on it, at least for a while. Or maybe we could start a ranting thread in Chinese tea house specifically for bashing Nanjing-Shanghai ICL.


I agree, arguing this subject is not gonna produce any agreement whatsoever.:cheers: Speaking of carpooling, Huning expressway toll along is 150 yuan, plus gas and wear and tear, so it's only economical when there are at least three people traveling together.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> The new Shanghai-Nanjing PDL sure save a lot of travel time, with a 50% price hike, the speed increased 50% as well. This line serve Yangtze Delta's richest cities, so if a passenger travels frequently among them, he or she sure can afford the ticket, I mean really, how many "migrant workers" earning minimum wage in Shanghai came from Nanjing? If money is really a issue, there are loads of coaches available.


But that is the problem. A train has the rolling friction of steel wheel on smooth rail. A bus wastes energy on the rolling friction of a rubber wheel.

Since the last price rise of MOR trains in 1996, how much has the market price of private coach tickets changed?

As far as general inflation or increase of salary real costs go, the price of train tickets should trail the price of coach tickets - and stay below.


----------



## binhai

HunanChina said:


> That it is why the Beijing-Tianjin ICL is the only one 350km/h grade ICL. and now, All the new ICL are 250km/h grade. It's sensible, I think. 250km/h grade D train is best in performance price ratio.


Isn't Shanghai-Hangzhou also 350km/h? Also Chengdu-Chongqing will be, I think


----------



## NCT

BarbaricManchurian said:


> Isn't Shanghai-Hangzhou also 350km/h? Also Chengdu-Chongqing will be, I think


I think it is, as Shanghai - Hangzhou is part of the longer Shanghai - Kunming HSL.


----------



## cbz

HunanChina said:


> Vote for the worst design of NEW Railway Station in China. I think, Xi'an North Railway station will be the winner, and the Changsha South Railway Station would be second place.
> 
> Too big. ugly and no originality.



this is Xi'an old railway station few days ago before the new one was opened. 










I believe you would not say so if you were one of these people when you have choice like this










and this


----------



## hmmwv

HunanChina said:


> That it is why the Beijing-Tianjin ICL is the only one 350km/h grade ICL. and now, All the new ICL are 250km/h grade. It's sensible, I think. 250km/h grade D train is best in performance price ratio.


Shanghai-Nanjing ICL was initially designed to be 250km/h but during the construction changed to 350km/h. It should be considered a 350km/h rated HSR because the direct train run at 350km/h for a large portion of the trip.


----------



## NCT

cbz said:


> I believe you would not say so if you were one of these people.
> 
> this is Xi'an old railway station few days ago before the new one was opened.


And that just shows a ticketing system that's outdated and inefficient.


----------



## cbz

NCT said:


> And that just shows a ticketing system that's outdated and inefficient.


well, then you need to upgrade whole station besides ticketing system






































damn, i hate people saying railway station is too big for china :bash:


----------



## Pansori

They better start internet sales of tickets soon. These people must be pissed off to wait for hours in the cold just to buy a ticket while it could be done in two minutes online from home computer or even a smartphone.


----------



## cbz

Pansori said:


> They better start internet sales of tickets soon. These people must be pissed off to wait for hours in the cold just to buy a ticket while it could be done in two minutes online from home computer or even a smartphone.


I guess NCT doesn't have much experience of traveling by train in china.  There are only very small portion of passengers buying tickets at railway station. I only did once during past 30 years. - at NCT's hometown shanghai

I believe most of these people are waiting to enter the waiting hall.


----------



## Guest

Impressive. I hope the line to Singapore gets build, along with a classy (although smaller) station like this!


----------



## Pansori

cbz said:


> I guess NCT doesn't have much experience of traveling by train in china.  There are only very small portion of passengers buying tickets at railway station. I only did once during past 30 years.
> 
> I believe most of these people are waiting to enter the waiting hall.


I have asked the question before relating to my upcoming trip to China. I want to use Guangzhou-Wuhan CRH but as much as I undertand the only way to get the ticket is to buy it at the station (from either ticket office or ticket machine). Alternativelly it can be done via travel agent or hotel but it may take a day or so which is also a hassle. Is there any other way to get it without going to the station and extra time?

Anyway, I think I read somewhere that Chinese MOR is planning Internet ticket sales some time in 2012? The reality is that there is no Internet ticketing yet and this is a major drawback when it comes to ticket sales. So I guess NCT and others who criticize it have a point.


----------



## cbz

Simon91 said:


> Impressive. I hope the line to Singapore gets build, along with a classy (although smaller) station like this!


oh, yeah, railway station in Singapore really sucks comparing to its airport。The first time i went there, the taxi driver call railway station “火车头” (Locomotive, or train head) which i had no clue what he talking about


----------



## cbz

Pansori said:


> I have asked the question before relating to my upcoming trip to China. I want to use Guangzhou-Wuhan CRH but as much as I undertand the only way to get the ticket is to buy it at the station (from either ticket office or ticket machine). Alternativelly it can be done via travel agent or hotel but it may take a day or so which is also a hassle. Is there any other way to get it without going to the station and extra time?
> 
> Anyway, I think I read somewhere that Chinese MOR is planning Internet ticket sales some time in 2012? The reality is that there is no Internet ticketing yet and this is a major drawback when it comes to ticket sales. So I guess NCT and others who criticize it have a point.


sorry, don't want to mislead you, i mean conventional train ticket . CRH ticket is another issue which i believe you need to buy at railway station most of time,


----------



## Mith252

cbz said:


> oh, yeah, railway station in Singapore really sucks comparing to its airport。The first time i went there, the taxi driver call railway station “火车头” which i had no clue what he talking about


Well, that doesn't belong to Singapore. It belongs to Malaysia's KTM. Anyway, in July this year, they will cease operation at the station and move to Woodlands. We are hoping that Singapore and Malaysia would be able to agree on a High Speed Rail and have a new station that is mch more modern and grand with a good location.


----------



## cbz

Mith252 said:


> Well, that doesn't belong to Singapore. It belongs to Malaysia's KTM. Anyway, in July this year, they will cease operation at the station and move to Woodlands. We are hoping that Singapore and Malaysia would be able to agree on a High Speed Rail and have a new station that is mch more modern and grand with a good location.


Oh, yeah, i remember that now - it belongs to Malaysia. Hope relationship of two countries improved a lot now, they dont threat to cut your guys' water supply now ?


----------



## Mith252

^^Nope, we are on better terms now. Anyway, I hope that they will be able to to do the High Speed Rail and connect all the way to China. It would be quite nice to have an alternative to flying.


----------



## foxmulder

Nice pictures cbz, thanks... :cheers:


----------



## binhai

Pansori said:


> I have asked the question before relating to my upcoming trip to China. I want to use Guangzhou-Wuhan CRH but as much as I undertand the only way to get the ticket is to buy it at the station (from either ticket office or ticket machine). Alternativelly it can be done via travel agent or hotel but it may take a day or so which is also a hassle. Is there any other way to get it without going to the station and extra time?
> 
> Anyway, I think I read somewhere that Chinese MOR is planning Internet ticket sales some time in 2012? The reality is that there is no Internet ticketing yet and this is a major drawback when it comes to ticket sales. So I guess NCT and others who criticize it have a point.


it takes like 2 minutes of waiting in line, the in-person ticket office is very efficient, and if you don't want to deal with them, you can go to the electronic kiosk. And seriously don't worry, just buy the tickets right before you get on the train, maybe an hour or two in advance at most (you can take pics of the awesome station in the meantime). Going to the station days before is completely unnecessary at all times for CRH


----------



## Pansori

BarbaricManchurian said:


> it takes like 2 minutes of waiting in line, the in-person ticket office is very efficient, and if you don't want to deal with them, you can go to the electronic kiosk. And seriously don't worry, just buy the tickets right before you get on the train, maybe an hour or two in advance at most (you can take pics of the awesome station in the meantime). Going to the station days before is completely unnecessary at all times for CRH


Thanks for the advice... you know I'll have 2 days or less to stay arund in one location (primarily Shenzhen and Guangzhou) which means if I don't get the ticket to Wuhan and back then my dream of riding world's fastest train will be gone forever (or at least until I'll ride Beijing-Shanghai which is not to happen for at least next 2 years or so), so I can't afford anything but getting the ticked on the day I'll need it. Also considering that this is one of the major purposes of my trip then the only option is to get that ticket and ideally for the fastest service that day even if I have to pay extra for 1st class. 

Also what about short-distance trains? I would assume the best way of getting from Shenzhen to Guangzhou is the D train (which, if I am correct, is CRH1) departing every 10 or so minutes? Is it easy to just get to the station and get the ticket to the nearest departing train on that day or is it not as easy as I assume? The demand should be high in such a busy and densely populated area.


----------



## gdolniak

cbz said:


> this is Xi'an old railway station few days ago before the new one was opened.
> (...)


Dear cbz, you are comparing old Xi'an station, where the traditional, cross-country trains still stop, but not CRH, and brand new Xi'an North station, where *only* CRH trains stop. This is like comparing potatoes with oranges, nothing else. The old station will still have such crowds, until, as one of the people here said, the ticket system will get some major overhaul. Most/Majority of the people who stand in the lines to get inside the station does not have means to buy the tickets for the CRH trains. Since the picture was taken recently, you can see there traditional crowds of people trying to get home for the Chinese New Year (such crowds are not there every day of a year).

On the photo of a ticket booths in the new station, look up to see the train schedules: 10:45, 11:30, 13:00, 14:30, all CRH. Can anyone confirm, if there are any other trains stopping there?


----------



## HunanChina

cbz said:


> damn, i hate people saying railway station is too big for china :bash:




Hey, boy. I just want to get my ticket in the shortest time, get in my train in the shortest time and get to my destination in the shortest time. So, It's concern little with How big the Station it is.

So the most important is convenient and efficient. :cheers:


----------



## NCT

Those pictures in post 4104 show the once-a-year demand spike around the Chinese New Year where migrant workers go home. Unfortunately they are not the section of the demand moving to CRH at the new stations, so will continue to suffer the overcrowding. 'Crowds' at Shanghai Hongqiao with already 10 trains per hour during busy periods is still far from cosy, with shops and restaurants empty and expensive. It really isn't difficult to design a station that's both high in capacity and compact.

The first picture in post 1401 does show people queuing up for tickets, as ticket halls are tucked away in the corner of station buildings and routes for entry/exit are nowhere near ticket halls. Turn-up-and-go is only possible if you are travelling outside of peaks and don't mind what you are paying, i.e. railway enthusiasts on a Western income.

I've bought railway tickets twice in Shanghai, in the summers 2008 and 2010. The first time my dad and I tried Shanghai Station and the ticket hall unbearably crowded; the second time I used a ticket outlet next to the Oriental Pearl and queued with an arm in a plaster for 30 minutes under the scortching sun. There is a third way which is by telephone, but instead of being told which trains have spare tickets, you have to specify the train before knowing availability, and repeated 'sold out' messages, technical glitches of phone-bill for a 30-minute phone-call mean you might as well suffer what the whether and stone-faced ticket clerk throw at you.


----------



## AlexisMD

Pansori said:


> I have asked the question before relating to my upcoming trip to China. I want to use Guangzhou-Wuhan CRH but as much as I undertand the only way to get the ticket is to buy it at the station (from either ticket office or ticket machine). Alternativelly it can be done via travel agent or hotel but it may take a day or so which is also a hassle. Is there any other way to get it without going to the station and extra time?
> 
> Anyway, I think I read somewhere that Chinese MOR is planning Internet ticket sales some time in 2012? The reality is that there is no Internet ticketing yet and this is a major drawback when it comes to ticket sales. So I guess NCT and others who criticize it have a point.


If I understood right, China doesn't have centralized ticket system (for now of course)
maybe till 2012 they plan to implement one...


----------



## cbz

HunanChina said:


> Hey, boy. I just want to get my ticket in the shortest time, get in my train in the shortest time and get to my destination in the shortest time. So, It's concern little with How big the Station it is.
> 
> So the most important is convenient and efficient. :cheers:


I know, i know.. people now hold very high expectation and want infrastructure perfectly built - especially for their hometowns. I saw NCT constantly complaining how bad and inefficient shanghai's CBD\road\metro\railway were planned, designed and implemented even though shanghai has the best infrastructure in the country. So i didn't say anything when you said changsha has the second worst new railway station


----------



## cbz

*


gdolniak said:



Dear cbz, you are comparing old Xi'an station, where the traditional, cross-country trains still stop, but not CRH, and brand new Xi'an North station, where only CRH trains stop. This is like comparing potatoes with oranges, nothing else. The old station will still have such crowds, until, as one of the people here said, the ticket system will get some major overhaul. Most/Majority of the people who stand in the lines to get inside the station does not have means to buy the tickets for the CRH trains. Since the picture was taken recently, you can see there traditional crowds of people trying to get home for the Chinese New Year (such crowds are not there every day of a year).

On the photo of a ticket booths in the new station, look up to see the train schedules: 10:45, 11:30, 13:00, 14:30, all CRH. Can anyone confirm, if there are any other trains stopping there?

Click to expand...

Sir, i am not comparing airport to railway station. How come comparing the railway stations in the same city is comparing potatoes with oranges? I am comparing rotten apple to shiny apple.

I understand xian new station only serves few CRH services now, but it doesn't rule out that in the near future conventional services could be shifted to new one. Chengdu has a similar new station completed, the plan is to move all the services in old station to new one and re-build old one. 

I saw people here often blame ticketing system when they saw china's railway stations jammed by people and suggest better online ticketing system will be the solution. Do we really think MOR that stupid and not think of any cost-effective way? We need to know that ticket offices at railway stations in china are mainly for sale current day's ticket. Non-current day tickets (conventional train) are available at other ticket booths. Xian has more than 30 ticket offices with 84 windows distributed all over the city, not mention hot phone line and countless travel agents can be utilized for ticket purchase. Still, there are tons of unplanned travelers swarm to stations at peak seaon, any railway station in china has to reserve quite amount of tickets for this, internet or online ticketing system does not solve the problem. how many of you buy ticket via internet for today's flight. The problem here is overall capacity of a station, not the issue of one or two factors like ticketing system

Also, keep in mind that most major railway stations in china have different buildings for ticket sale and departure/arrival. Overcrowded queues at entrance of waiting hall have nothing to do with ticketing system. why not build bigger station to make those people's life less miserable, brute force way does work in this case.*


----------



## makita09

NCT said:


> I'm pretty sure the two types of trains are technologically compatible, and theoretically there should be no reason why conventional trains can't access the new stations.


The conventional trains may be incompatible with the in-cab signalling technology required for the high speed lines. The stations could be dual signalled, but I don't remember seing any colour-light signals at any of the CRH stations in the pictures.

Without colour light signals the old trains need in-cab electronics fitted.


----------



## hkskyline

*A long way to go*
17 January 2011
China Daily - Hong Kong Edition

Millions of migrant workers rely on the nation's slow trains to return to families for the Spring Festival. But will these trains survive the rapid upgrading of the rail network? Gao Qihui reports.

With the Spring Festival nearing, Yang Yongfen joined millions of others across the nation to return home, in what is seen as the world's biggest annual human migration, to usher in the New Year. Yang spend at least 30 hours to travel 1,946 km from Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, to Anshun of Guizhou province in Southwest China, by slow train.

Yang and her 7-year-old son, along with her younger sister and her brother's little daughter, crammed into a 1-square-meter space at the entrance to the carriage, sharing two small foldable travel stools between them.

Yang took the train on Dec 31, 2010, 20 days before the peak travel season, but still found it difficult to find space inside the carriage.

Even as the train started moving, several passengers carrying big suitcases high above their heads, tried to snake through the crowd squashed up against the side of the carriage, looking for any space to put down their luggage.

Almost all the passengers spoke in the dialects popular in Southwest China, including Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, the source of the nation's millions of migrant workers.

For these low-income earners, the cost of travel is an overriding consideration. Yang, the plainly dressed 37-year-old mother, who works as a migrant worker in Hangzhou, chose the slow train No 1271, for it offered the cheapest way to get to her hometown, with a standing-room-only ticket costing only 107 yuan ($16.24).

Yang would have had to pay an additional 210 yuan for berths but "we wanted to save that money", she says.

The fares on China's slow trains, marked by their distinct green color, are the lowest but lack heating and take longer to cover the same distance as others.

"I don't mind the time it takes," said Jiang Bo, a 23-year-old man who sat on the train for at least 44 hours before arriving at his home in Sichuan's Zigong city.

He would have had to pay about 200 yuan more for a fast train and a transfer to a bus to get home. He said that was not an economical choice, pointing out his garment factory job earns him less than 100 yuan a day. Jiang Long, a 21-year-old with barely enough room to stand, said cheerfully: "Last year when I took this train, it was more crowded. I couldn't even bend. It is much better today."

Slow trains are so-called not because they run slowly but because they take longer to reach their destination. They have to make more stops - at small cities and towns that fast trains do not pass or pass through without stopping.

Without the slow train, these passengers would have to first travel to the big cities and then take the fast train, a time-consuming and costly option.

But with China upgrading its railway network, these slow trains are slowly being phased out.

Seven such trains starting from Beijing were cancelled in July, 2010.

A report in the Beijing Times on June 29, 2010, quoted the Deputy Director General of Beijing Railway Bureau Liu Ruiyang as saying that from July 1, 2010, all slow trains entering Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou of Guangdong province would be replaced.

According to the latest railway map, the No 1271 has already been replaced by the faster and better K1271.

China's high-speed railway network now stretches 8,358 km, and will be extended by nearly 5,000 km more in 2011.

At present, there are nearly 1,200 China Railway High-speed trains - with speeds higher than 200 km/h - running on the nation's railways every day.

But the upgrade also means higher fares. The priciest tickets on a high-speed train, that began operating on Jan 11 between Shanghai and Chengdu, will cost as much as 2,330 yuan ($353.64), with the cheapest going for 501 yuan.

Reacting with incredulity at the fare, Luo Yinguo, a 53-year-old working in a leather factory in Wenzhou city of Zhejiang province, asks: "Is that a five-star train?"

Luo says he dare not think about it, as the priciest ticket equals his monthly earnings.

But faster railway transportation "is a national strategy, aimed at meeting the demands of economic and social development", says Xia Xueluan, sociology professor at Peking University.

According to Ji Jialun at Beijing Jiaotong University, "China's development of high-speed railways will leave more room on the track for freight trains.

"Currently, the railways' freight transportation capacity meets only 35 percent of national demand," Ji says.

"To allow one passenger train to run, we have to cancel two freight trains," he says.

At present all rail lines, except the newly built high-speed-train-only lines, are open to both passenger and freight trains, which restricts the development of freight transportation.

The phasing-out of slow passenger trains will leave more room for freight trains, Ji says.

Professor Hu Xingdou, at the Beijing Institute of Technology, feels both freight and passenger transportation need to be expanded. Hu told China Daily that the construction of the rail network in mid-western China is already insufficient to meet demand.

The problem will worsen if more passenger trains are taken off the tracks in this region, he adds.

In fact, it is this region that is home to most of China's low-income groups and the one that generates the most demand for slow trains.

Some experts have suggested the use of buses over trains.

But Luo Yinguo, the leather factory worker in Wenzhou, dismisses this saying, "It is too expensive".

A coach bus to his home in Zhaotong city, Yunnan province, will cost more than 350 yuan.

And during peak travel periods, such as the Spring Festival holiday, prices could rise to as much as 800 yuan, according to Luo. In contrast, a slow train such as the old No 1271, costs less than 200 yuan.

Even the hard-seat ticket on its replacement, the K1271, is not likely to surpass 400 yuan.

Bus travel is also seen as less safe than travel by train, Luo says.

However, Xia of Peking University believes that as living standards rise, more people will gradually accept the price of fast high-speed trains.

"It is just a matter of time," he says.

But besides cost, another concern for Luo is whether the new train will still stop at Zhaotong.

On the line between Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei province, and Guangzhou of South China's Guangdong province, the normal fast train K769 stops at 26 stations but the new high-speed train G1021 has only four stops.

The many county-level stations is one reason Hu at the Beijing Institute of Technology cites for keeping the slow trains.

Agreeing with him, Ji, of Beijing Jiaotong University, says some short-distance branch lines, without much freight traffic, should be kept open for the slow trains.

Meanwhile, despite the expansion of the high-speed rail network, migrant workers can still take their preferred cheaper slow trains.

During the Spring Festival travel rush, the Ministry of Railways always adds more train services in the main migrant labor hubs such as Sichuan, Henan and Anhui provinces.

For the 2011 Spring Festival travel season, for example, 123 more trains will be put into service by Beijing Railway Bureau, according to its transport plan released on Jan 5.


----------



## Silly_Walks

> Maglev link plan is suspended
> By Zha Minjie | 2011-1-19
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CONSTRUCTION of a Maglev train link between Shanghai and Hangzhou City in Zhejiang Province is to be shelved, an official has revealed.
> 
> "It was a decision made by the central government after research by Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission," Liu Ting, deputy director of the commission, told China News Service.
> 
> He declined to comment on whether the decision was influenced by the opening of the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway last October.
> 
> The planned 35 billion yuan (US$5.3 billion) Maglev service would take 38 minutes to travel from Shanghai to Hangzhou, only 10 minutes faster than high-speed trains.
> 
> Many people have said that it was unnecessary to spend tens of billions of yuan just to save 10 minutes.
> 
> This is not the first twist in the tale of the Maglev link between Shanghai and Zhejiang's capital city.
> 
> First approved by the State Council in 2006, the 175-kilometer Maglev line - which would be an extension of Shanghai's Maglev route - was suspended in 2007 as residents along the line feared it would emit radiation and were concerned about noise.
> 
> An assessment by environmental authorities, however, said the project was safe.
> 
> Sun Zhang, a rail professor with the city's Tongji University, said "Maglev is quieter than high-speed trains."
> 
> The noise made by Maglev trains at 400km per hour is about the same that of a high-speed railway train at 300km per hour, Sun said.
> 
> "It seems as though everyone wants to enjoy the higher speed but no one wants the line outside their front doors," said Sun.
> 
> The Maglev has a top speed of 450 kilometers an hour, but is limited to 200 kilometers an hour in downtown areas.
> 
> Shanghai has the country's only operational Maglev line, the 30-kilometer stretch linking Metro Line 2's Longyang Road station to Pudong International Airport.
> 
> The journey takes about eight minutes.


http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=461894&type=Metro


----------



## hmmwv

Silly_Walks said:


> http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=461894&type=Metro


Good, now get your acts together and finish that damn Pudong-Hongqiao line!


----------



## Silly_Walks

hmmwv said:


> Good, now get your acts together and finish that damn Pudong-Hongqiao line!


Yeah i don't understand... the proposed plan sometimes says it would be a Pudong-Hongqiao-Hangzhou line. But there is no mention of the Pudong-Hongqiao part.

The current connection between Pudong and Hongqiao is just too slow.

Besides... doesn't the Hongqiao HSR station already have a nice spot reserved for the Maglev line?


----------



## Restless

*Integrating South-East Asia*

*China coming down the tracks*

*A railway boom promises to tie South-East Asia together—and boost China’s sway*
Jan 20th 2011 | BANGKOK | from PRINT EDITION










THE rapid expansion of its high-speed railways has got China plenty of attention. Yet ambitions do not stop at the border. On its southern flank China is renewing a push to lay tracks to mainland South-East Asia. The region’s leaders have dreamed since the 1990s of seamless rail travel between Singapore and Kunming, capital of the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan. South-East Asia’s existing network of railways is creaking, patchy and underfunded. Most goods move about the region by lorry and ship. But that creates choke points while running up fuel bills. An integrated rail system could be just the ticket.

Enter China, chequebook in hand. It has recently signed agreements to build new lines in Laos and Thailand, while it extends its network from Kunming to the China-Laos border. These lines are meant to be ready by 2015. The benefits may be huge. Most countries along the route have already hitched their wagons to China’s outsize economy and are eager for more trade. China’s free-trade agreement with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which took effect a year ago, has cut tariffs on most traded goods. The region still has natural resources, which China is keen to strip.

Empire-builders love railways. Most of South-East Asia’s were laid during colonial rule, as Britain and France pushed inland. In a region with American leanings, China wants to bind its neighbours into an economic sphere with strategic weight. Laying lines into Myanmar, with a large but decrepit network, would add a coveted Indian Ocean port. More regional trade with its centre in Yunnan spreads wealth inland, another Chinese objective. Trains already shuttle between China and Vietnam, which has a north-south railway. This linkage opens up the possibility of a circuitous eastern route into South-East Asia, via Cambodia and Thailand. Both countries belong to the Greater Mekong Subregion, a grouping fostered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that also includes Vietnam, China, Laos and Myanmar. According to the ADB, it would cost $1.1 billion to build the missing links along this route, making it the cheapest way to connect the region. Some $7 billion more would be needed to upgrade existing lines and rolling-stock. By 2014, once this route is operating, it would carry almost 7m tonnes of cargo among Greater Mekong countries, rising to 26m tonnes by 2025, the ADB reckons. Greater Mekong countries duly backed the plan in August.










Yet China quickly upended this consensus. In December Laos said China would build a $7 billion high-speed railway from the border to its capital, Vientiane. Construction is set to begin in April. Meanwhile, Thailand is negotiating with China to build a connecting north-south line to Bangkok, using concessionary Chinese loans. ADB officials are left scratching their heads over what this means for the Vietnam-Cambodia route, including a long stretch that China had been expected to build but which now appears to be on the back burner.

On paper, the Laos-Thailand route is more direct, but it is also far more mountainous, with 190 kilometres (120 miles) of tunnels in Laos and countless bridges. Remote areas of Laos are also littered with unexploded bombs from the Vietnam war. None of this is likely to stop a country that laid a railway up to the Tibetan plateau.

In Thailand the hazards are more political. To get around the mighty, hidebound state operator, the Thai government proposes a new line using Chinese technology to run parallel to the existing one. A Thai-Chinese entity would rent the land from the state operator and build its own signals and stations. Handily, the route would pass through Thailand’s poor and politically disaffected north-east, giving a shot in the arm to the local economy.

Thailand says that fast passenger trains would reach speeds of 200 kilometres an hour, streets ahead of what currently pass for express trains. Tourists could ride luxury carriages to exotic destinations. A fast train, says Korbsak Sabhavasu, the government’s chief negotiator, is something Thailand needed 20 years ago. But Thailand’s treacherous politics may yet intrude, as any final agreement with China needs the nod from parliament. In an election year, this is no certainty.

Tourists and trainspotters may be tickled by a fast train to China. Yet the real point of modernising the railways is cargo. Intra-ASEAN trade is growing much faster than exports to developed markets. Nearly a quarter of Thailand’s exports go to South-East Asia, with another 11% (and rising) to China. Trains are more efficient and less polluting than lorries on all but the shortest routes. Peter Broch of the ADB estimates that a rail service from Bangkok to Phnom Penh would cut the price of moving a container by two-thirds compared with moving it by ship and lorry, as now.

Even without a railway network, the region is tying itself together. Roads have been upgraded, and customs procedures are less tape-bound than they were before. When Wang Er-Chern began trading agricultural produce in northern Thailand in the early 1990s, it took two weeks to send goods by road and ship via Laos to his native Yunnan. Today the journey has been shaved to two days. Mr Wang, prominent in the Thai Yunnan Commerce Association, says a fast rail link to Kunming would be nice. But he grumbles that business has already become less profitable as more Chinese traders have got in on the act. A trainload more may soon be on the way.

from PRINT EDITION | Asia


----------



## hkskyline

The prospects of a seemless railway into SE Asia are enticing, but then, I think it's more suited for cargo, unless they can run at CRH speeds for passenger service.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> The prospects of a seemless railway into SE Asia are enticing, but then, I think it's more suited for cargo, unless they can run at CRH speeds for passenger service.


What is the expected track distance Kunming-Vientiane?
I have heard it aimed at 200 km/h, like Yichang-Wanzhou railway.


----------



## hmmwv

hkskyline said:


> The prospects of a seemless railway into SE Asia are enticing, but then, I think it's more suited for cargo, unless they can run at CRH speeds for passenger service.


I agree, passenger traffic probably won't be that high anyway due to visa issues, security situation etc. Most passenger probably gonna be between China and Thailand, and I bet tourists will prefer flying. On the other hand, cargo is definitely on the upswing, especially when Southeast Asian raw material is in high demand in China.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> I agree, passenger traffic probably won't be that high anyway due to visa issues, security situation etc. Most passenger probably gonna be between China and Thailand, and I bet tourists will prefer flying.


How about Chinese businessmen going to do business in Laos, and Lao migrant workers going to work in Yunnan?


----------



## hkskyline

hmmwv said:


> I agree, passenger traffic probably won't be that high anyway due to visa issues, security situation etc. Most passenger probably gonna be between China and Thailand, and I bet tourists will prefer flying. On the other hand, cargo is definitely on the upswing, especially when Southeast Asian raw material is in high demand in China.


I envision a cargo line to a Burmese port to ship out west. However, there needs to be more synergies with 3 country borders in the way.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> I envision a cargo line to a Burmese port to ship out west. However, there needs to be more synergies with 3 country borders in the way.


Are there any serious plans for a line between Yunnan and Burma crossing 1 border?


----------



## hkskyline

chornedsnorkack said:


> Are there any serious plans for a line between Yunnan and Burma crossing 1 border?


Doubt it'll be viable though, and the ports on the Burmese side need some serious upgrades before they want to export cargo out of there!


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> Doubt it'll be viable though,


Yunnan-Burma railway was under construction from 1938, and by November 1941 it was due for completion in 12...15 months.


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> How about Chinese businessmen going to do business in Laos, and Lao migrant workers going to work in Yunnan?


I really don't think there are going to thousands of businessmen to fill the trains to justify the service, and don't quote me but I doubt there are any Lao migrant workers in China at the moment, at least not in significant numbers.


----------



## hkskyline

hmmwv said:


> I really don't think there are going to thousands of businessmen to fill the trains to justify the service, and don't quote me but I doubt there are any Lao migrant workers in China at the moment, at least not in significant numbers.


Migrant workers could not afford a 200km/h high-speed rail service.


----------



## foxmulder

Old updates but great ones:


----------



## stingstingsting

^^

Where is that supposed to be, foxmulder? It looks incredibly immensely gargantuan.


----------



## mingrady

@foxmulder: 

those pictures feel so eerie and alien, they remind me of the incubator scene from The Matrix. 

I hope the finished product will give a different look and feel.


----------



## fragel

cross post
*CCTV program about Yichang-Wanzhou Railway* 
[中国财经报道]飞驰在“空中”的列车
宜万铁路

video link(in Chinese)
http://jingji.cntv.cn/20110130/100157.shtml


----------



## hkhui

1,000 km per hour high speed train is in develop: report


> 13:53, January 30, 2011
> 
> The Southwest Jiaotong University in China’s Sichuan Province is endeavoring developing the vacuum tube high speed train with a speed of 600 to 1,000 kilometers per hour and is expected to release the train model in the next two to three years, according to Voice of China, the China’s national radio, on Jan. 30.
> 
> Limited by the energy consumption, noise and other factors in the atmosphere, the actual operating speed of a train is expected not to exceed 400 kilometers per hour at present.
> 
> In order to build the higher speed train, scientists proposed a new vacuum tube technology. Its principle is to build up an isolated vacuum tube separating from the outside air to run the maglev train in it.
> 
> The vacuum maglev train is then capable of running in a higher speed without wheel track friction and with much lower air resistance.
> 
> It was reported that this technology is expected to be widely adopted in around 2030, when the traveling time between Beijing and Guangzhou is expected to be cut into one to 2.5 hours to run the 2,300 kilometers distance.
> 
> By People's Daily Online


http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90881/7276967.html
:cheers:


----------



## Atmosphere

Damn, from Guanzhou to Beijing in about 1,5-2 hours. Imagine that :nuts: It would be a real rival for airplanes...


----------



## Silly_Walks

Atmosphere said:


> Damn, from Guanzhou to Beijing in about 1,5-2 hours. Imagine that :nuts: It would be a real rival for airplanes...


It would obliterate airtravel, and turn China into a tiny country of connected urban areas.


----------



## yaohua2000

Atmosphere said:


> Damn, from Guanzhou to Beijing in about 1,5-2 hours. Imagine that :nuts: It would be a real rival for airplanes...


1.5–2 hours? Only Concorde can do that.


----------



## CarlosBlueDragon

Atmosphere said:


> Damn, from Guanzhou to Beijing in about 1,5-2 hours. Imagine that :nuts: It would be a real rival for airplanes...


2hours half min or 2hrs 40m


----------



## tabm

[offtop]
I was 666,666th viewer of this thread...:nuts: hno:
[/offtop]


----------



## gramercy

yes, swissmetro is an awesome concept


----------



## Luli Pop

edit


----------



## ANR

*Successful Shanxi Rail Magnate Under Scrutiny*

Hopefully this is not the tip of an ice burg:

By staff reporters Yu Ning and Zhang Boling 
01.28.2011
english.caing.com 

_But will high-level connections, philanthropy and fame help protect businesswoman Ding Shumiao?_

Ding Shumiao is a successful businesswoman, celebrated philanthropist and so well-connected that more than 400 central government and Communist Party leaders attended a huge Spring Festival celebration in early 2010 sponsored by her coal-railway-advertising conglomerate.









_Ding Shuamiao_

So when news recently emerged that government investigators were looking into Ding's finances and railway investments, a shiver went through the highest ranks of the nation's railway and coal industries. Caixin learned from several sources that authorities in Beijing are probing Ding. Whether police agencies are involved is unclear. Neither is it certain whether her high-level network of personal connections may offer a degree of protection. Ding, 55, is also a member of the Shanxi Province branch of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. After Ding came under an investigative cloud, several sources expressed concern about her "complicated" connections to top officials. Some said the case "may involve something much bigger."

Internet bloggers as well have been torn over whether to continue praising Ding for her generosity or question her business and investment decisions. Some 90 million yuan in donations in 2009 earned her the No. 6 ranking on the Forbes magazine China Charity List last May. She also pals with show business celebrities at charity events. But questions have swirled around her successful enterprise Shanxi Jinhande, whose name was recently change to CREC Taikete Environmental Engineering Co. Ltd., and which has won lucrative contracts to supply noise barriers that line China's high-speed railway tracks.

Investigators are apparently looking into Jinhande's previous deals related to several major railway projects. BroadUnion's transfer last September of 35 percent of its shares in then Jinhande to China CREC Railway Electrification Bureau Group, an electric rail contractor but remains the controller of the company. Any possible financial misdeeds connected to Jinhande, however, would involve only a fraction of Ding's business. Beyond noise barrier manufacturing, her business empire spans coal shipping, track building and railway station advertising.

A fitting symbol of Ding's flash and power are giant LED screens hanging high at Beijing's recently opened South Railway Station. The signage is operated by GOTO Media, a BroadUnion subsidiary, whose registered capital rose to 100 million yuan in early 2010.
*
Fast Growth*
Ding, 55, made her fortune as a coal transporter. She was born in a remote Shanxi Province village where coal and coalbed methane are king, and in the 1980s launched a coal transportation business. In 2000, she moved to Beijing and started BroadUnion as the parent for coal shipping and other businesses. In 2003, she founded Zhongqi Coal Electricity Co. Ltd., which claims annual thermal coal sales of 4 million tons and a railway transportation capacity of more than 500 trains. Zhongqi reported earnings of 50 million yuan by December 2010. 

In January 2006, Ding established Beijing BroadUnion Investment Co. Ltd. with registered capital of 30 million yuan. The next step was to create Beijing BroadUnion Investment Management Group in December 2007, with Ding listed as legal representative. With registered capital of 120 million yuan, the BroadUnion group quickly expanded its assets. Shanxi Jinhande Environment Equipment Co. Ltd. was established in September 2006 and was soon one of the country's leading noise barrier designer and supplier.
The barrier businesses benefited substantially from BroadUnion's stakes in the Wuhan-Guangzhou, Zhengzhou-Xi'an and Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong express railway projects, which were launched in 2009. The cost of noise prevention for these three projects alone was originally set at 530 million yuan, but later rose to 610 million yuan. Ding's companies got all the contracts.

Another successful BroadUnion business began in 2006 with approval from the Ministry of Railways: Zhibo Traffic & Transport Equipment Co. Ltd., which was created with 150 million yuan in registered capital as a venture of BroadUnion. In April 2008, BroadUnion set up a joint venture with Peng Elite (Beijing) International Advertising Co. Ltd. to create a social network club for international diplomats. Today, members of the Peng Elite Club hail from France, Hungary, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Russia, Vietnam, Austria and Mongolia.

BroadUnion also has a 45 percent stake in the Beijing Bohao Radegast Hotel, which opened in July 2008, on the eve of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. The hotel was the scene of the company's Spring Festival 2010 blowout for some of China's highest-ranking leaders.

In 2008, Jinhande won the bid for China's first express railway project – Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway. CREC and Jinhande submitted winning bids for the line's noise barrier as well as barriers for a Hefei-Wuhan railway. The contracts were worth a combined 836 million yuan. In 2009, Ding's company beat Shanxi Yufeng Railway Construction & Investment Co. Ltd. for a contract to build a 65-kilometer coal railway in Shanxi for 2.3 billion yuan. The new tracks, called the Jianan line, connects the Taiyuan-Jiaozuo and Houma-Yueshan lines, which are important gateways for shipping Shanxi coal to the rest of China. 

BroadUnion has spread its wings into overseas markets as well. For example, Zhibo collaborated with an Italian company called Lucchini in a joint-venture Zhibo & Lucchini Railway Equipment Co. Ltd., China's only producer and maintainer of motor train wheelsets. Launched in 2007 with 150 million yuan in registered capital, Zhibo & Lucchini has attracted 1.1 billion yuan in investment. Zhibo has a 75 percent stake. Zhibo & Lucchini's production line opened in February 2009. Since then, 2 billion yuan worth of contracts have been signed with several enterprises including Qingdao Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Inc.


----------



## Fan Railer

greenlion said:


> Chinese MOR 120 km/h HXD/HXN freight locomotives order timetable, update
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> Date         manfacturer  Tech.Cooperator    Power output  Type    Quantity    Amount
> 2004-10      CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3     60     873 m RMB
> 2004-12      CSR Zhuzhou    Siemens           7200 kw      HXD1    220   7,340 m RMB
> 2005-2       CNR Datong     Alstom            9600 kw      HXD2    180   7,500 m RMB
> 2005-9       CNR Dalian     EMD               6000 HP      HXN3    300   6,642 m RMB
> 2005-11      CSR Qishuyan   GE                6000 hp      HXN5    300   6,800 m RMB
> 2006-12      CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3    180   2,620 m RMB
> 2007-3       CNR Datong     Alstom            9600 kw      HXD2B   500  11,200 m RMB
> 2007-3       CNR Dalian     Bombardier        9600 kw      HXD3B   500  11,300 m RMB
> 2007-8       CSR Zhuzhou    Siemens           9600 kw      HXD1B   500  11.200 m RMB
> 2008-2       CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3    400   5,822 m RMB
> 2009-6       CSR Zhuzhou                      7200 kw      HXD1C   400   5,800 m RMB
> 2009-10      CNR Dalian     Toshiba           7200 kw      HXD3    400   5,822 m RMB
> 2010-7       CNR Datong                       7200 kw      HXD2C   220   3,000 m RMB
> 2010-7       CNR Dalian                       7200 kw      HXD3C   390   6,000 m RMB
> 2010-7       CSR Zhuzhou                      7200 kw      HXD1C   590   8,600 m RMB
> 2010-11      CSR Qishuyan   GE                6000 hp      HXN5          5,700 m RMB
> (2010-11 contract with CSR, quantity not confirmed yet)
> 
> Congratulations to GE.


Sorry to bring this back, but has the quantity for the HNX5 order been finalized yet?


----------



## Luli Pop

someone knows which are the 70 new railways projects that will start with new 5-year plan?


----------



## CPHbane

Breaking news: "Kuayue" Liu, minister of Railway in PRC, has been fired....

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2011-02-12/173021944095.shtml


----------



## big-dog

*1.30.2010 Guangzhou South Railway Station opens after 6-year construction
*

Designer: Terry Farrell, who also designed Beijing South Station
Opened: Jan 30th 2010
Project started on: Dec 30th 2004
Size: 560,000 sqms, 15 platforms
Capacity: current 78 million, long term 116 million
Transportation: subway line 2 (4 subways will connect, 2 more reserved), 3 city rails, 4 HSRs
Cost: 13 billion yuan (US $2 billion)

rendering









(baidu.com)



Hidden Dragon said:


> Guangzhou South Railway Station (广州南站)


----------



## chenium

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-02/12/content_11996859.htm

China's railway minister under investigation
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-02-12 18:37

BEIJING - Chinese Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun is under investigation over alleged severe violation of discipline, the Communist Party of China's (CPC's) discipline watchdog confirmed Saturday.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC did not give further details at the moment.

Liu has been removed from the post of the ministry's Party chief, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee said Saturday.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> *1.30.2010 Guangzhou South Railway Station opens after 6-year construction
> *


One year ago.


big-dog said:


> *
> Transportation: subway line 2 (4 subways will connect, 2 more reserved), 3 city rails, 4 HSRs
> *


Which ones?
Now there is just 2? Guangzhou-Wuhan and Guangzhou-Zhuhai. Guangzhou-Shenzhen is delayed and supposed to open in June.

How much development has there been around the Panyu station in the year since it opened?

How many daily trains stopped at the station when Tiger Year started, and how many did at the beginning of Hare Year?


----------



## yaohua2000

chenium said:


> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-02/12/content_11996859.htm
> 
> China's railway minister under investigation
> (Xinhua)
> Updated: 2011-02-12 18:37
> 
> BEIJING - Chinese Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun is under investigation over alleged severe violation of discipline, the Communist Party of China's (CPC's) discipline watchdog confirmed Saturday.
> 
> The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC did not give further details at the moment.
> 
> Liu has been removed from the post of the ministry's Party chief, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee said Saturday.


----------



## HunanChina

CPHbane said:


> Breaking news: "Kuayue" Liu, minister of Railway in PRC, has been fired....
> 
> http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2011-02-12/173021944095.shtml



I think it's a good news. 

bureaucracy, overstaffed, lags in response, insensibility to passage's request......the MoR need reformation.


----------



## spkg

yaohua2000 said:


>


Guess where he's right hand is, hint, the train attendant's eyes gives a clue.



HunanChina said:


> I think it's a good news.
> 
> bureaucracy, overstaffed, lags in response, insensibility to passage's request......the MoR need reformation.


not to mention that he is just too butt ugly


----------



## Geography

Wow, this is big news. "Severe violation of discipline" sounds like either a sex scandal or embezzlement. His railway policies have been repeatedly endorsed by the CCP and top party leaders and trumpeted around the world with national pride.

China watchers, any idea when, if ever, we'll find out why he was dismissed?


----------



## Pansori

His glasses look freaky. hno:


----------



## Gag Halfrunt

bace said:


> The distance between 2 chinese railway stations are very very long when comparing with Europe and Japan. MoR dismissed most suburban trains in 90 decade, now MoR do transport inter-city passengers only.


Were any suburban services taken over by other operators?


----------



## bace

Gag Halfrunt said:


> Were any suburban services taken over by other operators?


MoR was the loser in comparation with bus.


----------



## Restless

bace said:


> 350km/h CRHs are slower then 80km/h metro at minimum intervals of 3min.
> you are right. The child is wrong.


Of course, you don't actually run trains at 3 minute intervals, which is why you can only squeeze in about 10 trains per hour.

===

Q: What is the minimum interval between shinkansen trains? 
A: On the Sanyo Shinkansen, trains running at 300km/h require a minimum interval of 3 minutes 45 seconds between the train in front. On the Tokaido Shinkansen, where the maximum speed is 270km/h, this is 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Source:
http://community.livejournal.com/electric_trains/1705.html 

===


----------



## Restless

Groan

A cost-benefit exercise was undertaken, and it was judged that railway capacity was being wasted on short suburban trains.

This was because:

1. the railway line were already running over their capacity
2. for long-haul journeys, railways have a larger ratio of benefits compared to the alternatives
3. for short-distance journeys, it was judged that local buses deliver more benefits, and it was easy to shift passengers to buses.

===

In summary:
Short-distance rail trains generally make a loss. Why bother with these types of services, if long-distance trains make a profit? Especially if you don't have any spare rail capacity



bace said:


> MoR was the loser in comparation with bus.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

bace said:


> The distance between 2 chinese railway stations are very very long when comparing with Europe and Japan.


I count 28 stations between Hongqiao and Nanjing on 301 km high speed railway. Nonstop trains cover it in 73 minutes.

Tokaido Shinkansen has 13 stations between Tokyo and Nagoya, 346 km.

From Hongqiao, Nanjing can be reached in 73 minutes, but reaching Pudong, 62 km away, takes 91 minutes with 29 stops on Shanghai Metro line 2.

If suburban trains overload the lines then buses would overload roads (and so would cars). What is thus necessary is building suburban railways. 

Trains that travel at just 80...120 km/h and average just 40 km/h are indeed not very good compared to buses and cars. Which is why China needs to build railways with 150...250 km/h maximum and 100...150 km/h average speed. And frequent stops.


----------



## Restless

chornedsnorkack said:


> I count 28 stations between Hongqiao and Nanjing on 301 km high speed railway. Nonstop trains cover it in 73 minutes.
> 
> Tokaido Shinkansen has 13 stations between Tokyo and Nagoya, 346 km.
> 
> From Hongqiao, Nanjing can be reached in 73 minutes, but reaching Pudong, 62 km away, takes 91 minutes with 29 stops on Shanghai Metro line 2.
> 
> If suburban trains overload the lines then buses would overload roads (and so would cars). What is thus necessary is building suburban railways.
> 
> Trains that travel at just 80...120 km/h and average just 40 km/h are indeed not very good compared to buses and cars. Which is why China needs to build railways with 150...250 km/h maximum and 100...150 km/h average speed. And frequent stops.



It's not really a comparable situation to the Tokaido. There's also the section of the Beijing-Shanghai 350km/h which runs parallel to the slower Nanjing-Shanghai line.


----------



## greenlion

Restless said:


> It's not really a comparable situation to the Tokaido. There's also the section of the Beijing-Shanghai 350km/h which runs parallel to the slower Nanjing-Shanghai line.


When the Jinghu PDL opens, the Huning HSR will change to be a 250-300km/h ICL, as it covers 15 passenger stations, some of them are not on the Jinghu PDL. the Jiungu PDL only have 8 stops between Nanjing and Shanghai.

the distence between Nanjing and Shanghai is 300 km, that's the length of Huning HSR. at this distence, 250-300km/h ICL's will be great to connect big cities and smaller cities around them, for example, the Jingshi PDL (Beijing-Shijiazhuang), is set to open by end of 2011, the 281 km HSR has 6 stops, designed speed 350km/h, at the same time, a 250-300km/h Jingshi ICL is under planning, it will cover more stations, to connecct Beijing and Shijiazhuang with smaller or satellite cities around them.

this picture shows Beijing's 8 HSR's around it:









Jingshi ICL
Jingshi PDL (Beijing-Shijiazhuang section of Jingguang PDL)
Jingjiu PDL (Beijing-Nanchang-Hongkong)
Jinghu PDL
Jingjin ICL
Jingtang ICL (Beijing-Tangshan)
Jingshen PDL (Beijing-Chengde-Shenyang)
Jingzhang ICL (Beijing-Zhangjiakou)


----------



## bace

chornedsnorkack said:


> I count 28 stations between Hongqiao and Nanjing on 301 km high speed railway. Nonstop trains cover it in 73 minutes.
> 
> Tokaido Shinkansen has 13 stations between Tokyo and Nagoya, 346 km.
> 
> From Hongqiao, Nanjing can be reached in 73 minutes, but reaching Pudong, 62 km away, takes 91 minutes with 29 stops on Shanghai Metro line 2.
> 
> If suburban trains overload the lines then buses would overload roads (and so would cars). What is thus necessary is building suburban railways.
> 
> Trains that travel at just 80...120 km/h and average just 40 km/h are indeed not very good compared to buses and cars. Which is why China needs to build railways with 150...250 km/h maximum and 100...150 km/h average speed. And frequent stops.


It's a GREAT joke.
CRH350 need ~50 kilometer to accelerate from 0 to 350 km/h, so CRH350s are slower (about 15km/h average speed) than 120km/h EMU if they stop 28 stations on 301 km high speed railway.


----------



## quashlo

Restless said:


> Q: What is the minimum interval between shinkansen trains?
> A: On the Sanyo Shinkansen, trains running at 300km/h require a minimum interval of 3 minutes 45 seconds between the train in front. On the Tokaido Shinkansen, where the maximum speed is 270km/h, this is 3 minutes 30 seconds.


I think people may be confusing the concept of headways, as there are multiple constraints.

The 3 min. that people are quoting for CRH is probably the minimum headway permitted by the train control system, when trains are actually in motion and running consecutively. This is an accepted practical standard for HSR operations. Digital ATC (used by all Shinkansen except the Nagano and San'yō lines... San'yō is getting the upgrade right now) allows for this, as do its derivatives, including the ATC system on the Taiwan high-speed rail, which is based on the ATC-NS used on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen.

The numbers you are quoting for the Shinkansen are the constraints at the terminal crossovers due to the need to switch tracks, and are from a now-defunct site. Tōkyō Station is probably around 3 minutes, 15 seconds now after the conversion to digital ATC in 2006... The 3 minutes, 30 seconds you are quoting for the Tōkaidō Shinkansen is the analog ATC that had been in use since the line first opened in 1964. There is a clear explanation for laypersons here (in Japanese) about the effect of the terminal constraints on actual headways, written by professors who are experts in this stuff.


----------



## makita09

Yes and it also needs pointing out that 3 minute headway is only required at full speed, a train puling out of a station after a fast one has passed only requires a head way of a minute, as it isn't going very fast at that point. By the time it is at linespeed the headway is back to the 3 minute requirement.


----------



## :jax:

chornedsnorkack said:


> I count 28 stations between Hongqiao and Nanjing on 301 km high speed railway. Nonstop trains cover it in 73 minutes.
> 
> Trains that travel at just 80...120 km/h and average just 40 km/h are indeed not very good compared to buses and cars. Which is why China needs to build railways with 150...250 km/h maximum and 100...150 km/h average speed. And frequent stops.


One station per 10 km does sound excessive for not-so-high-speed-anymore trains. But as most of these stations would be there to feed the major stations anyway it could be possible to have a staggered local train schedule. If the major stations are 1, 16, and 30, one train could go 1, 8, 16, 21, 26, 30, another 1, 6, 11, 16, 24, 30 and so on (actual schedule dependent on which stations and traffic pattern make sense). The trains would move near top speed most of the time, at the cost of some complexity of schedule if you want to go from minor station to minor station and having to change at a major station.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

bace said:


> It's a GREAT joke.
> CRH350 need ~50 kilometer to accelerate from 0 to 350 km/h, so CRH350s are slower (about 15km/h average speed) than 120km/h EMU if they stop 28 stations on 301 km high speed railway.


Are they?
What is difficult is accelerating at high speed. How long does CRH350 take to accelerate from 300 km/h to 350 km/h? And how much from 0 to 100 km/h?
How does the acceleration of CRH350 from 0 to 100 km/h compare to an 120 km/h EMU?


----------



## ironalbo

anyone have more pics to upload please??? less talk and more pics please...


----------



## ANR

*High speed rail stays on track*

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-07

BEIJING - China's newly-appointed railway minister has said the country will continue to develop its high-speed rail network as planned even after its former minister was ousted. Sheng Guangzu, who took office on Feb 25 to replace former railway minister Liu Zhijun, made the remarks on Saturday when responding to questions whether China's policy of high-speed rail development will change with Liu's fall from grace. 

Liu was placed under investigation for "severe violation of discipline" on Feb 12 by the discipline watchdog of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Liu's is "an individual case" and will not have a big impact on the railway system's future development and morale, Sheng was quoted by the Beijing News as saying. He said the change of minister will not change the roadmap of China's high-speed railway development, as the country will continue to develop its fast train network under its national medium-to-long-term program. The railway system now runs stably and achieved its mission during the past Spring Festival travel peak, he said. It was the first time 62-year-old Sheng faced the media after taking office at the railway ministry. The former head of the General Administration of Customs was vice-railway minister before being transferred to customs as deputy commissioner in 2000. 

Zhang Junbang, director of the Zhengzhou railway bureau and a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), told China Daily that the plan for building high-speed railways in his bureau's territory this year has not changed, and a high-speed rail line linking Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, and Shijiazhuang, capital of North China's Hebei province, will be completed by the end of this year. Following the removal of Liu and later the ministry's deputy chief engineer Zhang Shuguang - both leaders in China's high-speed railway development - the ministry faced doubts and pressure from many sides. 

Some believed the ministry will not be able to pay back the huge loans it borrowed from banks for building the massive high-speed rail network, while others suspected the stunningly fast construction of the high-speed railways might generate potential safety hazards. 

As to the solvency of the ministry's affiliated companies, Sheng said on Saturday that the 1.8-trillion-yuan ($274-billion) debt used for building the country's massive high-speed rail network was still "at a controllable level". "I believe the high-speed rail market will be rosy" after many projects still under construction are put into service, he said. 

As for whether the ministry should build so many high-speed railways in only a few years, Wang Mengshu, a professor at the Research Center of Tunnel and Underground Engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University and a deputy to the NPC, said that forming a network in a relatively short period can generate more profits than laying out the railways one by one. And the quick speed of construction is not likely to affect quality as the key to safety is the rail track, and China has overcome difficulties to make sure the tracks stay where they are for years so that trains will not derail at high speeds, he said. 

Zheng Xinli, former deputy director of the policy research office of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that with the growth of the network and people's income, high-speed railways will gradually attract more passengers and eventually begin to make a profit. By then, paying back the huge debt will not be a problem, Zheng said. 

The country has planned to expand its high-speed rail network to 13,000 km by 2012 and to 16,000 km by 2020. At the end of 2010, the network was already the world's longest at 8,358 km, of which 5,149 km were put into service in 2010.


----------



## hkskyline

Well ... a state enterprise borrowing from a state enteprise probably won't be a big problem ...


----------



## chornedsnorkack

ANR said:


> By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
> Updated: 2011-03-07
> 
> BEIJING - China's newly-appointed railway minister has said the country will continue to develop its high-speed rail network as planned even after its former minister was ousted. Sheng Guangzu, who took office on Feb 25 to replace former railway minister Liu Zhijun, made the remarks on Saturday when responding to questions whether China's policy of high-speed rail development will change with Liu's fall from grace.
> 
> Liu was placed under investigation for "severe violation of discipline" on Feb 12 by the discipline watchdog of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Liu's is "an individual case" and will not have a big impact on the railway system's future development and morale, Sheng was quoted by the Beijing News as saying. He said the change of minister will not change the roadmap of China's high-speed railway development, as the country will continue to develop its fast train network under its national medium-to-long-term program. The railway system now runs stably and achieved its mission during the past Spring Festival travel peak, he said. It was the first time 62-year-old Sheng faced the media after taking office at the railway ministry. The former head of the General Administration of Customs was vice-railway minister before being transferred to customs as deputy commissioner in 2000.
> 
> Zhang Junbang, director of the Zhengzhou railway bureau and a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), told China Daily that the plan for building high-speed railways in his bureau's territory this year has not changed, and a high-speed rail line linking Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, and Shijiazhuang, capital of North China's Hebei province, will be completed by the end of this year. Following the removal of Liu and later the ministry's deputy chief engineer Zhang Shuguang - both leaders in China's high-speed railway development - the ministry faced doubts and pressure from many sides.





ANR said:


> As for whether the ministry should build so many high-speed railways in only a few years, Wang Mengshu, a professor at the Research Center of Tunnel and Underground Engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University and a deputy to the NPC, said that forming a network in a relatively short period can generate more profits than laying out the railways one by one. And the quick speed of construction is not likely to affect quality as the key to safety is the rail track, and China has overcome difficulties to make sure the tracks stay where they are for years so that trains will not derail at high speeds, he said.
> 
> Zheng Xinli, former deputy director of the policy research office of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that with the growth of the network and people's income, high-speed railways will gradually attract more passengers and eventually begin to make a profit. By then, paying back the huge debt will not be a problem, Zheng said.
> 
> The country has planned to expand its high-speed rail network to 13,000 km by 2012 and to 16,000 km by 2020. At the end of 2010, the network was already the world's longest at 8,358 km, of which 5,149 km were put into service in 2010.


Where are the 3000 km railways that shall be built between 2012 and 2020?


----------



## yaohua2000

chornedsnorkack said:


> Where are the 3000 km railways that shall be built between 2012 and 2020?


It's has been revised to 13000 km by the end of 2011 and 25000 km by the end of 2015.


----------



## HunanChina

High-speed railway of Coastal area in the West Guangdong province(Shenzhen深圳-Maoming茂名) approved by Development and Reform Commission.

371km, 200km/h and upgradeable to 250km/h. maybe could connect with Hainan ER ICL at 2020.


----------



## big-dog

*Hangzhou east station (U/C)*

One of the largest railway stations once built (again  )

The project will be completed at the end of 2011, opening by June 30th 2012.

renderings




























Construction pics (March 10th)




























from news.xinhuanet.com


----------



## chornedsnorkack

HunanChina said:


> High-speed railway of Coastal area in the West Guangdong province(Shenzhen深圳-Maoming茂名) approved by Development and Reform Commission.
> 
> 371km, 200km/h and upgradeable to 250km/h. maybe could connect with Hainan ER ICL at 2020.


What is due for opening in 2020 - just the part Shenzhen-Maoming, or the part Maoming-Haikou?


----------



## Silly_Walks

HunanChina said:


> High-speed railway of Coastal area in the West Guangdong province(Shenzhen深圳-Maoming茂名) approved by Development and Reform Commission.
> 
> 371km, 200km/h and upgradeable to 250km/h. maybe could connect with Hainan ER ICL at 2020.


Any plans for HSR from Guangzhou to Nanning, and on to Hanoi?


----------



## HunanChina

Silly_Walks said:


> Any plans for HSR from Guangzhou to Nanning, and on to Hanoi?



Nanning-Guangzhou HSR 577km, 250km/h 2009-2013

Guiyang-Guangzhou HSR 857km, 300km/h+ 2008-2014


you can see these three HSR line


----------



## Silly_Walks

HunanChina said:


> Nanning-Guangzhou HSR 577km, 250km/h 2009-2013
> 
> Guiyang-Guangzhou HSR 857km, 300km/h+ 2008-2014
> 
> 
> you can see these three HSR line
> 
> http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5297/5521262208_346dcd409b.jpg


Thanks


----------



## chornedsnorkack

HunanChina said:


> Nanning-Guangzhou HSR 577km, 250km/h 2009-2013
> 
> Guiyang-Guangzhou HSR 857km, 300km/h+ 2008-2014
> 
> 
> you can see these three HSR line


So counting the HSR lines around Guangzhou:

Guangzhou-Changsha-Wuhan - opened December 2009
Guangzhou-Zhuhai - opened January 2011
Guangzhou-Longhua-Futian - due to open sometime in July 2011
Guangzhou-Longhua-Xiamen-Shanghai - due to open sometime in 2011, December?
Guangzhou-Nanning - due to open in 2013
Guangzhou-Guiyang - due to open in 2014
Guangzhou-Maoming - due to open when?
Guangzhou-Longhua-Futian-Hong Kong - due to open when?


----------



## fragel

Shanghai-Nantong Railway
adjusted planned route in Shanghai:

http://www.shgtj.gov.cn/hdpt/gzcy/sj/201102/t20110212_432164.htm


----------



## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> Shanghai-Nantong Railway
> adjusted planned route in Shanghai:


And Suzhou and Nantong.

Is the fixed Yangtze crossing just above head of Chongming island complete and awaiting for the railway to be routed there, or yet to be built?


----------



## yaohua2000

(click to enlarge)

Legend:
* Black: Existing old lines
* Blue: recently opened
* Brown: completed, yet to open
* Red: under construction
* Orange: planned, construction to begin soon
* Green: in study

Current as of 2011-03-17


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> * Brown: completed, yet to open
> 
> Current as of 2011-03-17


The current brown lines seem to be Beijing-Shanghai, Dalian-Harbin, Guangzhou-Shenzhen. Probably some inconspicuous slow ones (Lanzhou-Xining?)

Beijing-Shanghai is due to open on 20th of June, 2011, and Guangzhou-Shenzhen, I think, sometime in August 2011. When shall Dalian-Harbin open?


----------



## HunanChina

chornedsnorkack said:


> So counting the HSR lines around Guangzhou:
> 
> Guangzhou-Changsha-Wuhan - opened December 2009
> Guangzhou-Zhuhai - opened January 2011
> Guangzhou-Luohu-Futian - due to open sometime in July 2011
> Guangzhou-Luohu-Xiamen-Shanghai - due to open sometime in 2011, December?
> Guangzhou-Nanning - due to open in 2013
> Guangzhou-Guiyang - due to open in 2014
> Guangzhou-Maoming - due to open when?
> Guangzhou-Luohu-Futian-Hong Kong - due to open when?


:nuts:There are some line that I have never heard. Guangzhou-Futian is just Guangzhou-Shenzhen, right?

Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Ximen-Shanghai. there are two line linked with different standard, 350km/h and 250km/h. and 8 hours+. I think the MOR will get some CRH1E sleep train into server.

Guangzhou-Maoming line, maybe construct slowly. you know, Cantonese prefer car and express way than CRH.


----------



## Silly_Walks

HunanChina said:


> Guangzhou-Maoming line, maybe construct slowly. you know, Cantonese prefer car and express way than CRH.



Luckily more and more mandarins live in Canton :nuts:

I couldn't find any taxi driver in Guangzhou that spoke Cantonese and had a hard time finding one in Shenzhen. hno:


----------



## Nozumi 300

Silly_Walks said:


> Luckily more and more mandarins live in Canton :nuts:
> 
> I couldn't find any taxi driver in Guangzhou that spoke Cantonese and had a hard time finding one in Shenzhen. hno:


I found that the yellow taxi cabs are mainly driven by Cantonese speakers based on my trip from last August.


----------



## Silly_Walks

Nozumi 300 said:


> I found that the yellow taxi cabs are mainly driven by Cantonese speakers based on my trip from last August.


Hehe well i don't speak much Cantonese... but it's kinda like going to Sweden and seeing no blonde people or no Ikea :lol:


----------



## chornedsnorkack

HunanChina said:


> :nuts:There are some line that I have never heard. Guangzhou-Futian is just Guangzhou-Shenzhen, right?


Yes. Guangzhou-Shenzhen shall have three stations in Shenzhen: Guangming, Longhua and Futian. Longhua, also called Shenzhen North, would be the branching point to the Longhua-Xiamen line. Futian would be the last station in mainland China, before Hong Kong border.

Would Longhua and Futian stations open together in August 2011, or separately?


HunanChina said:


> Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Ximen-Shanghai. there are two line linked with different standard, 350km/h and 250km/h. and 8 hours+. I think the MOR will get some CRH1E sleep train into server.


Yes, 350 km/h Guangzhou-Longhua, 250 km/h Longhua-Xiamen-Ningbo, 350 km/h Ningbo-Hangzhou-Shanghai.

Guangzhou and Shanghai are the two richest and biggest cities of China. It seems that direct connections should be important.

It should be possible to travel Guangzhou-Shanghai now, 350 km/h Guangzhou-Changsha-Wuhan, then 250 km/h Wuhan-Hefei-Nanjing and 350 km/h Nanjing-Shanghai. But no direct trains seem to be operating that route.

Changsha-Hangzhou high speed railway is not due for completion before 2014. So when Longhua-Xiamen and Hangzhou-Ningbo high speed lines open sometime this year, what shall be the direct trip time Guangzhou-Shanghai?


HunanChina said:


> Guangzhou-Maoming line, maybe construct slowly. you know, Cantonese prefer car and express way than CRH.


Yes, but will any long distance direct trains run there? I see that Maoming-Zhanjiang is said to be under construction already. So would there be direct trains Wuhan-Guangzhou-Zhanjiang? 

When in August, Guangzhou-Shenzhen high speed line opens, shall there be any direct through trains Wuhan-Shenzhen with stops in Changsha and Guangzhou?


----------



## gramercy

is there a version of that map with the names of the towns in english?


----------



## hkskyline

Can we keep the HSR discussions in the dedicated high-speed thread : 
 CHINA | High Speed Rail? Thanks.


----------



## hkskyline

*CHINA'S FIXED-ASSET INVESTMENT IN RAILWAYS UP 32.5% IN JAN-FEB*

BEIJING, March 16 Asia Pulse - China's fixed-asset investments in the railway sector totaled 70.8 billion yuan (US$10.77 billion) in January-February, up 32.5 per cent year on year, statistics released by China's Ministry of Railways show.

The investment in railway infrastructure construction totaled 64.02 billion yuan in the two months, up 46.7 per cent year on year.

Chinese railways transported 318.34 million passengers in January-February, up 13.7 per cent year on year. The railway passenger turnover meanwhile totaled 182.4 billion person-km, registering a year-on-year rise of 14.9 per cent.

China's railway freight volume totaled 624.8 million metric tons (tonnes), up 7.8 per cent year on year. The railway freight turnover reached 457.9 billion tonne-km, up 5.0 per cent year on year, according to the ministry.


----------



## fragel

*China slashes 2011 rail investment plan*



> 2011-04-29 11:36 (UTC)
> 
> BEIJING, April 29 (Reuters) - *China's railway ministry has decided to cut its planned investment for 2011 to 400 billion yuan from the original 700 billion yuan* after its chief was ousted on suspicion of wrongdoing, the Economic Observer, a local newspaper, reported on its website on Friday.
> ...
> 
> Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved.


read more

so the investment is cut from $107 billion to $61 billion for 2011. this is expected since many approved projects in western China were canceled or put on hold.


----------



## hmmwv

I didn't know the original budget is even more than China's official defense budget...crazy. $61B is still quite significant considering the most ambitious projects, such as Jinhu HSR and Wuguang HSR are completed.


----------



## z0rg

IMHO they should foucus more on subway plans. I mean, there're a lot of big cities (>4 million inhabitants) which according to current plans wont develop a decent subway net till 2030 or beyond. Fortunately those subway plans are revised all the time, and they accelerate the schedule very often, but even son only Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are extending their subways at the right speed.


----------



## fragel

^^MoR is currently not involved in planning, financing, constructing or operating subway systems. the only exception is Chengdu subway.

To get a subway plan approved, a city is required to have both the financial ability and an urban population large enough to support the system. For cities such as Guiyang and Lanzhou(both with a population around 4 million and a GDP around RMB 90 billion), they have to convince the NDRC that they have enough money; For cities like Kunshan(with a total population of 650k and urban population of 300k, and a GDP more than RMB 200 billion), they have more than enough money to build a subway system, but they don't have enough residents, and that's why their plans don't get approved.

Most cities meeting the two requirements are building subway lines at fast speeds. The top three systems in mainland you mentioned have been expanding like there is no tomorrow. There won't be enough money or even construction workforce if other cities want to copy their expansion patterns.


----------



## z0rg

^^ Oh, wow. So subway construction isn't financed by the central government. I didn't know that


----------



## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> *China slashes 2011 rail investment plan*
> 
> 
> read more
> 
> so the investment is cut from $107 billion to $61 billion for 2011. this is expected since many approved projects in western China were canceled or put on hold.


Does anyone know the list of remaining projects for Y 400 milliards?


----------



## hmmwv

z0rg said:


> ^^ Oh, wow. So subway construction isn't financed by the central government. I didn't know that


If I remembered correctly subway, highway, and airports are all financed locally.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> If I remembered correctly subway, highway, and airports are all financed locally.


Which level localities finance subways, highways and airports? Provinces, prefecture-level cities or county-level cities?


----------



## Nozumi 300

chornedsnorkack said:


> Which level localities finance subways, highways and airports? Provinces, prefecture-level cities or county-level cities?


 Locally iirc is meaning the provincial government.


----------



## fragel

chornedsnorkack said:


> Which level localities finance subways, highways and airports? Provinces, prefecture-level cities or county-level cities?


multiple sources can finance those infrastructure projects. also private capital investment is not rare in highway and airport projects, especially expressway construction and operation, which seems to be a business that you can't possibly lose money.

private companies, specifically those having connections to the party bosses, are lobbying for railway privatization and reform. basically what they want is to get a piece of the freight rail and some major profitable passenger corridors. If they succeed, they will make money on those popular lines and ask for subsidies on other passenger lines from the government, because after all railways are 'public welfare'.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

fragel said:


> multiple sources can finance those infrastructure projects. also private capital investment is not rare in highway and airport projects, especially expressway construction and operation, which seems to be a business that you can't possibly lose money.


Can private capital be invested in subways?

How are subways defined in China?


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Can private capital be invested in subways?


AFAIK the answer is yes, but I believe none can be the controlling stakeholder in the project. I think Beijing Metro and many newer lines around China had private capital components in them, mostly are funds that partner with a local realestate company. The metro companies are usually formed by a mix of local government agency, state owned and private construction companies, state owned investment firms, and realestate developers.


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## :jax:

Hong Kong MTR is running line 4 and Daxing, according to Wikipedia. Interestingly enough these two lines integrate very well with the rest of the metro system, and in particular with each other. The downside to private operators elsewhere is often that they don't integrate so well with their competitors/cooperators as public lines, but that is not the case in Beijing (at least as is visible for the travellers). 

In fact the 4/Daxing connection is the only seamless connection in the Beijing metro system, you wouldn't notice if you have crossed from one to the other (the map uses slightly different shades of green). Contrast this to say 1/Batong or 5/Yizhuang where you have to rush long distances and up and down stairs (to get a seat) on a separate line, even though these two are pure extensions of each other.


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## fragel

*Official statement about 2011 rail investment*

*China's railway investment to top 700 billion yuan this year: spokesperson*
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-05/06/c_13862459.htm


> English.news.cn 2011-05-06 17:37:51 FeedbackPrintRSS
> 
> BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- *China's Ministry of Railways announced on Friday that its total investment this year will reach 745.5 billion yuan (about 115 billion U.S. dollars), with 600 billion yuan going toward infrastructure construction, according to ministry spokesperson Wang Yongping.*
> 
> *The official statement follows media reports saying the ministry could scale back investments by as much as 200 billion yuan this year as the rapid expansion of the country's high-speed rails leads to debt concerns.*
> 
> Wang said the arrangement was a proper one because it reflects the continuity of railway construction, and meets the capital demands of projects under construction.
> 
> He said that during the country's 12th Five-Year Plan Period (2011-2015), the ministry will proceed with railway construction in accordance with the country's economic and social development and the public's satisfaction, adding that investments during the period will hit 2.8 trillion yuan.
> 
> Wang said China's high-speed rail tracks will expand to 45,000 km by 2015. Railways in the country's western regions will be extended to 50,000 km.


----------



## fragel

^ The MoR denied the reports of slashing its investment plan in an interview on Tuesday, but this is its first official statement regarding the rumors.


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## foxmulder

I guess this figures show, everything is going according to the plan.


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## fragel

^^not exactly following the original plan. When Liu was in charge, the planned infrastructure construction investment this year was RMB 700 billion. now the official statement said '600 billion yuan going toward infrastructure construction'. 

Another piece of important information is that all ongoing projects would not be canceled according to the statement. but that does not apply to 'approved projects'. Even for the projects under construction, construction speed is definitely slowed.


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## idoke

*3.76 billion loss*

The problem is that the Ministry of Railways lost 3.76 billion Yuan in the 1st Q. Their total debt now stands at almost 2 trillion Yuan!

My guess is that they will have to slow down the development. Their gearing ratio already close to 60% and growing....

http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2011-05/05/c_121380785.htm


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## fragel

^ isn't that supposed to be normal when you have been heavily investing during the past few years and most projects are still under construction? it would be unrealistic to expect a profit if you count the interest and loan repayment. plus, you still see positive cash flow from railway operation.

and a debt ratio of 60% doesn't sound that bad at all, especially for such a ministry. look at the ratios of those airline companies and you will find it amazing how they have survived.


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## idoke

It might be normal. In the US many railroad companies got bankrupt in the beginning of the 20th century after years of over-investing and understating depreciation costs.

In China, of course, the ministry of railways will never go bankrupt , but it is clear that there is bigger concern over the financials of the ministry.

There is a lot of criticism in the local media, and it is not a common thing in China, so I guess the media got an OK to criticize the ministry of railways.

Now, the chinese are not as direct as the western, so they can't just come and say - our plans were to aggressive or something like that. But I won't be surprise if they keep on saying that they will invest 700B but in the end spend only 400B.

I don't know. I am only saying that you can't really take these statement for granted. We will have to wait for the year end and see.

Anyway, these are indeed interesting times for the ministry of railways.


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## Nexis

idoke said:


> It might be normal. In the *US many railroad companies got bankrupt in the beginning of the 20th century after years of over-investing and understating depreciation costs.*
> 
> In China, of course, the ministry of railways will never go bankrupt , but it is clear that there is bigger concern over the financials of the ministry.
> 
> There is a lot of criticism in the local media, and it is not a common thing in China, so I guess the media got an OK to criticize the ministry of railways.
> 
> Now, the chinese are not as direct as the western, so they can't just come and say - our plans were to aggressive or something like that. But I won't be surprise if they keep on saying that they will invest 700B but in the end spend only 400B.
> 
> I don't know. I am only saying that you can't really take these statement for granted. We will have to wait for the year end and see.
> 
> Anyway, these are indeed interesting times for the ministry of railways.


Actually it was mostly the US Govt and Ford / GE working against the Railroads that caused them to go broke. After some merging they could have survived but the Govt made that unfair.


----------



## fragel

idoke said:


> It might be normal. In the US many railroad companies got bankrupt in the beginning of the 20th century after years of over-investing and understating depreciation costs.
> 
> In China, of course, the ministry of railways will never go bankrupt , but it is clear that there is bigger concern over the financials of the ministry.
> 
> There is a lot of criticism in the local media, and it is not a common thing in China, so I guess the media got an OK to criticize the ministry of railways.
> 
> Now, the chinese are not as direct as the western, so they can't just come and say - our plans were to aggressive or something like that. But I won't be surprise if they keep on saying that they will invest 700B but in the end spend only 400B.
> 
> I don't know. I am only saying that you can't really take these statement for granted. We will have to wait for the year end and see.
> 
> Anyway, these are indeed interesting times for the ministry of railways.



there is really no comparison between American railroad and Chinese railway system. by 1920 America had 400k km of railroads (many tracks were built due to over-investment during the period of local monopolies), while by 2007 China had less than 80k km of railways. The projected mileage of China Railways is 110k km in 2012.

the current railway construction boom during the past few years is surely phenomenal, especially considering the standard and cost, but it is merely to make up for the lost decades of development. China Railways used to have a terrible reputation in the 90's. Trains were slow, dirty, shabby and extremely crowded. At one point, railways could not even compete with long distance buses, let alone airlines. now it isn't that bad any more. there are of course signs of overheating and over-investment (for instance many local intercity lines are up for 350km/h standard without proper justification of the necessity), but if you think about the fact that many newly built railways cut the travel time from previous 10-20 hours to 2-3 hours, it is pretty obvious that many lines still need to be built. Before 2009 there was no direct railway connecting Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen. So there is the demand, and railway transportation has been upgraded to a quite decent mode thanks to the work in the past ten years.

For now, a lot of criticism is from competitors and those who want to privatize the railways. of course MoR is not doing a perfect job when it comes to service and pricing, and there are some unsatisfactory passengers, but many critics are just more ridiculous.


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## yaohua2000

*New international train put into service on May 12*

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2011-05-11/231022447380.shtml

May 11 9:35am, train 7001 from Dandong to Sinuiju in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea departed on time with four hard seat coaches and 35 passengers onboard. The capacity of the train is 472 people. The train will run daily between the two cities.

Train No. 7001/2
Dandong–Sinuiju: depart 09:35 arrive 10:45
Sinuiju–Dandong: depart 17:13 arrive 16:23


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## yaohua2000

*2011-05-20*


(click to enlarge)

Legend:
* Black: Pre-existing lines
* Blue: recently opened (since 2007)
* Brown: completed, yet to open
* Red: under construction
* Orange: proposed
* Green: in study

Current as of 2011-05-20


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## hkskyline

*Rail dream still on track to unite continents*
Updated: 2011-10-12 07:56 
China Daily

Major problems remain but ambitious network hopes to link Asia to Europe, Alfred Romann reports from Hong Kong.

Creative locals use "bamboo trains" to travel along Cambodia's abandoned railway lines. These homemade vehicles ferry food and people and are powered by adapted water pumps. Technology at its most basic but Cambodia's railways could yet be part of an ambitious network linking Asia to Europe.

In 2009, the Asian Development Bank provided $84 million to rebuild Cambodia's 600-km railway network. The whole project should cost $141 million and is due for completion by 2013.

Cambodia's railways are among several missing links in the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) project, an 117,000-km rail network, 10,500 km of which has yet to be built. Rehabilitating Cambodia's rail network is integral to the project that would link Singapore to Kunming, and beyond to Central Asia and, eventually, to Turkey and mainland Europe.

Envisioned in the 1960s, TAR would ultimately link the fragmented national railways in 28 countries into a unified transportation system.

"The completion of the missing links in the network and its efficient operations are key to the region's economic integration," according to Pierre Chartier. He is economic affairs officer in the transport division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, which is driving the project.

The scope of this undertaking is massive. Some countries in the network have no railways to speak of; others have dilapidated ones.

Rail dream still on track to unite continents

Making connections

Chinese investment in domestic and foreign projects is driving forward the development of TAR, but more than money is required. Missing links between countries have to be filled and infrastructure built to overcome significant technical differences before a single, unified rail system can run smoothly across the continent. For instance, the width of tracks and, in turn, the axles of trains often vary from country to country.

"Financing and building railway infrastructure is easy. The challenge is integrating the Greater Mekong Subregion railways, which developed in splendid isolation from each other since World War II, to the point where they can operate effectively," said Peter Broch, senior transport economist at the Asian Development Bank.

"Effective cross-border rail traffic would provide medium- to long-distance land transport, thereby improving economic efficiency," Broch said. Transport and transaction costs would be reduced, and national economies could be better linked.

A 128-km link from the small city of Loc Ninh, along the Cambodian border, to Ho Chi Minh City will provide one of the missing links. It is part of a national plan Vietnam developed in 2002 to rehabilitate and turn Vietnam Railways into a corporation. Once that bit of the system is laid out and operational, it will be up to Cambodia to link it up with the wider transnational network.

Sizable economic zone

There are myriad options to overcoming technical hurdles such as varying rail gauges, the distance between rails, but all of these have problems of their own and would interrupt the smooth flow of traffic. The upshot is that despite tens of thousands of kilometers of track already laid, the original goal of a seamless network remains elusive.

There is, however, much merit in the idea of a continental rail network. For one, there are a dozen landlocked countries in Central Asia.

Southeast Asia, the area from southwest China to Singapore, could particularly benefit. An integrated railway would be another step toward "creating a large, reasonably homogenous market" similar in size to the European Union, Broch said.

The UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, forerunner of Chartier's agency, floated the idea of TAR in the 1960s to provide a 14,080-km rail link between Singapore and Istanbul. Over the following decades, countries moved forward railway projects and sometimes linked them, but coordination was limited.

Nevertheless, by 2001 TAR evolved to the point that four clear corridors had been developed and studied:

The Northern Corridor links Europe and the Pacific Ocean through Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea.

The Southern Corridor goes from Turkey to Thailand through Iran, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand, and includes links to China, Malaysia and Singapore.

The North-South Corridor would link Northern Europe to the Persian Gulf.

The Southeast Asian Corridor would link Kunming to Singapore.

In November 2006, 18 countries signed the Trans-Asian Railway Network Agreement, which covered some 81,000 km of railways. By the time the agreement took effect, in June 2009, a further 11 countries signed up and the network swelled to 117,000 km. Since then, 16 countries have officially ratified or accepted the deal.

"The development of the Trans-Asian Railway is not time-bound. It is evolutionary by nature and in this respect follows policy options of governments as well as the worldwide economic environment," the UN commission's Chartier said.

Mekong focus

Despite official commitment and national railway development, progress has been spotty. The Northern Corridor across China and Russia has operated for decades, linking China with Europe. In Southeast Asia, however, things have moved at a slower pace.

Last October, Chartier noted a lot of missing links. There are no actual rail connections between China and Laos or China and Myanmar. Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia are not linked; neither are Cambodia with Vietnam, or Vietnam with Laos.

Over the next few years, much of the building activity will be focused in this region, in particular the Mekong subregion.

Surprisingly, the financial crisis of 2008 sped up the network's development, unlike the 1997 crisis when many governments abandoned projects. Collaboration among China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand demonstrates what Chartier called "the mobilization of governments on projects with multilateral dimensions".

China is a big driver behind much of the building. Not only is the government making massive investments in its own railways, but it is also financing those in other countries. It is likely to provide up to 70 percent of the investment in the link that will go through Laos.

While TAR is an overarching agreement, regional and bilateral deals are pushing the actual construction. One such agreement among the six countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion should lead to further railway integration. China has also signed a deal for the Kunming-Singapore link.

Malaysia started building its own section of TAR in 1995. In March 2009, Thailand and Laos launched a rail link.

Closing gaps

Despite the progress, holes remain.

One is in Myanmar. At the end of May, Chinese workers and engineers started work on a line that would link Kunming to the Myanmar border, but then there is a 160-km gap on the Myanmar side. Also, the two lines operate on different gauges.

In Vietnam, China Railway Construction workers are expected to complete the link between Loc Ninh and Ho Chi Minh City by 2013.

In Cambodia, serious train travel restarted a year ago, when the first stretch of rail between Phnom Penh and Touk Meas opened. The 254-km line from Phnom Penh to the port of Sihanoukville opened this year. Other work continues.

After decades of bamboo trains, a functioning railway network is beginning to emerge, linking Cambodia to the rest of Asia and much of the world.


----------



## hkskyline

*Lack of cash brings rail projects to a standstill*
Updated: 2011-10-19 07:21
China Daily

BEIJING - Many migrant workers on China's new rail projects have not been paid for months, due to a shortage of funds caused by the country's tightened policies on loans, and many are without a job as projects come to a halt.

The situation affects millions of migrant workers hired to lay new track, say experts, who also warn that the country's new roads are facing similar financial problems.

"An estimated 6 million migrant workers are employed by rail projects nationwide. If the projects cannot resume soon, these people and their families will all suffer," said Wang Mengshu, deputy chief engineer at China Railway Tunnel Group.

According to Wang, rail projects spanning a total of more than 10,000 kilometers, including 5,400 km of tunnels, have been suspended due to a shortage of funds and many migrant workers have not been paid for six months.

The rail construction companies also owe big sums of money to cement and steel suppliers, he added.

"The central government should make investments, pay the workers and suppliers, and complete the ongoing projects," Wang said.

Both the Ministry of Railways and China Railway Group declined to comment when contacted by China Daily on Tuesday.

Wang said one of the reasons for the halting of rail projects is that the central government has tightened its monetary stance to curb soaring inflation. China has raised the reserve requirement ratio for banks nine times this year and hiked interest rates five times to check excessive lending.

Also, doubts about high-speed railway technologies and management in the wake of a deadly bullet train crash in July have resulted in banks taking a more cautious attitude, Wang said.

"The general environment for the high-speed railway industry is not good," said a source with China Railway First Group, a railway construction company.

"With money from the stimulus plan worth 4 trillion yuan ($627 billion) drying up this year and its difficulty in securing bank loans, the rail sector is facing a capital chain rupture," said Zhao Jian, a professor of transport at Beijing Jiaotong University.

In a bid to help the crippled sector, authorities have agreed to take steps to secure financial support for major cash-strapped railway projects, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The Ministry of Finance instituted a policy earlier this month to halve the tax on the interest earnings of bonds issued by the Ministry of Railways between the 2011-2013 period, in a bid to make the bonds more attractive.

The shortage of funds is also affecting the construction of new roads, the Ministry of Transport said in a report on Monday.

"Some provinces have had no money to pay construction companies for two to three months, and a few projects are completely or partly suspended," the report said, adding that as a result, 20 percent of the work planned for this year may not be completed on time.

The ministry forecast that the funds shortage could get worse in the fourth quarter this year, adding that it will try to secure funds for some projects and suspend others.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission warned banks in late July of the risks associated with loans to the railway and road sectors.

According to plans, China aims to expand the national high-speed railway network from 91,000 km in 2010 to 120,000 km by 2015, and the expressway network from 74,100 km in 2010 to 108,000 km by 2015.


----------



## WatcherZero

> *China railway construction workers killed in road accident*
> (Reuters) - Twenty-three people were killed and five seriously injured when a vehicle carrying railway construction workers overturned in northwest China's Gansu Province on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency said.
> 
> China has invested heavily on railway infrastructure to connect the vast country during years of strong economic growth.
> 
> But authorities recently suspended new rail projects after a collision between two high-speed trains in July killed 40 people and fanned public anger over transport safety issues.
> 
> Shanghai authorities also came under fire in September after the worst subway accident in 42 years raised fresh concerns that the world's second-largest economy was sacrificing safety in the rush to develop.
> 
> Xinhua said the vehicle overturned in a mountain tunnel that was still under construction as part of a railway track in Manwa township in Lintao County.
> 
> It was not immediately known how many people were in the vehicle, or whether all of those killed or injured were construction workers.
> 
> An initial investigation showed brake failure was the likely cause of the accident, a spokesman with the local railway authorities was quoted as saying by Xinhua.


http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/10/29/uk-china-railway-accident-idUKTRE79S0P920111029


----------



## NCT

> Shanghai authorities also came under fire in September after the worst subway accident in *42 years* raised fresh concerns that the world's second-largest economy was sacrificing safety in the rush to develop.


I presume this is calculated from the first day Beijing Subway was in operation in 1969? A bit of a pointless statistic given Shanghai's network is only 16 years old.


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## hmmwv

NCT said:


> I presume this is calculated from the first day Beijing Subway was in operation in 1969? A bit of a pointless statistic given Shanghai's network is only 16 years old.


Reuters' standards have definitely gone down the drain, it's actually kinda pathetic that they have to come up with reports like this to bash China.


----------



## Woonsocket54

If China's "worst" subway accident is one in which nobody died, then that can't be that bad. Of course, there have been many construction cave-ins and a boy died in an escalator mishap in Beijing Subway earlier this year.


----------



## hkskyline

*Ministers vow to build better road, rail links*
Updated: 2011-10-27 08:07
China Daily

CHENGDU - Transport ministers from Asian and European countries agreed on Wednesday to draft a mid- and long-term plan on building a seamless transport and logistics network between the two continents.

It is part of an action plan adopted by the second Asia-Europe Transport Ministers' Meeting that ran from Monday to Wednesday in the capital of Sichuan province.

"Asia and Europe are closely connected, without the separation of oceans. It is an advantage that should be tapped to build an efficient and convenient land transport network that could reduce logistics costs and boost trade," said Chinese Transport Minister Li Shenglin.

Currently, almost all cargo between China and Europe is done by maritime transport, as no road connects China and Europe due to a missing link in Central Asia. Rail transport between them faces many non-physical barriers - including technical ones and issues connected to taxation and customs, which makes cargo transport by rail take longer than by ship.

This means there is huge "unused potential in land transport", especially rail connections, said Henrik Hololei, head of cabinet to European Commission vice-president responsible for transport Siim Kallas.

China has been promoting the construction of both road and rail connections to Europe, including roads and railways via Central Asia, and roads to Mongolia and Russia, officials said.

A proposed route through Central Asia starts in China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and passes through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey, before heading into Europe, said Ju Chengzhi, director of the International Affairs Department at the Ministry of Transport.

China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have agreed to build roads and railways to make up part of the missing link between Asia and Europe, earlier reports said.

Zhang Xiaojie, a ministry official in charge of regional road issues, said that China is also promoting a route from northwestern China to Russia via Mongolia, and calling for three road links between northeastern China and Russia.

According to Zhang, China is proposing a road be built from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region through Mongolia to Russia, and a section within Mongolia is already under construction.

China and Russia also agreed to build three border bridges across the Heilong River connecting each other's road networks to boost trade and personal exchanges.

One of the earliest proposed bridges is a 1,080-meter bridge 7 km from the city of Heihe in Heilongjiang province. Earlier reports said China would invest 360 million yuan ($55 million) in the project.

Media reports said that construction of the bridge would start soon.

"China's National Development and Reform Commission has approved the projects and funds are already allocated We are urging the Russian side (to make it work) at every bilateral meeting," he said.

Insiders said that despite planning and proposals, the different laws, regulations and technical standards of countries along the routes pose non-physical barriers for the plans to become reality.

The second Asia-Europe Transport Minister's Meeting was attended by 36 members of the Asia-Europe Meeting, which was officially established in 1996.

The meeting is an inter-regional forum with 48 members. Its member countries account for 60 percent of world trade and more than half of global GDP.


----------



## Luli Pop

Woonsocket54 said:


> If China's "worst" subway accident is one in which nobody died, then that can't be that bad.


I agree!

In Washington there has been two worse accidents in 2009, 2004, 1996, and media didn't brain-wash goats saying American metro technology is bad.


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## hkskyline

*China's railways carry 1.6 bln passengers in first ten months* 

BEIJING, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's railways delivered some 1.6 billion passengers during the first ten months of the year, up 11.2 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Railways said on Sunday.

The number accounted for about 84 percent of the 1.9 billion passenger target the ministry has set for the year.

Meanwhile, the railways transported 3.271 billion metric tons of goods during the January-October period, up 8.1 percent year-on-year, according to a statement posted on the ministry's website.

The ministry has attached great importance to the delivery of major goods this year, including thermal coal, agricultural produce and food, to meet the demand of industrial production and the people's basic needs, the statement said.

In total, the ministry transported 1.879 billion metric tons of coal, 112.06 million metric tons of oil, 79.15 million metric tons of grain and 70.69 million metric tons of fertilizers and pesticides in the first ten months, according to the statement.

The statement said the ministry will continue to coordinate efforts to respond to market demand and improve the system's efficiency.


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## Sopomon

Luli Pop said:


> I agree!
> 
> In Washington there has been two worse accidents in 2009, 2004, 1996, and media didn't brain-wash goats saying American metro technology is bad.


Sorry for O/T but why was Luli banned? (Mods feel free to delete this if it gets in the way)


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## hmmwv

Sopomon said:


> Sorry for O/T but why was Luli banned? (Mods feel free to delete this if it gets in the way)


I have the same question too as he's contributed alot to this forum.


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## hkskyline

*Chengdu gets rail freight service to Germany*
Updated: 2011-11-12 01:02
China Daily

On November 3, Ge Honglin, mayor and deputy secretary of the Municipal Party Committee of Chengdu, met with Jiang Peihua, the Chinese representative of German Railway Global Freight Company in Ningbo, and agreed to ensure that the scheduled railway freight transportation service from Chengdu to Germany will open before March next year.

The two sides met during the 7th China International Logistics Festival.

Compared with existing ocean shipping, the railway service will shorten station-to-station container delivery from Chengdu to Europe to 16 days. It will take about 20 days for door-to-door delivery service. The transportation costs will also be reduced.

To date, early stage preparations are ready for operation. According to the cooperation plan, there will be one scheduled railway freight transportation service each week in the early stage. There will be more scheduled services along with expanded export volumes from Chengdu city.

Ge said that in recent years, Chengdu has accelerated its pace of opening to the outside world and going global. It has integrated into the world economy at a fast rate.

Along with the settlement of a large number of world famous electronic information manufacturing enterprises in the city, such as Texas Instruments, Dell, Lenovo, Foxconn, Compal and Wistron, the city has raised higher demands on logistics service for exporting IT products to Europe.

Chengdu will provide efficient and convenient government administration services and apply advanced market operation concepts and modes to facilitate the timely operation of the scheduled Chengdu-Germany international railway transportation service, Ge said.

Jiang expressed gratitude to the Chengdu municipal government, on behalf of German Railway Global Freight Company, for support of the scheduled freight service.

Jiang said Chengdu has great development potential and the German company has great confidence in the prospects of the freight service.

German Railway Global Freight Company, a state-owned company in Germany, has a 150 year history. It is the most competitive in railway and highway transportation in Europe. It is the second largest in air transportation, third largest in ocean shipping, and fifth largest in contract logistics and supply chain management in the world.

Chengdu explores ways to boost convention and exhibition business 2011-11-3

In recent years, Chengdu has risen rapidly in the convention and exhibition business among China's second tier cities. It won the honorary title of "famous Chinese city hosting conventions and exhibitions."

After the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008, the Chengdu convention and exhibition sector demonstrated a significant role in post-earthquake construction. In the past three years, the convention and exhibition sector has seized the opportunity of post-earthquake reconstruction, expansion of domestic demands, and pilot zone construction.

The sector has kept a foothold with its competitive industries and resources, while adhering to the development strategy of "internationalization, branding and specialization."

The Chinese convention and exhibition economy is developing vigorously. Competition and cooperation between cities hosting conventions and exhibitions have recently become commonplace. The following demonstrate the ways Chengdu is boosting the convention and exhibition business.

1. Establish three-step strategy and make step-by-step construction

Chengdu has followed a plan for changing itself into an international modern garden city. It has put forward a three-step strategy in developing the convention and exhibition business.

By 2015, Chengdu will develop into the largest conventions and exhibitions host in the central and western region and become a first-class member in the country.

By 2030, it will develop into a famous city in Asia for conventions and exhibitions.

By 2050, it will be a world famous city for conventions and exhibitions. Meanwhile, it will carry out the strategy to develop the convention and exhibition business in the orientation of "brands, specialization and internationalization". It will cultivate Chengdu into "an area gathering name brands of convention and exhibition sponsors, a destination of international conferences, and best loved place in west China for recreations and celebrations." For this purpose, it has exerted all efforts to boost the convention and exhibition economy. This is why Chengdu is developing itself into the capital of conventions and exhibitions.

2. Greater scale and strength and doubled interests brought by economics and industries

Chengdu is constructing a modern industrial system and promoting the development of high-end industries. The convention and exhibition sector will play a significant role in this process by deepening interaction between the primary, secondary and tertiary industries and harmonizing regional development. The city has set up seminars and quality professional exhibitions as platforms to develop the convention and exhibition business closely.

It has issued leading edge information, acquired sophisticated technologies, and gathered industrial leaders to promote investment through conventions and exhibitions.

In 2010, Chengdu held 382 major conventions and celebrations, and held exhibitions totaling 1.9 million square meters. The convention and exhibition sector contributed 2.38 billion yuan to added values. Direct income from the conventions and exhibitions amounted to 3.239 billion yuan. They pulled up 27.287 billion yuan in consumption.

3. Greater popularity

In the past three years, the Chengdu convention and exhibition sector has gained a higher reputation and become more influential in the country. Chengdu has been awarded with a series of honorary titles by national administrations and the news media.

Behind the successful stories are the efforts Chengdu has used to promote itself as a city for conventions and exhibitions. Chengdu is often seen spreading publicity materials at national industrial conferences, promoting the city image, industrial environments, supporting policies, and achievements. In addition to promoting itself in professional media and high-end conferences, Chengdu has taken the initiative to sign cooperation protocols with 11 famous cities hosting conventions and exhibitions, such as Qingdao and Nanjing, for more exchange and cooperation, and facilitating orderly and complementary development.

4. Best industrial environment

Chengdu has vigorously expanded companies focusing on conventions, exhibitions and tourism services. It has stimulated regional economic development with conventions, exhibitions and tourism. To date, many companies are devoted to developing conventions, exhibitions, tourism, and real estate businesses, to benefit from the industrial chain.

The upstream and downstream of the convention and exhibition business has become more mature. Companies from 20 industrial sectors, including convention and exhibition centers, hotels, travel services, restaurants, advertisements, and translations, have set up the "convention and exhibition service league" to furnish all-round quality services for conventions and exhibitions.

The Chengdu Convention and Exhibition Industrial Association, Chengdu Tourism Association, and Chengdu Catering Society have organized 100 companies to set up a convention, exhibition and tourism alliance to share resources.

In addition, Chengdu has constructed a total of 200,000 square meters in exhibition halls. The main exhibition halls are supported by sound facilities for recreational, entertainment, business, tourism and culture activities.

Chengdu has also actively implemented the optimization reform strategy to speed up construction of convention and exhibition facilities. For instance, the Sichuan provincial government is planning to construct the West China International Expo Quarter.


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## chornedsnorkack

Does Chengru, as of now, have any scheduled direct passenger trains to Urumqi?
Alashankow?
Yining?


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## hkskyline

chornedsnorkack said:


> Does Chengru, as of now, have any scheduled direct passenger trains to Urumqi?


According to this website there is : http://www.tielu.org

The trip is 47h41 long, covering a distance of 3026km. Not sure if it involves a change of trains but it is under one train number : http://www.tielu.org/Search/K452-K453.html


----------



## Woonsocket54

The Railway Gazette
http://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/news/single-view/view/news-in-brief-november-2011-1.html



> *News in Brief - November 2011*
> 09 November 2011
> ...
> Work has begun on a 54·4 km rail link from the Dongsheng district of Ordos in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the city’s airport. The double-track line with one underground, two elevated and three surface stations is expected to be completed by 2015.
> ...


----------



## Mika Montwald

Sopomon said:


> Sorry for O/T but why was *Luli* banned? (Mods feel free to delete this if it gets in the way)





hmmwv said:


> I have the same question too as he's contributed a lot to this forum.


+3 +many other silent supporters

I absolutely agree with all the above posts -- *Luli Pop* has always been contributing very significantly to many SSC forums. 

I hope SSC mods will be kind enough to reconsidering this *Luli Pop* banning and restore Luli Pop access. 

If SSC mods thinks I am stepping out of the line, then please inform me here.


----------



## Sopomon

Mika Montwald said:


> +3 +many other silent supporters
> 
> I absolutely agree with all the above posts -- *Luli Pop* has always been contributing very significantly to many SSC forums.
> 
> I hope SSC mods will be kind enough to reconsidering this *Luli Pop* banning and restore Luli Pop access.
> 
> If SSC mods thinks I am stepping out of the line, then please inform me here.


No please don't count me as a supporter of him/her, they didn't really contribute much aside from anti-western sentiment, I was just curious is all.


----------



## hkskyline

*Smaller units to supervise railways*
Updated: 2011-11-23 07:55
China Daily

BEIJING - In its latest attempt to make the country's rail system safer, the Ministry of Railways has ordered its subordinate bureaus to divide up large railway stations and railroad and train maintenance units.

Once reformed, those entities will be charged with taking special care of high-speed railways.

The Beijing Railway Bureau, according to reports, has been the first to take steps in that direction. The Beijing South Railway Station, where trains that can run at 300 km an hour depart from Beijing for Shanghai and Tianjin, now governs itself.

Before the latest changes, the south station had operated under the Beijing Railway Station.

The Tianjin West Railway Station has also become independent. Both high-speed railway stations now operate directly under the Beijing Railway Bureau.

The ministry's plan calls not only for railway stations to be broken up, but also the large units that are responsible for maintaining rail tracks and trains.

"As the high-speed rail network is extended each unit should oversee a reasonable stretch of the rails ensuring that the management of high-speed railways will be more professional," the ministry said in a news release.

The large units that exist in the railway system resulted from reforms instituted in 2005 by the previous railway minister, Liu Zhijun. He eliminated many sub-bureaus to make the railway system more efficient.

His changes made 18 railway bureaus directly responsible for supervising thousands of railway stations and maintenance units - which proved to be too many for the bureaus.

To make their burden lighter, various railway stations and maintenance units were merged into bigger ones.

"Some railway maintenance units are responsible for railways that stretch for more than 1,000 km and cross several provinces," said a railway insider who declined to give his name. "Maintenance workers had to travel hundreds of miles to do their jobs."

Zhao Jian, a professor specializing in transport at Beijing Jiaotong University, said some units had employed as many as 10,000 workers, a number that was difficult to manage.

With rail safety becoming a top priority, the ministry's changes will make each unit responsible for supervising a fairly short stretch of railway. Some will specialize in overseeing high-speed railways and trains.

"It will be easier to manage fewer employees," Zhao said.

Passengers should not be worried about how the reforms will affect them, said a publicity official with the Beijing Railway Station who did not want to provide his full name. He said they are "more of a change inside the railway system".

Meanwhile, the ministry called on railway bureaus to pay closer attention to the condition of the high-speed rail system, especially during the winter, when there will be more snowfalls and freezing weather.

The two measures come as the public awaits a yet-to-be-published report explaining the causes of the deadly bullet-train crash that occurred in Wenzhou in July, killing 40 people and leaving nearly 200 injured.

A report in the Beijing Times on Monday quoted Wang Mengshu, an expert investigator looking into the crash, as saying that "the biggest flaw was not in technology, but in the loopholes in management".

That statement contradicted the results of a preliminary investigation, which blamed the crash mainly on design flaws in the railway's signaling equipment.

Wang later told Xinhua News Agency that he had only expressed his own opinion and that his words had been misused in the report.


----------



## hkskyline

*China expands online service of train tickets*

BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- China expanded online purchase service of train tickets Sunday by including Z nonstop express trains nationwide into the service, to save passengers from long-time queuing.

Passengers can log on at www.12306.cn, the ministry's official online ticket-booking website, to buy train tickets, China Daily reported Sunday.

The webiste initiated the online service in June, but only for high-speed trains like G and D fast trains, and the C intercity express trains, the report said.

Tickets for the T express trains will be available online from Dec. 10, the report said, citing the Ministry of Railways.

Compared with the better equipped and more expensive high-speed trains, Z and T trains run at a top speed of 160 kilometers an hour, much slower than the high-speed trains.

The People's Daily reported earlier that railway minister Sheng Guangzu said all trains, including the slow trains, will have tickets sold online by the end of this year.

The move will help eliminate the aggravation of waiting in line at railway stations and ticket outlets and may also help curb ticket scalping, according to the report.


----------



## Silly_Walks

hkskyline said:


> *China expands online service of train tickets*
> 
> BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- China expanded online purchase service of train tickets Sunday by including Z nonstop express trains nationwide into the service, to save passengers from long-time queuing.
> 
> Passengers can log on at www.12306.cn, the ministry's official online ticket-booking website, to buy train tickets, China Daily reported Sunday.
> 
> The webiste initiated the online service in June, but only for high-speed trains like G and D fast trains, and the C intercity express trains, the report said.
> 
> Tickets for the T express trains will be available online from Dec. 10, the report said, citing the Ministry of Railways.
> 
> Compared with the better equipped and more expensive high-speed trains, Z and T trains run at a top speed of 160 kilometers an hour, much slower than the high-speed trains.
> 
> The People's Daily reported earlier that railway minister Sheng Guangzu said all trains, including the slow trains, will have tickets sold online by the end of this year.
> 
> The move will help eliminate the aggravation of waiting in line at railway stations and ticket outlets and may also help curb ticket scalping, according to the report.


Is it available for foreigners yet? An English website would be far easier than waiting in a queue for an hour, only to find out the person doesn't speak English and doesn't understand where you want to go :lol:


----------



## hkskyline

Silly_Walks said:


> Is it available for foreigners yet? An English website would be far easier than waiting in a queue for an hour, only to find out the person doesn't speak English and doesn't understand where you want to go :lol:


The engine is in Chinese though, and it's working now. You can try it to see what kind of payment options they accept.


----------



## Stainless

Silly_Walks said:


> Is it available for foreigners yet? An English website would be far easier than waiting in a queue for an hour, only to find out the person doesn't speak English and doesn't understand where you want to go :lol:


I found that they usually got someone English speaking over, or one lane would have a sign with the times an English speaking ticket seller was there. The machines though, had an English option, but required a Chinese ID card to purchase. Luckily this isn't checked when you board, so when I queued someone saw I was stuck and tapped their card and it let me have my ticket.


----------



## Pansori

Stainless said:


> I found that they usually got someone English speaking over, or one lane would have a sign with the times an English speaking ticket seller was there. The machines though, had an English option, but required a Chinese ID card to purchase. Luckily this isn't checked when you board, so when I queued someone saw I was stuck and tapped their card and it let me have my ticket.


Why wouldn't they allow foreign passports/IDs on the machines? Most passports and IDs have rfid chip these days and technically there should be no problems to accept any such passport or ID.


----------



## hkskyline

The easiest way is to get someone to write down the destination in Chinese and line up at the counters, paying cash. I've never tried using the machines before.


----------



## Silly_Walks

hkskyline said:


> The easiest way is to get someone to write down the destination in Chinese and line up at the counters, paying cash. I've never tried using the machines before.


lol i'm very familiar with that system.


----------



## Stainless

Pansori said:


> Why wouldn't they allow foreign passports/IDs on the machines? Most passports and IDs have rfid chip these days and technically there should be no problems to accept any such passport or ID.


Mine does but it does not accept it. It would have to be programmed to accept ID cards from everywhere in the world and not all passports have them. They are quite recent in the UK and a passport lasts 10 years, mine is actually valid for almost 11 years. If it accepted any RFID chip I could have used my T-Money card from Seoul, which I did try. 

Entirely pointless as they didn't check anything when I boarded and had absolutely no idea who the helpful stranger was whose card was tapped, as they walked off moments later. I guess it is to stop ticket touts buying piles of tickets.


----------



## gnatho

As previously reported, on the 10th of December T-trains became available in the online booking system. http://www.12306.cn/mormhweb/kyfw/


----------



## hkskyline

*China cuts spending on railway construction in 2012*

BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- China is planning to invest 400 billion yuan (629.9 billion U.S. dollars) in railway infrastructure construction next year, railway minister Sheng Guangzu said here Friday.

The investment scale registered a slight decline from the total expenditure of 469 billion yuan this year and a marked decrease from over 700 billion yuan in 2010.

This is the first time for the government to announce a clear goal for future railway development. Railway construction has been almost halted as the government has decided to slow the development of high-speed rail lines after a fatal high-speed train crash that killed 40 people in east China in July.

Total fixed asset investment on railways will reach 500 billion yuan next year, while construction on 6,366 kilometers of new railways is scheduled to be finished, said Sheng at a national conference on railway construction. P But Sheng stressed that rapid railway development should be maintained, as it plays an important role in the country's social and economic development, especially in boosting domestic demand.

Sheng said earlier this year that China is planning to expand its railway network to 120,000 kilometers by the end of 2015.

China's railway projects have been on a binge since the country rolled out a stimulus plan worth four trillion yuan to counter the financial crisis of 2008, which was mostly spent on infrastructure construction.

But the sector has been hit hard in the second half of 2011, after the government tightened liquidity control, and the deadly train collision eroded investor confidence and limited the ministry's ability to borrow money or sell bonds.

In 2011, the country had finished the construction of only 2,022 kilometers of new railways, while track-laying of 3,176 kilometers of new railways has been completed, according to Sheng.

Analysts said the scaleback of rail construction suggests the government is trying to cool down the country's rapid railway expansion to a normal level after the previous construction boom.

Sheng said railroad construction should be promoted "scientifically and orderly" next year, which is a severe challenge, and that there is still much to be done to collect sufficient funds for railway projects.

Next year's construction will focus on major rail lines and those closely linked with coal transportation and economic development, while ensuring the progress of projects that have already started construction, he said.

Sheng admitted that it would be an arduous task to ensure quality and safety of railway projects amid massive ongoing construction.

Project schedules should be set at a reasonable range, and time limits of projects should not be changed randomly, he said.

Sheng also called for more transparency and standardized operation in railway project bidding.

The ministry will increase efforts to raise money and enhance management over its funding, and find more channels to finance the ongoing construction, he added.

To solve cash restraints, the ministry secured more than 200 billion yuan in financial support from banks to boost investor confidence in November. It also resorted to issuing bonds to finance its construction projects.

"The ministry will actively seek investment from local governments and the private sector," Sheng said.

At the end of September, the ministry's outstanding debt increased to 2.23 trillion yuan with its asset-liability ratio standing at 59.6 percent, official data showed.

Sheng also pledged to improve railway services and crack down on corruption in the railway system.

Liu Zhijun, the country's former railway minister, was removed from office over an alleged "severe violation of discipline" in February, followed by MOR deputy chief engineer Zhang Shuguang's fall in March.

China's railway authorities will introduce a real-name ticket purchasing system in some of the country's busiest stations from January 2012, which comes ahead of the Chinese New Year travel rush, in an attempt to crack down on rampant scalping.

China's railway system is expected to carry 2.02 billion passengers and 4.16 billion tonnes of goods in 2012, up 9.1 percent and 6.4 percent year- -on-year, respectively, according to Sheng.


----------



## foxmulder

hkskyline said:


> [.. invest 400 billion yuan (629.9 billion U.S. dollars) ...





There is a decimal error it will be around *63 billion $*.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> The investment scale registered a slight decline from the total expenditure of 469 billion yuan this year and a marked decrease from over 700 billion yuan in 2010.
> 
> Total fixed asset investment on railways will reach 500 billion yuan next year, while construction on 6,366 kilometers of new railways is scheduled to be finished, said Sheng at a national conference on railway construction. P But Sheng stressed that rapid railway development should be maintained, as it plays an important role in the country's social and economic development, especially in boosting domestic demand.
> 
> Sheng said earlier this year that China is planning to expand its railway network to 120,000 kilometers by the end of 2015.


What was the investment in 2009?
Which are the 6366 km of railways that shall be finished in 2012?


----------



## hmmwv

In 2009 MOR total fixed asset investment is just over RMB 700 billion, infrastructural investment slightly over RMB 600 billion. To compare, from 2006 to 2008 the total fixed asset investment were RMB 208, 252, and 416 billion. So the current RMB 500B investment is still far more than 2008 level. Considering how many lines, especially HSR lines and new train production bases have already been completed, I'm surprised that this much money is still allocated to MOR. Also surprising is how MOR was able to all the sudden get 200B of fresh money last month.


----------



## foxmulder

hmmwv said:


> In 2009 MOR total fixed asset investment is just over RMB 700 billion, infrastructural investment slightly over RMB 600 billion. To compare, from 2006 to 2008 the total fixed asset investment were RMB 208, 252, and 416 billion. So the current RMB 500B investment is still far more than 2008 level. Considering how many lines, especially HSR lines and new train production bases have already been completed, I'm surprised that this much money is still allocated to MOR. Also surprising is how MOR was able to all the sudden get 200B of fresh money last month.


Exactly. The incredible increase in last two years was due stimulus plan China had to cope with the 2008 crisis. And as you stated, with the completion of many lines, 63 billion $ is still higher than what I expected, too.


----------



## Pansori

Wasn't the Beijing-Shanghai line something in the range of $30 billion? For $63 bn we're talking sevaral thousand km of HSR lines.


----------



## hmmwv

IIRC Beijing-Shanghai HSR cost about RMB 220B, so yeah just over USD 33B.


----------



## Traceparts

Pansori said:


> Wasn't the Beijing-Shanghai line something in the range of $30 billion? For $63 bn we're talking sevaral thousand km of HSR lines.


But Beijing-Shanghai line took 4+ years to complete.


----------



## foxmulder

Traceparts said:


> But Beijing-Shanghai line took 4+ years to complete.


There are more than one construction teams, though  I mean total railway laid down in those 4 years were much more than only Beijing-Shanghai line, right?


----------



## hmmwv

I think he may be referring to that several thousand km of railway will not be built in 2012, that's right but as the budget also shows many new lines will be completed next year, as well as starting construction of several new HSR lines.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> I think he may be referring to that several thousand km of railway will not be built in 2012, that's right but as the budget also shows many new lines will be completed next year, as well as starting construction of several new HSR lines.


Sheng Guangzu specified that the railways finished in 2012 are 6366 km. Does anyone have the specific list, how many are high speed railways, how many low speed railways?

The 1318 km Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway cost RMB 220 milliards, and it was not built in 4+ years - it was completed in 3 years 2 months and 12 days (start of construction 18th of April 2008, opening of service 30th of June 2011). How were the costs distributed over these 3 years - how much in the beginning, how much towards the end?


----------



## hmmwv

He didn't say what comprised that 6366km figure, only that's the length of railway line will be put into service. To compare in 2011 the figure is laid new line 3176km, double existing line 2468km, put into operation 2022km. 2011's total infrastructural investment is RMB 469B, down from the May projection of RMB 600B. Since 2010's total fixed asset investment was RMB 834B, infrastructural spending RMB 709B, I'd say most of spending on Beijing-Shanghai line were in 2009 and 2010.

Looking at those data got me thinking, back in the days when China first started mass HSR construction in 2004, the infrastructural spending for that year is only 1/8 of what China will spend next year.


----------



## stoneybee

Building and completing a modern and high-speed railway network is part of the grand nation building strategy of China. So people should not expect any accident or corruption to change that policy. The amount of investment for the coming year is a good evidence of that. China will not stop investing in this area until they have re-vitalized their railway network that will be capable of supporting the future economic and military goals of the country.

There might be fine tuning along the way, but I believe the future of HSR network in China is assured. Sometimes people over-react to short term events or make the mistake of believing policy decision in China are all based on politics and personal preference of a few leaders. The reality is actually far from that.


----------



## Pansori

stoneybee said:


> There might be fine tuning along the way, but I believe the future of HSR network in China is assured. Sometimes people over-react to short term events or make the mistake of believing policy decision in China are all based on politics and personal preference of a few leaders. The reality is actually far from that.


this should be looked at from a wider perspective. I think this has a lot to do with the more recent Western (well, American to be more precise) short-term goal escalation. This is primarily noticeable in various investment fields (primarily stocks and currencies but also some other transactions). Entire generations of professionals grew up with the vision that finance is somehow the best and most prominent field to be in. It's not. It's just the intermediary between the subjects (people, companies, governments).

Therefore the mindset of such people (including ones in the media and news) may not longer comprehend the idea that something may be done _not_ with a sole objective of making a profit by the end of Q4 or achieving a positive cash flow by the end of Q2 next year.

They don't understand that China's 'dependency' on fixed asset investments is happening not because it's an easy way to boost growth or inflate a bubble but, above all, because Chinese people must be fed up of waiting in those massive queues in the sweaty and claustrophobic train stations and then riding overcrowded slow trains. Also because economy has to growth not only next year but also after 10 or 15 or even 30 years. And, finally, also because it's just better to invest a trillion USD into good, efficient and fast transportation rather than use it to bail out failed banks of give it out for consumption...

Building good and efficient railway network (as well as road network, seaports, airports...) is one of the main core 'hardware' components of a fast moving, dynamic and contemporary economy which China is deemed to be regardless whether some like it or not.


----------



## hmmwv

Absolutely agree with you, the impressive expansion of rail network in China is investing for the future, while satisfying the demand of today. The US once had visionary projects like that as well, such as the New Deal and the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> He didn't say what comprised that 6366km figure, only that's the length of railway line will be put into service. To compare in 2011 the figure is laid new line 3176km, double existing line 2468km, put into operation 2022km.


Here is what was promised for 2011:
http://www.dearpassengers.com/2011/01/26/what-to-expect-from-china-railways-in-2011/



> 1. This year will see the opening of a whole slew of HSR routes, including the critical Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Shenzhen and Shanghai-Shenzhen High Speed Railways.
> 
> Here’s what’s opening this year on the rails:
> 
> ■Beijing-Shanghai HSR


Did.


> ■Harbin-Dalian HSR
> ■Beijing-Shenzhen HSR


Meaning:
Beijing-Shijiazhuang-Zhengzhou-Wuhan
Wuhan-Guangzhou (open since 2009)
Guangzhou-Longhua (opened 2011)


> ■Tianjin-Qinhuangdao HSR
> ■Nanjing-Hangzhou HSR (direct; will skip Shanghai entirely)
> ■Shanghai-Shenzhen HSR


Meaning:
Shanghai-Hangzhou (open since 2010)
Hangzhou-Ningbo
Ningbo-Wenzhou-Fuzhou-Xiamen (open)
Xiamen-Longhua


> ■Wuhan-Yichang HSR
> ■Hefei-Bengbu HSR
> ■Wuhan-Xiaogan HSR
> ■Wuhan-Xianning HSR
> ■Xilinhot-Ulanhot Railway
> ■Longyan-Xiamen Railway


Which of the above are permanently cancelled, which are delayed to 2013 or beyond, and which are now on time to open sometime in 2012?


----------



## HunanChina

Guangzhou-Shenzhen CRH

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzM3NTY5NzI4.html

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzM3NjgzNTE2.html


----------



## stoneybee

Pansori said:


> this should be looked at from a wider perspective. I think this has a lot to do with the more recent Western (well, American to be more precise) short-term goal escalation. This is primarily noticeable in various investment fields (primarily stocks and currencies but also some other transactions). Entire generations of professionals grew up with the vision that finance is somehow the best and most prominent field to be in. It's not. It's just the intermediary between the subjects (people, companies, governments).
> 
> Therefore the mindset of such people (including ones in the media and news) may not longer comprehend the idea that something may be done _not_ with a sole objective of making a profit by the end of Q4 or achieving a positive cash flow by the end of Q2 next year.
> 
> They don't understand that China's 'dependency' on fixed asset investments is happening not because it's an easy way to boost growth or inflate a bubble but, above all, because Chinese people must be fed up of waiting in those massive queues in the sweaty and claustrophobic train stations and then riding overcrowded slow trains. Also because economy has to growth not only next year but also after 10 or 15 or even 30 years. And, finally, also because it's just better to invest a trillion USD into good, efficient and fast transportation rather than use it to bail out failed banks of give it out for consumption...
> 
> Building good and efficient railway network (as well as road network, seaports, airports...) is one of the main core 'hardware' components of a fast moving, dynamic and contemporary economy which China is deemed to be regardless whether some like it or not.


Well Said, Brother, well said!

The western governments/societies seem to have forgotten in recent years how important infrastructure (all kinds - both hard and soft) is to the overall strength and long term properity of a nation, and the fact that infrastructure has to be continuously renewed as the society and technology changes.

I think we at the west have become too comfortable in our current living conditions and not willing to accept the fact that the world changes every day - what we had as the best in the past might not even be considered adequate in the future.


----------



## Pansori

Thanks stoneybee. 

One more thing that some are forgetting is that virtually all developed western nations were building similar projects (relevant to their size of course) even if demand was much lower than it currently is in China. For instance, Germany drew its autobahn plans long before most Germans owned a car... Same in many other countries which now have extensive and adequate transportation systems. They are enjoying it now and reap the benefits. Imagine if back in the 50's or so Germany would had decided that such fixed asset investments like autobahn construction are not sustainable and cause too much debt... But it didn't. This is the reason it's now got state of the art transport infrastructure which contributes to its status as a global economic power and a superpower in the global trade.


----------



## FM 2258

HunanChina said:


> Guangzhou-Shenzhen CRH
> 
> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzM3NTY5NzI4.html
> 
> http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzM3NjgzNTE2.html


Which direction is the first video going?



Pansori said:


> Thanks stoneybee.
> 
> One more thing that some are forgetting is that virtually all developed western nations were building similar projects (relevant to their size of course) even if demand was much lower than it currently is in China. For instance, Germany drew its autobahn plans long before most Germans owned a car... Same in many other countries which now have extensive and adequate transportation systems. They are enjoying it now and reap the benefits. Imagine if back in the 50's or so Germany would had decided that such fixed asset investments like autobahn construction are not sustainable and cause too much debt... But it didn't. This is the reason it's now got state of the art transport infrastructure which contributes to its status as a global economic power and a superpower in the global trade.


True. Plus when the world runs out of oil China will be able to transport people without much of it since they'll have an excellent electrified rail system....unlike the U.S. where we'll have to go back to horses.


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Which of the above are permanently cancelled, which are delayed to 2013 or beyond, and which are now on time to open sometime in 2012?


Harbin-Dalian PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start June 2012.

Beijing-Shijiazhuang HSR, service start delayed to late 2012.

Shijiazhuang-Wuhan PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start July 2012.

Tianjin-Qinhuangdao HSR, suspended by Ministry of Environmental Protection in May 2011. AFAIK the suspension hasn't been lifted.

Nanjing-Hangzhou HSR, construction completed, test run delayed to Feb 2012, service start June 2012.

Hangzhou-Ningbo PDL, service start delayed to June 2012.

Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway (passenger and freight mixed use), severely delayed, viaduct construction suppose to finish by Jan 2011, they are no where near that as of this month. I believe it will be delayed into 2013.

Wuhan-Yichang HSR, construction completed and test started in Nov 2011, service start June 2012.

Hefei-Bengbu PDL, service start on time August 2012.

Wuhan Megalopolis Intercity Rail, Xianning section open May 2012. Others (Xiaogan, Huangshi, Huanggang) delayed to 2013.

Xilinhot-Ulanhot Railway, under construction, most major infrastructural projects finished by end of 2011, opening possibly delayed to 2013. 

Longyan-Xiamen Railway (passenger and freight mixed use), construction finished, test starts March 2012, service start date unknown.

Now we just need to add those 2012 openings up and see how many km they are.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Harbin-Dalian PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start June 2012.


904 km


hmmwv said:


> Beijing-Shijiazhuang HSR, service start delayed to late 2012.


281 km


hmmwv said:


> Shijiazhuang-Wuhan PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start July 2012.


840 km


hmmwv said:


> Tianjin-Qinhuangdao HSR, suspended by Ministry of Environmental Protection in May 2011. AFAIK the suspension hasn't been lifted.
> 
> Nanjing-Hangzhou HSR, construction completed, test run delayed to Feb 2012, service start June 2012.


249 km


hmmwv said:


> Hangzhou-Ningbo PDL, service start delayed to June 2012.


152 km


hmmwv said:


> Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway (passenger and freight mixed use), severely delayed, viaduct construction suppose to finish by Jan 2011, they are no where near that as of this month. I believe it will be delayed into 2013.
> 
> Wuhan-Yichang HSR, construction completed and test started in Nov 2011, service start June 2012.


293 km


hmmwv said:


> Hefei-Bengbu PDL, service start on time August 2012.


131 km


hmmwv said:


> Wuhan Megalopolis Intercity Rail, Xianning section open May 2012.


How long is that?


hmmwv said:


> Others (Xiaogan, Huangshi, Huanggang) delayed to 2013.
> 
> Xilinhot-Ulanhot Railway, under construction, most major infrastructural projects finished by end of 2011, opening possibly delayed to 2013.
> 
> Longyan-Xiamen Railway (passenger and freight mixed use), construction finished, test starts March 2012, service start date unknown.


171 km


hmmwv said:


> Now we just need to add those 2012 openings up and see how many km they are.


3021 km, plus Wuhan-Xianniang.

What are the remaining 3345- km?


----------



## FM 2258

hmmwv said:


> Harbin-Dalian PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start June 2012.
> 
> Beijing-Shijiazhuang HSR, service start delayed to late 2012.
> 
> Shijiazhuang-Wuhan PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start July 2012.
> 
> Tianjin-Qinhuangdao HSR, suspended by Ministry of Environmental Protection in May 2011. AFAIK the suspension hasn't been lifted.
> 
> Nanjing-Hangzhou HSR, construction completed, test run delayed to Feb 2012, service start June 2012.
> 
> Hangzhou-Ningbo PDL, service start delayed to June 2012.
> 
> Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway (passenger and freight mixed use), severely delayed, viaduct construction suppose to finish by Jan 2011, they are no where near that as of this month. I believe it will be delayed into 2013.
> 
> Wuhan-Yichang HSR, construction completed and test started in Nov 2011, service start June 2012.
> 
> Hefei-Bengbu PDL, service start on time August 2012.
> 
> Wuhan Megalopolis Intercity Rail, Xianning section open May 2012. Others (Xiaogan, Huangshi, Huanggang) delayed to 2013.
> 
> Xilinhot-Ulanhot Railway, under construction, most major infrastructural projects finished by end of 2011, opening possibly delayed to 2013.
> 
> Longyan-Xiamen Railway (passenger and freight mixed use), construction finished, test starts March 2012, service start date unknown.
> 
> Now we just need to add those 2012 openings up and see how many km they are.


What's the difference between HSR and PDL? Is a PDL a high speed line?


----------



## G5man

PDL's are passenger dedicated lines I'm assuming. Probably meaning only passenger HSR trains run on those lines.


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> How long is that?
> 
> 3021 km, plus Wuhan-Xianniang.
> 
> What are the remaining 3345- km?


Wuhan-Xianning section is 90km. It's a good question where the remaining 3345km come from, however most of those ones we have calculated are HSR lines, there are so many smaller conventional intercity and freight lines that various railway bureaus put into service that are not national projects. In addition, there are double lines of current single track lines. I think it's almost impossible to determine the exact lines put into service until the end of 2012.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Wuhan-Xianning section is 90km.


Thanks.
I note that Wuhan and Xianning already are connected by high speed railway. Xianning North is 85 km from Wuhan on Wuhan-Guangzhou high speed railway. There is 1 intermediate stop, namely Wulongquan East.

With the second Wuhan-Xianning high speed railway, it means 3111 km of known lines for 2012.


hmmwv said:


> In addition, there are double lines of current single track lines.


Are these 3111 km, probably all double track lines, counted double into the 6366 km? Then only 144 km remain.

Also, are there any triple or quadruple lines of current double or triple track lines which are due to open in 2012?


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Are these 3111 km, probably all double track lines, counted double into the 6366 km? Then only 144 km remain.
> 
> Also, are there any triple or quadruple lines of current double or triple track lines which are due to open in 2012?


I very much doubt they will count double because when they speak of mileage of new lines put into operation, they never counted double tracks. Mileage of doubling current line will always be specified in the news piece. 

According to this investment bulletin, in 2011 total new line put into operation is 2022km, and they project that out of the 6366km new lines put into service in 2012, there will be 2957km of PDL, and 722km of ICL. The rest are conventional passenger and freight rail lines with speed below 200km/h. http://www.gjzq.com.cn/main/a/20111227/3366541.shtml

This article is even more interesting, it revealed that according to MOR's initial 2011 schedule (prior to Liu Zhijun's removal) they intend to put 7901km of new line into service, finish doubling 6861km of current single line, electrifying 8800km of current line, lay 7935km of new track, and lay 6211km of new track to double current single line. Out of the planned 7901km of new lines 4642km are HSR. http://hwlzx.crmsc.com.cn/news_Show_user.asp?ID=776


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Another high speed railway to open in Dragon Year is Longhua-Futian:
http://www.szdaily.com/content/2011-12/27/content_6340677.htm
In September. How long is that?
A feature of the trains:


> The VIP toilet in the first class is 6 to 7 square meters. The doors are censor-controlled and facilities are similar to those in the first-class area of an airplane.


In other words, the doors are impossible to open with pants down?


----------



## hmmwv

The distance of Longhua(Shenzhen North)-Futian section wasn't clear, but the Guangzhou-Hong Kong line is quote at 142km, Guangzhou-Shenzhen North section 102km, and Futian-Hong Kong section 26km, so by calculation Longhua-Futian is about 14km.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> I very much doubt they will count double because when they speak of mileage of new lines put into operation, they never counted double tracks. Mileage of doubling current line will always be specified in the news piece.
> 
> According to this investment bulletin, in 2011 total new line put into operation is 2022km


Known high speed lines were:
Guangzhou-Zhuhai, 7th of January, 117 km
Changchun-Jilin, 13th of January, 111 km
Beijing-Shanghai, 30th of June, 1318 km
Guangzhou-Longhua, 26th of December, 102 km
total 1648 km.
That means a total of 374 km of all other railways.


----------



## FM 2258

Taipei Walker said:


> There will be another station in Shenzhen on this line - Longhua Station, I think it will be much larger as it will also include costal line, here is the map:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Except for being transit station, this station will also be completely underground (first underground station in China) and it will be in the very heart of Shenzhen main CBD - in China stations are usually far from main CBD.


I couldn't find the information searching through the thread. What is the Rapid Transit System(RTS)? Also when will the Futian station open? I see wikipedia mentions 2012 but says status is open (must be only for the subway). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futian_Metro_Station


----------



## foxmulder

I am not sure but based on the distance and number of stops, I would assume it's a type of commuter rail.


----------



## FM 2258

foxmulder said:


> I am not sure but based on the distance and number of stops, I would assume it's a type of commuter rail.


I was wondering if it already exists or if it's proposed. I've never heard of it before. The Pearl River Delta is going to be very well connected. You can either fly from HKG to CAN (Dragonair or China Southern) or take the train.


----------



## urbanfan89

FM 2258 said:


> I was wondering if it already exists or if it's proposed. I've never heard of it before. The Pearl River Delta is going to be very well connected. You can either fly from HKG to CAN (Dragonair or China Southern) or take the train.


Perhaps, but no one in their right mind will be taking these flights unless they're transfer passengers. The Rapid Transit System still only exists on paper, though it will likely be done sooner rather than later.


----------



## liagsgydf

China is facing serious energy shortages this year, with bottlenecks in coal transport partially responsible for electricity blackouts nationwide. *http://vo.to/btk*


----------



## chornedsnorkack

*More approaching lines*

More lines which have some time been promised for 2011 or 2012:

Panjing-Yingkou
Xian-Baoji
Chongqing-Lichuan
Chongqing-Suining
Nanjing-Anqing
Jiangyou-Chengdu-Leshan
Beijing-Tangshan
Tianjin-Baoding
Qingdao-Rongcheng

Which of these are on schedule to open in 2012?


----------



## hmmwv

Damnit Chornedsnorkack, MOR only pays me 50 cents per post! It'll take a while to get accurate info on those smaller, locally funded lines.


----------



## IanCleverly

CCTV Website said:


> Nearly one-sixth of the population is on the move as Chinese get ready to embark on their journey home to reunite with their families. Unlike in previous years, there is only about twenty days between New Year and Spring Festival in 2012, which makes this year’s travel season even harder.
> 
> To ensure a smooth journey for every passenger, railway departments are adopting a variety of new measures, including shortening the interval between each train in order to increase capacity.


Story continues (with a video report) Here


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Quite understandable that not all plans are out! Just mentioning them so that they are not forgotten and can be noted if some news do appear.

Xian-Baoji looks like a link in the Silk Railway, Beijing-Shijiazhuang-Zhengzhou-Xian-Baoji-Lanzhou-Xining-Urumqi. Has Baoji-Lanzhou railway started construction?

Nanjing-Huzhou-Hangzhou looks like an important short cut in Beijing-Nanjing-Hangzhou, Beijing-Ningbo, Beijing-Fuzhou and Beijing-Xiamen. So next news to be expected should be tests of 249 km Nanjing-Hangzhou, from February.
Is Nanjing-Hangzhou railway suitable to test CRH500?


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Quite understandable that not all plans are out! Just mentioning them so that they are not forgotten and can be noted if some news do appear.
> 
> Xian-Baoji looks like a link in the Silk Railway, Beijing-Shijiazhuang-Zhengzhou-Xian-Baoji-Lanzhou-Xining-Urumqi. Has Baoji-Lanzhou railway started construction?
> 
> Nanjing-Huzhou-Hangzhou looks like an important short cut in Beijing-Nanjing-Hangzhou, Beijing-Ningbo, Beijing-Fuzhou and Beijing-Xiamen. So next news to be expected should be tests of 249 km Nanjing-Hangzhou, from February.
> Is Nanjing-Hangzhou railway suitable to test CRH500?


Baoji-Lanzhou PDL's feasibility study was approved by NDRC last March, but it was never an immediate project and hasn't received funding or started design. My take is that the current priority is to get the second twin line for Lanzhou-Urumqi railway finished. I think someone asked whether there are any lines being increased from double lines to quadruple lines, I guess this is it. 

Regarding Nanjing to Hangzhou I think it's certainly long enough to test the CIT500, but they have two other lines (Shijiazhuang-Wuhan, Harbin-Dalian) that are far longer and go through less densely populated areas than this one. So I'm not sure whether they will test CIT500 on this particular line.


----------



## hmmwv

Panjing-Yingkou-Haicheng PDL is the connecting line between the Harbin-Dalian line and the Beijing-Shengyang line. Construction started in summer 2009 and construction period is 36 month, so with all the delays going on it probably won't be finished until late 2012. It's strange that this 90km long line took this long to build.

Xian-Baoji construction started in Dec 2009, suppose to put into commercial service by Dec 2012. Currently the lasted news is that viaduct construction finished in Dec 2011.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Chongqing-Lichuan would if completed connect Chongqing with Yichang, Wanzhou and, after June 2012, with Wuhan, Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xianning.

Next railway to be actually opened then seems to be Wuhan Megalopolis Intercity Rail. 

Have any CRH6 trains entered service?


----------



## FM 2258

urbanfan89 said:


> Perhaps, but no one in their right mind will be taking these flights unless they're transfer passengers. The Rapid Transit System still only exists on paper, though it will likely be done sooner rather than later.


What's the official name for the project? I'd like to look up some more information since it looks interesting. The Pearl River Delta is such an amazing place. :cheers:


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Next railway to be actually opened then seems to be Wuhan Megalopolis Intercity Rail.
> 
> Have any CRH6 trains entered service?


Yeah two sections of the Wuhan Intercity system will probably the first to open for commercial service this year. NDJ3 powered CRH Great Wall was once rumored as CRH6 but that has proven to be wrong. The actual CRH6 will probably based on DJF2 Vanguard, which is a 200km/h class low speed EMU based on some JR 300 series technology.


----------



## urbanfan89

FM 2258 said:


> What's the official name for the project? I'd like to look up some more information since it looks interesting. The Pearl River Delta is such an amazing place. :cheers:


It's the 穗莞深城际铁路 (Guangzhou Dongguan Shenzhen Inter-city Railway), and supposedly it is to be completed by the end of 2013. But actual information is a bit scarce.


----------



## khoojyh

Hopefully, with China rail network n technology can ease chun yun,not 100% solve but at least much more better if compare to few years ago.


----------



## hmmwv

It's probably better than before, but still far from adequate. For example, everyone here seem to think that those new stations are excessive, but during Chinese New Year they don't seem too big anymore. Here at the fairly new and large Fuzhou Station which serve many long distance and HSR trains, they had to erect tents as temporary waiting rooms for passenger because the main building is filled up.


----------



## hmmwv

Here are some Chinese New Year railway pictures.


----------



## hmmwv




----------



## hmmwv




----------



## hmmwv




----------



## hmmwv




----------



## chornedsnorkack

Does China have any new built CRH trains, which can start service at the end of Hare Year?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Considering the accursed Sheng Guangzu:
is he the permanent, whole generation Minister of Railways?

Fu Zhihuan (born March 1938) left office around his 65th birthday, in March 2003. Which happened to be the specific month when Zhu Rongji left office (age 74) and Wen Jiabao entered office (age 61).

In the month that Wen Jiabao (born 1942) started working as Prime Minister, Liu Zhijun (born 1953) became Minister of Railways at age 50.

Liu Zhijun was dismissed as Minister in spring 2011 (age 58), and replaced with Sheng Guangzu (born 1949, age 61).

Wen Jiabao shall celebrate his 70th birthday on 15th of September.

If Wen Jiabao were to retire, for example in 2013, would Sheng Guangzu continue as Minister of Railways? Or could China currently be looking for a permanent Minister of Railways, who might start working for example in Spring 2013 and remain in office till 2023?


----------



## foxmulder

Sopomon said:


> Or prehaps they just have terribly underestimated the demand and don't have enough server capacity.


I partially agree. It is almost a brand new web site with a brand new service. If this happens next time then there is smt to worry.


----------



## hmmwv

NCT said:


> Which they shouldn't have if they had even half a brain.


Their peak demand is 1.4 billion visits a day, and it'll be hard to predict such demand because they underestimated the determination of Chinese migrant workers who will occupy multiple computers in a Internet cafe and open multiple accounts to purchase tickets. So those redundant server requests is what caused the traffic jam. Also there are the users from smart phones. The news have mentioned that their initial bandwidth is 1Gbps and later increased to 1.5. That struck me as adequate during normal time, but not for the New Year peak. What they should have done is rent server from cloud computing providers to handle the surged demand, while only maintain a smaller server farm in house to handle the normal load.


----------



## Mika Montwald

foxmulder said:


> _No, no... new stations are toooo big... bad planing, showing off etc..._





khoojyh said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunyun
> 
> _Stoneybee_ already explained "Imagine 1.5 to 2.0 times of the entire population of the United States on the move"





foxmulder said:


> *sarcasm, dude. come on*



^^

:hahaha:


----------



## Mika Montwald

hmmwv said:


>



Thank you so much *hmmwv* for posting the volunteers photo.

:angel1: :applause: :applause:

Thousands of blessings to the growing volunteering forces across China. 

:bow: :bow: :bow:

Expressing my utmost admiration and gratitude to all China volunteers.


----------



## Woonsocket54

hmmwv said:


> Both lines are originated from the ring line connecting several stations inside Wuhan City, as you can see here. The red line is Wuhan-Xianning, light yellow one is Wuhan-Huangshi.


Looks a lot like Chicago with all those lines converging in a loop in the middle. Why is one of the orange line's ends dashed? Is that a part that has not started construction just yet?


----------



## hmmwv

Woonsocket54 said:


> Looks a lot like Chicago with all those lines converging in a loop in the middle. Why is one of the orange line's ends dashed? Is that a part that has not started construction just yet?


I believe that section is not part of the Wuhan commuter rail system, it's a future plan to link it with the Beijing-Kowloon line, which already has a stop at Wuhan station.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

What are the grey lines?

Are these slow speed railways?


----------



## hmmwv

Grey lines are National Railway, the conventional railways. Blue are CRH lines.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Do I then guess right, that the blue line going away south and closely bunched together with a red and a grey line is Wuhan-Shenzhen high speed railway? And the accompanying grey line is the Wuchang-Kowloon railway?


----------



## hmmwv

You are correct.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Then where is Huangshi?

It was said that it is the light yellow line that goes to Huangshi (not the dark yellow).

The grey line in the southeast of the map passes Huangshi, and exits the map along the south bank of Yangtze. Is this the line which continues to Nanchang?

Do the D trains now operating between Wuhan and Nanchang use the Jiujiang-Nanchang high speed railway?

Which shall be faster between Wuhan and Huangshi - the old railway to Nanchang, or the new Wuhan Metropolis Intercity Railway?

Also, where does the railway go which enters the map on the southeast on the north bank of Yangtze but then without reaching Wuhan turns away out of the map on the northeast (and connects to the dark yellow line)?


----------



## hmmwv

Huangshi North is second to last stop on the light yellow line, the orange line goes to Huanggang East. The grey line to the sourtheast is the Wuhan-Jiujiang railway, which is now upgraded to 200km/h with D trains on intercity service continued to Nanchang. This railway goes to Huangshi Station, while the new one goes to Huangshi North. The line that passes through the legend is the Beijing-Kowloon line. Note Beijing-Kowloon and Beijing-Guangzhou are two different rail lines, the former doesn't pass through Wuhan (instead go through Jiujiang) but the latter does.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Thanks a lot!

It was a confusing surprise to find the Beijing-Nanchang railway so near Wuhan (plus, the designations of "Guangzhou" and "Kowloon" do not distinguish these well). 

Since it is the map of Wuhan Megalopolis Intercity Rail, the stations of high and low speed railways are unmarked when not shared with megalopolis railway. 

Do I guess it right that the blue railway which follows Han river and leaves the map westwards is the high speed railway to Yichang, Lichuan and Wanzhou, that shall open in June?

I note that unlike the slow speed railway, which forms a triangle, the blue line only follows two sides of the triangle - such that in June, direct trains Nanjing-Hefei-Hankou-Yichang-Lichuan-Wanzhou (and Nanjing-Wuhan-Lichuan-Chongqing, if completed) can go straight to Chongqing, but the direct trains Guangzhou-Wuhan-Yichang, or Shenzhen-Chongqing, have to reverse direction in Wuhan.


----------



## hmmwv

You are right the line to the left is Wuhan-Yichang PDL. I'm sure it has a connecting track to link with Wuhan-Guangzhou line, it'd be pretty comical for the train to reverse. This diagram is just a graphic representation of the network, not accurate geographically.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Harbin-Dalian PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start June 2012.
> 
> Nanjing-Hangzhou HSR, construction completed, test run delayed to Feb 2012, service start June 2012.
> 
> Hangzhou-Ningbo PDL, service start delayed to June 2012.
> 
> Wuhan-Yichang HSR, construction completed and test started in Nov 2011, service start June 2012.


Thus, after opening of Wuhan-Xianning in May, in June opening of Wuhan-Yichang completes the railway Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei-Hankou-Yichang-Lichuan-Wanzhou, and the opening of Nanjing-Hangzhou and Hangzhou-Ningbo completes direct 300 km/h Beijing-Ningbo and all-high-speed Beijing-Xiamen.


----------



## khoojyh

Delay? What cause the delay?


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Thus, after opening of Wuhan-Xianning in May, in June opening of Wuhan-Yichang completes the railway Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei-Hankou-Yichang-Lichuan-Wanzhou, and the opening of Nanjing-Hangzhou and Hangzhou-Ningbo completes direct 300 km/h Beijing-Ningbo and all-high-speed Beijing-Xiamen.


I believe the Beijing-Xiaman train will still go through Shanghai using the current Jinhu line. And from Ningbo to Xiamen it's all 250km/h line.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Shijiazhuang-Wuhan PDL, construction completed, test run delayed to March 2012, service start July 2012.


When the high speed railway Shijiazhuang-Zhengzhou-Wuhan opens, does it have a station in Tianhe Airport?


----------



## hmmwv

Wuhan station saw a record of 907,000 passengers on Jan 14th.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Wuhan station saw a record of 907,000 passengers on Jan 14th.


During which day of holidays does the record over holidays normally occur?


----------



## stoneybee

chornedsnorkack said:


> During which day of holidays does the record over holidays normally occur?


If your question is related to the peak traffic time over the holiday period, then the answer is the three day period before the actual new year's day. So Jan 20. 21 and 22 for this year.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

stoneybee said:


> If your question is related to the peak traffic time over the holiday period, then the answer is the three day period before the actual new year's day. So Jan 20. 21 and 22 for this year.


So, people go to holidays all at the same time, but then return at different times?

20th is today.

Which of the 3 days should have the passenger number record - today, 21st or 22nd?


----------



## hmmwv

Chunyun started over ten days ago, it's just gonna peak at the days right before the new year eve because work will delay people's travel plans. The Chinese New Year holiday is about ten days long, then the same pattern will resume for the return traffic.


----------



## stoneybee

chornedsnorkack said:


> So, people go to holidays all at the same time, but then return at different times?
> 
> 20th is today.
> 
> Which of the 3 days should have the passenger number record - today, 21st or 22nd?


22nd will probably be the peak for this year given it falls on sunday, but it is just a guess here. Based on historical pattern, the last couple days can all be peak travel dates as people rush home for new year's eve. The new year's eve family dinner is a big thing for Chinese (much bigger than Christmas eve dinner in the west). All family members need to be home before the new year's eve dinner.

The return pattern pretty much mirrors the going home pattern but tends to spread out a bit historically. So it is not as packed as the time before the new year. Part of the reason for this is that a percentage of the migrant population is seasonal workers, so they don't need to return to work under a set time.


----------



## hmmwv

CSR Zhuzhou has launched China's first commercial low speed maglev trainset. The train can carry 600 people traveling at a speed of 100km/h. CSR Zhuzhou takes the turnkey approach providing not just the trainset, but a complete solution including track construction, signaling, power distribution, maintenance and operation.

Photos from Chinanews/Sina


----------



## :jax:

This all depends on how and what route. Airline tickets from Guangdong to Beijing were cheapest the closer to New Year's Eve you go, so I am flying to Beijjing tomorrow (not crazy enough to take train this time of year).


----------



## :jax:

This all depends on how and what route. Airline tickets from Guangdong to Beijing were cheapest the closer to New Year's Eve you go, so I am flying to Beijjing tomorrow (not crazy enough to take train this time of year).


----------



## derekf1974

That maglev train looks awesome. I hope it can carve a market share in the metro systems. I like the fact that they are not noisy in the tunnels. I used to take the metro to work and my hearing was never the same.


----------



## hmmwv

:jax: said:


> This all depends on how and what route. Airline tickets from Guangdong to Beijing were cheapest the closer to New Year's Eve you go, so I am flying to Beijjing tomorrow (not crazy enough to take train this time of year).


Guangdong to Beijing is not exactly a hot route during Chunyun anyway. Trains and planes from Sichuan to Guangzhou/Shanghai are almost empty nowadays, but when they turn around it's a whole new situation.



derekf1974 said:


> That maglev train looks awesome. I hope it can carve a market share in the metro systems. I like the fact that they are not noisy in the tunnels. I used to take the metro to work and my hearing was never the same.


It was said low speed maglev is several magnitudes cheaper than very high speed ones in Shanghai, to a point that it can be competitive to traditional track technology in a metro application if it enters serial production. However at this stage it's very hard for it to break into the existing market. Most metro operators have already chosen their system, bring this maglev in will create loads of logistics and compatibility issues.


----------



## Geography

The 907,000 passengers going through Wuhan is absolutely incredible. What share of all railway passengers are traveling on the high-speed lines?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Do temporary high speed trains also carry L designation, or are they G, C, D like the other CRH trains?


----------



## hmmwv

Geography said:


> The 907,000 passengers going through Wuhan is absolutely incredible. What share of all railway passengers are traveling on the high-speed lines?


That data is hard to come by, but it'd be interesting to see. A lot of people use a combination of both systems. For example a migrant worker would travel from Shanghai to Wuhan riding D train, then transfer at Wuhan for a conventional regional train to get to his/her hometown.



chornedsnorkack said:


> Do temporary high speed trains also carry L designation, or are they G, C, D like the other CRH trains?


No, all added HSR trains get their corresponding temporary G, C, D numbers. In fact many HSR lines are running at a reduced schedule before the New Year, so the added trains merely fills up the suspended train numbers. For example Beijing-Shanghai's normal 56 pairs per day schedule is below its capacity, during Chunyun it was increased to 70 pairs per day, what the MOR calls 满图运行 (full chart operation), means fill up the designed schedule. This is to ensure during peak travel hours (8-11AM, 1-4PM) the interval between trains can be 5 minutes at its quickest, and daily average one train per 15 minutes.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Now that the Chinese have reached home and the traffic peak is over, which has been the record day of travel? 20th, 21st or 22nd?


----------



## Mika Montwald

chornedsnorkack said:


> HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
> 
> Now that the Chinese have reached home and the traffic peak is over, which has been the record day of travel? 20th, 21st or 22nd?



:dance:


_*HAPPY NEW *__*(2012) DRAGON Year *_ .
 _*All the BEST for the Coming New 2012 Dragon Year *_.



*ALWAYS the BEST of HEALTH *. 

*WISH ALL YOUR QUESTS BECOME FRUITFUL *


For you and every one in SSC forums.


----------------------------------------------

I mean this as the utmost sincerely compliment to *chornedsnorkack*. 

If there is a statistic competition, then *chornedsnorkack* must be the undisputed champion bar none. 

:cheers1:


----------



## yaohua2000

hmmwv said:


> That data is hard to come by, but it'd be interesting to see. A lot of people use a combination of both systems. For example a migrant worker would travel from Shanghai to Wuhan riding D train, then transfer at Wuhan for a conventional regional train to get to his/her hometown.
> 
> 
> 
> No, all added HSR trains get their corresponding temporary G, C, D numbers. In fact many HSR lines are running at a reduced schedule before the New Year, so the added trains merely fills up the suspended train numbers. For example Beijing-Shanghai's normal 56 pairs per day schedule is below its capacity, during Chunyun it was increased to 70 pairs per day, what the MOR calls 满图运行 (full chart operation), means fill up the designed schedule. This is to ensure during peak travel hours (8-11AM, 1-4PM) the interval between trains can be 5 minutes at its quickest, and daily average one train per 15 minutes.


L is only for normal trains. Even temporary T trains do have T prefixes.


----------



## hkskyline

*Over 300 trains added Wednesday to cope with Spring Festival travel demand*

BEIJING, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- China's railway authorities said Wednesday that it would put 315 more trains into service on Wednesday to cope with Lunar New Year travel demand, compared with 159 on Tuesday.

About 3.7 million passengers hit the rails on Tuesday, up from 2.29 million on Monday, the Ministry of Railways said in a statement on its website.

The ministry expected a post-festival travel peak on Friday.

The country's trains carried a total of 83.46 million passengers from Jan. 8 to 22, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

The 40-day Spring Festival travel season kicked off on Jan. 8 this year, with hundreds of millions of people, mainly migrant workers and college students, heading home for the most important festival in China.

A total of 3.16 billion passenger trips are expected during the year's travel rush, up 9.1 percent from a year earlier. Of those journeys, 235 million are likely to be made by train, up 6.1 percent year-on-year.

The Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New Year, falls on Jan. 23 this year.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> The country's trains carried a total of 83.46 million passengers from Jan. 8 to 22, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
> 
> The 40-day Spring Festival travel season kicked off on Jan. 8 this year, with hundreds of millions of people, mainly migrant workers and college students, heading home for the most important festival in China.
> 
> A total of 3.16 billion passenger trips are expected during the year's travel rush, up 9.1 percent from a year earlier. Of those journeys, 235 million are likely to be made by train, up 6.1 percent year-on-year.


Evidently the Minister of Railways has not been doing his job to catch up with demand.

How is "full chart operation" defined? By space on railway line, available trains or something else?


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Evidently the Minister of Railways has not been doing his job to catch up with demand.
> 
> How is "full chart operation" defined? By space on railway line, available trains or something else?


By the railway's design capacity, currently a lot of HSR lines are running below capacity until the Chinese New Year travel season. I don't think it applies to conventional railways. The problem is that they are adding capacity each year, but people's travel demand increases too. Chinese railway investment is already astronomical by world standard, and they have started to face financing issues lately. If they increase capacity to cope with Chunyun level demand then during normal time there will be lots of idling assets. In 2010 Chinese railway's daily capacity is 6.2 million, which means during the 40 day Chunyun all travel demand were met. What I have observed this year is that people no longer have problems getting tickets, just not the right type of tickets. In the future the MOR should focus on providing a better product, getting those people with standing tickets a seat, getting people with hard seat tickets a sleeper ticket, etc.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> By the railway's design capacity, currently a lot of HSR lines are running below capacity until the Chinese New Year travel season.


Do trains exist in service to fill the capacity of the line network?


hmmwv said:


> If they increase capacity to cope with Chunyun level demand then during normal time there will be lots of idling assets.


The same applies to other means of travel - airports, planes, roads, buses, cars.


----------



## Sopomon

hmmwv said:


> CSR Zhuzhou developed light rail train starts commercial service at Izmir, Turkey, marks the first time Chinese train maker breaks into the European market.


Well, whether or not Turkey can really be counted as part of 'Europe' is another debate entirely. P.S. I'm not talking geographically.


----------



## Wisarut

FM 2258 said:


> It looks like the tracks are a bit crooked. It probably isn't a high speed rail line. Interesting...


Speed limit on that section is just 120 kph though


----------



## Silly_Walks

FM 2258 said:


> It looks like the tracks are a bit crooked. It probably isn't a high speed rail line. Interesting...


Posts: 3,514


And you do not know rails are first laid approximately into place before they are finally aligned?


----------



## hmmwv

Sopomon said:


> Well, whether or not Turkey can really be counted as part of 'Europe' is another debate entirely. P.S. I'm not talking geographically.


You know it's another debate entirely, so why bring it up here?


----------



## Sopomon

hmmwv said:


> You know it's another debate entirely, so why bring it up here?


Because realistically, it just wouldn't happen within "Europe". Too much protectionism under the banner of "safety concerns" or whatever else they choose to call it.


----------



## gdolniak

*Nanjing West Railway Station soon to be a memory*

Nanjing West Railway Station soon to be a memory
Updated: 2012-03-22 15:42

(chinadaily.com.cn)










University students from Nanjing wear costumes during the years of the Republic of China (1912 - 1949) at Nanjing West Railway Station, Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, on March 21, 2012. The 100-year-old Nanjing West Railway Station plans to suspend passenger trains on March 25, 2012. [Photo/CFP] 










University students from Nanjing wear costumes the years of the Republic of China at Nanjing West Railway Station, Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, on March 21, 2012. [Photo/CFP] 










University students from Nanjing take a group photo at Nanjing West Railway Station, Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, on March 21, 2012. [Photo/CFP]










University students from Nanjing wear costumes the years of the Republic of China at Nanjing West Railway Station, Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, on March 21, 2012. [Photo/CFP] 

_http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2012-03/22/content_14892085.htm_


----------



## hmmwv

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Nanjing West is pretty awesome, definitely one of the icons of the Republic of China.
People in Nanjing are quite fond of the memory of the city as her capital.


----------



## big-dog

Yes. People were gathering to take picture of this century old station. It'll be built into a railway museum.










(pic from 图片sina.com)


----------



## gdolniak

*Century-old Nanjing W. Railway Station to go into history*

More pictures from the People Daily website:

Century-old Nanjing W. Railway Station to go into history
(Xinhua)
08:07, March 23, 2012





































The Nanjing West Railway Station in the capital of Jiangsu Province, which started operation in 1908, plans to stop running passenger trains on March 25, 2012. According to local authorities, the station is likely to be transformed into the city's first railway museum in a few years. (Photo: Xinhua/Dong Jinlin)

_http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/7766347.html_


----------



## hmmwv

They better see through this project because this is where Dr. Sun Yat Sen's coffin arrived, maybe the ROC can also chip in on the renovation cost?


----------



## Silly_Walks

hmmwv said:


> maybe the ROC can also chip in on the renovation cost?


When the PROC accepts it as help from a foreign nation


----------



## krnboy1009

Does China still run those steam engines? Chinese passenger rail fascinates me. running both steam engines and modern HSR at the same time.


----------



## Fan Railer

New High Speed Locomotive rolls off production line (160 km/h)
http://finance.chinanews.com/cj/2012/03-07/3726660.shtml
http://baike.baidu.com/view/8090593.html?fromTaglist


----------



## Silly_Walks

Fan Railer said:


> New High Speed Locomotive rolls off production line (160 km/h)
> http://finance.chinanews.com/cj/2012/03-07/3726660.shtml
> http://baike.baidu.com/view/8090593.html?fromTaglist


160 km/h is not high speed.


----------



## hmmwv

Silly_Walks said:


> When the PROC accepts it as help from a foreign nation


Many Nanjing's historical buildings which used to be ROC government and business offices were restored with partial ROC public/private funding throughout the years in the forms of "donations."



krnboy1009 said:


> Does China still run those steam engines? Chinese passenger rail fascinates me. running both steam engines and modern HSR at the same time.


There is no scheduled commercial passenger services in China that still runs on steam engines.


----------



## hmmwv

Fan Railer said:


> New High Speed Locomotive rolls off production line (160 km/h)
> http://finance.chinanews.com/cj/2012/03-07/3726660.shtml
> http://baike.baidu.com/view/8090593.html?fromTaglist


The article is very informative and it's interesting to note that the car has a camera to monitor the driver's retina to determine whether he's alert. The loco is labeled as 快速 Fast instead of 高速 High Speed which is used to describe sub-high speed railways (140-160km/h).


----------



## Pansori

What are the main spects of the loco? hp/KW, torque, etc?


----------



## foxmulder

Nice looking one.


----------



## hmmwv

Pansori said:


> What are the main spects of the loco? hp/KW, torque, etc?


According to wiki 

Power type	Electric

Builder	Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited , Siemens

Build date	2012-

UIC classification	Co'Co'

Gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)

Wheel diameter	1.250 m (4 ft 1.2 in)

Length	22.446 m (73 ft 7.7 in)

Axle load	21 t (21 long tons; 23 short tons)

Locomotive weight	126 t (124 long tons; 139 short tons)

Electric system	25kV 50Hz AC

Current collection
method	Pantograph

Top speed	160 km/h (99 mph) (Service)
176 km/h (109 mph) (Test)

Power output	7.2 MW (9,700 hp) (continuous)
8.4 MW (11,300 hp) (short-time)

Tractive effort	420 kN (94,000 lbf) (Starting)
324 kN (73,000 lbf) (Continuous)

Locomotive brakes	Regenerative and Pneumatic Disk

Train brakes	Pneumatic


----------



## urbanfan89

hmmwv said:


> Many Nanjing's historical buildings which used to be ROC government and business offices were restored with partial ROC public/private funding throughout the years in the forms of "donations."


Are these "donations" from the Taiwan government or from the Nationalist Party of China? Either way there's a lot of sensitivity.


----------



## big-dog

krnboy1009 said:


> Does China still run those steam engines? Chinese passenger rail fascinates me. running both steam engines and modern HSR at the same time.


in a couple of coal mines and city of Diaobingshan (调兵山).

Diaobingshan is located 100km north of Shenyang. The steam engine park is actually a national AAA tourist area, with 21 steam engines running on the 220km tourist rail tracks.





































source


----------



## Pansori

hmmwv said:


> According to wiki
> 
> Power type	Electric
> 
> Builder	Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company Limited , Siemens
> 
> Build date	2012-
> 
> UIC classification	Co'Co'
> 
> Gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
> 
> Wheel diameter	1.250 m (4 ft 1.2 in)
> 
> Length	22.446 m (73 ft 7.7 in)
> 
> Axle load	21 t (21 long tons; 23 short tons)
> 
> Locomotive weight	126 t (124 long tons; 139 short tons)
> 
> Electric system	25kV 50Hz AC
> 
> Current collection
> method	Pantograph
> 
> Top speed	160 km/h (99 mph) (Service)
> 176 km/h (109 mph) (Test)
> 
> Power output	7.2 MW (9,700 hp) (continuous)
> 8.4 MW (11,300 hp) (short-time)
> 
> Tractive effort	420 kN (94,000 lbf) (Starting)
> 324 kN (73,000 lbf) (Continuous)
> 
> Locomotive brakes	Regenerative and Pneumatic Disk
> 
> Train brakes	Pneumatic


Thanks. It's quite a beast.


----------



## General Huo

This is the first version of Super-long Railway Tunnels in China that is operational or u/c. The Super-long Road Tunnels in China is list in Chinese Highway thread

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=89799606&postcount=1924

The top 10
# Name (Chinese) Province Length km (mi) Tubextrack Year Completed Line(Chinese)

1. New Guanjiao Tunnel (新关角隧道) Qinghai 32.645 km (20.3 mi) 2x1 u/c Xining-Golmud Railway （青藏铁路）

2. West Qinling Tunnel (西秦岭隧道) Gansu 28.24 km (17.5 mi) 2x1 2013 Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway（兰渝铁路）

3. Taihang Tunnel (太行山隧道) Shanxi 27.9 km (17.3 mi) 2x1 2007 Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan High-Speed Railway（石太客专）

4. South Lüliangshan Tunnel (南吕梁山隧道) Shanxi 23.4647 km (14.6 mi) 2x1 2014 Shanxi Central-South Railway (山西中南部铁路) 2tubes, 23.4647 km (14.6 mi) & 23.441 km (14.6 mi)

5. Middle Tianshan Tunnel (中天山隧道) Xinjiang 22.452 km (14.0 mi) 2x1 2012 Turpan-Kuqa 2nd Line Railway（南疆铁路土库二线）

6. Qingyunshan Tunnel （青云山隧道）Fujian 22.175 km (13.8 mi) 2x1 2012 Xiangtang-Putian Railway（向莆铁路）

7.Wushaoling Tunnel (乌鞘岭隧道) Gansu 21.1 km (13.1 mi) 2x1 2006 Lanzhou - Ürümqi Railway（兰新铁路）

8. Lüliangshan Tunnel (吕梁山隧道) Shanxi 20.800 km (12.925 mi) 2x1 2010 Taiyuan - Zhongwei - Yinchuan Railway（太中银铁路）

9. Muzhailing Tunnel (木寨岭隧道) Gansu 19.08 km (11.86 mi) 2x1 2013 Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway（兰渝铁路）

10. Qinling Tunnel （秦岭隧道）Shaanxi 18.460 km (11.5 mi) 2x1 2002 Xi'an - Ankang Railway（西康铁路）


----------



## Howard105

So in five years it will be possible to get from HK to Shanghai in ten hours!


----------



## General Huo

#11-20

11. Shilin Tunnel （石林隧道） Yunnan 18.218 km (11.3 mi) 1x2 u/c Kunming - Nanning Railway（云桂铁路）

12. Taihangshan Tunnel (太行山隧道) Shanxi,Henan 18.125 km (11.3 mi) 2x1 2014 Shanxi Central-South Railway (山西中南部通道)

13. Xuefengshan Tunnel （雪峰山隧道）Fujian 17.892 km (11.1 mi) 2x1 2012 Xiangtang-Putian Railway（向莆铁路）

14. Xiuling Tunnel （秀岭隧道）Yunnan 17.623 km (11.0 mi) 2x1 2013 Dali-Ruili Railway (大瑞铁路）

15. Gaoganshan Tunnel （高盖山隧道）Fujian 17,612 km (10,943.6 mi) 2x1 2012 Xiangtang-Putian Railway（向莆铁路）

16. Zhongtiaoshan Tunnel (中条山隧道) Shanxi 17.35 km (10.8 mi) 2x1 u/c Yuncheng-Sanmengxia Railway (运三铁路)

17. Yongshouliang Tunnel （永寿梁隧道）Shaanxi 17.16 km (10.7 mi) 1x1 2012 Xi'an-Pingliang Railway (西平铁路)

18. Liupanshan Tunnel (六盘山隧道) Gansu 16.719 km (10.4 mi) 1x1 2012 Tianshui-Pingliang Railway (天平铁路)

19. Hadapu Tunnel (哈达铺隧道) Gansu 16.6 km (10.3 mi) 2x1 2013 Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway（兰渝铁路）

20. Taiyueshan Tunnel (太岳山隧道) Shanxi 16.194 km (10.1 mi) 2x1 2014 Shanxi Central-South Railway (山西中南部通道)


----------



## General Huo

#21-30
21. Fajiushan Tunnel (发鸠山隧道) Shanxi 16.007 km (9.9 mi) 2x1 2014 Shanxi Central-South Railway (山西中南部通道)

22. Xiangshan Tunnel (象山隧道) Fujian 15.901 km (9.880 mi) 2x1 2011 Longyan-Xiamen Railway (龙厦铁路)

23. Erqingshan Tunnel (二青山隧道) Shanxi 15.851 km (9.8 mi) 2x1 2013 Taiyuan-Xingxian Railway (太兴铁路)

24. Heishan Tunnel (黑山隧道) Gansu 15.764 km (9.795 mi) 2x1 2013 Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway（兰渝铁路）

25. Daiyunshan Tunnel （戴云山隧道）Fujian 15.623 km (9.7 mi) 2x1 2012 Xiangtang-Putian Railway（向莆铁路）

26. Guanshan Tunnel (关山隧道) Gansu 15.55 km (9.7 mi) 1x1 2012 Tianshui-Pingliang Railway (天平铁路)

27. Liulangshan Tunnel (六狼山隧道) Shanxi 15.175 km (9.4 mi) 1x2 2012 Zhungeer-Shuozhou Railway (准朔铁路)

28. Maotianshan Tunnel (冒天山隧道) Shaanxi 14.915 km (9.3 mi) 1x1 2011 Baotou-Xi'an Railway (包西铁路)

29. Dapoling Tunnel （大坡岭隧道）Yunnan 14.728 km (9.2 mi) 2x1 2013 Dali-Ruili Railway (大瑞铁路)

30. Bibanpo Tunnel （壁板坡隧道）Yunnan 14.7 km (9.1 mi) 2x1 2015 Shanghai-Kunming HSR （沪昆高铁）


----------



## General Huo

#31-40

31. Yanshan Tunnel （岩山隧道）Guizhou 14.695 km (9.1 mi) 2x1 Guiyang-Guangzhou HSR（贵广高铁)

32. Wuyishan Tunnel （武夷山隧道）Fujian 14.659 km (9.1 mi) 1x2 2012 Xiangtang-Putian Railway（向莆铁路

33. Dazhushan Tunnel （大柱山隧道）Yunnan 14.625 km (9.1 mi) 2x1 2013 Dali-Ruili Railway (大瑞铁路)

34. Sandu Tunnel （三都隧道）Guizhou 14.598 km (9.1 mi) 2x1 u/c Guiyang-Guangzhou HSR (贵广高铁)

35. Tianchiping Tunnel （天池坪隧道）Gansu 14.528 km (9.0 mi) 2x1 Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway （兰渝铁路）

36. Dayaoshan Tunnel (大瑶山隧道) Guangdong 14.295 km (8.883 mi) 1x2 1987 Beijing - Guangzhou Railroad（京广铁路）

37. Jinguashan Tunnel（金瓜山隧道）Fujian 14.097 km (8.8 mi) 2x1 2012 Xiangtang-Putian)（向莆铁路）

38. YanmengguanTunnel（雁门关隧道）Shanxi 14.085 km (8.8 mi) 1x2 u/c North Datong-Puzhouzhen（北同蒲铁路）

39. Tianpingshan Tunnel （天平山隧道）Guangxi 14.012 km (8.7 mi) 1x2 u/cGuiyang-Guangzhou HSR (贵广高铁)

40. Tongmashan Tunnel （同马山隧道）Guizhou 13.929 km (8.7 mi) 1x2 u/c Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway (贵广高铁)


----------



## General Huo

#41-50

41. Yesanguan Tunnel （野三关隧道）Hubei 13.838 km (8.6 mi) 2x1 2009Yichang-Wanzhou Railway (宜万铁路)

42. Baofengshan Tunnel （宝峰山隧道）Guangxi 13.708 km (8.5 mi) 2x1 u/c Guiyang-Guangzhou HSR (贵广高铁)

43. Humaling Tunnel （胡麻岭隧道）Gansu 13.611 km (8.5 mi) 2x1 2013 Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway （兰渝铁路）

44. North Tianshan Tunnel （北天山隧道）Xinjiang 13.610 km (8.5 mi) 2x1 2009 Jinghe-Yining-Huo Erguosi Railway (精伊霍铁路)

45. Wanshoushan Tunnel （万寿山隧道）Chongqing 13.468 km (8.4 mi) 2x1 2012 Chongqing-Lichuan Railway (渝利铁路)

46. Shanyang Tunnel （杉阳隧道）Yunnan 13.465 km (8.4 mi) 2x1 2013 Dali-Ruili Railway (大瑞铁路)

47. Changhongling Tunnel （长洪岭隧道）Yunnan 13.294 km (8.3 mi) 2012 Chongqing-Lichuan Railway (渝利铁路)

48. Dabieshan Tunnel （大别山隧道）Hubei 13.256 km (8.2 mi) 1x2 2008 Hefei-Wuhan High Speed Railway (合武铁路)

49. Anlu Tunnel （安禄隧道）Yunnan 13.187 km (8.2 mi) 2008 Guanglu-Kunming Railway (广昆铁路)

50. Xiapu Tunnel （霞浦隧道）Fujian 13.099 km (8.1 mi) 1x2 2009 Wenzhou-Fuzhou Railway (温福铁路)


----------



## foxmulder

Thanks for that interesting list General Huo. Nice info.


----------



## hmmwv

Very nice list of long railway tunnels, I didn't realize railway tunnels are that much longer than highway tunnels in China. I would have imagined that there are a lot more long tunnels on the Yichang-Wanzhou line but I guess I'm wrong.


----------



## Coccodrillo

^^ Railway tunnels don't have the same ventilation (if used by electric trains) and safety (in general) problems of road tunnels, and new railways are as long as possible built with not much more than 1.5% slopes (compared to 5% for motorways) so as not to reduce performance (trains can handle 5% slopes, and even 9% or more, but then their performance drops - in Europe, the same load towed by a single loco on 1% requires 3 locos on 3%, for example).


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Howard105 said:


> So in five years it will be possible to get from HK to Shanghai in ten hours!


In 5 years? 
Meaning March 2017?

Figuring out the plans and schedules:
1st of April, 2012 - opening direct trains Longhua-Wuhan, 300 km/h on 350 km/h line, fastest train 4:13.

High speed line, 250 km/h, Wuhan-Nanjing exists, but no direct trains travel Guangzhou-Wuhan-Shanghai. When shall such trains start?

In which year shall Longhua-Futian high speed railway and Futian Station open?

Late in 2012, 350 km/h Hangzhou-Ningbo high speed railway opens. After such opening, what shall be the best direct train times Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo-Xiamen?

When in 2013 is Longhua-Xiamen high speed railway due to open?

In 2013, shall any direct trains from Futian station reverse in Longhua Station and continue to Xiamen, Fuzhou and Shanghai? What shall be the best direct train time Futian-Hongqiao?

How is the progress of the 350 km/h railway Hangzhou-Nanchang-Changsha? In which year shall it open?

In which year shall Futian-West Kowloon High Speed Railway and West Kowloon Station open? 2015 or 2016?

After West Kowloon-Futian High Speed Railway and Changsha-Nanchang-Hangzhou High Speed Railway shall have opened, what shall be the best express direct train time West Kowloon-Futian-Longhua-Guangzhou South-Changsha-Nanchang-Hangzhou-Hongqiao?


----------



## hmmwv

Couple more HXD1D, it's said to be undergoing oval track tests in Beijing.


----------



## Silly_Walks

Cool loco, looks very German.


----------



## Sopomon

hmmwv said:


>



Do I see an old China Star Loco in the background?


----------



## foxmulder

Yes, I think so.


----------



## hmmwv

The one in the background is actually the DJJ1 Blue Arrow loco, recently returned to the tech center from service at Chengdu Railway Bureau.


----------



## hmmwv

Silly_Walks said:


> Cool loco, looks very German.


Well, the shell is actually entirely Chinese design, but the original HXD1 (quite different from the current HXD1D) has its roots in the Siemens EuroSprinter.


----------



## hmmwv

At the test track


----------



## Stainless

^^^ That image is enormous. Please shrink it, it is probably bigger than any monitor you can buy!


----------



## General Huo

The TBM drilling of Middle Tianshan Tunnel
source: http://www.cnteg.com/Image/View/27.aspx

















































































Middle Tianshan Tunnel (中天山隧道) Xinjiang 22.452 km (14.0 mi) 2x1 2012 Turpan-Kuqa 2nd Line Railway（南疆铁路土库二线）


----------



## hmmwv

Must be a pain to assemble and later disassemble the TBM at a location like this.


----------



## IanCleverly

Wiki link for Line Information






Documentary wiki link

I remember watching this on BBC Four, when it's 'Storyville' strand of programmes did a fortnight of documentaries on China in 2010.


----------



## hmmwv

HXD3


----------



## hmmwv

http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0225/v...&embedid=MjQuMTcuODkuODACOTA2NTIzMjUCAg==&wd=

Video of HXD1D's launch, shows the retina checking camera, it can accelerate the train to 160km/h in 5 minutes, will replace existing SS6 and SS9 electric locos.


----------



## gdolniak

*China's railways carry 453m in Q1*

A little bit of statistics.



> China's railways carry 453m in Q1
> Updated: 2012-04-08 15:24
> (Xinhua)
> 
> BEIJING - China's railways transported some 453.25 million passengers during the first quarter of the year, up 0.7 percent from a year earlier, official data showed Sunday.
> And the railways delivered 998.61 million metric tons of goods during the January-March period, up 3.2 percent year-on-year, according to a report posted on the railways ministry's website.
> To meet the demand of industrial production and the people's basic needs, the ministry has prioritized the delivery of major essential goods, according to the report.
> In breakup, the country's railways transported 594.07 million tonnes of coal, 34.62 million tonnes of oil, 27.1 million tonnes of grain and 27.58 million tonnes of fertilizers and pesticides in the first three months.
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-04/08/content_14999772.htm


I wonder what would be the break-up between the conventional train services and the high speed train services on the corresponding lines. I mean how many passengers did the high speed trains "stole" from the "old" lines. Anyone has a link to the more detailed stats?


----------



## gdolniak

*The little train that could*

*The little train that could*
Updated: 2012-04-13 07:55

(chinadaily.com.cn)










The public takes a last look on Thursday at a subway train that is being mothballed after 41 years of service in Beijing. The train, which had been running on Line 1 of the Beijing Metro since 1971, predated air-conditioning on subway cars. Some of its cars will be auctioned. [Photo/CFP] 










The public takes a last look on Thursday at a subway train that is being mothballed after 41 years of service in Beijing. [Photo/CFP]










The public takes a last look on Thursday at a subway train that is being mothballed after 41 years of service in Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]










The train is being mothballed after 41 years of service in Beijing. [Photo/CFP]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2012-04/13/content_15036794.htm


----------



## hmmwv

It's quite remarkable that those 1970s subway cars were still in use on Beijing Metro lines, they must be built like tank back then. I very much doubt today's cars can last that long.


----------



## NCT

hmmwv said:


> It's quite remarkable that those 1970s subway cars were still in use on Beijing Metro lines, they must be built like tank back then. I very much doubt today's cars can last that long.


It's quite normal to have old stock running on urban rail lines. London's A-stock is 50+ years old, and I'm pretty sure there are similar examples in the States too. If anything I'd expect modern stock to be built to higher standards.


----------



## Silly_Walks

NCT said:


> It's quite normal to have old stock running on urban rail lines. London's A-stock is 50+ years old, and I'm pretty sure there are similar examples in the States too. If anything I'd expect modern stock to be built to higher standards.


Agreed, this lifespan seems to be pretty normal around the world. Amsterdam's rolling stock dates back to 1976 and those are to be replaced by 2015.


----------



## hmmwv

The trains on Shanghai Metro line 2 are already been moved to more rural lines due to their wear and tear. You can just see things are starting to fall apart on the remaining original trains.


----------



## NCT

hmmwv said:


> The trains on Shanghai Metro line 2 are already been moved to more rural lines due to their wear and tear. You can just see things are starting to fall apart on the remaining original trains.


AFAIR all new lines have dedicated new trains, apart from the odd Bombardier units on Line 9 that came from Line 1. All other trains used on lines 1 and 2 have stayed on those links I think. There might have been talks about rationalising the Siemans and the Alstom trains on Lines 1 and 2, but my memory is fuzzy now. I can't think of any lines that have cascaded stock from Line 2.


----------



## hmmwv

NCT said:


> AFAIR all new lines have dedicated new trains, apart from the odd Bombardier units on Line 9 that came from Line 1. All other trains used on lines 1 and 2 have stayed on those links I think. There might have been talks about rationalising the Siemans and the Alstom trains on Lines 1 and 2, but my memory is fuzzy now. I can't think of any lines that have cascaded stock from Line 2.


I was thinking about the older trains I saw on Line 9, most of the trains on Line 2 are new one now so the older trains have to go somewhere, right? Unless they increased frequencies now so I simply see more new trains because the absolute number of trains on that line increased.

Alright did some quick research and my understanding is that the older Siemens train became less trainsets when they reorganized them into eight car trainsets. Some spare motor/control cars went to line 1. Now most of the trains are CSR Puzhen Alstom made ones. They all have a 30 year designed life.


----------



## hmmwv

HXD1D cockpit, note its infamous driver retina camera.


----------



## Silly_Walks

What if the retina camera stops working... will the train not move? ^_^


----------



## hmmwv

I think it only provides visual and audio warning if it detects the driver's been distracted or fallen asleep. Maybe it'll also ring the dispatch so they can attempt to establish communication with the driver too. IIRC Chinese drivers also assigned a personal IC card which contains personal identification information and their daily schedules (routes, speed limits, stops, etc) so any detection by the camera could be used against the driver's record.


----------



## foxmulder

Lovely machines.


----------



## bagus70

Is that a locomotive or EMU?


----------



## Silly_Walks

bagus70 said:


> Is that a locomotive or EMU?


Which one? The locomotive? :lol:


----------



## Gag Halfrunt

^^ The HXD1D (the cab interior photos) is a locomotive.


----------



## bagus70

>


What is the function of that equipment?


----------



## hmmwv

bagus70 said:


> What is the function of that equipment?


See post 4631-4633.


----------



## hmmwv

China to see railways investment slightly higher than last year
By liyuchuan | 2012-04-20 13:20
CSJ--Friday, April 20, 2012
http://www.cs.com.cn/english/ei/201204/t20120420_3324973.html

China`s railways investment tends to be eased as the commercial banks began to lend fresh money to the railway projects in the second quarter. Some industrial insiders said, *the railway investment might exceed the annual plan if the capital is available*.

The Ministry of Railways had applied for issuing bonds 150 billion yuan while the main railway construction funds is from commercial lenders.

The Ministry of Railways had planned fix assets investment 516 billion yuan in 2011, but it completed investment only 53 billion in the first quarter, according to the data of Nation Bureau of Statistics.


----------



## krnboy1009

Does China still use steam engine trains? If so where?


----------



## yaohua2000

krnboy1009 said:


> Does China still use steam engine trains? If so where?


Only on some industry lines, such as coal mines etc. The last regular passenger steam engine in China retired in December 2005 on the Jitong Line.


----------



## Rail1435

*New HXD1d*

Thanks for pictures and technical data.

Has anybody values of bogie-wheelbase and distance between pivots?

Has anybody an elevation plan of this locomotive, or type-drawing?

Perhaps also the same for HXD1c or HXD1b?


----------



## gdolniak

yaohua2000 said:


> Only on some industry lines, such as coal mines etc. The last regular passenger steam engine in China (also in the world) retired in December 2005 on the Jitong Line.


There is still a daily steam train in Poland on the Wolsztyn - Poznan route. Also, don't forget the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. It also operates a daily steam trains. Jitong Line was not the last one in the world.


----------



## hkskyline

yaohua2000 said:


> Only on some industry lines, such as coal mines etc. The last regular passenger steam engine in China (also in the world) retired in December 2005 on the Jitong Line.


This one is still running in Sichuan :


----------



## krnboy1009

yaohua2000 said:


> Only on some industry lines, such as coal mines etc. The last regular passenger steam engine in China (also in the world) retired in December 2005 on the Jitong Line.


Ah thats a shame. Would have been interesting. So they use diesel for non electrified passenger lines huh?


----------



## yaohua2000

gdolniak said:


> There is still a daily steam train in Poland on the Wolsztyn - Poznan route. Also, don't forget the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. It also operates a daily steam trains. Jitong Line was not the last one in the world.


I mean on national trunk railways for passenger transport. This does not include joy trains, tourist trains, and etc. You can always run a steam train in your backyard. India retired their steam engine much earlier than China, in fact, I think it was in 1995 or 1996. The Jiayang steam train (the youtube video in last post) does not run on national railways.


----------



## gdolniak

yaohua2000 said:


> I mean on national trunk railways for passenger transport. This does not include joy trains, tourist trains, and etc. You can always run a steam train in your backyard. India retired their steam engine much earlier than China, in fact, I think it was in 1995 or 1996. The Jiayang steam train (the youtube video in last post) does not run on national railways.


Yes, I know what you mean. The steam train in Poland is a daily, commuter train on a standard gauge track, not a joy ride and not a tourist train.

In Darjeeling (narrow gauge), due to the age, steam locomotives still run daily trains on a shortened distance. Longer distances are operated by diesel.

Both of the trains above run on the national railways network.


----------



## gdolniak

*Chinese high-power locomotives exported to Europe*



> *Chinese high-power locomotives exported to Europe*
> Updated: 2012-04-24 09:49
> 
> BEIJING - A Chinese locomotive maker announced on Monday it has exported two electric locomotives to Belarus, marking the first time China-made freight locomotives have been exported to Europe.
> 
> Datong Electric Locomotive Co Ltd (DEC), a subsidiary of China North Locomotive and Rolling Corp Ltd, said the event also represented the first export of China's high-power electric locomotives overseas.
> 
> In 2010, DEC won a bid to provide 12 electric locomotives to Belarus. They are all set to be delivered this year. Designed to reach a speed of 120 km per hour, the locomotives will be used for freight transportation.
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-04/24/content_15123155.htm


Anybody knows what locomotives are those?


----------



## bagus70

Where is the best and most scenic place to do trainspotting in China?


----------



## yaohua2000

bagus70 said:


> Where is the best and most scenic place to do trainspotting in China?


Define "best" and "most scenic".


----------



## bagus70

Best that means the place is easily accessible yet it provide us with natural and breathtaking scenery.

Most scenic....well...I've just realized that it has a very diverse meaning, considering the diverse scenery in China itself......

Well, what about trainspotting with mountain scenery?


----------



## hmmwv

gdolniak said:


> Anybody knows what locomotives are those?


CNR Datong customized Sino-Belarus Freight I electric locomotive. 9600kw, 1520mm gauge, 120km/h.


----------



## hkskyline

*Thousands stranded, trains suspended by heavy winds*

URUMQI, April 22 (Xinhua) -- Strong winds have affected northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region since Sunday morning, disrupting seven trains and leaving around 7,000 of passengers stranded.

The strong winds swept through Xinjiang at about 5:17 a.m. Sunday, with wind speeds reaching 117 km per hour from Turpan to Yuergou, according to Urumqi Railways Bureau.

Trains and passengers have been stranded in stations along the Southern Xinjiang Railway Kashi-Turpan route, including Yuergou, Hejing and Wangbu.

The railways bureau of Urumqi has launched emergency measures and contacted the stranded staff to ensure passengers are kept warm, and have enough access to water.

The bureau confirmed that traffic hasn't yet resumed, as wind speeds remain too strong.


----------



## sekelsenmat

gdolniak said:


> Yes, I know what you mean. The steam train in Poland is a daily, commuter train on a standard gauge track, not a joy ride and not a tourist train.


I don't think so, see an example of the actual Poznan - Wolsztyn train. Does not look a steam train to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3oiVZohDMs

I think you either have outdated information or you are confusing it with the "Pirate train", which is a touristic train which goes from Poznan to the sea. But that is a weekends touristic train. Although it does make a rather long and useful track so it can also be useful for regular touristic trips like if it was a main rail line.


----------



## krnboy1009

gdolniak said:


> Yes, I know what you mean. The steam train in Poland is a daily, commuter train on a standard gauge track, not a joy ride and not a tourist train.


Really? Whats the ridership like?


----------



## gdolniak

sekelsenmat said:


> I don't think so, see an example of the actual Poznan - Wolsztyn train. Does not look a steam train to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3oiVZohDMs
> 
> I think you either have outdated information or you are confusing it with the "Pirate train", which is a touristic train which goes from Poznan to the sea. But that is a weekends touristic train. Although it does make a rather long and useful track so it can also be useful for regular touristic trips like if it was a main rail line.


"Pirate train" is a complete different story. Apart from the steam, they also have the railbuses running on this line (as seen on your youtube video).

Some links for more information:

http://parowozowniawolsztyn.pl/home/lang/en
http://www.thewolsztynexperience.org/
http://wikitravel.org/en/Wolsztyn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rUmwU7KbSE


----------



## gdolniak

krnboy1009 said:


> Really? Whats the ridership like?


I don't know. What I know, the line is heavily subsidized so the steam trains can run on this route.


----------



## Rail1435

*Belarus locomotives*

They will be quite same as HXD1. Only 1520mm instead of 1435 gauge, and security system for Belarus.


----------



## skyridgeline

bagus70 said:


> Best that means the place is easily accessible yet it provide us with natural and breathtaking scenery.
> 
> Most scenic....well...I've just realized that it has a very diverse meaning, considering the diverse scenery in China itself......
> 
> Well, what about trainspotting with mountain scenery?


This is surreal.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

> Where is the best and most scenic place to do trainspotting in China?


Well this is certainly not the best or most scenic place, but I would sure like to watch trains here, look at how close you can get to them! (Ning'an City in Heilongjiang Province)











Definitely scenic, but alas, a sight you can see no more. Taken 7 years ago.


----------



## phoenixboi08

k.k.jetcar said:


> Well this is certainly not the best or most scenic place, but I would sure like to watch trains here, look at how close you can get to them! (Ning'an City in Heilongjiang Province)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Definitely scenic, but alas, a sight you can see no more. Taken 7 years ago.


I'd pass out...I get creeped out when metro stations don't have a barrier between the platform and tracks lol


----------



## gdolniak

*Railways handle heavy traffic as holiday begins*

A series of articles about the railway passenger traffic in China during the long weekend (May 1st holiday).

Before the holiday:



> *Railways handle heavy traffic as holiday begins*
> Updated: 2012-04-30 07:12
> (Xinhua)
> 
> BEIJING - As the three-day International Labor Day holiday begins in China, a record number of 8.2 million passengers traveled by train on Sunday, China's Ministry of Railways said.
> 
> In response to the surge in passengers, the ministry arranged 303 extra trains on Sunday to provide sufficient transport capacity.
> 
> The ministry on Friday predicted that the country's railway network will carry around 31.1 million passengers during the holiday.
> 
> This year's International Labor Day holiday runs from Sunday to Tuesday.
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-04/30/content_15176385.htm


After the holiday:



> *Railways see record traffic in Labor Day holiday*
> Updated: 2012-05-02 00:16
> (Xinhua)
> 
> BEIJING - China's Ministry of Railways said Tuesday the country's railways carried a record high of nearly 30 million passengers during the International Labor Day holiday.
> 
> The ministry said a total of 29.99 million people traveled by train during the four days from Saturday to Tuesday, up 1.32 million, or 4.6 percent from the same period last year.
> 
> On Tuesday alone, train passengers rose 6.2 percent from a year earlier to 8.05 million.
> 
> This year, the International Labor Day holiday in China runs from Sunday to Tuesday.
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-05/02/content_15182286.htm


Maybe a record, but it was almost 4% lower than earlier, predicted number of travelers.


----------



## hkskyline

Didn't they reform the May Day holiday just recently - shortening it from the week-long break? Would past years' results be comparable?


----------



## gdolniak

hkskyline said:


> Didn't they reform the May Day holiday just recently - shortening it from the week-long break? Would past years' results be comparable?


I was trying to do some search for last year's statistics, but with no success. I wonder about the data too. It would be great to compare them.


----------



## gdolniak

*Heavy-haul railway to link Shanxi to sea outlet*



> *Heavy-haul railway to link Shanxi to sea outlet*
> Updated: 2012-05-05 14:56
> (Xinhua)
> 
> ZHENGZHOU - Construction on a heavy-haul railway that will link major coal producers in Shanxi province with a sea outlet in eastern Shandong province began on Saturday.
> 
> The Luliang-Rizhao freight railway, being built with an investment of 99.8 billion yuan ($15.8 billion), will run through the provinces of Shanxi, Henan and Shandong at a total length of 1,260 km.
> 
> The railway is expected to ease road traffic bottlenecks created by transporting large amounts of coal from Shanxi to coastal areas.
> 
> The railway is slated to go into operation by 2014 with an annual transportation capacity of 200 million tonnes of coal.
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-05/05/content_15217201.htm


Anyone can share a map with the above mentioned Luliang-Rizhao line?


----------



## big-dog

an article I come cross...

China’s Land Bridge to Turkey Creates New Eurasian Geopolitical Potentials 



>


----------



## gdolniak

big-dog said:


> an article I come cross...
> 
> China’s Land Bridge to Turkey Creates New Eurasian Geopolitical Potentials
> [...]


Interesting how the Kunming - Delhi "high speed line" skips Dhaka and Calcutta by few hundred kilometers and the northern spur through Ulan-Bator is surely to generate lots of traffic...


----------



## gramercy

these are pipe dreams


----------



## foxmulder

Xian-Urimqi line and Turkey's high speed construction makes things easier.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

gdolniak said:


> Interesting how the Kunming - Delhi "high speed line" skips Dhaka and Calcutta by few hundred kilometers


That one makes a little sense - not including Bangladesh.

Others are worse.

Regarding low speed railways - exactly how is Khorgos-Zhetigen progressing on Kazakh side?


----------



## skyridgeline

chornedsnorkack said:


> That one makes a little sense - *not including Bangladesh*.
> 
> Others are worse.


"Transport*politic*" ... Bangladesh used to be "East Pakistan"(was a provincial state of Pakistan), an area India helped to "liberate".

"others are worse"? ... I think of it as paths of least resistance and that Europe and the "Middle East" are the prime connection points.


----------



## gdolniak

*Railway passengers hit 606m in first 4 months*

*Railway passengers hit 606m in first 4 months*
Updated: 2012-05-07 13:17
(Xinhua)

BEIJING - A total of 606.48 million people traveled via China's railways during the first four months of 2012, a year-on-year increase of 2.8 percent, the Ministry of Railways said on Sunday.

Passenger numbers increased the most in April due to rising travel demand during the Qingming Festival (April 2 to 4) and Labor Day holiday (April 28 to May 1), the ministry said.

The number of passengers traveling on trains rose 8.6 percent year-on-year in April, 7.4 percentage points higher than the growth registered in the first quarter, the ministry said.

Railways carried 1.33 billion tonnes of cargo in the first four months, up 3.8 percent from the previous year, the ministry added.

The ministry said it has increased support for the transport of important production materials and living necessities such as coal, grain, oil and chemical fertilizer.

The railways carried 785.34 million tonnes of coal, up 6.6 percent year-on-year in the first four months, while the transport of grain increased 15 percent to 35.96 million tonnes during the period, the ministry said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-05/07/content_15225609.htm


----------



## Silly_Walks

skyridgeline said:


> "Transport*politic*" ... Bangladesh used to be "East Pakistan"(was a provincial state of Pakistan), an area India helped to "liberate".


wtf does this have to do with anything in this thread?

Talk about trains, not names of countries.


----------



## sekelsenmat

Silly_Walks said:


> wtf does this have to do with anything in this thread?
> 
> Talk about trains, not names of countries.


It has a lot to do with the alignment of the proposed line, it is a valid theory. Althought I doubt that that boicotting Bangladesh was the real reason for the alignment. I think that these plans are so raw and unrealistic that whoever made the map probably didn't think so much and skipped the region for no good reason. I doubt it was a deliberate attempt to sideline Bangladesh. Just look at other big mistakes in the map, like the previous one even had a magical crossing over the caspian sea.

In general I think that China-Europe railway via India or Uzbequistan is non-sense. Most countries in this region are poor. I think that the most logical path is going inside China itself as eastmost as possible to Urumqi first.

From Urumqi it could to Almaty, an economic center in Kazakhstan. And from there go through the south cities of Kazakhstan, then to Atyrau and from there to Volvograd. From Volvograd the path to Europe is clear.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

sekelsenmat said:


> In general I think that China-Europe railway via India or Uzbequistan is non-sense. Most countries in this region are poor. I think that the most logical path is going inside China itself as eastmost as possible to Urumqi first.
> 
> From Urumqi it could to Almaty, an economic center in Kazakhstan. And from there go through the south cities of Kazakhstan, then to Atyrau and from there to Volvograd. From Volvograd the path to Europe is clear.


Urumqi-Almaty railway is under construction now - the Khorgos-Zhetigen line. What is the state of progress?

Building in poor countries makes sense. They are not buying much Chinese goods, but the land for railway building is cheap to buy, builders cheap to hire, and they can themselves sell cheap products of labour or nature to China.

Railway though Kasakhstan to Russia already exists. It is a short cut to the detour via Transmanchurian - but it still goes through Russia.

If all railways between China and Europe go through Russia, Russia gets to charge monopoly price. It follows that China needs a railway to Europe around Russia, and because of Caspian Sea this means a railway through Iran.

Regarding the detour through Mongolia, it makes little sense to connect China Proper - there already are Transmanchurian railway direct to Russia and Transmongolian shortcut.

But how about more connections to Outer Mongolia itself? Is China building any new railways to Outer Mongolia, for example to mines there?


----------



## sekelsenmat

^^^ Now it makes much more sense. From Almaty it could reach Europe via Uzbequistan, Iran and Turkey. I wonder if that line to Almaty is being built in standard gauge. If yes, then with some more building one could make all the way from China to Europe in standard gauge.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

sekelsenmat said:


> ^^^ Now it makes much more sense. From Almaty it could reach Europe via Uzbequistan, Iran and Turkey.


Uzbekistan and Iran do not have a border.

The shortest route would go via Turkmenistan.


sekelsenmat said:


> I wonder if that line to Almaty is being built in standard gauge. If yes, then with some more building one could make all the way from China to Europe in standard gauge.


I understand that the break of gauge would be in Khorgos. Narrow gauge railway into Kazakhstan is yet to be started.

I see that in Inner Mongolia, a railway to Arxan is depicted.

Would building a railway Arxan-Choibalsan make sense?


----------



## foxmulder

China's railways handle 606 mln passengers in first 4 months



> BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- A total of 606.48 million people traveled via China's railways during the first four months of 2012, a year-on-year increase of 2.8 percent, the Ministry of Railways said Sunday.
> 
> Passenger numbers increased the most in April due to rising travel demand during the Qingming Festival (April 2 to 4) and Labor Day holiday (April 28 to May 1), the ministry said.
> 
> The number of passengers traveling on trains rose 8.6 percent year-on-year in April, 7.4 percentage points higher than the growth registered in the first quarter, the ministry said.
> 
> Railways carried 1.33 billion tonnes of cargo in the first four months, up 3.8 percent from the previous year, the ministry added.
> 
> The ministry said it has increased support for the transport of important production materials and living necessities such as coal, grain, oil and chemical fertilizer.
> 
> The railways carried 785.34 million tonnes of coal, up 6.6 percent year-on-year in the first four months, while the transport of grain increased 15 percent to 35.96 million tonnes during the period, the ministry said.


----------



## gdolniak

chornedsnorkack said:


> Uzbekistan and Iran do not have a border.
> 
> [...]
> 
> I understand that the break of gauge would be in Khorgos. Narrow gauge railway into Kazakhstan is yet to be started.
> 
> [...]


Narrow gauge? China has standard gauge, ex-USSR countries broad gauge.


----------



## gdolniak

foxmulder said:


> China's railways handle 606 mln passengers in first 4 months


Following this ^^ and my earlier post:

606 mln in first 4 months:
606 / (31 + 29 + 30 + 31) days = 606 mln / 121 days ~= 5 mln / day​
Following the International Labor Day statistics (see my another earlier post):

29.99 mln in 4 day period, Saturday - Tuesday

Saturday, April 28th = ? (it was a working day, afternoon/evening could see increased traffic)
Sunday, April 29th = 8.2 mln
Monday, April 30th = ?
Tuesday, May 1st = 8.05 mln

29.99 mln - (8.2 mln + 8.05 mln) = 13.74 mln
13.74 mln / 2 days (Sat + Mon) = 6.87 mln​
Anyone got any links to the official railway statistics? I really wonder, on an average day (excluding any holidays), how many people does the Chinese railway carry.


----------



## gdolniak

*China to restore confidence in high-speed trains*

Cross-post from China | High Speed Rail group (post #3944)



> *China to restore confidence in high-speed trains*
> Updated: 2012-05-09 10:56
> (Xinhua)
> 
> BEIJING - China will continue with research and development into its new generation high-speed trains despite the industry's tarnished image due to a spate of operation faults last year, according to a plan for the country's rail traffic equipment manufacturing industry.
> 
> The new generation trains will run at speeds of more than 300 km an hour, according to the five-year plan for the industry for the 2011-2015 period, which was released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Monday.
> 
> The plan underscores the reliability, comfort and maintainability of passenger rail transportation equipment. It requires thorough research and development of key technologies and systems related to rail traffic.
> 
> The fast development of high-speed trains came under question after frequent operation failures and a fatal crash.
> 
> On July 23 last year, a high-speed train slammed into a stalled train near the eastern city of Wenzhou, leaving 40 people dead and 172 injured. The incident was blamed on faulty signaling equipment.
> 
> Construction of high-speed trains and railways cooled sharply after the State Council, or China's cabinet, ordered slower operational speeds in the wake of the crash.
> 
> Trains with a maximum speed of 350 km per hour (kph) were ordered to run no faster than 300 kph, while those with a maximum speed of 250 kph had to run at no more than 200 kph.
> 
> Some analysts then predicted the accident would hamper the nation's exports of high-speed train technologies.
> 
> But contrary to these concerns, China has continued to export a wide range of equipment including electric multiple units, urban rail vehicles, steam locomotives, large road maintenance equipment to many countries such as Russia, Australia, Brazil, India, Argentina, Turkey, Iran and Malaysia.
> 
> "Compared to other high-end equipment manufacturing industries, the high-speed rail sector has a better industry foundation. It is also the easiest in terms of safety control," said Yuan Gangming, a researcher with Tsinghua University.
> 
> From 2006 to 2010, China enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 31.9 percent in the sales value of rail traffic equipments. The nation is capable of producing 2,000 high-power locomotives, 8,000 passenger rail vehicles and 60,000 freight wagons every year.
> 
> Nevertheless, like in other high-end equipment manufacturing industries, the nation lacks independent property rights in the rail transportation equipment sector.
> 
> For instance, about 80 percent of equipment that make integrated circuit chips were imported, according to previous media reports.
> 
> The nation has called for more investment and innovation to boost independent manufacturing. The plan revealed that in 2010, the nation's rail traffic equipment producers put nearly four percent of their sales revenue into research and development of new technologies.
> 
> The plan says that the nation's rail traffic will boom in coming five to 10 years with a large demand for various equipments. It estimates that the nation will consume more than 1,000 electric multiple units and about 5,000 locomotives from 2011 to 2015.
> 
> In recent years, urban rail systems have expanded fast across China as stifling pollution and traffic congestion has become a development bottleneck of the world's second largest economy.
> 
> By the end of 2010, 13 cities opened 49 railways with a mileage of 1,425.5 kilometers. The lines are sprawling. China now tops the world in the construction of urban railways, with an average annual new mileage of 270 kilometers.
> 
> By 2015, the nation's urban rail system will have a total length of more than 2,700 kilometers, the plan says.
> 
> Meanwhile, overseas demand was forecast to grow as many countries are also building new lines or upgrading old ones.
> 
> The global rail traffic equipment market will grow by 3 percent on average each year by 2015, with an annual demand averaging more than 100 billion euros ($130 billion), the plan says, citing forecasts of the Association of the European Rail Industry.
> 
> In the five-year plan, the ministry predicted that the industry's annual sales value will exceed 400 billion yuan ($63 billion) every year and investment by backbone enterprises in research and development will exceed 5 percent of their annual sales by 2015.
> 
> By 2020, the industry's annual sales value would exceed 650 billion yuan and investment in research and development would exceed 6 percent of annual sales, it said.
> 
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-05/09/content_15246909.htm


According to this article, China is still producing and exporting steam locomotives???


----------



## Fan Railer

gdolniak said:


> Cross-post from China | High Speed Rail group (post #3944)
> 
> 
> 
> According to this article, China is still producing and exporting steam locomotives???


Probably just a misinformed addition that was overlooked by editors. No railway is going to be ordering new steam locomotives for any type of revenue service anywhere.


----------



## bagus70

Does anyone know about the streamlines "Asia Express" that used to operate during Japanese occupation days?


----------



## Woonsocket54

Hard sleeper on the Shanghai-Kowloon through train









Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/71805708 (Baycrest panoramio account)









Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/71805707 (Baycrest panoramio account)

Soft sleeper on the Shanghai-Kowloon through train









Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/71805706 (Baycrest panoramio account)









Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/71805705 (Baycrest panoramio account)

Deluxe soft sleeper on the Shanghai-Kowloon through train









Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/71805704 (Baycrest panoramio account)

Dining car interior on Shanghai-Kowloon through train









Source: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/71805702 (Baycrest panoramio account)


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## everywhere

^^ Thanks Woonsocket for the interiors :cheers:


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## everywhere

hmmwv said:


> At the test track


Does CSR has plans to export such units overseas?


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## bagus70

The bogies look Germanic.


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## everywhere

bagus70 said:


> The bogies look Germanic.


But the design is originally Chinese. Its predecessor is of Germanic roots


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## everywhere

From Shanghai Daily (May 11)



> Doubt cast on German high-speed equipment
> 
> Created: 2012-5-11 1:12:57
> Author:Zha Minjie
> 
> 
> A GERMAN railway products maker has been providing substandard equipment for use on China's high-speed railways, a magazine investigation has claimed.
> 
> Cast-in channels produced by Halfen Group would rust easily even before they were incorporated into concrete structures, posing a potential danger, a report in the Century Weekly magazine said.
> 
> The cast-in channels produced by Halfen were first used on a high-speed rail line in 2005. The company soon established a branch in Beijing as the country embarked on rapid rail development.
> 
> The company says its products have been used on more than 20 rail projects in China including the Shanghai-Beijing and Beijing-Tianjin high-speed lines.
> 
> Despite domestic manufacturers developing their own cast-in channels and other relevant technologies, Halfen retains the biggest share of the market, according to the magazine, despite its prices being higher.
> 
> The channels are used to support other equipment like wires, signals and electrical devices. They are supposed to be crush-proof and rust-proof. But the report said that along the under-construction Shanghai-Kunming line, zinc coating on the channels was defective, which would lead to rusting.
> 
> Other sources showed that the products were made in China, not imported from Germany, the report said.
> 
> A video clip acquired by the magazine showed the zinc coating was applied in Chinese factories, it said.
> 
> The German company did not reply yesterday to an e-mailed request from Shanghai Daily for an interview.


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## Silly_Walks

everywhere said:


> From Shanghai Daily (May 11)


So the problem seems to be with some part of the manufacturing process in China... strange how the headline seems to emphasize the German origin of the product.


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## Sopomon

Silly_Walks said:


> So the problem seems to be with some part of the manufacturing process in China... strange how the headline seems to emphasize the German origin of the product.


I was about to say that. Funny how the article makes no mention of where the products are actually made. "Oh but it's German design, it has to be their fault, the glorious hard-working chinese manufacturers couldn't put a foot wrong."


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## skyridgeline

Sopomon said:


> I was about to say that. Funny how the article makes no mention of where the products are actually made. "Oh but it's German design, it has to be their fault, the glorious hard-working chinese manufacturers couldn't put a foot wrong."


Possibly, it's called foreign bashing. Sound familiar? :lol:

But since this is China's market, don't assume the bashing by Caijing is from "Chinese" competitor{s} or interests. The German's main competitors in China are the Americans, Japanese, and some other EU countries.


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## big-dog

The new 25G (red-skin carriage), max speed 120km/h





































- sina weibo


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## everywhere

big-dog said:


> The new 25G (red-skin carriage), max speed 120km/h
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> - sina weibo


DO you have specs for this train?


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## hmmwv

Well the 25G carriage is not new, the first batch came out in 1992, the current generation (3rd gen) rolled out in 2004. Yesterday's big MOR RFP is for both 25T and 25G cars totaling of 2500 units. Four companies belong to CNR and CSR are bidding to supply those cars to 14 railway bureaus.


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## everywhere

hmmwv said:


> Well the 25G carriage is not new, the first batch came out in 1992, the current generation (3rd gen) rolled out in 2004. Yesterday's big MOR RFP is for both 25T and 25G cars totaling of 2500 units. Four companies belong to CNR and CSR are bidding to supply those cars to 14 railway bureaus.


Thanks for the info.


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## foxmulder

big-dog said:


> Railway ministry obtained a tentative credit line of more than *2 trillion yuan *($316 billion) from banks, more rail projects will start.
> 
> 
> 
> sina news


Any more details on this? It is almost as big as the extra budget released during stimulus.


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## hmmwv

XAN_ said:


> Well, they haven't poped-up on 1520 railfan web-sites/communities, so I suppose they haven't arrived yet


So they must have stopped along the way because it was first reported in post #4649, and I posted in #4653 a picture showing the two units leaving Chinese border.


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## everywhere

*Fair treatment for private capital in railway investment
*(Shanghai Daily, May 22)




> BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) -- China's recent move to give private capital equal treatment in investing in the country's railway projects is expected to inject new vitality into the long-monopolized railway sector amid concerns of an economic slowdown.
> 
> According to a guideline issued by the Ministry of Railways (MOR) on Friday, equal market entry access will be created for all investors and private capital will be exempt from additional requirements. The implementation of favorable policies will be transparent.
> 
> The guideline stated that private investors are allowed to participate in almost every category of railway projects, including the construction of backbone lines, passenger lines, inter-city lines and regional lines.
> 
> Eligible investors will also be allowed to participate in the design, construction, supervision, consultation, equipment purchasing and bidding processes.
> 
> The guideline, which is by far the most open and detailed regulation in terms of the railway industry's market entrance to date, is expected to diversify investment channels to help ease the sector's debt that has brought some construction projects to a halt.
> 
> After years of torrid growth, construction and investment in China's railways cooled remarkably, as the government tightened credit to cap inflation and a train crash last July that killed 40 people exposed the sector's weaknesses.
> 
> In contrast to a target investment of 500 billion yuan (79.37 billion U.S. dollars) this year, investment dropped 48.3 percent from a year earlier to 89.6 billion yuan in the first four months, official data show.
> 
> Meanwhile, the sector recorded 7 billion yuan in losses in the first quarter, with the current asset-liability ratio staying around 60 percent.
> 
> Yang Zhongmin, head of the ministry's department of development and planning, said the government, as the major investor, approved more than 4 trillion yuan in railway investment from 2003 to 2010.
> 
> According to the guideline, the MOR should separate its government functions from enterprise management and reform its administration mechanism to let enterprises be the principal market player.
> 
> The guideline also underlined the need to reform the investment and fundraising systems for railway projects. Railway-related companies are encouraged to go public, and insurance funds are welcome to invest more in railways.
> 
> It also encouraged financial innovations in creating more kinds of fundraising platforms to provide private investors with better access to capital.
> 
> Private investors are also welcome to make innovations in advanced and environmentally-friendly technologies and facilities, it said.
> 
> The government has repeatedly vowed to break the state monopoly and encourage private investors to participate in domains such as the railway and financial sectors -- a move aiming to push market-oriented reforms and tap inner growth potential.
> 
> With signs of a worse-than-expected slowdown in China indicated by weak economic data for April, CITIC Securities said more policies may be introduced to maintain reasonable growth in infrastructure investment.
> 
> Huang Junjie, an analyst with China Investment Securities, expected railway investment to return to a normal level in the coming months.
> 
> During an inspection tour last week, Premier Wen Jiabao said the government will focus its energy on expanding domestic demand to increase the stability of the economy, reiterating support for private capital in investing in the railway and several other sectors.



http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=72174


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## gdolniak

*Closer Look: Unanswered Questions for Private Investment in Railways*

Thank you everywhere for your post. Business magazine Caixin has a bit different view on the above ^^ news.



> By staff reporter Gu Yongqiang 05.22.2012 19:00
> *Closer Look: Unanswered Questions for Private Investment in Railways*
> _Ministry says the sector is opening up, but recently released guidelines are short on details_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (Beijing) – On May 18, the Ministry of Railways announced guidelines to encourage private capital to invest in the sector. The guidelines said a variety of investment entities would be treated fairly as they entered the sector, but didn't set out any limits on amounts of private capital.
> 
> The guidelines say private capital will be allowed to invest in new railway lines and bid for equipment procurement, construction and engineering design contracts.
> 
> The ministry also said that it will reduce the steps involved for approving new projects. If a new project can be handled by the market, the government can play a management or supervisory role.
> 
> The ministry issued this guideline as its debts increase and at the request of the State Council. It intends to use private capital to relieve financial strains in the building of new railway infrastructure, but investors say the guidelines are ambiguous and do not dispel several concerns.
> 
> The first involves train dispatching. Similar to the aviation industry, railway passenger flow has a direct impact on revenue. But the ministry is the only body that compiles train timetables and is responsible for dispatching trains.
> 
> For joint-venture railways, the rate of traffic flow and the division of traffic are incorporated into the daily transportation schedule of local railway bureaus under the ministry. They have to submit to the ministry. This means there is no guarantee that the joint-venture railway operators can profit. If investors don't anticipate profitability, none will be interested.
> 
> The second concern involves prices and the public. The government tightly controls transportation prices. The National Development and Reform Commission must approve rate increases for passengers or freight. Investors naturally wonder where their profits will come from if their costs increase but they are not allowed to charge more.
> 
> Also, transport on domestic railways is linked to the public welfare. However, the ministry did not say how railways might be compensated if they are forced to keep ticket prices down.
> 
> The third and final problem involves geography. The ministry uses profits made by railway bureaus in eastern regions to make up for losses in other areas. If private capital enters the railway sector, how to make revenue distribution fair and transparent and how to ensure investors make a profit are open questions.
> 
> http://english.caixin.com/2012-05-22/100392855_all.html


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## everywhere

*China moves faster in approving infrastructure projects*
(Shanghai Daily, May 25)




> AS reported in JRJ.com, the central government has requested local governments to report their all infrastructure project investment for this year before end-June for faster appraisal and approval, and related central government subsidies for these projects will likely be appropriated earlier than expected.
> 
> This likely represents the central government's endeavor to boost the slowing economy, which highly depends on real estate fixed-asset investment. China's commodity property FAI growth fell from the peak of 63 percent in November 2010 to 9 percent in April 2012.
> 
> As reported by the China Securities Journal, since end-February, China has tremendously accelerated the appraisal and approval process for major infrastructure projects, such as highway networks, airport and railway lines. _*For example, the airport projects in Fuyuan of Heilongjiang, Shihezi of Xinjiang, Qingyang of Gansu and Jiangbei of Chongqing*_ have recently received approval from the National Development and Reform Commission.
> 
> Observers said these are strong evidence of infrastructure FAI acceleration, adding that *the central government's focus should be relaunching and completing the suspended major projects, most of which are in central/western China and some of them were suspended since last August*.
> 
> _*Earlier, the central government also said to allocate more capital for the development of social housing, with the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly allocated 10.5 billion yuan (US$1.67 billion) subsidy for low-rental housing projects, of which Eastern China accounts for 5.1 percent (540 million yuan), Central China accounts for 40.2 percent (4.22 billion yuan), and Western China accounts for 40.2 percent (4.22 billion yuan). This amount can also be used for public rental housing if the needs for low-rental housing have be satisfied*_.
> 
> In our view, the implications of these are: *1) With signs of a slowing economy, there will be more government stimulus; 2) Government's economic stimulus would focus more on infrastructure investment and social housing; 3) Basic tone of government tightening on the property market would remain unchanged with housing purchase restrictions to continue; and 4) There, however, would be more support on mortgages to first-time home buyers and genuine upgraders. We believe that companies focus on infrastructure and social housing would benefit directly.*



http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/Op...+faster+in+approving+infrastructure+projects/


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## everywhere

Breaking News: ex-railways minister expelled for corruption




> BEIJING, May 28 (Xinhua) -- China's former Railways Minister Liu Zhijun was expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) due to severe disciplinary violations, the CPC disciplinary watchdog said Monday.


http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=73455


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## gdolniak

*Schenker Continues To Deliver Auto Parts To BMW In China By Rail*

*Schenker Continues To Deliver Auto Parts To BMW In China By Rail*
Schenker Continues To Deliver Auto Parts To BMW In China By Rail
By Anuja Abraham

Schenker Rail Automotive, the Deutsche Bahn automobile specialist in rail freight transport, has already managed some 200 container trains filled with automobile parts on their way from Leipzig and Wackersdorf in Germany to Shenyang in northeast China for BMW. More than 4,700 containers on 126 trains have rolled from Leipzig to the BMW plant in Shenyang since commencement of the contract in September 2011. Since November 2010, one train a week has travelled from Wackersdorf to the site in China. By May 20, 72 trains loaded with 2,600 containers had been transported from Bavaria to Shenyang in Liaoning province.

The trains take a total of 23 days to cover the stretch of just under 11,000 kilometers. “With this attractive transit time, the direct trains are more than twice as fast as transport via ocean-going ship and into the Chinese hinterland. This is creating important momentum for the Eurasian land bridge. Together with our partners, we will continue promoting the land transport alternative,” says Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, Member of the Management Board responsible for Transportation and Logistics at DB Mobility Logistics AG.

The route extends across Poland, Belarus and Russia into China. DB Schenker Rail manages the trains in cooperation with TransContainer, the freight subsidiary of the Russian Railways (RZD), and the Far East Landbridge company (FELB). The containers are moved by crane to different gauges twice during the trip – onto broad gauge on the border between Poland and Belarus and onto standard gauge at the border between Russia and China in Manzhouli.

DB Schenker Logistics, the logistics division of DB, has established a logistics center in the north of Leipzig. Approximately 8,000 various parts from BMW supplier plants are received here, packed and stored as needed in the containers on the center’s 63,000 square meters of space. The containers are placed on carrier cars on a siding activated specifically for this purpose at a neighboring site that once belonged to Quelle and then sent on their way.

http://logisticsweek.com/rail/2012/05/schenker-continues-to-deliver-auto-parts-to-bmw-in-china-by-rail/


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## gdolniak

*China raises railway freight rate to relieve high fuel and labour costs*

*China raises railway freight rate to relieve high fuel and labour costs*










CHINA'S Ministry of Railway and National Development and Reform Commission have announced an increase of domestic railway freight rate by CNY0.01 (US$0.0016) per tonne per kilometre, namely an average growth of 9.5 per cent, to CNY11.51, in order to relieve pressure from higher fuel and labour cost, Xinhua reports.

The increase this time covers coal, grain, fertiliser, iron ore and many other kinds of cargo. Industry opinions pointed out that the raise will pass the pressure on to the industries that are heavily reliant on railway transportation, like steel plants.

Shanghai Steel Service Trade Industry Association Secretary Ye Liming said the increase will have severe negative effect on the steel trade industry which is already gloomy. Though the industry has expected a rate increase, the timing and extent of the increase will put "unbearable" pressure on some companies, Mr Ye said.

Steel, cement, timber, coke and iron ore are the types of product that takes up the largest percentage in railway transported freight. Now the rates of these cargoes have gone up by 13 to 14 per cent. Experts from the industry said the increase of raw material transportation cost will push up the prices of final products.

But estimation shows that even after the increase, railway freight rate is still one fourth to one third of road cargo rate.

Sun Zhang, a professor of railway from Shanghai's Tongji University, said that the railway cargo capacity is still to be expanded in order to lower transportation cost. The building of more high-speed railway can release capacity from current railways for cargo transportation.

But some experts points out that railway departments should think of more ways to optimise their operating results instead of only levying rate increases.

http://www.china.scmtimes.com/


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## hmmwv

Freight traffic is the bread and butter of MOR. As more and more passenger trains are moved to dedicated HSR lines the freight operation will become more efficient, netting MOR more profit to subsidize HSR construction.


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## urbanfan89

hmmwv said:


> Freight traffic is the bread and butter of MOR. As more and more passenger trains are moved to dedicated HSR lines the freight operation will become more efficient, netting MOR more profit to subsidize HSR construction.


But the government will face a backlash from passengers who are forced to take high speed trains, which is essentially a subsidy to freight customers. China's rail density is still only a fraction of that of Europe or Japan, and even the six tracks on the Shanghai-Nanjing corridor is insufficient. China simply can't build too much infrastructure now.


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## everywhere

*CNR Changchun aims to double exports to $1B
*(China Daily USA, May 31)



> CNR Changchun Railway Vehicles Co Ltd, China's largest producer of rolling stock and urban rail cars, aims to double its annual export revenue to $1 billion within five years, General Manager Lu Xiwei told China Daily on Wednesday.
> 
> Located in Changchun, the capital of Jilin province, CNR Changchun is a subsidiary of China CNR Corp Ltd, the country's second-largest train producer.
> 
> Its product range includes high-speed rail cars and subways.
> Exports will generate 30 percent of revenue in the next five years, according to the company.
> 
> CNR Changchun "is now strongly competitive in production and manufacturing technology in the international market, and our next step is to make greater efforts to explore foreign markets to maintain good momentum for exports," Lu said.
> 
> In April, the company signed a contract with Bangladesh to supply traction inverters and network control systems for diesel railcar trains.
> 
> The deal is seen as a signal of China's progress in exporting core rail technology.
> 
> Amid a weak world economy, many countries are eager to attract foreign investment to establish joint ventures in their local markets. These ventures are especially attractive when recipient countries can obtain advanced technology and promote local employment.
> 
> 
> 
> Lu said the company is researching the feasibility of exporting technology to, and localizing production in, South America, South Africa and Southeast Asia.
> 
> "Exports of intangible assets, including capital and technology, could yield higher profits than just exporting finished products, Lu said.
> 
> "We have realized that it's very difficult to develop in foreign markets only through product exports, so the trend will be a shift from product exports to technology and capital," Lu said.
> 
> Establishing joint ventures in foreign markets helps obtain orders in those markets, Lu said.
> 
> 
> CNR Changchun has joint ventures in Iran and Australia that design and produce rail and subway cars.
> 
> Taking into consideration the operating risks, locally manufactured products "will be priced higher than those exported", Lu said.
> 
> Zhou Chuanhe, deputy general manager for overseas operations, said the company's market share in the industry will grow significantly as it establishes factories overseas.
> 
> "We will gradually tap into the high-end markets, as we mature in terms of technology, output and management in foreign markets," Zhou said.
> 
> "As China's rolling stock industry develops, Chinese products will account for 30 percent of the global market, competing with other industrial giants including Siemens and Alstom," Lu said.
> 
> CNR Changchun's exports now account for 65 percent of the nation's rolling stock exports, with more than 4,000 rail cars so far shipped to countries including Brazil, Australia and Thailand.


http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-05/31/content_15431375.htm


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## everywhere

*NE China rail construction halted over environmental violations*
(Shanghai Daily/Xinhua, June 1)




> HARBIN, June 1 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Environmental Protection has brought construction on a railway in northeast China's Heilongjiang province to a halt due to environmental violations, local authorities said Friday.
> 
> Further inspections will be conducted for the Harbin-Qiqihar passenger railway, the Heilongjiang provincial environmental protection bureau said.
> 
> Construction on the railway has violated several parts of the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, with some areas under construction lacking proper impact assessment approval, according to the bureau's investigation.
> 
> Several construction sites have been moved without authorization, threatening the Zhalong Sate Nature Reserve, a major habitat for cranes, according to the investigation.
> 
> The ministry has asked the builders to submit all environmental impact assessment paperwork before Aug. 1.
> 
> Construction on the 286-km-long railway began on July 5, 2009.



http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=74507


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## hmmwv

urbanfan89 said:


> But the government will face a backlash from passengers who are forced to take high speed trains, which is essentially a subsidy to freight customers. China's rail density is still only a fraction of that of Europe or Japan, and even the six tracks on the Shanghai-Nanjing corridor is insufficient. China simply can't build too much infrastructure now.


It's all about seeking the balance point. Move passenger to HSR means more freight traffic which translates to more money for the MOR, that way HSR tickets can be kept at a reasonable level. On the other hand there are simply people who can't afford travelling on HSR so some conventional services need to be retained, how much do each service share the track is key. I for one think CRH ticket prices are very reasonable, it's way lower than what MOR needs to charge to make money, but that's okay because it should be a public service. I think the current pace of infrastructure construction is appropriate, now the focus should be on how to make the operation more efficient. They have the potential to add a lot more capacity on existing lines while improving service quality.


----------



## everywhere

*Russia-China cooperation on railways has huge potential: Russian official*
(Shanghai Daily/Xinhua, June 2)




> SOCHI, Russia, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia-China cooperation on development of high-speed rail and a trans-Eurasian rail corridor has "huge potential, the president of Russian Railways (RZD) said here Friday.
> 
> Under a government strategic plan, Russia will build by 2030 some 20,000 km of new railways, including 5,000 high-speed lines, Vladimir Yakunin told Xinhua on the sidelines of an international railway forum.
> 
> "Russia is expected to develop a railway network, including high-speed rail lines, from Kazan and Yekaterinburg (in central Russia) to Khabarovsk and Vladivostok (in the Far East region)," Yakunin said.
> 
> "In this field, we are willing to cooperate with China's railways and financial institutions," he added.
> 
> "China has rich experience in high-speed rail construction, which creates rooms for further cooperation between the two countries in this field," he added.
> 
> Meanwhile, Yakunin admitted that there are some delays in implementing a memorandum of understanding signed by Russia and China in 2009 on joint development of high-speed railway system in Russia.
> 
> There is no change in Russia's stance on the construction of high-speed rail, but the state-owned RZD is still seeking suitable finance and profit modes, he explained.
> 
> Yakunin, who will soon visit China with a Russian delegation led by President Vladimir Putin next week, said that he would meet with China's railway authorities on further bilateral cooperation.
> 
> On the development of a rail corridor from the southwest Chinese city of Chongqing to Germany's Duisburg, Yakunin said that China and Russia have signed cooperation documents and formed joint ventures.
> 
> Last July, the new route was officially launched in Chongqing. It offers a major shortcut to traditional sea trade routes and shorten travel time to Europe from about 36 days by container ship to just 13 days by freight train.
> 
> "This is the first step of the corridor construction," Yakunin said.
> 
> The train services are expected to be increased to once per day in the future as Chongqing's exports to Europe increase. Currently the train leaves Chongqing for Duisburg once a month.
> 
> Russia is now pondering the future transit fee policy following the development of the route and will later coordinate with the Chinese side, he said.
> 
> Besides, Yakunin said the new trans-Eurasian rail corridor is taking shape, thanks to the joint efforts of Russia, China and Kazakhstan.
> 
> Amid global economic uncertainties, such a corridor will boost the global and regional economy and enhance the competitiveness of countries of the railway routes, he said.



http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.asp?id=74624


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## gdolniak

*Another Railway Official Held For Graft Inquiry*

More on the alleged corruption in Chinese railway and a follow-up on everywhere's post from May 28th.



> By staff reporters He Xin, Wang Chen and Yu Ning 06.07.2012 15:47
> *Another Railway Official Held For Graft Inquiry*
> _The general manager of the contractor that built most of the country's high-speed network detained by police_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (Beijing)–A senior executive at the contractor that built most of China's high-speed rail network has been detained on suspicion of taking bribes, the latest railway official to be hit by a corruption scandal.
> 
> Liu Zhiyuan, the general manager of China CREC Railway Electrification Bureau Group Co. (EEB), a subsidiary of state-owned China Railway Engineering Corp, was detained by police on May 21, a source closed to the situation said. Liu was taken into custody after a ceremony at a construction site for the Beijing-Shijiazhuang passenger line.
> 
> The Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress announced on May 31 it suspended Liu as deputy member.
> 
> Liu, 58, started his career in the Ministry of Railways' Electrification Bureau in 1971 and became deputy bureau chief in 1997. In August 2001, he was named general manager of China CREC Railway Electrification Bureau Group, which builds the electric systems for the country's high-speed trains.
> 
> A source at EEB said Liu's case was related to a scandal in a subsidiary in Wuhan. Chen Deqin, general manager of Wuhan No. 2 Engineering Co., is under investigation for economic crimes.
> 
> Another source said Liu is close to Zhang Shuguang, the former deputy chief engineer at the Ministry of Railways. Zhang was suspended in February 2011 and investigated for corruption. Zhang was also the director of the ministry's Transport Bureau, which is in charge of bidding for high-speed railway projects.
> 
> The EEB has participated in the building of about 80 percent of country's high-speed railway lines, including the Beijing-Tianjin, Wuhan-Guangzhou, Nanjing-Shanghai and Shanghai-Hangzhou lines, its website said.
> 
> The second source said that Zhang and Liu used their positions to manipulate bidding for projects.
> 
> An executive at a railway engineering company said EEB controlled many projects during the recent boom in high-speed railway building in China and "not everything follows the rules."
> 
> A Caixin investigation found that Liu was close to Ding Shumiao, also known as Ding Yuxin. Ding's company monopolized the industry responsible for sound barriers needed on high-speed rail lines by bribing officials.
> 
> On May 28, state media reported that former railway minister Liu Zhijun had been expelled from the Communist Party for serious disciplinary violations. Liu was accused of using his power to help Ding gain huge illegal profits that resulted in serious losses for the ministry. The party's anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, has passed Liu's case to judicial authorities.
> 
> http://english.caixin.com/2012-06-07/100398141.html


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## gdolniak

*Rail line promises to be 'new Silk Road'*

*Rail line promises to be 'new Silk Road'*
Updated: 2012-06-09 07:58 By Alexis Hooi and Ma Wei ( China Daily) 

Legend has it that Chinese Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty (156-87 BC) once looked to the lands west of his vast empire and proclaimed them to have people who placed "great value on the rich produce of China".










That regal observation soon spurred exploration of those foreign lands, leading to a network of trading routes between the East and West that came to be known as the Silk Road.

The historic route declined in the centuries that followed as maritime trade increased, but there are now renewed efforts to revive the continental link - this time through the latest addition to the Eurasian land bridge rail.










Connecting Lianyungang port in East China's Jiangsu province to distant Belgium, the railway is being promoted as a shorter, more efficient way to transport goods between China and Europe. Lianyungang lies near the center of China's eastern coastline, where the country's southern economic and manufacturing hubs have helped enrich cities in provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

The land bridge traverses more than 10,000 km through China, Central Asia and Eastern Europe before arriving at European trading hubs like Rotterdam and Antwerp in about two weeks. The route is expected to benefit more than 40 countries and regions by taking less than half the time and enjoying a similar reduction in costs compared with transporting goods by sea.

Other routes under the Eurasian land bridge concept include an earlier one that consists of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Russian seaport of Vladivostok. Yet another rail link considers connecting the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen with Rotterdam, through a 15,000-km route across 17 countries and regions - via Guangdong and Yunnan provinces as well as the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in China - before entering Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey toward its western destination.

Faced with higher production costs, maturing manufacturing industries and changing economic modes in eastern China's more economically developed coastal areas, Chinese authorities are now stepping up efforts to promote the benefits of the latest working route of the land bridge for Chinese goods to reach markets in the West as they look for ways to stay competitive.

[...] cut, more under this link: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-06/09/content_15490137.htm


----------



## hkskyline

*NE China rail construction halted over environmental violations*

HARBIN, June 1 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Environmental Protection has brought construction on a railway in northeast China's Heilongjiang province to a halt due to environmental violations, local authorities said Friday.

Further inspections will be conducted for the Harbin-Qiqihar passenger railway, the Heilongjiang provincial environmental protection bureau said.

Construction on the railway has violated several parts of the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, with some areas under construction lacking proper impact assessment approval, according to the bureau's investigation.

Several construction sites have been moved without authorization, threatening the Zhalong Sate Nature Reserve, a major habitat for cranes, according to the investigation.

The ministry has asked the builders to submit all environmental impact assessment paperwork before Aug. 1.

Construction on the 286-km-long railway began on July 5, 2009.


----------



## hmmwv

^^ The suspension of Harbin-Qiqihar PDL has already been posted in the HSR thread.

In addition the construction of Xiping Railway was suspended due to damage to Jingchuan Old Town of the Jingchuan County.


----------



## everywhere

> Despite territorial tensions between Beijing and Manila, China Railway Construction Corp. (CRCC), China’s second-biggest state-owned construction company, has signified its interest in taking on the Light Trail Transit (LRT) South Extension project to be bid out this year.
> 
> 
> But instead of participating in the bidding process for the project, the Chinese company’s partner, Reghis Romero II-led Ecorail Transport Services Inc., has proposed a joint venture with the government.
> 
> 
> Should its proposal be accepted, Ecorail said it would bring to the Philippines the same cutting-edge, affordable train technology that has allowed China’s own railway system to prosper.
> 
> 
> The Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) last week published its invitation for interested parties to “prequalify” to bid for the P30-billion project—currently the most expensive contract on the state’s auction block.
> 
> 
> Ecorail executive vice president Jerome Canlas said CRCC had sent a letter signifying its willingness to pursue the project, which it first explored in 2009.
> 
> 
> “We hereby affirm our interest to cooperate with your esteemed organization to jointly pursue the above project, which not only further underscores our mutual long-term relationship but also progression of the framework of cooperation agreement entered into by both our organizations in Tianjin in June 2009,” CRCC vice president Hu Zhenyi said in the letter to Ecorail.
> 
> 
> The LRT South Extension will lengthen the current Baclaran-to-Roosevelt line, known as “Line 1,” to Imus, Cavite, passing through Parañaque and Las Piñas cities. The winning contractor will also be tasked to operate the entire Line 1 from Cavite to Quezon City.
> 
> 
> The government’s plan is to split the project in half, with the private sector funding and handling the civil works costing P30 billion and the government acquiring the new trains and electromechanical systems for another P30 billion. But Ecorail said it would submit a proposal to take on the entire project on its own since it had more than enough cash for it.
> 
> 
> “Ecorail [will] fully provide the financial requirements of the project without government subsidy unlike other propositions seeking overseas development assistance (ODA) from multilateral and bilateral funding agencies that require counterpart funds from the Philippine government,” Canlas said.
> 
> 
> Despite giving the government access to cheap capital, the main disadvantage of ODA funding for taxpayers is the usual limitation on the participation of Filipino contractors as subcontractors, in favor of foreign contractors from sponsor countries.
> 
> 
> Under its proposed joint venture, the government’s only part would be to provide the land to be used for the project. In return, the government would get a share in fare revenues.
> 
> 
> Canlas said the Ecorail-CRCC partnership would complete the project in 36 months, much faster than the government’s own projection of completing it in close to four years.
> 
> 
> CRCC is one of the biggest construction companies in the world with assets of more than $1 trillion. CRCC has already built 34,000 kilometers of railway tracks all over the world.


http://business.inquirer.net/64469/big-chinese-firm-eyes-lrt-1-extension-project


----------



## gdolniak

*Railway Construction Damages Ancient City Ruins*



> *Railway Construction Damages Ancient City Ruins*
> 2012-06-11 15:23:29 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: haipeng
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Jingchuan County cultural authority put posters on the damaged ancient city wall stating: "Protecting cultural heritage in unity, building a harmonious society together." [Photo: People.com.cn]
> 
> Construction work on the Xi'an to Pingliang railway in northwest China has caused serious damage to the ancient city ruins of Jingzhou, The People's Daily reports.
> 
> Liu Xingjian, a member of the executive staff of the cultural authority of Jingchuan County where the ancient ruins of Jingzhou are located, said his office notified construction workers in March and May to stop work immediately. Eventually, the cultural authority had to keep staff at the site 24 hours a day to watch over the ruins.
> 
> The city of Jingzhou in Gansu province dates back 3,000 years to the Shang Dynasty. Floods destroyed the city during the Ming Dynasty, leaving the present-day ruins which are recognized as a provincial level cultural relic and protected under China's Cultural Relics Protection Law.
> 
> The Xi'an to Pingliang railway project was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission in July 2008, and construction began in November that year to connect the city of Pingliang in Gansu province to Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province.
> 
> Wei Haifeng, an employee at the county cultural authority, provided two documents from national cultural relic officials -- one issued in December 2009 and another in March 2012 -- stating that the railway project should not pass through the historical ruins.
> 
> But the construction company also provided a document from the provincial cultural authority issued in December 2006, which approved the railway line passing through the ancient ruins.
> 
> The company also pointed out that the railway was an important national project and that when the national cultural relic authority announced that it could not pass through the ruins, the project had already begun.
> 
> It also argued that because a huge amount of money already had been invested in the railway line, it would be impractical to change the project.
> 
> After the damage occurred, the local cultural authority blocked the road to the construction site with stones to prevent machinery from entering it.
> 
> As the dispute continues, the cultural authority and the construction company are seeking a resolution from higher authorities.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://english.cri.cn/6909/2012/06/11/3241s705501.htm


And an article about starting this railway construction back in 2008 (with some information about the railway itself): http://english.shaanxi.gov.cn/articleNews/news/photonews/200811/1732_1.html


----------



## hkskyline

*New track laid to link Xinjiang's Lop Nur*

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhuanet) -- A new track has been laid to link a major potash production base in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region with the country's railway network, creating a pathway for transporting the area's undeveloped natural resources, officials said.

The 374-kilometer line, which was finished on Sunday, will link Luozhong station in Lop Nur with Hami prefecture in eastern Xinjiang and will have an annual capacity of 30 million tons of cargo.

With a total investment of 3 billion yuan ($470 million), the line was a joint project of the Ministry of Railways, the regional government and the State Development and Investment Corp. It took two years to build and will open at the end of October.

"The area along the railway is rich in natural resources, especially leopoldite, to produce potash fertilizer, as well as coal and nonferrous metals such as copper and gold," Turghun Abdulla, deputy Party secretary of Lopnurpo township, was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency.

Lop Nur, which was once a large salt lake but is now largely dried up on the east edge of Tarim Basin, holds most of the country's potash salt reserves. It once nurtured the kingdom of Loulan, an ancient civilization along the Silk Road, but gradually became a wild desert region with no human settlement. It was selected as a place for nuclear tests by China in the 1960s.

Li Songyan, deputy chief engineer of the project, told Xinhua that the railway construction was extremely difficult because the weather was harsh and the track had to be laid on a salt-rock base easily eroded by rainfall.

China is the world's largest consumer of potash, which is widely used as fertilizer. The country has relied on other countries to meet market demand, with 70 percent of the resources used being imported.

In 2011, the country produced 4.7 million tons of potash fertilizers but imported 3.78 million tons to meet domestic demand, according to a Xinhua report, citing data from a fertilizer industry association.

Lop Nur, located in the country's remote and underdeveloped northwest region, has a proven reserve of about 500 million tons of potash salt.


----------



## big-dog

HXD1 Bogie 和谐1型大功率电力机车转向架 










by weibo.com/csrxcb


----------



## whatever123

everywhere said:


> *China's railways daily travel hits 6 million*
> (China Daily, July 18)


\

Thats surprisingly low . Indian railways for example carries 30 million every day. So rail travel is not that popular in china then.


----------



## big-dog

whatever123 said:


> \
> 
> Thats surprisingly low . Indian railways for example carries 30 million every day. So rail travel is not that popular in china then.


It's not so surprising. In most Chinese major cities traffic is handled by city metro, not railways, i.e. Beijing or Shanghai's metro system carries up to 7 ~ 8 million trips per day.


----------



## FM 2258

^^

That's probably be a mistake in the article.


----------



## hmmwv

The bulk of Indian railway passenger figures come from daily riders on suburban commuter trains, which is served by light rail and metro in China and not count towards the railway passenger count.


----------



## saiho

whatever123 said:


> \
> 
> Thats surprisingly low . Indian railways for example carries 30 million every day. So rail travel is not that popular in china then.


Firstly, Indian railways carries 20 million not 30 million per day.
http://www.680news.com/news/world/article/387350--fire-on-overnight-train-kills-32-in-southern-india-dozens-burned
Secondly, India's figure is essentially the ridership of the entire country's urban, suburban, regional and intercity train network. Due to the small size and low number of metro systems in India the ridership of Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata metros are pretty insignificant; so its pretty much safe to say as long as its a passenger train in India its ridership counts. The Delhi Metro is big but it still "only carries" ~2 million daily, meanwhile the Mumbai Suburban Railway alone carries about 7.5 million per day. That's almost 1/2 of the total in only one commuter rail network, which lines up with the transport in Mumbai wikipage. Not to mention Delhi's, Kolkata's, Chennai's and a bunch of other smaller suburban systems haven't been added to the mix yet. China's situation only counts intercity as regional rail is almost non-existent though that's changing. The daily ridership of China's 5 biggest metros (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong) is already way over 20 million and some sizeable networks (Chongqing, Nanjing, Tianjin, etc.) and many starter networks haven't even been counted yet.


----------



## hmmwv

In addition Chinese trains only allow a certain number of standing tickets to be sold (other than during Chunyun), whereas in India, well, you get the picture.


----------



## hkskyline

_Not too sure if this is regular rail or HSR : _




























A rail laying machine works at the rebuilding site of Liuzhou-Yongzhou section of Xianggui railway line in Liuzhou, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, July 30, 2012. The Liuzhou-Yongzhou section is the only route for trains to inland provinces and cities from Guangxi. The 350.7-kilometer-long rebuilding rail route is expected to be put into operation in 2013. (Xinhua/Zhang Cunli) 










Workers carry rail laying equipments at the rebuilding site of Liuzhou-Yongzhou section of Xianggui railway line in Liuzhou, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, July 30, 2012. The Liuzhou-Yongzhou section is the only route for trains to inland provinces and cities from Guangxi. The 350.7-kilometer-long rebuilding rail route is expected to be put into operation in 2013. (Xinhua/Zhang Cunli)


----------



## hmmwv

Xianggui Railway is a conventional railway that is in the process of being rebuilt to high and sub high speed standards. From Hengyang to Guilin (356km) it's 200km/h with the potential to upgrade further to 250km/h, Guilin to Liuzhou (182km) is 250km/h, Liuzhou to Nanning (255km)is a new 250km/h PDL.


----------



## hmmwv

Typhoon Damrey caused heavy rain and major flooding at Shanhaiguan Station.


----------



## FM 2258

^^

I hope the waters didn't do too much damage and receded quickly. 

*hkskyline* those track laying pictures look really cool. 



hmmwv said:


> Xianggui Railway is a conventional railway that is in the process of being rebuilt to high and sub high speed standards. From Hengyang to Guilin (356km) it's 200km/h with the potential to upgrade further to 250km/h, Guilin to Liuzhou (182km) is 250km/h, Liuzhou to Nanning (255km)is a new 250km/h PDL.


Thanks for the explanation, you answered all my questions about this line!  Looks like we'll see some CRH1 or CHR6 trains going up and down this line. Guilin is a very nice city, love the mountains especially down by Yangshuo.


----------



## big-dog

Lining up locos










from weibo.com/csrxcb


----------



## hmmwv

EuroSprinter FTW!


----------



## KingNick

Super reliable locos, yes.


----------



## big-dog

> *China finishes railway linking ASEAN*
> 
> TONGHAI, Yunnan -- Construction workers on Tuesday laid the last piece of a railway that will link southwest China's Yunnan province with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.
> 
> The Yuxi-Mengzi Railway has a total length of 141 km with a designed maximum speed of 120 km per hour. It passes through 35 tunnels and crosses 61 bridges, which together account for 54.95 percent of the line's total length.
> 
> The railway is part of the eastern line of the planned Pan-Asia Railway network, an international railway project that will also consist of central and western lines.
> 
> Funded by the Ministry of Railways and the Yunnan government, the railway has a total investment of 4.5 billion yuan (709.78 million U.S. dollars).
> 
> The railway is expected to become operational later this year and will boost land transportation between China and ASEAN countries.
> 
> The eastern route is designed to start in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, and pass through the cities of Yuxi, Mengzi and Hekou in Yunnan to connect with Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Singapore.
> 
> Construction in Yunnan of the eastern line's last section, which will link Mengzi with the border city of Hekou, is going to plan, likely enabling the Sino-Vietnam railway to become operational first in the Pan-Asia Railway network, said a local railway official.
> 
> The new line will be a much more modern replacement to the 100-year-old line that links Kunming with Haiphone of Vietnam, the first transnational railway in southwest China, said Han Zhongping, deputy director of the Kunming railway bureau.
> 
> The 854-km Kunming-Haiphone line has a designed maximum speed of only 30 km per hour. It is the world's longest "narrow" line -- one meter wide, compared to the standard 1.435 meters wide.


Complete story


----------



## Rail1435

Does anybody know what it is done with DJG2 research locomotive for 200 km/h?


----------



## hkskyline

*Railway facilitates lives in Tibet*

BEIJING, Aug. 19 (China Daily) -- The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has passed safety and environmental tests and brought economic prosperity to formerly inaccessible Tibetan areas.

Around 550 kilometers of the 1,956-km railway on the world's highest plateau is laid on permafrost. Linking Xining, capital of Qinghai province, and Lhasa, capital of the Tibet autonomous region, it has transported more than 52 million people and 240 million metric tons of goods since it became fully operational in July 2006.

In 2011, Tibet received 8.6 million tourists, up from 1.8 million visitors in 2005. Tibet's tourism industry generated 9.7 billion yuan ($1.53 billion) in revenue in 2011, five times the amount in 2005.

Qinghai attracted 60 million tourists, bringing revenue of 35 billion yuan, in the past six years.

Tibetan nomads and farmers are benefiting from businesses such as home inns, restaurants and tour guide services. More than 236,000 people work for the tourism industry in 1,363 companies in Tibet.

Pasang Dondrub, a Lhasa resident, makes a living by accompanying tourists during their tours of Tibet. His business has boomed because of the increasing number of tourists brought by the railway.

He earned 60,000 yuan from May to October 2011, three times his yearly income before 2006. With 20 years' experience, he is frequently recommended to new clients, and sometimes the number of calls is overwhelming.

His nephews, Purbunamgyl, Dradul and Gunganamgyl, have joined the car rental business and each earned about 50,000 yuan during the six-month peak season last year.

They often pick up guests at Lhasa Railway Station. "Each time I see a train arriving, I tell myself the railway has brought me friends from across the country and a good income," Pasang Dondrub said.

Purbu Dondrub, head of Liuwu village, which is separated from Lhasa by a river, said villagers used to take ferries or climb mountains to go to the city. Now the village is included in the new Liuwu district where Lhasa Railway Station is located. Participating in the construction of both the station and the new district, Purbu Dondrub said his household income has jumped to 50,000 yuan from 2,000 yuan before 2006.

The railway also facilitates communication and exchange of goods between Tibet and other parts of China. Specialty goods, such as barley wine, mineral water and yak meat, as well as Tibetan medicine, incense and carpets, are popular outside the region.

"The railway ended the era of supply shortages in Tibet," said Liang Chunming, a solar power businessman in Tibet.

Liang, from Xi'an, Shaanxi province, used to worry about shipping goods to Tibet. Without the railway line, shipment could only be done on a small scale and took a long time.

Since the railway was completed, transportation costs and the damage rate have been reduced and the sales volume significantly increased, allowing his business to continue to boom, he said.

Geleg, 23, from Lhasa's rural suburbs, is a third-year student at the University of Science and Technology Beijing. After a summer vacation at home, he took the train back to school on Aug 13, a 42-hour trip costing 180 yuan at the student discount rate.

Ten years ago, it took him more than four days when he traveled to study in East China's Zhejiang province. His father drove a truck and dropped him off in Lhasa, where he took a bus to the airport and flew to Chengdu, Sichuan province. He then traveled by train to Zhejiang province.

For years, he did not go back home during the winter and summer vacations because he could not afford such trips.

"The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has greatly helped students like me," Geleg said.

During the construction of the railway, planners and construction companies worked hard to protect the plateau's fragile ecology, biodiversity and rich ethnic traditions.

To ensure the normal migration of wild animals, 33 special passages were built along the railway. All passenger trains leaving or entering Tibet are equipped with an advanced system to collect waste and sewage to prevent pollution.


----------



## hmmwv

Rail1435 said:


> Does anybody know what it is done with DJG2 research locomotive for 200 km/h?


It's nice that there are people still remember that oddball, the DJG2 electric AC high speed loco was a private venture by Datong, it's purpose is still debatable but was along the line of providing quasi high speed passenger service on non-CRH lines. Obvious none of the passenger carriages (such as 25T) can get to 200km/h (DJG2's operating speed), so new cars need to be developed as well. I believe the effort has been terminated and the prototype is now retired as HXD1D is selected as the primary future passenger loco by MOR. The gap between 160km/h and 200km/h is now being filled with CRH6.


----------



## Rail1435

Thank you _hmmwv_.
Two HXD1d can be seen:

Windscreen in one part, #unknown.
Windscreen in two parts with central pillar, #0001.
Is one yet selected for serial production?


----------



## hmmwv

Rail1435 said:


> Thank you _hmmwv_.
> Two HXD1d can be seen:
> 
> Windscreen in one part, #unknown.
> Windsreen in two parts with central pillar, #0001.
> Is one yet selected for serial production?


Of course, the two piece windshield one is the serial production version, the other one is a prototype and rumor says it's ready been scrapped.


----------



## luhai

*Trail collision in Jiamusi*



> BEIJING (AP) — Two passenger trains collided at a railway station in northeast China, injuring at least 24 people, state media said Friday.
> 
> The collision occurred Thursday evening at the Jiamusi railway station in Heilongjiang province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Station officials reached by phone said they had no information. Officials at the Jiamusi Communist Party Propaganda office said they had not heard about the collision.
> 
> Xinhua cited a railway spokesman in the provincial capital as saying most of the injured were preparing to get off a train when the other train collided with it, causing them to fall.
> 
> Most of the injuries were slight and five people were under medical observation, Xinhua said, adding that an investigation was under way.
> 
> Elsewhere in Heilongjiang, three trucks plunged into a river after a bridge collapsed early Friday, killing three people, Xinhua reported.
> 
> Train and road accidents are relatively common in China due to lax safety and maintenance procedures.end of story marker


http://www.boston.com/news/world/as...heast-china/YrVN5CpoRqh7HLQdVERc2K/story.html


Wait, or is it a accidental operation of trainset hook up












> 新华网哈尔滨8月23日电(记者 邹大鹏)记者23日晚从哈尔滨铁路局证实，23日17时24分，佳木斯火车站两列旅客列车发生事故，造成24名未来得及下车的旅客摔伤。
> 
> 哈尔滨铁路局的消息称，事故是由于两车车厢在连接过程中由于连挂冲动较大造成视频：佳木斯两列火车连挂冲动较大致24人摔伤来源：黑龙江电视台《共度晨光》的。
> 
> 据哈尔滨铁路局相关工作人员介绍，23日17时24分，佳木斯火车站两列旅客列车车厢在连接过程中由于连挂冲动较大，造成24名未下车旅客轻微摔伤。事件发生后，车站开展了紧急救治工作。
> 
> 目前，共有5名旅客留院观察，留院观察人员均为表皮擦伤，身体无大碍。其他旅客伤势轻微，已由车站安排车辆分批送回家。车站现正在组织进行深入调查，待责任认定后，将依法依规进行严肃处理。同时，铁路部门对由此给旅客造成的影响和伤害深表歉意。


http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2012-08-24/001825024288.shtml


In the end no one really knows....
http://news.v1.cn/domestic/b/2012-8-24/1345795397944v.shtml


----------



## hmmwv

Sounds like the transfer loco drive was in a hurry and hooked up the car a little too fast.


----------



## foxmulder

Is this about HXD2? Or a completely new one?



> China develops 10-mln-watt electric locomotive
> English.news.cn 2012-08-27 19:25:16
> BEIJING, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- A major Chinese train maker announced Monday it has developed an electric locomotive with "the world's highest power."
> 
> The power, which reaches 10,000 kilowatts, is the world's highest for an electrical locomotive. This compares to the maximum 6,400-kilowatts power for traditional locomotives, according to a spokesman of Datong Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd., maker of the railway vehicle.
> 
> The company is a subsidiary of China North Locomotive and Rolling Corp. Ltd. (CNR), the country's second-largest train maker.
> 
> Designed with a maximum speed that can reach 120 km per hour, the locomotive can carry an estimated 100 railway carriages each weighing 80 tonnes, more than double that of a traditional locomotive, the spokesman said.
> 
> Datong Locomotive has developed six types of large-power electric locomotives and become the first Chinese business to export such products to Europe.


----------



## hmmwv

It's Datong so it got to be a variant of the HXD2, probably based on the original HXD2 which never entered MOR service, but rather delivered to Shenhua Group for coal transportation. The ones entered general railway service are HXD2B and 2C, both are considered lower power version of the original.


----------



## foxmulder

I found more about this and it is indeed a HXD2 variant. The original tech transfer excluded electronics. Now, Datong installed all Chinese electronic parts so it is all Chinese.


----------



## Rail1435

The CoCo HXD2b (CNR - Alstom) is already rated at 10 MW and is on delivering with 500 pieces from 2010 to 201?.
In this case, it is perhaps HXD2d with same performances, but equipped with CNR own electronics.


----------



## hmmwv

Rail1435 said:


> The CoCo HXD2b (CNR - Alstom) is already rated at 10 MW and is on delivering with 500 pieces from 2010 to 201?.
> In this case, it is perhaps HXD2d with same performances, but equipped with CNR own electronics.


I believe HXD2B is a 9.6MW loco, and the first batch are all made in France too.


----------



## big-dog

chinese railway pictures by 铁路小亨on weibo


----------



## yaohua2000

*Latest rail map by [email protected], version 20120829 (click to enlarge)*



Legend:
• Black: Old lines
• Blue: Recently opened lines (since 2007/8)
• Brown: Completed, yet to open
• Red: Under construction
• Orange: Planned, construction to begin soon
• Green: In study
The thicker the line, the faster the rail.


----------



## k.k.jetcar

And now for a change of pace. Not as fast or luxurious as HSR, but just as or even more fascinating (and more relevant to the daily life of residents of this area):


----------



## Rail1435

hmmwv said:


> I believe HXD2B is a 9.6MW loco, and the first batch are all made in France too.


I apologise: I make confusion with HXD2 (BoBo+BoBo) which has maximal power of 10 MW and continuous power at 9,6MW. 
As I know, the first batch of 10 HXD2b was made in France, the other 490 are to be built in China, but it had perhaps changed.


----------



## Rail1435

A picture, as big as a stamp!








Found by _Railway Gazette_

I try with a better one, if it works...








Some design variant in driver'cab! Electronic is China own development during _decades_ (in etymology sense = some ten of *days*? But perhaps in english has _decades_ another sense.)


----------



## 3737

Rail1435 said:


> I try with a better one, if it works...


find the differences :lol:


----------



## hmmwv

Nice one, vast majority of the original HXD2's design features are retained.


----------



## big-dog

*China hikes rail spending target*

Updated: 2012-09-05

By Sophie He (China Daily)



> The Ministry of Railways has raised its target for railway construction spending this year to *496 billion yuan ($78 billion)* from 470 billion yuan in a move seen as part of the government's latest efforts to shore up the slowing economy.
> 
> "The investment on new railways will be at least 67 billion yuan a month from September till the end of this year," China Railway Group's President Bai Zhongren told a news conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
> 
> ... ...
> 
> China Railway Group, the country's leading heavy infrastructure company, posted a decline in its first half net profit as the country spent less on building new railway lines.
> 
> "I can tell you for sure that the second half of this year will be better than the first-half (for China Railway Group)," Bai said.
> 
> During the first half of 2012, the company’s new infrastructure construction contracts was 200.72 billion yuan, up 13.36 percent year-on-year; by the end of June, the company's backlog of infrastructure construction contracts was 937.34 billion yuan, 4.3 percent more than it had at the end of last year.


----------



## Rail1435

There is also HXD2 7001 and 7002, with horizontal arranged frontlights (no real pictures found yet).
Do somebody know the differences in power electronics design?


----------



## Rail1435

I found one:








Real design is different as graphics! On a different pictures I received, it can be seen that windscreen is in two parts, with central pillar.
Perhaps an illusion induced by the picture: frame and body seems longer as original HXD2.


----------



## Sopomon

Does China have any commuter rail that isn't a metro?

And by that, I mean analogous to:

The services in the south of London
Yamanote sen et. al. in Tokyo
Cityrail in Sydney

I don't think I've ever seen anything of that kind and wondered if it even existed


----------



## VECTROTALENZIS

^^

Beijing has one, Pearl River Delta has some like GZ-Zhuhai intercity, Guangshen Railway, and Guangdong Through Train.


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## yaohua2000

VECTROTALENZIS said:


> ^^
> 
> Beijing has one, Pearl River Delta has some like GZ-Zhuhai intercity, Guangshen Railway, and Guangdong Through Train.


According to Wikipedia's definition of "commuter rail", GZ-Zhuhai, Guangshen and Guangdong Through Train are not "commuter rail". The train connects Shanghai and Luchaogang might be a candidate.


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## ukiyo

^ The Yamanote line he gave as an example is also not "commuter" rail...it is for all intents and purposes a metro line using the definition of a metro vs commuter rail. The only difference is it isn't underground (subway).

For commuter rail Shanghai has this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huhang_Railway


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## saiho

yaohua2000 said:


> According to Wikipedia's definition of "commuter rail", GZ-Zhuhai, Guangshen and Guangdong Through Train are not "commuter rail". The train connects Shanghai and Luchaogang might be a candidate.


GZ-Zhuhai, Guangshen and Guangdong Through Train would be more regional rail


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## FM 2258

Is slower speed rail going to phase out as CRH grows over time? I know it's a bit of a ridiculous question because places like France and Italy have high speed rail yet they still have conventional rail lines. I ask because some of the conventional rail lines in China are parallel to the CRH lines.


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## hmmwv

I think it won't happen in the foreseeable future (next 20 years). The network is vastly comprised of slower electrified lines. The high speed lines have yet to form a complete network to justify replacing slower, longer train routes. Also there are areas that needs passenger railway coverage but the terrain and population cannot justify HSR service. Judging from the recent large 25T order I think the MOR is pretty happy with the current setup.


----------



## foxmulder

Well, it is partially happening where there are multiple parallel high speed lines, i.e. high-speed intercity railway lines.


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## chornedsnorkack

Well, what are the commuter services like?

Guangzhou-Shenzhen railway, 147 km, is not only electrified throughout, but also 4 tracked all the way. It is said that 2 of the 4 tracks were reserved for slower trains.

Over these 147 km, there are 4 freight only stations - Yunlu, Xiayuan, Honghai and Sungang. There are also 3 abolished stations somewhere - Tutang, Lincun, Lilang.

The existing passenger stations are:
Guangzhou East, Shipai, Jishan, Nangang, Xintang, Shapu, Xiancun, Shitan, Shilong, Chashan, Nanshe, Hengli, Dongguan, Zhangmutou, Tangtouxia, Tiantangwei, Pinghu, Buji. 18 in total - 8 km average distance between stations.

How many passenger trains daily actually stop at, say, Tiantangwei Station?

I hear that there are trains called "pu kuai", having termini like, Shenzhen-Zhaoqing. What are their schedules like?

On Shenzhen-Guangzhou, high speed railway and low speed railway are actually very far away from one another and do not meet at all south of Guangzhou North. (But the low speed railway Guangzhou-Zhaoqing surely has to cross the high speed railway somehow?)

Whereas how about Shanghai-Nanjing?

I hear that during the 6th Speedup Campaign back in 2007, the 47 km stretch of Shanghai-Nanjing railway Shanghai-Kunshan was upgraded to 200 km/h - of which 20 km stretch Shanghai West-Anting was upgraded to 250 km/h.

Is that part of railway just 2 tracks, or have any parts of it been supplied with 3 or more tracks?

Now, Shanghai-Kunshan is closely but not quite parallel to 2 high speed railways.

Shanghai-Nanjing high speed railway has intermediate stations Shanghai West, Nanxiang North, Anting North and Huaqiao, and goes to Kunshan South. From Anting North, a branch goes to Hongqiao Station.

Shanghai-Beijing high speed railway also goes to Kunshan South, but is nonstop between Kunshan South and Hongqiao.

From high speed railway schedules, I observe that the stations between Shanghai and Kunshan seem to be poorly served. From Shanghai, there is a single daily train stopping at Nanxiang North and Huaqiao (different nonstop trains each) and 2 trains daily stopping at Anting North (different trains again).

How about low speed railway? Are there any small stations at Anting and between Anting and Kunshan? And do trains stop there? Like, are there any pu kuai trains operating?


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## Rail1435

Official pictures from CNR (Datong) news

The 1001 for China Railways









And the 7001 for China Shenhua Group


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## foxmulder

Thanks for the pictures.


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## saiho

chornedsnorkack said:


> Well, what are the commuter services like?
> 
> Guangzhou-Shenzhen railway, 147 km, is not only electrified throughout, but also 4 tracked all the way. It is said that 2 of the 4 tracks were reserved for slower trains.
> 
> Over these 147 km, there are 4 freight only stations - Yunlu, Xiayuan, Honghai and Sungang. There are also 3 abolished stations somewhere - Tutang, Lincun, Lilang.
> 
> The existing passenger stations are:
> Guangzhou East, Shipai, Jishan, Nangang, Xintang, Shapu, Xiancun, Shitan, Shilong, Chashan, Nanshe, Hengli, Dongguan, Zhangmutou, Tangtouxia, Tiantangwei, Pinghu, Buji. 18 in total - 8 km average distance between stations.
> 
> How many passenger trains daily actually stop at, say, Tiantangwei Station?
> 
> I hear that there are trains called "pu kuai", having termini like, Shenzhen-Zhaoqing. What are their schedules like?
> 
> On Shenzhen-Guangzhou, high speed railway and low speed railway are actually very far away from one another and do not meet at all south of Guangzhou North. (But the low speed railway Guangzhou-Zhaoqing surely has to cross the high speed railway somehow?)
> 
> Whereas how about Shanghai-Nanjing?
> 
> I hear that during the 6th Speedup Campaign back in 2007, the 47 km stretch of Shanghai-Nanjing railway Shanghai-Kunshan was upgraded to 200 km/h - of which 20 km stretch Shanghai West-Anting was upgraded to 250 km/h.
> 
> Is that part of railway just 2 tracks, or have any parts of it been supplied with 3 or more tracks?
> 
> Now, Shanghai-Kunshan is closely but not quite parallel to 2 high speed railways.
> 
> Shanghai-Nanjing high speed railway has intermediate stations Shanghai West, Nanxiang North, Anting North and Huaqiao, and goes to Kunshan South. From Anting North, a branch goes to Hongqiao Station.
> 
> Shanghai-Beijing high speed railway also goes to Kunshan South, but is nonstop between Kunshan South and Hongqiao.
> 
> From high speed railway schedules, I observe that the stations between Shanghai and Kunshan seem to be poorly served. From Shanghai, there is a single daily train stopping at Nanxiang North and Huaqiao (different nonstop trains each) and 2 trains daily stopping at Anting North (different trains again).
> 
> How about low speed railway? Are there any small stations at Anting and between Anting and Kunshan? And do trains stop there? Like, are there any pu kuai trains operating?


commuter rail is almost non-exsistant in china, only a single Beijing line and a Shanghai line that's opening soon. Though I feel that after the main HSR grid is complete it would be the next logical step for MOR to put in local/commuter services on the freed up slots, cause it helps support HSR ridership.


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## gramercy

the next few decades will be a hoot, china will have no choice but to build hundreds of subway lines and hundreds of suburban rail lines

also, they will begin constructing tramways in the medium size cities :banana:


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## chornedsnorkack

How about answering the direct questions like - which trains actually serve the small stations on Guangzhou-Shenzhen railway, like Tiantangwei?

Now, example for suburban railways from Japan.

Odawara is connected to Tokyo with at least 4 railway lines.

Tokaido Shinkansen - 76,7 km Tokyo-Odawara. 2 intermediate stations (Shinagawa and Shin-Yokohama). 51,2 km railway between Shin-Yokohama and Odawara has no stations.

Tokaido Main Line - 83,9 km Tokyo-Odawara. 14 intermediate stations. Includes Shinagawa, but also Shimbashi station between Tokyo and Shinagawa. The station intervals go to as much as 12,1 km Yokohama-Totsuka.

Odakyu Odawara Line - originates at Shinjuku instead of Tokyo Station. Distance 82,5 km Shinjuku-Odawara. 45 intermediate stops. Longest station interval between Shibusawa and Shin-Matsuda is 6,2 km.

Oh, and there is the separate Tokaido Freight Line, too.


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## hmmwv

Taiyuan Railway Bureau has started to experiment remote monitoring of cardiac condition of drivers.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2012-09-17/212725192687.shtml
中新网太原9月17日电(任丽娜) 太原铁路局17日发布消息称，该局研发的“机车司机远程心功能检测系统”，通过了由中国铁道科学研究院、山西医学会心电学会、山西省疾病预防控制所等组成的专家委员会的鉴定。该项研究成果实现了火车司机心电图远程时时采集、发送和传输，为机车司机建立起了更加完善的健康管理体系，填补了国内同领域的一项空白。

　　太原火车站党委副书记刘文宏对中新社记者说，火车司机是特殊的职业群体，其工作时间具有不规律性，昼伏夜出或连续工作是他们工作的常态，而整列火车的旅客安全与火车司机的身体健康有着密不可分的联系。

　　太原铁路局称，围绕机车司机工作的特殊性，历时一年的科学研究，该局首次尝试把机车司机心功能指标进行无线远程时时传输。旨在解决目前心电采集必须通过电极粘在皮肤上造成不能长期携带和机车司机处于高速位移状态下，许多隐性的心血管病得不到及时诊断而影响机车司机身体健康的现状。

　　此外，太原铁路局将进一步开发监测项目及其软件分析系统，进而达到实现传输机车司机的血压、血氧、体温、呼吸等检测指标的目的，为更广泛的疾病预报打下良好的基础，也为铁路点多线长、就医不方便等现状打开了一个突破口。

　　太原铁路局介绍，“机车司机远程心功能检测系统”在中国尚属首例。该研究课题对保证职工身体健康和服务安全生产起到了推动作用，为全面建立机车司机健康管理体系奠定了基础。(完)


----------



## big-dog

Kunming-Vietnam Railway, 854km, built in 1910



















from weibo/lcx341


----------



## Myouzke

*Pinyin jumps aboard nation's trains*
Chinese Daily


> If you go to Beijing South Railway Station over the National Day holiday, don't be surprised if the name has been changed into Beijingnan Railway Station.
> The change is to comply with a regulation by the Ministry of Railways to standardize the English translation of names of rail stations.
> The rule, in effect since Sept 1, requires the direction in the railway stations names to be spelled in pinyin as opposed to English.
> "As an intrinsic part of the railway station's name, it is for the convenience of foreign friends and locals that the direction is spelled in pinyin," said Wang Bin, the publicity officer of the ministry.
> But it may take some time for railway stations nationwide to change the names.
> The signs at the railway stations and the names on the train tickets will also be changed, the ministry said.
> Some experts applauded the changes, saying they implemented a nationwide standard while promoting Chinese characters and culture.
> "To have one uniform translation standard is better than the co-existence of both 'south station' and 'nan station'," said Yang Quanhong, a linguist professor at the Sichuan International Studies University.
> "One of the most important principles when it comes to translation is being faithful to the original," he said.
> Yang said because pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters and is officially recognized by the United Nations, it helps promote Chinese culture.
> Minzu University of China, for example, is a translation closer to its original, he said.
> However, Yang also said it made more sense for foreigners if the English translation is also added along with pinyin.
> Li Jinzhao, from Beijing Foreign Studies University, also said standardizing the railway station names with pinyin might be better for practical reasons.
> "A taxi driver might not understand where Beijing South Railway Station is, but he definitely could drive you to the Beijingnan Railway Station," she said.
> However, pinyin will not replace English spelling of subway stations in the capital, according to the Beijing Subway.
> According to Sun Lijie, a publicity officer with the Beijing Subway, the name of a subway station, "Beijing South Railway Station" will not be changed.
> Despite the railway's intention to provide more convenient services to foreign friends, those alien to the country's culture, especially characters and pinyin, don't really find the changes useful.
> "Many people in the country speak simple English and it's not a big problem to find your way," said Abilio Santos, a 19-year-old student from the University of International Business and Economics, who came from Spain to China two weeks ago to study the Chinese language.
> "For people like me, pinyin can better help foreign students with their Chinese language study."
> He said translating all stations in the city with pinyin would not necessarily help foreigners.
> "It's stupid if you refer to the Olympic Park as 'Aolinpikegongyuan', its pinyin translation," he said.
> The public also questions if the changes are necessary.
> "It doesn't fit an international city to translate its railway stations with local characters that hardly make sense to foreign tourists," said Gong Yu, a 26-year-old editor in the capital. "And I can't see why they decided to implement the changes at this time."


*铁道部：火车站名英文拼写统一用汉语拼音*
人民网


> 你赞成火车站英文名改成汉语拼音吗？9月1日起，北京西站和北京南站发车的车票上的站名英文名悄然发生了变化，英文拼写变成了汉语拼音。之后，车站所有的相关站牌名也都会随之发生变化。
> 
> 方位词统一用汉语拼音
> 
> 日前，铁道部下发通知，为规范铁路车站站名的英文译法，铁路车站站名的英文拼写统一采用汉语拼音，“东南西北”方位词作为车站站名的固有部分，不按英文音译。涉及“地名+方向”的站名，方位词统一采用汉语拼音。如“北京西站”的英文翻译为“Beijingxi Railway Station”。
> 
> 通知要求，车票票面上及其他有关站名的英文标注，按照上述原则，统一采用汉语拼音。
> 
> 铁道部表示，站名中方位词已经按英文意译的站名牌及其他相关设施的更换改造，在短期内完成确有困难的，可逐步完成。
> 
> 北京南站车票9月起已调整
> 
> 记者昨天在北京南站发现，北京南站的LED显示屏上的北京南站的英文拼写已经全部变成汉语拼音，而车站南、北进站口的大字还没有改变，仍然是“Beijingsouth Railway Station”。
> 
> 记者通过对比9月1日前后从北京南站发车的车票也发现，9月1日前北京南的英文名为“BeiJingSouth”，9月1日后北京南的英文名为“BeiJingNan”。
> 
> 正在北京南站候车的王先生不太赞同站名英文名字的改动。他说，地铁4号线北京南站这一站的英文名是“Beijingsouth
> 
> Railway Station”，而北京南站的英文名是“Beijingnan Railway Station”，这样会给外籍乘客带来困扰，而且外国人是否懂中国的汉语拼音，也是个问题。


----------



## Silly_Walks

^^


For a foreigner studying Chinese, this could be helpful... IF they also included the English translation.

Most foreigners in China aren't there to study Chinese, they are there for business. They don't want to be bothered with learning that Aolinpikegongyuan is Olympic Park.


Also, how are you ever to find out that Beijingnan is Beijing South, if it no longer says anywhere that Beijingnan means Beijing South?



As a foreigner in China, I did experience how difficult it can be to get to places, when locals don't know what you mean when you say the English name, so I understand it makes sense to transliterate the Chinese name into Pinyin. However, an English translation is still needed, so you actually know what that Pinyin means.


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## gdolniak

chornedsnorkack said:


> Well, what are the commuter services like?
> 
> How many passenger trains daily actually stop at, say, Tiantangwei Station?
> 
> I hear that there are trains called "pu kuai", having termini like, Shenzhen-Zhaoqing. What are their schedules like?


Before building the fourth track and introducing CRH1, I believe there was a one, or two, trains a day that stopped at each of the stations. Now, they stop only at Dongguan. Even though, there are facilities at other stations, the trains do not stop there (for passenger disembarking).



chornedsnorkack said:


> On Shenzhen-Guangzhou, high speed railway and low speed railway are actually very far away from one another and do not meet at all south of Guangzhou North. (But the low speed railway Guangzhou-Zhaoqing surely has to cross the high speed railway somehow?


If you mean the newest high speed railway, the slow track crosses the high speed lines at Shenzhen North Station (spur line to Shenzhen West Station) and near Guangzhou Jiaokou (subway station).

If you mean the "old" CRH1 line, then the slow tracks run parallel to the conventional tracks. You can change the trains at Shenzhen, Dongguan or Guangzhou East stations.


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## gdolniak

Silly_Walks said:


> ^^
> For a foreigner studying Chinese, this could be helpful... IF they also included the English translation.


I think this move is good. Pinyin is good enough. Many countries use the local names for railway stations and do not have any problems. There is Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Paris Gare du Nord, Roma Termini, and nobody has any problems with it. I'm all for it.

Pinyin actually can help foreigners. Try to explain to a taxi driver "east railway station" or just "dong zhan". Big difference.


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## Silly_Walks

gdolniak said:


> Pinyin actually can help foreigners. Try to explain to a taxi driver "east railway station" or just "dong zhan". Big difference.


Which is exactly what I said as well.



But their argument "It is good for people who are learning Chinese" doesn't fly if they completely take away the English name, because you still will not know what that Pinyin actually means.


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## hkskyline

*Number of Chinese holiday travelers to rise*

BEIJING, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- More than 660 million people are expected to travel during the week-long National Day holiday starting Sept. 30, an increase of 8.8 percent from the same period last year, according to an official estimate.

He Jianzhong, spokesman for the Ministry of Transport, said Thursday that China's railways, highways and airlines will serve a daily average of 82.5 million travelers during the holiday, which lasts from Oct. 1 to 7.

The first and last days of the holiday will be especially busy, with many people leaving and returning. However, He forecast that the peak travel day is expected to fall on Sept. 30, adding that he expects 86 million people to travel that day.

He said more than 1.6 million people will travel by ship each day during the holiday.

Minibuses will be exempt from road tolls during the holiday, which may contribute to a sharp increase in travelers, especially those travelling via private car, said the spokesman.

He said that more than 840,000 buses with 20 million seats will be operating during the National Day holiday, also dubbed the "Golden Week."

Meanwhile, 21,000 ships with nearly 900,000 seats will be operating at full steam.

He urged inter-city bus drivers to strictly abide by established regulations, including resting every four hours while driving during the day time, not overloading vehicles and driving within posted speed limits.

The Ministry of Railways has made great efforts to make traveling easier, said the spokesman, noting that all train tickets can be booked online or by a telephone hotline.

Traveling by railway is the primary transportation mode for Chinese travelers.


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## Restless

Back some 10-15 years ago, China was already experiencing capacity constraints on the railways. So a decision was taken to use scarce slots for long-distance journeys, because local journeys were better off served by bus and subways anyway.

And today, there's a large shortage of slots for slow-moving freight and not much demand for local journeys. So the plan is to run a lot more freight trains, which are also a lot more profitable than local passenger journeys.





saiho said:


> commuter rail is almost non-exsistant in china, only a single Beijing line and a Shanghai line that's opening soon. Though I feel that after the main HSR grid is complete it would be the next logical step for MOR to put in local/commuter services on the freed up slots, cause it helps support HSR ridership.


----------



## saiho

Restless said:


> Back some 10-15 years ago, China was already experiencing capacity constraints on the railways. So a decision was taken to use scarce slots for long-distance journeys, because local journeys were better off served by bus and subways anyway.
> 
> And today, there's a large shortage of slots for slow-moving freight and not much demand for local journeys. So the plan is to run a lot more freight trains, which are also a lot more profitable than local passenger journeys.


IMHO I think the demand is huge for local services judging from the packed subways of large Chinese cities. The problem is most Chinese railways are double track even in urban centres. What they need to do is triple, quad or even sextuple track sections in urban areas (guangshen railway) to accommodate local services running at rapid transit-like frequencies like JR or the MTR east rail line.


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## Restless

saiho said:


> IMHO I think the demand is huge for local services judging from the packed subways of large Chinese cities. The problem is most Chinese railways are double track even in urban centres. What they need to do is triple, quad or even sextuple track sections in urban areas (guangshen railway) to accommodate local services running at rapid transit-like frequencies like JR or the MTR east rail line.


Yeah, but if you're going to create a new local railway service, wouldn't it make more sense to choose the optimal alignment, rather than be restricted to the existing route? Subways these days run at 120km/h, which is not that different from 160-180km/h trains.

And you can't mix many freight services with lots of passenger services running at the same time on a line. I think it worked out as one 200km/h service takes up paths that could be used for 3 freight services.


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## chornedsnorkack

Restless said:


> Yeah, but if you're going to create a new local railway service, wouldn't it make more sense to choose the optimal alignment, rather than be restricted to the existing route?


Sure. It is just that the subway is another line to build from scratch.


Restless said:


> Subways these days run at 120km/h, which is not that different from 160-180km/h trains.
> 
> And you can't mix many freight services with lots of passenger services running at the same time on a line. I think it worked out as one 200km/h service takes up paths that could be used for 3 freight services.


Yes - high speed trains.

Commuter trains are rather closer in speed to freight trains.


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## Sunfuns

120 km/h (but constantly) is enough for suburban trains which stop every 4-5 km and at this speed there is not much interference with freight. Besides freight can be run mostly during off-peak hours (at night and during the middle of the day).


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## saiho

Restless said:


> Yeah, but if you're going to create a new local railway service, wouldn't it make more sense to choose the optimal alignment, rather than be restricted to the existing route?


Most cities, as they grow, develop along major transit corridors like say conventional railways. :eat: So in many situations the mainline railway is the most optimal alignment. Especially if you connect multiple city centres in a metropolitan area, chances are the most direct alignment is the railway. 



Restless said:


> Subways these days run at 120km/h, which is not that different from 160-180km/h trains.


Most subways don't run that fast. Only a handful of Chinese regional express subways go close to that figure. (Beijing subway airport express, future shanghai metro line 16, and HTR tung chung line at 110, 120, 135km/h top service speed respectively) Everything else in China runs at a top service speed of 80ish km/h and of course the average speed is much lower than that unless there is non-stop service (almost non exsistant except shanghai line 16). So it would be nice to see some mainline commuter crosstown services that are faster than subways.



Restless said:


> And you can't mix many freight services with lots of passenger services running at the same time on a line. I think it worked out as one 200km/h service takes up paths that could be used for 3 freight services.


that's why i said you should add more tracks urban areas and commuter trains have similar speeds to freight trains in china


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## Restless

Sunfuns said:


> 120 km/h (but constantly) is enough for suburban trains which stop every 4-5 km and at this speed there is not much interference with freight. Besides freight can be run mostly during off-peak hours (at night and during the middle of the day).


You do realise there is a serious lack of freight capacity?

Plus remember that commuter rail is normally loss-making, whilst freight is very profitable. 
And high-speed rail is normally somewhere in the middle.

So why bother running commuter rail and lose money?


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## Silly_Walks

Restless said:


> So why bother running commuter rail and lose money?


Keep cities accessible when roads become clogged.

Feed passengers into other lines to make those even more profitable.


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## saiho

Restless said:


> You do realise there is a serious lack of freight capacity?


Last time I checked there serious lack of capacity for everything that has wheels and moves in China.



Restless said:


> Plus remember that commuter rail is normally loss-making, whilst freight is very profitable.
> And high-speed rail is normally somewhere in the middle.


By that logic there should be no commuter rail on earth except in East Asia where some commuter rail networks makes money. Oh and China is in East Asia so there could be a chance... 
regardless of its profitability, its not about the money there is the other positive externalities that rail brings to the area.



Restless said:


> So why bother running commuter rail and lose money?


In railway economics, even if your branch lines don't make money but they do bring an overall increase in profit from induced ridership in the mainline; you should keep it. HSR in Japan an France is profitable partly because of the dense local rail in their cities.


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## big-dog

*New 25T train debut on Guangzhou-Shijiazhuang route (Aug 2012) *

There's very cool video on Guangzhou-Shijiazhuang T89










from weibo and baiu


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## hmmwv

Must be part of the order MOR put in earlier this year for thousands of new 25T carriages.


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## Restless

saiho said:


> Last time I checked there serious lack of capacity for everything that has wheels and moves in China.


So should overground rail capacity be used for unprofitable short-distance commuters who can take a bus or subway, instead of long-distance passengers and freight trains that are more profitable?




saiho said:


> By that logic there should be no commuter rail on earth except in East Asia where some commuter rail networks makes money. Oh and China is in East Asia so there could be a chance...
> regardless of its profitability, its not about the money there is the other positive externalities that rail brings to the area.


Yup. Most countries have to subsidise their commuter rail networks.

In the UK, I think about half of all commuter services/rails were cut as everyone turned to cars and trucks about 40years ago. The commuter services still run because the rails have already been paid for, so the subsidies aren't too great.

And at the moment, Chinese commuters just aren't able to afford the costs of a commuter network. I think it'll take another 5-10years before incomes rise enough to make it economically feasible, so it's better to concentrate on the profitable parts of the network first.




saiho said:


> In railway economics, even if your branch lines don't make money but they do bring an overall increase in profit from induced ridership in the mainline; you should keep it. HSR in Japan an France is profitable partly because of the dense local rail in their cities.


Yup, but dense local networks are better provided by buses which are normally profitable, and by subways. The subways are underground next to city-core locations, and travel overground in the suburbs at 120km/h as well.

In comparison, commuter rail lines cover fewer people and fewer places of interest.


----------



## Sunfuns

Subways are ok and needed in large cities, although generally more expensive to build than commuter rail lines. No one, however, is particularly keen on long bus journeys. In places where nothing better is available (in cities and sizable towns) they tend to be relegated to poor people with everyone else driving with disastrous consequences to average commuting times. For smaller places were real metro is not justified light rail is a good alternative.There is a big boom in construction of new light rail in many European towns after so much of it was closed in 50-ties and 60-ties...


----------



## saiho

Restless said:


> So should overground rail capacity be used for unprofitable short-distance commuters who can take a bus or subway, instead of long-distance passengers and freight trains that are more profitable?


yes it should because 

A) subways don't go everywhere and aren't too common in china right now (in the grand scheme of things)
B) buses are hardly higher order higher capacity transit and people take them cause they have no choice. (unless its BRT but thats not too common either)



Restless said:


> Yup. Most countries have to subsidise their commuter rail networks.


So, ya the reasons they keep them is the reason China should get some. :cheers:



Restless said:


> In the UK, I think about half of all commuter services/rails were cut as everyone turned to cars and trucks about 40years ago. The commuter services still run because the rails have already been paid for, so the subsidies aren't too great.


well maybe they should ramp up the subsidies cause london is kinda a commuter nightmare and right now UK is sort of regretting Beeching Axe losses. 



Restless said:


> Yup, but dense local networks are better provided by buses which are normally profitable, and by subways. The subways are underground next to city-core locations, and travel overground in the suburbs at 120km/h as well.


given chinas density just buses and subways probably not good enough. buses will get packed and its not economical to put a subway everywhere.

buses should be local feeders and distributors in urban areas serving a dense trunk urban rail network like tokyo or seoul.



Restless said:


> In comparison, commuter rail lines cover fewer people and fewer places of interest.


The technology has nothing to do how much people or places of interest it covers, its the alignment. The Yamanote line covers a lot of people with lots of places of interest. While Kunming Metro line 6 is currently (temporarily) the most useless subway line on earth.


----------



## foxmulder

big-dog said:


> *New 25T train debut on Guangzhou-Shijiazhuang route (Aug 2012) *
> 
> There's very cool video on Guangzhou-Shijiazhuang T89
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> from weibo and baiu



Yeah.. whoever made that video is in love with trains, such a romantic clip


----------



## Fan Railer

The new 160 km/h locomotives have been caught up close and personal on video, finally. Enjoy 

HXD1D:






HXD3D:


----------



## hmmwv

^^That's really cool, they can certainly use the 160km/h loco for freight trains carrying express parcels.


----------



## big-dog

*9.28 Jinshan Rail, (aka Shanhai Metro Line 22) opens today*

The 56km line 22 is Shanghai's first commuter rail.




























(weibo.com)


----------



## Silly_Walks

^^

Haha who are those rebels that turned their seat towards the window?


----------



## FM 2258

The recent improvements in China's railway system is impressive. They seem to be upgrading everything.


----------



## foxmulder

China's electric railway mileage exceeds 48,000 km



> BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's electric railway mileage has surpassed 48,000 kilometers, ranking first in the world, the China Railway Engineering Corporation Railway Electrification Bureau Group Co., Ltd. (EEB) said Tuesday.
> 
> It achieved the goal with the operation of a 921-kilometer electric railway line connecting the northeastern cities of Harbin and Dalian. The line is also the world's fastest rail line in regions with extremely low temperatures.
> 
> Wang Zuoxiang, head of the EEB technology department, said the country started to build electric railways in 1958, and in just over half a century, the mileage has exceeded that of Russia, the former country with the most electric railway mileage.
> 
> There are 68 countries and regions with electric railways. Behind China, the leading ones are Russia with 43,300 kilometers, Germany with 21,013 kilometers, India with 18,810 kilometers, Japan with 16,965 kilometers and France with 15,217 kilometers.
> 
> According to the 12th five-year plan for railway development, China will have around 120,000 kilometers of railway in operation -- 60 percent of which will be electric -- by the end of 2015.


----------



## big-dog

^^


> There are 68 countries and regions with electric railways. Behind China, the leading ones are Russia with 43,300 kilometers, Germany with 21,013 kilometers, India with 18,810 kilometers, Japan with 16,965 kilometers and France with 15,217 kilometers.


Where is US?


----------



## foxmulder

big-dog said:


> ^^
> 
> 
> Where is US?


I think ~1% of US rail is electrified.


----------



## Rail1435

US is exactly the opposite as Switzerland: 99% is electrified.


----------



## hmmwv

big-dog said:


> ^^
> 
> 
> Where is US?


The only thing I can think of is the Northeast Corridor.


----------



## big-dog

*12.11 Xiangtang-Putian Railway (向莆铁路) tracklaying completed, opening in September 2013*

Length: 635.861km
Design Speed: 200km/h
Stations: 24

Xiangtang-Putian Railway connects Jiangxi Province directly to Fujian Province, providing a 3-hour seaport access to inland province of Jiangxi. With its opening Nanchang to Fuzhou's travel time will be reduced from current 11 hours to 3.5 hours.










--xinhuant


----------



## big-dog

*12.11 Xiamen-Shenzhen Railway (厦深铁路) to open in October 2013*

Length: 502km
Design Speed: 200km/h
Stations: 24
Time table: 
April 2013 Track-laying completes
July 15th 2013 Trial run
October 2013 Opens

The most difficult part, 9888m Liangshan Tunnel project has completed on Nov 24th. The Xiamn-Shenzhen Railway will reduce the two city's rail travel time from 13.5 hours to 3 hours.










--Chinadaily


----------



## FM 2258

^^ 

13 hours to 3 hours!!! Damn! These new high speed railways are making travel so much simpler throughout the country. 350km/h line would be better but 200km/h is still pretty fast for overland travel.


----------



## CoCoMilk

wow....those are good amount of time being saved.


----------



## hmmwv

Remember those are not PDLs and not considered high speed rail in China, they will run 200km/h CRH trains but also conventional trains including freight.


----------



## big-dog

FM 2258 said:


> ^^
> 
> 13 hours to 3 hours!!! Damn! These new high speed railways are making travel so much simpler throughout the country. 350km/h line would be better but 200km/h is still pretty fast for overland travel.


There's no direct rail connctions between the two cities before so it take a long time by rail. 

The Xiamen-Shenzhen line is being built to give capacity of upgrading to 250km/h.


----------



## big-dog

hmmwv said:


> Remember those are not PDLs and not considered high speed rail in China, they will run 200km/h CRH trains but also conventional trains including freight.


Just curious: why can't HSR be used for express frieight? isn't it more convenient to use HSR than flight to ship express mails/cargo?


----------



## XAN_

big-dog said:


> Just curious: why can't HSR be used for express frieight? isn't it more convenient to use HSR than flight to ship express mails/cargo?


It's already used in France - https://www.google.com.ua/search?q=...icial&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dqDJULSwDc3OswaTxICwBg


----------



## hmmwv

big-dog said:


> Just curious: why can't HSR be used for express frieight? isn't it more convenient to use HSR than flight to ship express mails/cargo?


Cargo load/unload time is significantly longer than passengers, and a HSR container train has yet to be developed. However Chinese logistics companies have already explored using HSR as a mean of package delivery. For example SF Express is currently doing trials of running parcel services using CRH trains.


----------



## hmmwv

Some Yunan-Vietnam railway pics, not sure whether it's been posted here before.


----------



## yaohua2000

*China's easternmost railway station to open for passenger service later this afternoon*

The first train will depart from Fuyuan on December 18 at 15:00 for Harbin East.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> The first train will depart from Fuyuan on December 18 at 15:00 for Harbin East.


Where is Fuyuan station located relative to Khabarovsk?


----------



## yaohua2000

chornedsnorkack said:


> Where is Fuyuan station located relative to Khabarovsk?


50 km


----------



## yaohua2000

Shenzhen East Railway Station to open tomorrow.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

yaohua2000 said:


> Shenzhen East Railway Station to open tomorrow.


How did opening of Buji Station between Shenzhen and Zhangmutou affect the D train travel time?


----------



## Woonsocket54

*Shenzhen East Station*

http://www.sznews.com/photo/content/2012-12/21/content_7528650.htm


----------



## FM 2258

^^

Great pictures. I presume that that Shenzhen to Tianjin train will take a loooong time to get to Tianjin.


----------



## Restless

*The Silk Railroad of China-Europe Trade*

Multinationals operating in China have been setting up factories deep in the interior in search of affordable labor. The drawback: These plants can be more than a thousand kilometers (621 miles) from the coast. For companies exporting to Europe—still one of the largest markets for Chinese goods—shipping by air from Chongqing or other inland cities is too expensive. Trucking or carrying goods by train to the ports of Shanghai or Shenzhen’s Yantian and then shipping them to Western Europe can take 40 days.
===
Shipping one container by train costs about $10,000, one-third the price of air transit, Prophet says. Although the train is about twice the cost of shipping by sea, it takes only 21 days for products from a factory in Chongqing to reach Western Europe by rail. The carbon footprint of rail, meanwhile, is about one-thirtieth that of air freight. 


Full Article Below
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-20/the-silk-railroad-of-china-europe-trade


----------



## chornedsnorkack

FM 2258 said:


> ^^
> 
> Great pictures. I presume that that Shenzhen to Tianjin train will take a loooong time to get to Tianjin.


1 day 7 hours 16 minutes. Leaves Buji in the morning, spends two days and the night between on move, arrives next afternoon 16:06.

I observe that while Transmanchurian and Transmongolian both carry passenger trains between Beijing and Moscow, there seem to be no trains via Alashankow. What is to be done about that?


----------



## big-dog

> 22 Dec, 2012, 04.46PM IST, PTI
> 
> *China opens $962 million border railway with Kazakhstan*
> 
> BEIJING: The rail line comprised of 292-km section in China and the remaining 293-km section in Kazakhstan. They were joined at the Korgas Pass in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
> 
> Construction of the Chinese side of the railway cost $962 million, railway officials said.
> 
> The rail line is expected to ease the burden of the Alataw trade pass, where the first China-Central Asia railway traverses. It handles 15.6 million tonnes of train-laden cargo a year.
> 
> ... ...


source


----------



## big-dog

^^










--weibo.com


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> source


What is the current train trip time Urumqi-Yining-Khorgos-Altynkol-Zhetigen-Almaty?

And how many trains daily are scheduled to serve the route?


----------



## foxmulder

An ok reading.



> China's state-planned railway age outdoes Britain and America's
> Our 19th-century economies benefited hugely from railway investment – but China's planned approach is more efficient
> 
> David Turner
> guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 December 2012 12.59 EST
> Jump to comments (185)
> 
> 
> In 1825, William George Allen, council to Britain's first inter-city railway, the Liverpool and Manchester, predicted that railways might "prove of the greatest advantage to our trade and commerce; and which, if we do not adopt it, will be adopted by our rivals." He was not wrong, and in the 19th century the spread of railways across Britain and America contributed to both nations' transformation into industrial world powers. Indeed, recent estimates have suggested that without the quicker and cheaper travel provided by the railways, British GDP would have been 14% lower in 1912.
> 
> The current thinking of the Chinese government is strikingly similar to Allen's. Over the past 20 years it has invested heavily in the railways to enable them to be a supporter and facilitator of economic development. However, in the last six, investment levels have reached new highs. An investment programme worth about £80bn has grown the country's network from 78,000km at the end of 2007 to an estimated 110,000km at the end of this year. This was supplemented by the announcement in 2008 of a further £74bn to enable the network cope with increased traffic until 2020.
> 
> This investment has generally considered to have served its purpose. Similar to most railway development, some expenditure has been on prestige projects, such as the world's longest high-speed line between Beijing to Guangzhou, which is due to open on 26 December. However, the Chinese network's primary role has not been to ferry business people, but to enable the easy movement of goods and labour. Indeed, passenger numbers increased by 4.6% in November, and while in 2011 China's railway network only constituted 6% of worldwide route mileage, it carried 25% of its workload. Therefore, further investment in railways will very likely continue to facilitate China's economic development; just like in Victorian Britain and America.
> 
> There is, however, a good possibility that China's railway will be built to do this more efficiently than those in 19th-century Britain and America. In these countries the planning of routes was almost completely left to the private companies, with very little state interference. Consequently, by 1880 Britain could claim to have a largely comprehensive network; but because of competition and speculative building it was considerably over-capitalised and possessed excessive route mileage. Indeed, Mark Casson has estimated that if the state had planned Britain's railways, by 1914 they would still have been able to comprehensively serve the nation's needs for 25% less cost and with a route mileage 7,000 miles shorter than the real total of 20,000 miles.
> 
> Yet, because the Chinese government determines when and where a line is constructed, it is likely to avoid such problems. Its railway planners are not encumbered by competitive line building, speculative bubbles, struggles over territory or unrealistic expectations of profit; factors that shaped Britain and America's haphazard railway network. Rather, it can theoretically link two cities, ports or factories when required, providing quickly and cost-effectively a network that is shaped to the needs of the economy, rather than private interests.
> 
> But furthermore, the high engineering standards of modern railways, combined with the nation's mixed terrain and vast distances between cities, mean that only the government has the resources to speedily and adequately augment China's railway network to support the nation's quickly growing economy. While total investment in Britain's railways between 1825 and 1910 would be worth approximately £110bn today; this is far less than the sums expected to be invested in Chinese railways in only 12 years between 2008 and 2020. Thus, had the Chinese government not chosen to invest staggering amounts in its railways, this may have considerably held back the nation's economic progress.
> 
> Therefore, state planning and investment may mean that by 2020 China will possess a railway system that contributes more to growing and supporting its economy than those Britain and America developed in the 19th century.


----------



## China Hand

foxmulder said:


> Yet, because the Chinese government determines when and where a line is constructed, it is likely to avoid such problems. Its railway planners are not encumbered by competitive line building, speculative bubbles, struggles over territory or unrealistic expectations of profit; factors that shaped Britain and America's haphazard railway network. Rather, it can theoretically link two cities, ports or factories when required, providing quickly and cost-effectively a network that is shaped to the needs of the economy, rather than private interests.


Governments make mistakes, also. It is by no means certain that China will avoid said issues.


----------



## China Hand

FM 2258 said:


> ^^
> 
> 13 hours to 3 hours!!! Damn! These new high speed railways are making travel so much simpler throughout the country. 350km/h line would be better but 200km/h is still pretty fast for overland travel.


They are, indeed.

Travel times by nnnn trains are 76 kph on average and once you get off the train you are going 40kph average, with stops and such, on local intercity buses, 90kph avg on long haul buses between major cities on freeways and tollways.

It can take me 17 hours to get on the CRH to Wuhan from nearby by bus, and then 4.5 hours to Shenzhen from Wuhan.

The ZGT are changing the face of Chinese travel for the better. 

Prices are often MORE than discount air fare, but the best part is that one can normally buy a ticket short notice on a CRH during peak seasons and get about quickly. Planes are sold out, buses and normal trains sold out days or on week in advance and just a bad time.

1st Class CRH? No issues.


----------



## hmmwv

big-dog said:


> source


----------



## hmmwv

Dec 21 night at Tongzhou section of the Beijing-Harbin railway, Moron #1 driving close to the railway tracks got stuck in a ditch and called for help, Moron #2 showed up and rammed two trees, broke the railway fencing and got onto the track. CRH train D8 from Shenyang to Beijing was passing by and had to emergency break but still hit the Audi SUV. No one on the train was injured and the two morons were also okay. The CRH train broke its nose windshield and costed the 200 passengers a few hours of their time.

http://news.qq.com/a/20121222/000877.htm?utm_source=weibolife


----------



## big-dog

^^ a Chinese version of Dumb & Dumber lol


----------



## Pansori

Why would they do that? Are they retarded? Audi SUV doesn't sound like something a complete retard would own.


----------



## Silly_Walks

Pansori said:


> Why would they do that? Are they retarded? Audi SUV doesn't sound like something a complete retard would own.


An SUV is EXACTLY what a complete retard would own.


----------



## Sunfuns

A rich one, it should be added. BMW's are popular in my country with young men who have more money than intelect...


----------



## Pansori

Silly_Walks said:


> An SUV is EXACTLY what a complete retard would own.


Well I mean if one was a complete retard he could not AFFORD an Audi SUV because I believe we're talking of a 500 000RMB+ car (a new one that is).


----------



## Silly_Walks

Pansori said:


> Well I mean if one was a complete retard he could not AFFORD an Audi SUV because I believe we're talking of a 500 000RMB+ car (a new one that is).


To come from money does not require any brains.


----------



## strandeed

Silly_Walks said:


> To come from money does not require any brains.


nor does commenting on here.... obviously. 

I'm going to assume that driver number 2 swerved to avoid driver number 1 and ended up crashing as a result


----------



## Northridge

Pansori said:


> Audi SUV doesn't sound like something a complete retard would own.


You haven't been to China, have you?
Audi drivers goes for the worst kind over there.


----------



## hmmwv

Pansori said:


> Well I mean if one was a complete retard he could not AFFORD an Audi SUV because I believe we're talking of a 500 000RMB+ car (a new one that is).


You can get a new Audi Q3 for less than RMB 300,000 now.



strandeed said:


> I'm going to assume that driver number 2 swerved to avoid driver number 1 and ended up crashing as a result


As I mentioned driver 1 called for help and driver 2 showed up, the location of the crash was not on a normal road, the second driver intentionally crush two trees and the fencing in order to get to driver 1. 



Northridge said:


> You haven't been to China, have you?
> Audi drivers goes for the worst kind over there.


As Jeremy Clarkson have said, now all cocks have switched from BMW to Audis.:lol:


----------



## Pansori

hmmwv said:


> You can get a new Audi Q3 for less than RMB 300,000 now.
> 
> 
> As I mentioned driver 1 called for help and driver 2 showed up, the location of the crash was not on a normal road, the second driver intentionally crush two trees and the fencing in order to get to driver 1.
> 
> 
> As Jeremy Clarkson have said, now all cocks have switched from BMW to Audis.:lol:


I didn't see many Q3 but lots and lots of Q7s in SZ/GZ and Shanghai. Which is why I would assume it was a Q7  Although now since I checked it online it seems that it starts at 800K RMB. That's crazy expensive. I suppose they're importing those cars from Germany.


----------



## Silly_Walks

strandeed said:


> nor does commenting on here.... obviously.



You are seriously saying it requires brains for a baby to be born into a wealthy family? :lol:



Anyway, you might call me brainless, but I have never pushed a car onto a train track, or anything even close to that.


----------



## hmmwv

Pansori said:


> I didn't see many Q3 but lots and lots of Q7s in SZ/GZ and Shanghai. Which is why I would assume it was a Q7  Although now since I checked it online it seems that it starts at 800K RMB. That's crazy expensive. I suppose they're importing those cars from Germany.


That's right, Q7 is imported while Q3 and Q5 are assembled domestically, that's why such a huge difference in prices. But those vehicles are not really off roaders so that's why only idiots will attempt to drive onto a railroad embankment.


----------



## gdolniak

*Guangzhou - Zhuhai Railway is finally openned*

From Guangzhou Daily:



> *广珠铁路开通 改写珠江口西岸无货运铁路历史*
> 
> _新闻摘要： 广珠铁路的开通将有效破解广州至佛山、江门、珠海等珠三角西岸城市的物流瓶颈，与公路运输相比采用铁路运输可降低20%物流成本，沿途外贸企业或生产加工企业将从中获益。_
> 
> 途经广州佛山江门珠海四市 改变珠江口西岸无货运铁路历史
> 
> 本报珠海讯 （记者陈治家）昨日11时28分，一辆满载着3000吨煤的货运列车从珠海高栏港驶出，标志着广珠铁路正式投入使用。全国人大华侨委员会副主任委员、广东省原省长黄华华，省委常委、珠海市委书记李嘉，省人大常委会党组副书记雷于蓝，省人大常委会副主任邓维龙，老领导梁广大以及广铁集团领导现场见证了首列货运专列的发车。
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 广珠铁路是国铁I级电气化铁路，设计时速120公里/小时，年运量6000万吨。线路自国家铁路大动脉京广线、华南最大的编组站江村编组站南端双线引出，终于高栏港站，全长189.376km，途经广州、佛山、江门、珠海四市，设大田、官窑、丹灶、鹤山、江门南、古井、斗门、珠海西、高栏港等9个车站，江村编组站至江门南站（含）双线，江门南站至高栏港站单线。
> 
> 广珠铁路是全国为数不多的直接建到港区的货运铁路，目的是“下火车装轮船、下轮船装火车”，实现以港兴市，带动珠海以及沿线城市大发展的目标。珠海西站则是广珠铁路全线规模最大的一个站点。
> 
> 广珠铁路投入运行后，将承担广州铁路枢纽西部通道的功能，改变珠江口西岸无货运铁路的状况，使珠江三角洲西翼地区能够更充分地发挥背靠内陆广大腹地、面对港澳的地缘优势，以广珠铁路为枢纽，加强与澳门的全方位合作，实现粤澳两地共同发展、共同繁荣。
> 
> 广东省物价局已批准对广珠铁路实行试行运价，整车货物不分类别每吨公里0.25元；集装箱货物20英尺箱4.8元/箱公里，40英尺箱9.6元/箱公里，企业自备空箱按重箱费率的40%计算；允许广珠铁路有限责任公司根据市场变化情况，在上述基准运价基础上适度浮动。
> 
> 中山大学港澳珠江三角洲研究中心袁持平教授认为，广珠铁路承担着沿线城市至全国各地大宗货物运输的重任，是珠三角西翼的主要运输通道之一，通车后将使珠三角西翼的企业货畅其流，完善区域综合交通体系，带动珠江三角洲西翼经济快速、平衡地发展，推动整个广东省乃至泛珠三角区域的经济发展。
> 
> 广珠铁路百年梦圆
> 
> 1904年11月，清政府与葡萄牙在上海签订合作修建“中葡广澳铁路合同”，从广州修铁路经珠海进入澳门，后因种种原因没有付诸实施
> 
> 1993年，国务院批准广珠铁路立项
> 
> 1997年，广珠铁路开工
> 
> 1999年，因资金缺乏被迫停工
> 
> 2007年9月25日，国家发改委批复同意广珠铁路复工；次日，建设动员大会召开
> 
> 2012年12月29日，广珠铁路正式建成通车
> 
> 物流成本可降20%
> 
> 珠海一家物流公司负责人说，广珠铁路的开通将有效破解广州至佛山、江门、珠海等珠三角西岸城市的物流瓶颈，与公路运输相比采用铁路运输可降低20%物流成本，沿途外贸企业或生产加工企业将从中获益。
> 
> 实现海铁大联运
> 
> 珠海港鑫和码头是珠三角地区最大的干散货码头，广珠铁路通车后，新建铁路高栏港疏港铁路专用线将从高栏港站联通到码头，无缝连接的海铁联运大通道将打开。
> 
> 将连通4条大动脉
> 
> 未来还将有4条交通大动脉衔接广珠铁路：已开工的贵广高铁、南广高铁将在三水附近与广珠铁路接轨；准备开工的南沙港铁路将与广珠铁路在鹤山接轨；计划上马的沿海铁路将与广珠铁路在江门接轨。
> 
> (编辑： 黄嘉瑜)
> 
> http://news.dayoo.com/guangzhou/201212/30/73437_28170963.htm


----------



## FM 2258

^^

This is nice. The previous terminus was Zhuhai North correct?


----------



## gdolniak

FM 2258 said:


> ^^
> 
> This is nice. The previous terminus was Zhuhai North correct?


No. This is a conventional line railway. Not the high-speed dedicated line that ends in Zhuhai North.


----------



## FM 2258

gdolniak said:


> No. This is a conventional line railway. Not the high-speed dedicated line that ends in Zhuhai North.


Things are going so fast in China it's hard to keep up. I had no idea they were also building a conventional line between Guangzhou and Zhuhai. I guess this is mostly for freight? I falsely thought China was done with building conventional railway lines.


----------



## hmmwv

FM 2258 said:


> Things are going so fast in China it's hard to keep up. I had no idea they were also building a conventional line between Guangzhou and Zhuhai. I guess this is mostly for freight? I falsely thought China was done with building conventional railway lines.


Far from it, if you see a line that has a design speed of 200km/h chances are it's a conventional railway, case in point the Chongqing-Lichuan Railway or the 500km Shenzhen-Xiamen Railway currently under construction.


----------



## urbanfan89

FM 2258 said:


> Things are going so fast in China it's hard to keep up. I had no idea they were also building a conventional line between Guangzhou and Zhuhai. I guess this is mostly for freight? I falsely thought China was done with building conventional railway lines.


This particular line is to provide the first intermodal sea/rail freight connection in Guangdong. Conventional railway lines aren't as sexy as 350km/h high speed lines, but are just as important. :cheers:


----------



## gdolniak

FM 2258 said:


> Things are going so fast in China it's hard to keep up. I had no idea they were also building a conventional line between Guangzhou and Zhuhai. I guess this is mostly for freight? I falsely thought China was done with building conventional railway lines.


It's an old project. They started to build this line in 1997 but stopped in 1999, and then again re-start the construction in 2007.


----------



## feisibuke

*Dandong–Pyongyang train to run everyday from 2013 January 1*


----------



## nouveau.ukiyo

^^A train everyday to Pyongyang? It seems like a lot of people are moving across the border...is it easy for Chinese and North Koreans to traverse the border? I always thought it was hard to get into North Korea and even harder for North Koreans to get out.


----------



## hmmwv

nouveau.ukiyo said:


> ^^A train everyday to Pyongyang? It seems like a lot of people are moving across the border...is it easy for Chinese and North Koreans to traverse the border? I always thought it was hard to get into North Korea and even harder for North Koreans to get out.


For Chinese citizen get into North Korea is as easy as booking a trip with a local travel agency, and they will handle all the paperwork. For North Koreans to get out, that's entirely another matter.


----------



## hkskyline

nouveau.ukiyo said:


> ^^A train everyday to Pyongyang? It seems like a lot of people are moving across the border...is it easy for Chinese and North Koreans to traverse the border? I always thought it was hard to get into North Korea and even harder for North Koreans to get out.


I think even for many people living in the West, it's just a matter of getting the visa and paying the fee for a tour to get in. There probably is a lot of business traffic between the two sides anyway.


----------



## hkskyline

The information about train tickets from Beijing, capital of China, to Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, on Jan. 26, 2013 is shown on the online railway ticket booking website of the Ministry of Railways, Jan. 7, 2013. The tickets for the upcoming Spring Festival rush period can be purchased via online and phone-call booking systems since Jan. 7. The 40-day 2013 Spring Festival travel rush will start on Jan. 26. The Spring Festival for family reunions begins from the first day of the first month of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, or Feb. 10, 2013. (Xinhua/Li Bo)


----------



## big-dog

Jan-9 Reuters: Chinese Ministry of Railway (MOR) will be merged into Ministry of Tranport (MOT).

Link


----------



## Sopomon

big-dog said:


> Jan-9 Reuters: Chinese Ministry of Railway (MOR) will be merged into Ministry of Tranport (MOT).
> 
> Link


What implications will this have?


----------



## big-dog

^^ it's designed to reduce redundency and bureaucracy, centralize the management of rail, aviation and road/waterway transport. Especially with current expansion of expressways, airports and HSR it will improve coordination and efficiency of logistics, people transportation and project planning and constructions.


----------



## bearb

http://informationtimes.dayoo.com/html/2013-01/10/content_2108048.htm


----------



## Geography

> Jan-9 Reuters: Chinese Ministry of Railway (MOR) will be merged into Ministry of Tranport (MOT).


This is big news! Those are two of the largest ministries in the government. It will be a major reorganization of the national government. One benefit I see is that it will reduce factionalism and competition between modes of transport. With separate ministries for different transportation modes there was a fight for resources and regulations to favor one mode. Now, hopefully, the single minister will be able to more efficiently allocate resources between all transportation modes.

Combining ministries should also reduce staffing and cut costs.


----------



## hmmwv

The two ministries are too big to merge in their current forms, I would guess that the railway bureaus will be spun off and form a state owned railway operating corporation.


----------



## stoneybee

It definitely makes both political and economic sense to merge the two ministries for the long run. However, I am not sure the timing is right for now for a number of reasons.

First, there are still a lot of work outstanding to complete the national high-speed rail network. In fact, the current and next year will be the critical years to make this happen. A lot of efforts need to be focused on this to make this happen ranging from securing financing to actual construction and commissioning. So any large scale re-organization will no doubt create problem on this front.

Second, as mentioned in Hmmwv's post, the current ministries are way too big to combine together at their present form. There are a lot of so called "commercial" entities embeded within the ministries. The approaches or solutions on how to divest these entities out of the ministries will take time to sort out and I do not believe the central government has already figured out a plan to do that.

Third, high-speed railway transportation and its associated technologies/industrial bases are part of the core transformation strategy to move China to the next level of manufacturing value chain and national competitiveness. Although China and its industrial bases have accomplished a lot in the past ten years (no small achievement by any means), it is definitely far from being established. So major governmental focus and support (as the Chinese say it "whole nation's effort") are still needed to ensure this transformation and upgrade journey is completed.

Fourth, a major reason why the ministry of railway has been on its own since the founding of the republic was/is the importance of the rail network in the overall defense strategy of the nation. The Chinese military are very much embeded into all core operations of the ministry ranging from route planning, route construction, standards and even the management and operation of train schedules and routes. There are still military liason offices deployed at every control centers throughout the nation. All train routes and schedules will need to be agreed upon by the military before finalization. Again, I am not sure the military is ready to loosen their control and switch to a different mode of operation.

Having said all above, perhaps the Chinese governement has already invested and spent a lot of planning effort into this and is at a stage of readiness to execute according to plan. IMHO, they are not based on what little information is avaible on this front. In addition, bold preditions has been made by western media sources almost every time there was a leadership transition in China, and how many of them turned out to be true.

Just my personal two cents !


----------



## big-dog

stoneybee said:


> It definitely makes both political and economic sense to merge the two ministries for the long run. However, I am not sure the timing is right for now for a number of reasons.
> 
> First, there are still a lot of work outstanding to complete the national high-speed rail network. In fact, the current and next year will be the critical years to make this happen. A lot of efforts need to be focused on this to make this happen ranging from securing financing to actual construction and commissioning. So any large scale re-organization will no doubt create problem on this front.
> 
> Second, as mentioned in Hmmwv's post, the current ministries are way too big to combine together at their present form. There are a lot of so called "commercial" entities embeded within the ministries. The approaches or solutions on how to divest these entities out of the ministries will take time to sort out and I do not believe the central government has already figured out a plan to do that.
> 
> Third, high-speed railway transportation and its associated technologies/industrial bases are part of the core transformation strategy to move China to the next level of manufacturing value chain and national competitiveness. Although China and its industrial bases have accomplished a lot in the past ten years (no small achievement by any means), it is definitely far from being established. So major governmental focus and support (as the Chinese say it "whole nation's effort") are still needed to ensure this transformation and upgrade journey is completed.
> 
> Fourth, a major reason why the ministry of railway has been on its own since the founding of the republic was/is the importance of the rail network in the overall defense strategy of the nation. The Chinese military are very much embeded into all core operations of the ministry ranging from route planning, route construction, standards and even the management and operation of train schedules and routes. There are still military liason offices deployed at every control centers throughout the nation. All train routes and schedules will need to be agreed upon by the military before finalization. Again, I am not sure the military is ready to loosen their control and switch to a different mode of operation.
> 
> Having said all above, perhaps the Chinese governement has already invested and spent a lot of planning effort into this and is at a stage of readiness to execute according to plan. IMHO, they are not based on what little information is avaible on this front. In addition, bold preditions has been made by western media sources almost every time there was a leadership transition in China, and how many of them turned out to be true.
> 
> Just my personal two cents !


For #1 HSR should be planned together with expressways and new airports as a whole. While focusing is important for large project funding and implementaion, closer cooperation and complementation are equally, if not more important.

For #3 I recently watched a documentary showing the inefficiency of domestic logistics concerning the much needed cooperation between rail and road transport. The ministry combination will definitely serve the purpose of digging the potentials of the new traffic pattern and improving manufacturing efficiency and national competitiveness.


----------



## foxmulder

CSR wins Argentina train set contract



> BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- CSR Sifang Co. said Saturday that the company has obtained a contract worth over 3.4 billion yuan (539.68 million U.S. dollars) to supply electric multiple unit (EMU) train sets for Argentina.
> 
> The deal represents CSR's single largest rail equipment order in South America, the company said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
> 
> CSR Sifang is expected to deliver the first batch of train sets in May 2014, with the remainder to be delivered in six months.
> 
> The EMU train sets will be used on the Sarmiento and Mitre train routes in Buenos Aires, the statement said.
> 
> CSR Sifang, based in the port city of Qingdao, is a subsidiary of China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corporation, the country's biggest train maker.
> 
> CSR's overseas orders increased substantially in 2012, as overseas demand for its products outstripped domestic demand. The total value of its overseas orders surged 148 percent year on year in 2012.


----------



## stoneybee

big-dog said:


> For #1 HSR should be planned together with expressways and new airports as a whole. While focusing is important for large project funding and implementaion, closer cooperation and complementation are equally, if not more important.
> 
> For #3 I recently watched a documentary showing the inefficiency of domestic logistics concerning the much needed cooperation between rail and road transport. The ministry combination will definitely serve the purpose of digging the potentials of the new traffic pattern and improving manufacturing efficiency and national competitiveness.


Not disagreeing with the need, just questioning the timing of it. There is just too many things that need to be sorted out before this can happen.


----------



## hmmwv

Following CAAC's precedent of forming airline corporations in 1988, the current MOR could let go of its operations department and form three railway operating companies based on its existing brands, CRH (铁路高速, HSR), State Railway (国铁, conventional passenger rail), China Rail Freight (中铁货运, freight and logistics). Everything else of the ministry has already been corporationized, such as various research institutes, construction corps, and equipment manufacturers.


----------



## big-dog

*1.16 Chengdu-Shanghai direct train opens*

This is the fastest train between Chengdu and Shanghai, shortening travel time by 8 hours.










--Weibo.com


----------



## dodge321

Very nice


----------



## gdolniak

big-dog said:


> *1.16 Chengdu-Shanghai direct train opens*
> 
> This is the fastest train between Chengdu and Shanghai, shortening travel time by 8 hours.
> 
> --Weibo.com


Thank you, big-dog, for the pictures. Previous fastest train, K1157/1156, made this 2,100km route in over 29 hours. What did they do to speed up this connection?


----------



## big-dog

^^ new train (25T) and less stops.

BTW the new Z121/Z124 are all sleeper coaches with catering coach in the middle of the train.


----------



## foxmulder

China to invest 650bln RMB in rail network in 2013.



> BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- China's railway construction boom looks to continue in 2013. The government plans to invest 650 billion yuan, or 103.6 billion U.S. dollars in railway construction this year, up slightly from the 630 billion yuan spent in 2012.
> 
> The ministry will diversify financing channels by encouraging local governments, enterprises and private investors to participate in railway construction. A national railway development fund will also be established as an investment platform for social and private capital. In a guideline issued last May, the ministry vowed to offer fair treatment for private railway investors.
> 
> This year, new railways totalling 5,200 kilometers will go into operation. Analysts see continued investment in the rail system - the kind that shielded China from the worst of the financial crisis - are necessary for continued growth. But this comes at a cost - China's railways ministry is one of the biggest borrowers in the country, with debt of some 300 billion U.S. dollars at the end of 2012.


----------



## Cosmicbliss

What happened to plans to bring in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and other neighbouring countries into China's railway network? Are those plans on on still and what stage are they at? Also, is there scope for cross border trade booming thanks to growth in railways at border areas?


----------



## hmmwv

big-dog said:


> ^^ new train (25T) and less stops.
> 
> BTW the new Z121/Z124 are all sleeper coaches with catering coach in the middle of the train.


Yup that's the brand new revised 25T design.


----------



## big-dog

Railway Photography

Fengtai-Shacheng railway (near Beijing) after the weekend snow










by Luo Chunxiao


----------



## big-dog

Cosmicbliss said:


> What happened to plans to bring in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and other neighbouring countries into China's railway network? Are those plans on on still and what stage are they at? Also, is there scope for cross border trade booming thanks to growth in railways at border areas?


Are you talking about Trans-Asian Railway (TAR)?

There are 3 links of TAR China section, all starting from Kunming, Yunnan Province:

West link: Kunming to Myanmar
Middle link: Kunming to Laos
East link: Kunming to Vietnam









wiki map

Update:

*West link: Kunming to Myanmar*


Kunming-Dalin railway is operational
12/4/2012 Dali-Baoshan-Ruili (Myanmar border) is under construction
329.379km, Dali-Baoshan section is 75% completed
12/30/2012 Guangtong-Dali double line renovation started
174.34km, 13.93bln yuan, completes in May 2017
*Middle link: Kunming to Laos*


Kunming-Yuxi railway is operational
Yuxi-Mohan (Laos boder) railway is at preparation stage
504km
*East link: Kunming to Vietnam*


Kunming-Yuxi railway is operational
Yuxi-Mengzi railway completed at the end of 2012
1/3/2013 Mengzi-Hekou (Vietnam border) railway tracklaying started
141km, 6.93 bln yuan, design speed 120km/h


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> Are you talking about Trans-Asian Railway (TAR)?
> 
> There are 3 links of TAR China section, all starting from Kunming, Yunnan Province:
> 
> West link: Kunming to Myanmar
> Middle link: Kunming to Laos
> East link: Kunming to Vietnam


Why all only from Yunnan?

China now has 2 railway links to Vietnam: a 1000 mm railway to Yunnan, and a 1435 mm one to Guangxi via Pingxiang.

Are there any plans to build new and faster railways between Vietnam and Guangxi? Whether new parallel lines via Pingxiang, or new lines elsewhere, like Fangchenggang?


----------



## big-dog

^^ yes Nanning (Guangxi Province)-Pingxiang-Vietnam rail has been opened for a while but it's not part of TAR project.

2nd rail link between Guangxi and Vietnam, Debao-Jingxi (Vietnam border) railway was opened on 12/30/2012.


----------



## hhzz

The construction of Lhasa-Xigaze Railway,Jan 2013.

1.









2.


----------



## Rail1435

big-dog said:


> Are you talking about Trans-Asian Railway (TAR)?
> 
> There are 3 links of TAR China section, all starting from Kunming, Yunnan Province:
> 
> West link: Kunming to Myanmar
> Middle link: Kunming to Laos
> East link: Kunming to Vietnam
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> wiki map
> 
> Update:
> 
> *West link: Kunming to Myanmar*
> 
> 
> Kunming-Dalin railway is operational
> 12/4/2012 Dali-Baoshan-Ruili (Myanmar border) is under construction
> 329.379km, Dali-Baoshan section is 75% completed
> 12/30/2012 Guangtong-Dali double line renovation started
> 174.34km, 13.93bln yuan, completes in May 2017
> *Middle link: Kunming to Laos*
> 
> 
> Kunming-Yuxi railway is operational
> Yuxi-Mohan (Laos boder) railway is at preparation stage
> 504km
> *East link: Kunming to Vietnam*
> 
> 
> Kunming-Yuxi railway is operational
> Yuxi-Mengzi railway opened at the end of 2012
> 1/3/2013 Mengzi-Hekou (Vietnam border) railway tracklaying started
> 141km, 6.93 bln yuan, design speed 120km/h


Standard gauge or meter gauge?


----------



## big-dog

^^ all standard gauge. There used to be a Kunming-Hekou (Vietnam) meter gauge but it's stopped operation for years.


----------



## hkskyline

Passengers are seen on the platform of Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more and more people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)










Passengers wait at Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more and more people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)










Passengers are seen on the platform of Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more and more people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)










Passengers are seen on the platform of Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more than and people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)


----------



## FM 2258

^^

So busy! Glad that China is expanding their rail system. It's always good to move people around more efficiently.


----------



## big-dog

hkskyline said:


> Passengers are seen on the platform of Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more and more people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Passengers wait at Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more and more people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Passengers are seen on the platform of Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more and more people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Passengers are seen on the platform of Chongqing North Railway Station in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, Jan. 24, 2013. As the Spring Festival approaches, more than and people started their journey home. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)


224 million Chinese people are expected to travel by train to celebrate the holiday with their relatives ...



> *China’s railways braced for massive New Year exodus*
> By Rita A. Tudela Jan 24, 2013 10:00AM UTC
> 
> Chinese New Year is around the corner and more than 224 million Chinese people are expected to travel by train to celebrate the holiday with their relatives.
> 
> This year the busiest travel period will start January 26, a couple of weeks before the Year of the Snake starts on February 10.
> 
> These days, the train is still the most popular transportation system used by Chinese citizens. It continues to reign as cheapest mode of transport compared to flights and it connects most of the small and big cities around the country.
> 
> ... ...


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> 224 million Chinese people are expected to travel by train to celebrate the holiday with their relatives ...


Does this mean the number of people, of all ages, who travel by train (excluding metro) for any part of their way home?

The total number of Chinese of all ages is 1350 millions... excluding the people who are resident abroad and travel internationally to go home for New Year.

224 millions travel by train.

How many Chinese ARE living at home, and do not travel during New Year (save on foot, bicycle or metro), but receive their relatives for New Year?

And how many DO go home, but do so exclusively by plane, bus, ship and car and do not use train for any part of the journey?


----------



## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> Does this mean the number of people, of all ages, who travel by train (excluding metro) for any part of their way home?
> 
> The total number of Chinese of all ages is 1350 millions... excluding the people who are resident abroad and travel internationally to go home for New Year.
> 
> 224 millions travel by train.


That's not all. More people will travel by road.



chornedsnorkack said:


> How many Chinese ARE living at home, and do not travel during New Year (save on foot, bicycle or metro), but receive their relatives for New Year?


How many people do NOT travel during CNY? Maybe none. Some people may stay home on the New Year's Day, but they will travel definitely long/short distance during 2nd~5th day of New Year to visit the elders or relatives. It's a tradition in most areas of China.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> How many people do NOT travel during CNY? Maybe none. Some people may stay home on the New Year's Day, but they will travel definitely long/short distance during 2nd~5th day of New Year to visit the elders or relatives.


Do all elders travel, too? Others visit them... but then again, even elders have relatives and old friends who live elsewhere and are also elders.


----------



## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> Do all elders travel, too? Others visit them... but then again, even elders have relatives and old friends who live elsewhere and are also elders.


Yes elders will visit more senior relatives.


----------



## stoneybee

big-dog said:


> Yes elders will visit more senior relatives.


Yes, basically you can think of as the entire nation is on the move during that 10 day period. Of course, not all people travel long distance but travel they do. My parents (in their 70's) are travelling too.

It is actually very exciting to see an entire nation on the move if one can lift him/herself away from the personal struggle of being one in the pack.

That also partly explain why China seems to be able to organize large scale logistic project or movement better than other governments (even the more mature and supposedly better equiped Western governments). They have repeated practices every year.


----------



## hkskyline

A lot of young people have moved from the rural areas to the coastal cities for work. The elders stay in their hometowns and this is the festival where the migrants return home to spend the New Year with their families.


----------



## hkskyline

*China deploys 70,000 railway police for travel rush*

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- More than 70,000 police were deployed to train stations across China to manage orders and ensure travelers' safety on Saturday, when the nation begins the biggest annual migration on earth.

They will carry out all-day patrols in squares, waiting rooms and ticket lobbies, platforms and trains to leave no room for "dangerous things," according to the railway police authorities under the Ministry of Public Security.

The authorities said they also sent 96 teams to focus on smashing crimes including pick-pocketing and bag-snatching.

Chinese tend to return home to get together with their family members to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 10 this year.

During the 40-day period from Saturday to March 6, Chinese people are expected to make more than 220 million journeys by rail.

Another 3.2 billion journeys are expected by highways, water and air.


----------



## big-dog

After years of massive construction rail capacity is still in short of supply.



> *Train tickets in short supply*
> Updated: 2013-01-28 02:03
> By Wang Xiaodong ( China Daily)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Beijing Railway Station saw many drawn-out farewells on Sunday as the Spring Festival travel rush begins. Millions of people will leave the cities for their hometowns in the coming days. [Zhu Xingxin / China Daily]
> 
> 
> Transport authorities have taken contingency measures to ensure the smooth movement of people during the world's largest annual migration that started on Saturday, but train tickets are still hard to get because of the gap between supply and demand.
> 
> Railway authorities will arrange 1,242 more trains every day on average during the 40-day peak travel season around the Lunar New Year holiday to meet the needs of an increasing number of migrant workers, the Ministry of Railways said on its website on Sunday.
> 
> A total of 4,516 passenger trains completed 5.2 million journeys on Saturday, the Ministry said. The ministry arranged 454 temporary trains on Sunday and predicted a total of 5.4 million passenger journeys will be handled.
> 
> A record 3.4 billion trips are expected to be made during this year's Lunar New Year travel rush, which lasts for 40 days from Jan 26 to March 6, as Chinese return home for family reunions during the Spring Festival holiday, the most important traditional Chinese holiday, which falls on Feb 10 this year.
> 
> The country's rail network is expected to handle 225 million trips, while long-distance buses will complete 3.1 billion passenger trips, which combine to account for 99 percent of the overall national capacity, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.
> 
> China's airlines adopted a similar approach by increasing the combined transport capacity to handle 35.5 million journeys, up 5.2 percent from the same period last year.
> 
> Transport authorities across China should improve contingency plans targeting bad weather such as extreme low temperature, fog and heavy snow, and transport enterprises are urged to intensify driver training to ensure safety, Feng Zhenglin, vice-minister of transport, said ahead of the peak travel season.
> 
> Chinese have traditionally favored road and train transportation, especially trains, for their safety and lower prices.
> 
> ... ...
> 
> link for complete story


----------



## hmmwv

The decision to open toll roads to the public free of charge was meant to free up more capacity on the road, but last year's experience of wide spread congestion is again driving people to train travel which is still the most reliable means of transportation.


----------



## hkskyline

You can't build infrastructure to handle disproportionate bottlenecks. The cost of maintaining the extra capacity during the rest of the year would be crazily expensive and not make any economic sense.


----------



## big-dog

Actually the current train frequency has increased to max level to meet the high volume, it's much larger than normal capacity.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> Actually the current train frequency has increased to max level to meet the high volume, it's much larger than normal capacity.


What is the main limitation of the peak capacity of New Year peak - space on rails, or available passenger trains?


----------



## big-dog

T14 train in Hunan Province










by 一度停车_协力和衷[email protected]


----------



## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> What is the main limitation of the peak capacity of New Year peak - space on rails, or available passenger trains?


For traditional lines, the space is the bottleneck. Currently there's only 50% of double line rails, you can't add too many trains in.
For HSR the number of trains and crews is the limitaion.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> For traditional lines, the space is the bottleneck. Currently there's only 50% of double line rails, you can't add too many trains in.


Actually, that is interesting question. I hear of high speed railways, I hear of completely new railways, sometimes I hear of electrifications. But out of the slow speed railways of China, how much is single track lines, how much is double track lines and how much is triple or higher multiple track lines?

Also, how much doubletracking of existing single track lines is now under construction such that the double track is on schedule to be in service when Horse Year comes?


----------



## big-dog

I don't have triple or more track line data. By the end of 2011 double line rate is only 42.4%, electrified lines 49.4%.

The target is that by the end of 2015, double line will reach over 50%, electrified lines over 60%, while total rail length reaches 120,000km.

For year 2013 there are 90 new rail survey and design projects. Basic construction investment is US$83.2 bln, there will be 6829km new line track laid, *5992km tracks double lined* and 5586km new rails opened (including 1348km HSR rails). link


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> Instead of shutting down I think we need more railway stations in the center area of a city. That's a major advantage of railway travel (esp. HSR) over flight. In the future railway stations should be extended inward to central locations and made underground, so people living in the city and suburb can both reach railway easily.


How is the current state of progress of Futian Station, and Longhua-Futian high speed railway?

Are any other cities in China building new railway stations under central cities?


----------



## hkskyline

*New record: Travel rush reaches 100 mln trips*

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- With millions of Chinese heading home for the Lunar New Yera's Eve, the country’s transport network is being stretched to the limit.

Roads, railway stations and airports saw over 100 million trips on Thursday when the travel rush peaked. That’s a new record. The railway authority reported close to 6.5 million passengers and added more than 640 temporary trains. The travel peak is expected to run through Friday for passengers departing from major cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, Xi’an and Wuhan. Roads and waterways have also reported a passenger peak with nearly 93 million trips.

The transport ministry says heavy fog is no longer a problem in China’s central and eastern regions. So traffic has been steady on main highways like Beijing to Hong Kong and Macao, Daqing to Guangzhou and Shanghai to Kunming.

(Source: CNTV.cn)


----------



## big-dog

big-dog said:


> ^^ actually this guy is a big train fan, he's doing this for fun. it's proved on weibo.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I can't think of other reasons people travel like him.


I just watched news and this guy has reached home after 7 transits and 19 hours without delay.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hkskyline said:


> *New record: Travel rush reaches 100 mln trips*
> 
> BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- With millions of Chinese heading home for the Lunar New Yera's Eve, the country’s transport network is being stretched to the limit.
> 
> Roads, railway stations and airports saw over 100 million trips on Thursday when the travel rush peaked. That’s a new record. The railway authority reported close to 6.5 million passengers and added more than 640 temporary trains. The travel peak is expected to run through Friday for passengers departing from major cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, Xi’an and Wuhan.


How long shall the New Year holiday be?

When is the peak of return traffic expected?

I understand that the return traffic is normally more spread out and therefore has lower peak. Is the Thursday peak record therefore expected to stand till the end of the Snake Year?


----------



## hmmwv

Northridge said:


> I agree, I just assumed that he was traveling for spending as much time with his family. Therefore I found it a little strange to pick a such routing, especially when finding new routes will be difficult if he misses some of his connections.
> 
> Btw, are these services prone to delays?


He is also limited to the availability of tickets, otherwise he could have picked a direct Shanghai-Wuhan train. No the CRH system is not prone to delays, almost every single time any significant delays occurred it will make to the news.



chornedsnorkack said:


> Shall it be the recently built, 200 km/h D-only railway upgraded to 300 km/h, or a new parallel line under construction?


Besides the new Chongqing-Chengdu line no there is no new lines we don't know about. They are all 250km/h capable but 200km/h approved passenger/freight lines.



damndynamite said:


> About the direct link between Beijing West and Beijing Central. Is there a future for Beijing Central? I assume all non-high speed rail trains will be shutdown in 10 years so the station will eventually be used for something else?


It will help both stations by better balancing passenger traffic and schedule of the two stations. Currently Beijing West is limited to mostly West and South bound traffic while Beijing is for East and North traffic. No I don't think HSR will replace conventional trains in 10 years, maybe, just maybe in 20 years time we will see all passenger rail move to EMUs, but an all HSR railway probably won't happen in the next few decades.



big-dog said:


> Instead of shutting down I think we need more railway stations in the center area of a city. That's a major advantage of railway travel (esp. HSR) over flight. In the future railway stations should be extended inward to central locations and made underground, so people living in the city and suburb can both reach railway easily.


I think a good candidate will be Shanghai and Guangzhou East, if they can make them underground it will be a huge plus for the city.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> He is also limited to the availability of tickets, otherwise he could have picked a direct Shanghai-Wuhan train.


He did, but from Wuhan to Yichang.


hmmwv said:


> Besides the new Chongqing-Chengdu line no there is no new lines we don't know about. They are all 250km/h capable but 200km/h approved passenger/freight lines.


And poorly used, even in Wuhan-Hefei-Nanjing-Shanghai stretch.


hmmwv said:


> It will help both stations by better balancing passenger traffic and schedule of the two stations. Currently Beijing West is limited to mostly West and South bound traffic while Beijing is for East and North traffic. No I don't think HSR will replace conventional trains in 10 years, maybe, just maybe in 20 years time we will see all passenger rail move to EMUs, but an all HSR railway probably won't happen in the next few decades.


At the end of 2011, China had 91 000 km railways total, 42 000 km electrified and 49 000 km unelectrified. 
By the end of 2022, how much electrified and how much unelectrified railways shall China have?


hmmwv said:


> I think a good candidate will be Shanghai and Guangzhou East, if they can make them underground it will be a huge plus for the city.


Where should underground railway go in Shanghai? Would Hongqiao-central Shanghai-Pudong be a good idea?


----------



## saiho

chornedsnorkack said:


> Where should underground railway go in Shanghai? Would Hongqiao-central Shanghai-Pudong be a good idea?


shanghai => pudong station
shanghai south => expo area north bank 
NB: using old railway alignment converted into a park all underground of course. I think people would be very upset that their new rail park suddenly became a railway again.

oh ya and make the maglev actually go to Lujiazui. Imagine a massive underground station in the middle of Lujiazui Central Green connecting to line 2 maglev and 14. Also that park would probably be better used.


----------



## Robi_damian

I am curios as to why China has so much fewer train passengers per year than India? The total (anual) number for India is over 8 billion and China has below 2 despite the massive investment.


----------



## foxmulder

Robi_damian said:


> I am curios as to why China has so much fewer train passengers per year than India? The total (anual) number for India is over 8 billion and China has below 2 despite the massive investment.


This is discussed before maybe not in this thread though so I will try to explain.

In China there is no real commuter rail travel whereas in India there is a huge amount of commuter rail travel. 

A Chinese rail passenger travels long distances, in India, a passenger commute daily to work. 

A more "direct and fair" comparison will be passenger-km numbers which are really very close to each other. However, even this is not really fair because what I understand from rail travel is intercity and commuter rail numbers skew it. 

I mean even Beijing metro carries almost more passengers than intercity rail does in China


----------



## Robi_damian

I see. Thanks. I guess it could be that huge metro networks in China take the role of suburban rail then? Are there plans to build any such suburban networks? Most plans presented here seem to be HSR.


----------



## :jax:

You have Metro planning in China Mainland (plus threads for major cities like Beijing). Suburban networks are developing slowly (expecially compared to metros and HSR). Beijing has one, fairly slow and tourist site oriented, suburban rail line, and supposedly a half-dozen others in the pipeline.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

The railway between Shanghai and Jingshanwei is weird. It is designated as Shanghai Metro Line 22 - yet the trains there are numbered as CRH trains of letter C.


----------



## Myouzke

Jinshan Railway (Shanghai Metro Line 22) is not really part of the official metro system it is more of a commuter/suburban rail. The designation is a promotion campaign by the Shanghai government to get people to notice.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Besides Shanghai metro line 22, the other short high speed lines are:

Chengdu-Dujiangyan, 57 km, D
Chengdu-Qingchengshan, 65 km, D
Guangzhou-Xiaolan-Xinhui, 72 km, D
Shanghai-Suzhou, 84 km, G
Guangzhou-Shenzhen, 102 km, G
Changchun-Jilin, 111 km, D


----------



## big-dog

^^ AFAIK the Changchun-Jilin CRH also serves as the airport rail.


----------



## Sunfuns

Is there an enormous amount of bus traffic in big Chinese cities to compensate for the luck of commuter rail? I assume relatively few can already afford to commute to work solely by driving.


----------



## foxmulder

Sunfuns said:


> Is there an enormous amount of bus traffic in big Chinese cities to compensate for the luck of commuter rail? I assume relatively few can already afford to commute to work solely by driving.


They have pretty huge metro systems. Beijing and Shanghai are #1 and #2 in length, #4 and #5 for annual passenger number in the world.


----------



## saiho

Robi_damian said:


> I see. Thanks. I guess it could be that huge metro networks in China take the role of suburban rail then? Are there plans to build any such suburban networks? Most plans presented here seem to be HSR.


Some of the lines that chornedsnorkack mentioned and the handful running around the PRD will start to behave like commuter / regional rail. Especially once some of them start getting CRH6's 



Sunfuns said:


> Is there an enormous amount of bus traffic in big Chinese cities to compensate for the luck of commuter rail? I assume relatively few can already afford to commute to work solely by driving.


Ya, most large Chinese cities have huge and frequent bus networks. Some main streets are like a sea of buses during rush hour. This is due to the fact that many are still waiting for their metro systems to finish construction or start construction. Even in Tier 1 cities with huge metro networks, the system still doesn't have satisfactory capacity and reach. So even Beijing has a lots of buses. That is the reason why every Chinese city is scrambling to build rail transit.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

saiho said:


> Some of the lines that chornedsnorkack mentioned and the handful running around the PRD will start to behave like commuter / regional rail. Especially once some of them start getting CRH6's


The only other is Guangzhou-Zhuhai. 116 km.
Trip time 2 stops (3 trains, Xiaolan and Zhongshan North) 0:58; 4 stops (4 trains, various) 1:08; 5 stops (2 trains) 1:13; 6 stops (11 trains ) 1:18; 7 stops (5 trains) 1:23.


----------



## FM 2258

chornedsnorkack said:


> Besides Shanghai metro line 22, the other short high speed lines are:
> 
> Chengdu-Dujiangyan, 57 km, D
> Chengdu-Qingchengshan, 65 km, D
> *Guangzhou-Xiaolan-Xinhui, 72 km, D*
> Shanghai-Suzhou, 84 km, G
> Guangzhou-Shenzhen, 102 km, G
> Changchun-Jilin, 111 km, D


I had no idea about the other lines other than the Guangzhou-Shenzhen line. I falsely assumed that the CRH system would only consist of the 4+4 long distance lines. Learning about these smaller CRH lines is really interesting. Local high speed rail is a very good idea. 

When did the Guangzhou-Xiaolan-Xinhui line come into service? Also isn't the Shanghai-Suzhou really a segment of the Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Rail?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

FM 2258 said:


> When did the Guangzhou-Xiaolan-Xinhui line come into service?


In January 2011, together with Guangzhou-Xiaolan-Zhuhai North line.


FM 2258 said:


> Also isn't the Shanghai-Suzhou really a segment of the Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Rail?


Yes. It is just that the intercity rail has some trains that terminate or originate at Suzhou.


----------



## FM 2258

^^

Thanks for the reply. Interesting to know because I thought trains on the Shanghai-Nanjing Line all went the full length. Also knew about a spur line(didn't know where it ended) but the way the Guangzhou-Xinhui line was worded I thought there was a completely separate line from Guangzhou to Xinhui. 

China is really getting their act together when it comes to long distance and local high speed rail.


----------



## big-dog

People return from Chinese New Year holiday, another big time for Chinse Railways



> China's railways brace for post-holiday travel rush
> Updated: 2013-02-15 13:36
> ( Xinhua)
> 
> BEIJING -- China's railways will be tested Friday, when passenger flows peak at the end of the Spring Festival holiday.
> 
> Some 7.41 million trips will be made on the country's railways with travelers returning to work as the week-long Lunar New Year celebration draws to a close, the Ministry of Railways said.
> 
> The ministry deployed 783 temporary trains on Friday to cope with increasing demand for seats.
> 
> The Spring Festival, an important occasion for Chinese family reunions, marks the world's largest annual human migration. This year's travel season kicked off on January 26 and will last until March 6.
> 
> The ministry forecast that a total 224.5 million trips would be made on railways during the travel season, representing a daily average travel volume of 5.61 million.


----------



## big-dog

Spire rail, at Yangjiaozhan on Qinghai-Tibet railway










by Luo chunxiao


----------



## Peloso

big-dog said:


> Spire rail, at Yangjiaozhan on Qinghai-Tibet railway


Hummm... can anyone explain me the rationale in this? :shifty:


----------



## big-dog

^^ lifting the train up to a new height.


----------



## big-dog

*China's railways brace for post-holiday travel rush*

Updated: 2013-02-15 13:49
( Xinhua)



> BEIJING - China's railways will be tested Friday, when passenger flows peak at the end of the Spring Festival holiday.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yinchuan railway station in Ningxia Hui autonomous region sees passenger flows peak on Feb 15, 2013. [Photo/Xinhua]
> 
> 
> 
> Some 7.41 million trips will be made on the country's railways with travelers returning to work as the week-long Lunar New Year celebration draws to a close, the Ministry of Railways said.
> 
> The ministry deployed 783 temporary trains on Friday to cope with increasing demand for seats.
> 
> The Spring Festival, an important occasion for Chinese family reunions, marks the world's largest annual human migration. This year's travel season kicked off on January 26 and will last until March 6.
> 
> The ministry forecast that a total 224.5 million trips would be made on railways during the travel season, representing a daily average travel volume of 5.61 million.


----------



## Peloso

big-dog said:


> ^^ lifting the train up to a new height.


Why is it then that the rails in the viaduct area (where the train is at the moment the pic was taken) look to be about at the same altitude as the rails in the background (where they are crossed by the road for the second time)???


----------



## big-dog

It only looks the same altitude, I guess there's a slope in between, so the road is not winding a flat way either.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Myouzke said:


> Jinshan Railway (Shanghai Metro Line 22) is not really part of the official metro system it is more of a commuter/suburban rail. The designation is a promotion campaign by the Shanghai government to get people to notice.


On closer reflection, Jinshan railway is proven to be a joke.

It is a high speed (sic!) railway. Its length is 55 km (sic!). The all stop trains make 6 (sic!) intermediate stops - and the trip time is 1:00!!! It means 55 km/h average speed, for a high speed train!


----------



## Sunfuns

chornedsnorkack said:


> On closer reflection, Jinshan railway is proven to be a joke.
> 
> It is a high speed (sic!) railway. Its length is 55 km (sic!). The all stop trains make 6 (sic!) intermediate stops - and the trip time is 1:00!!! It means 55 km/h average speed, for a high speed train!


Who said it's a high speed railway? Looks like an ordinary commuter line albeit not a particularly fast one (similar length routes in Switzerland take 45-50 min).


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Sunfuns said:


> Who said it's a high speed railway? Looks like an ordinary commuter line albeit not a particularly fast one (similar length routes in Switzerland take 45-50 min).


Well, the trains are designated C.

In my area, a commuter rail line with just 120 km/h top speed, and EMU trainsets of limited acceleration (we are finally getting better ones), has 57 km length. And express trains make 6 intermediate stops - in 46...48 minutes.
Non-express trains take 56...58 minutes, and make 5 more stops, total 11.

So, the Jinshan railway is a slow commuter railway.


----------



## FM 2258

chornedsnorkack said:


> On closer reflection, Jinshan railway is proven to be a joke.
> 
> It is a high speed (sic!) railway. Its length is 55 km (sic!). The all stop trains make 6 (sic!) intermediate stops - and the trip time is 1:00!!! It means 55 km/h average speed, for a high speed train!


The train runs at 160km/h which is much faster than any other commuter rail line I know of. I thought there was an express train that makes the run in 32 minutes. Compare to trains like the Chicago area Metra or Dallas/Ft Worth Trinity Railway Express it looks like the Jinshan railway is serious business, no joke by any means.


----------



## Sunfuns

FM 2258 said:


> The train runs at *160km/h *which is much faster than any other commuter rail line I know of. I thought there was an express train that makes the run in 32 minutes. Compare to trains like the Chicago area Metra or Dallas/Ft Worth Trinity Railway Express it looks like the Jinshan railway is serious business, no joke by any means.


If true then it's a waste. Commuter trains which stop once in ca 10 km like these ones derive very little benefit from such a high top speed. Standard 100 or 120 km/h would have been just fine. 

Besides as discussed above it's a relatively slow line even for commuter service. I don't know maybe in Chicago or Dallas commuter lines are even slower, but there are many faster ones in Western Europe (on average speed).


----------



## Gadiri

big-dog said:


> Spire rail, at Yangjiaozhan on Qinghai-Tibet railway
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> by Luo chunxiao


I don't understand why the line is making a circle. It could go straight.


----------



## Pansori

Gadiri said:


> I don't understand why the line is making a circle. It could go straight.


Perhaps to reduce the incline. This may be important for freight trains.


----------



## lajofa

@ Gadiri; read this.


----------



## oliver999

Gadiri said:


> I don't understand why the line is making a circle. It could go straight.


there is a high way ,railway across with high way, so makeing a circle ,like a crossbridge


----------



## big-dog

*Spring Festival holiday sees 440m trips*

Updated: 2013-02-17 01:35
( Xinhua) 



> BEIJING - *Chinese made 440 million trips during the Spring Festival holiday, which lasted from February 9 to 15*, transportation authorities said Saturday.
> 
> *Railways handled 34.68 million trips* with a year-on-year increase of 3 million trips, according to the Ministry of Railways (MOR).
> 
> Highway and water-based transport saw 399 million trips, up over 50 million trips compared with 2012, while the number of air-based trips rose 18 percent year-on-year to 6.42 million, the Ministry of Transport said.
> 
> Passenger flows peaked on Friday, with 7.4 million railway trips made by travelers returning to work, the ministry said.
> 
> The MOR added 783 temporary trains to the tracks to cope with the post-holiday travel rush.
> 
> Railway traffic has generally been orderly, the ministry said.


----------



## feisibuke

Gadiri said:


> I don't understand why the line is making a circle. It could go straight.


Here's the map:


----------



## China Hand

Peloso said:


> Hummm... can anyone explain me the rationale in this? :shifty:


Railways need a constant grade to be able to ascend hills. The steepness of the terrain, in addition to the lower oxygen content of the air, constricted design such that they had to build a series of loops up that valley to maintain a proper and shallow enough slope to ascend.


----------



## China Hand

Is there any word on what future plans the MOR has for the 'conventional' rail?

Any plans in the works to increase stations, trains, cars pulled, etc. for the N, K, L, T and Z trains?

Those who cannot afford CRH with its 4 classes of fares will want to be able to take hard seats for many decades to come.


----------



## VECTROTALENZIS

When does everything go back to "normal" after Chinese New Year usually? When everybody has returned back to their working cities?


----------



## Sunfuns

China Hand said:


> Railways need a constant grade to be able to ascend hills. The steepness of the terrain, in addition to the lower oxygen content of the air, constricted design such that they had to build a series of loops up that valley to maintain a proper and shallow enough slope to ascend.


That is correct. Such loops are quite common on older railways in the Alps. The unusual thing here is that the loop is fully in the open air. More commonly it is partly or even fully in the tunnel. 

The situation for this line is also unusual because the end point has a vastly higher elevation than the starting point. In other countries mountains are usually just an obstacle with both starting and ending points at modest altitude (<1500 m) thus it is possible to avoid such spirals in newly built railways by constructing "base" tunnels (see Gotthard base tunnel, for example).


----------



## feisibuke

Sunfuns said:


> That is correct. Such loops are quite common on older railways in the Alps. The unusual thing here is that the loop is fully in the open air. More commonly it is partly or even fully in the tunnel.
> 
> The situation for this line is also unusual because the end point has a vastly higher elevation than the starting point. In other countries mountains are usually just an obstacle with both starting and ending points at modest altitude (<1500 m) thus it is possible to avoid such spirals in newly built railways by constructing "base" tunnels (see Gotthard base tunnel, for example).


A 32.645-km long tunnel is under construction and will eventually replace these loops.


----------



## big-dog

VECTROTALENZIS said:


> When does everything go back to "normal" after Chinese New Year usually? When everybody has returned back to their working cities?


People are returning to work from Feb 16th to 23rd (lunar 15th of first new year month). After Feb 23rd everything will be back to normal.


----------



## Peloso

China Hand said:


> Railways need a constant grade to be able to ascend hills. The steepness of the terrain, in addition to the lower oxygen content of the air, constricted design such that they had to build a series of loops up that valley to maintain a proper and shallow enough slope to ascend.


Again, the part about the grade needed for the slope is clearly understood, except in the pic there does not seem to be such a difference in altitude. Maybe it's an optical illusion, but looking at the initial spot of the loop, and then at the final one, to me there's a difference of just a few meters in height, one that could be easily compensated starting from the point where the train is seen, or a bit earlier. Could there be a different reason for the loop? That's what I was wondering. The part about the "oxygen content" is less clear to me, is the line not electrified?


----------



## Rail1435

@Peloso
You can find a similar construction in Brusio, southern ramp of Bernina, only 100 years older.
Please see the altitude difference at the crossing bridge: more than 20 m higher on the bridge than under. This aerial view gives illusion of a quasi-flat land, but it is not!


----------



## China Hand

feisibuke said:


> A 32.645-km long tunnel is under construction and will eventually replace these loops.


 Loops are here 37.08442,98.873591 Tian Jun Xian, Haixi, Qinghai New Guanjiao Tunnel Tunnel is here Start NE 37.182604,99.177316 End SW 37.009004,98.879966


----------



## VECTROTALENZIS

big-dog said:


> People are returning to work from Feb 16th to 23rd (lunar 15th of first new year month). After Feb 23rd everything will be back to normal.


So every year after the 15th day of the new year everything goes back to normal. All streetvendors are back to normal?

But they say the travel rush will last until 6 of March?


----------



## stingstingsting

China Hand said:


> Railways need a constant grade to be able to ascend hills. The steepness of the terrain, in addition to the lower oxygen content of the air, constricted design such that they had to build a series of loops up that valley to maintain a proper and shallow enough slope to ascend.


I am quite confident that if MOR had seen the need for the rails to go straight up the slope rather than requiring a rail spiral to be built, they would have done so, what efficiency, best value, provisioning and all that hooha. Although I would have preferred myself if there was no spiral at all... But hey! Who knows :banana:


----------



## big-dog

VECTROTALENZIS said:


> So every year after the 15th day of the new year everything goes back to normal. All streetvendors are back to normal?
> 
> But they say the travel rush will last until 6 of March?


From MOR or MOT's perspective the new year holiday lasts for 40 days. But from business perspective lunar Jan 15th (正月十五) is the last day of the holiday (if not earlier).


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> The railway between Shanghai and Jingshanwei is weird. It is designated as Shanghai Metro Line 22 - yet the trains there are numbered as CRH trains of letter C.





saiho said:


> Some of the lines that chornedsnorkack mentioned and the handful running around the PRD will start to behave like commuter / regional rail. Especially once some of them start getting CRH6's


Well because it is a true suburban commuter rail, from last year all future C number trains are suburban commuter trains, but they are called Intericty (Chengji, 城际) as they link satellite towns or cities very close to each other. The CRH2 on Jingshan Railway is just a place holder until CRH6 is operational, which itself is derived from the CRH2. It was initially designated Metro Line 22 because future Chinese commuter rail will be operated by local metro companies not MOR, similarly alll the commuter rails around Nanjing also used to carry Metro line numbers.


----------



## hkskyline

Passengers rest in the waiting hall of the railway station in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Feb. 18, 2013. A travel peak emerged in Chengdu on Monday after the Spring Festival holiday. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin)










Passengers wait to get their tickets checked at the railway station in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, Feb. 18, 2013. A travel peak emerged in Chengdu on Monday after the Spring Festival holiday. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin)


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Well, the trains are designated C.
> 
> In my area, a commuter rail line with just 120 km/h top speed, and EMU trainsets of limited acceleration (we are finally getting better ones), has 57 km length. And express trains make 6 intermediate stops - in 46...48 minutes.
> Non-express trains take 56...58 minutes, and make 5 more stops, total 11.
> 
> So, the Jinshan railway is a slow commuter railway.


Jinshan was never called HSR or PDL, it's always designed as a conventional commuter railway, hence the C designation. It's a perfect line for a CRH6.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> Jinshan was never called HSR or PDL, it's always designed as a conventional commuter railway, hence the C designation. It's a perfect line for a CRH6.


Has the acceleration of CRH6 been published?


----------



## luhai

A very interesting news short on the online ticketing system for China Rail, and an industry built to game (err..argument) the system.

http://english.caixin.com/2013-02-07/100490507.html


----------



## big-dog

big-dog said:


> Trans-Asian Railway (TAR):
> 
> There are 3 links of TAR China section, all starting from Kunming, Yunnan Province:
> 
> West link: Kunming to Myanmar
> Middle link: Kunming to Laos
> East link: Kunming to Vietnam
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> wiki map
> 
> Update:
> 
> *West link: Kunming to Myanmar*
> 
> 
> Kunming-Dalin railway is operational
> 12/4/2012 Dali-Baoshan-Ruili (Myanmar border) is under construction
> 329.379km, Dali-Baoshan section is 75% completed
> 12/30/2012 Guangtong-Dali double line renovation started
> 174.34km, 13.93bln yuan, completes in May 2017
> *Middle link: Kunming to Laos*
> 
> 
> Kunming-Yuxi railway is operational
> Yuxi-Mohan (Laos boder) railway is at preparation stage
> 504km
> *East link: Kunming to Vietnam*
> 
> 
> Kunming-Yuxi railway is operational
> Yuxi-Mengzi railway opened at the end of 2012
> 1/3/2013 Mengzi-Hekou (Vietnam border) railway tracklaying started
> 141km, 6.93 bln yuan, design speed 120km/h


Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) update:

*Yuxi-Menzi rail opens tomorrow (2/23/2013)*

Yuxi-Menzi rail: 141km, 14 stations, design speed 120km/h

Mengzi-Hekou rail will be completed in September 2014.












> 【玉蒙铁路明日通车，泛亚铁路起步】泛亚铁路东线重要的一段——玉蒙铁路明日通车，全长141公里设14个站，速度120公里。同时蒙自至河口铁路也将于明年9月竣工，届时从昆明坐火车直达河口。这条消息还要与昨天的两条消息连读：（1）新加坡马来西亚2020年建成高铁；（2）泰国曼谷至呵叻府高铁明年动工。


----------



## big-dog

*Qingdao-Rizhao-Lianyungang rail to start construction*

It's a passenger/freight rail, 193km, 23.8 bilion yuan, design speed 200km/h (CRH train). Project will last for 4 years.










--xinhuanet


----------



## Sopomon

null


----------



## maldini

foxmulder said:


> Assets value should be more, imho. Registered capital is different that assets value. Only train sets it has can be more than  Also it depends how they define the as "assets". Do trains stations count? Apparently, this corporation will be responsible for the building of infrastructure too so that alone is a huge business.


The train station should count as asset. This also includes the large plazas surrounding the new big stations. These plazas can probably be sold for real estate development in the future.


----------



## Sunfuns

We are usually discussing new projects here, but I was wondering what is the overall density of China's passenger railway system. Any idea what is the percentage of sizeable towns (50,000+ inhabitants) without a regular service? How does it compare to the railway density in Japan or Western Europe?

I'm not as well informed about Japan, but in Germany, for example, there is only one such place and none at all in UK.


----------



## city_thing

maldini said:


> The train station should count as asset. This also includes the large plazas surrounding the new big stations. These plazas can probably be sold for real estate development in the future.


Is that the actual plan?

I thought they were more "spill over" areas for dispersing the crowds during Golden Week etc. The stations are massive, and therefore the pedestrian/car approaches need to be massive to handle peak crowds.


----------



## foxmulder

^^ no, there is no such plans.


----------



## Geography

>


This map of China is interesting for how it shows China's territory. It must be an ROC map because the PRC gave up its claim on Mongolia in 1945 to appease the USSR, while the ROC still officially claims Mongolia. It also shows large swathes of Tajikistan, India, and Myanmar as part of China. This map shows China at its greatest territorial extent since the Yuan Dynasty.


----------



## hkskyline

Well, Qing China actually stretched much further than present-day China's boundaries. Technically, the Yuan Dynasty was confined to a smaller area around China, and does not include other Mongol territories further west that went all the way to Europe.


----------



## luhai

Sunfuns said:


> We are usually discussing new projects here, but I was wondering what is the overall density of China's passenger railway system. Any idea what is the percentage of sizeable towns (50,000+ inhabitants) without a regular service? How does it compare to the railway density in Japan or Western Europe?
> 
> I'm not as well informed about Japan, but in Germany, for example, there is only one such place and none at all in UK.


There still cities with 250k+ with no rail service. However, with with the recent buildout the number is fewer and fewer. Current the most glaring one is Macau. (With Zhuhai recently getting rail, and Macau think of rapid transit. that issue might be addressed) 

Zhoushan (500k+ urban on central island, 1M+ metro) I believe the largest city without a rail connection. However, with no railway slot on the Jintang Bridge connect it to Ningbo, I doubt a rail link is possible soon.


----------



## Sunfuns

luhai said:


> There still cities with 250k+ with no rail service. However, with with the recent buildout the number is fewer and fewer. Current the most glaring one is Macau. (With Zhuhai recently getting rail, and Macau think of rapid transit. that issue might be addressed)
> 
> Zhoushan (500k+ urban on central island, 1M+ metro) I believe the largest city without a rail connection. However, with no railway slot on the Jintang Bridge connect it to Ningbo, I doubt a rail link is possible soon.


I think it's only fair to give a break to a city located on islands. I was more wondering about the network in the west, north-west and south-west of the country far from the densely populated coastal regions. I guess the towns tend to be much smaller there, though.


----------



## hmmwv

luhai said:


> There still cities with 250k+ with no rail service. However, with with the recent buildout the number is fewer and fewer. Current the most glaring one is Macau. (With Zhuhai recently getting rail, and Macau think of rapid transit. that issue might be addressed)
> 
> Zhoushan (500k+ urban on central island, 1M+ metro) I believe the largest city without a rail connection. However, with no railway slot on the Jintang Bridge connect it to Ningbo, I doubt a rail link is possible soon.


Binzhou with its 2.8 million people is probably the largest major city in China without passenger rail service. But Dezhou-Dajiawa Railway should open next year and it'll be connected.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

city_thing said:


> Is that the actual plan?
> 
> I thought they were more "spill over" areas for dispersing the crowds during Golden Week etc. The stations are massive, and therefore the pedestrian/car approaches need to be massive to handle peak crowds.


Could stations be extended over the existing squares? The pillars to carry the second story, and the scattering of stairs and lifts to reach the second story, would leave most of the existing ground level square still free for crowds.

Then again, building on pillars costs more than building on ground.


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Could stations be extended over the existing squares? The pillars to carry the second story, and the scattering of stairs and lifts to reach the second story, would leave most of the existing ground level square still free for crowds.
> 
> Then again, building on pillars costs more than building on ground.


What have been done before was build lofts functioning as additional waiting/lounge area inside the waiting hall which already has huge clearance. The construction can take place during off seasons so for stations such as Shanghai Hongqiao and Nanjing South the effective waiting area can be doubled, but the issue would be direct access to the platform.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

*Yang Chuantang*

Now that railways are subject to Transport Ministry, who is the Minister?

Yang Chuantang is not a new minister. He has been the Transport Minister in Wen Jiabao´s State Council since August 2012, and was kept by Li Keqiang.

But who is that Yang? What is his background? What are his skills, interests and connections?

What are Yang´s plans for railways? And who are the new heads of China Railway Corporation and State Administration, respectively?


----------



## Peloso

chornedsnorkack said:


> (...)
> What are Yang´s plans for railways? And who are the new heads of China Railway Corporation and State Administration, respectively?


^^ We will cover that soon, so DON'T MISS THE NEXT INSTALLMENT of this series!!


----------



## laojang

Geography said:


> This map of China is interesting for how it shows China's territory. It must be an ROC map because the PRC gave up its claim on Mongolia in 1945 to appease the USSR, while the ROC still officially claims Mongolia. It also shows large swathes of Tajikistan, India, and Myanmar as part of China. This map shows China at its greatest territorial extent since the Yuan Dynasty.


Just for the record. It was ROC (under Mr. Jiang) that recognized Mongolia independence in 1946 three years before PRC (under Mr. Mao) took power in the mainland. Of course Mao also recognized but that was around 1950
and at the same time Jiang renegaded. However he already lost the mainland by that time so this was an empty gesture.
Laojang

Laojang


----------



## urbanfan89

laojang said:


> Just for the record. It was ROC (under Mr. Jiang) that recognized Mongolia independence in 1946 three years before PRC (under Mr. Mao) took power in the mainland. Of course Mao also recognized but that was around 1950
> and at the same time Jiang renegaded. However he already lost the mainland by that time so this was an empty gesture.
> Laojang
> 
> Laojang


In fact the US actually supported the ROC's claim on Mongolia at the UN. It was only when the Soviets threatened to veto the entry of newly independent African nations into the UN, did the ROC stop vetoing Mongolia's entry into the UN.


----------



## big-dog

Railway interchange in Yichang, Hubei Province










by Liu Shusong


----------



## saiho

^^ oh god so epic


----------



## Silly_Walks

big-dog said:


> Railway interchange in Yichang, Hubei Province
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> by Liu Shusong


All diesel lines, or all under construction?


----------



## big-dog

Railway in Qinghai Province










by 中华火车迷部落


----------



## dao123

I see that many people 'liked' the photo showing the interchange in Yichang, which was even commented as 'epic'.

Why do you guys like it? Is it of grand scale?


----------



## luhai

chornedsnorkack said:


> Now that railways are subject to Transport Ministry, who is the Minister?


The "new" transport minister, mostly an outsider. he actually took office in 2012 and re-elected in 2013
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Chuantang 

The CEO of the new Rail SOE
http://translate.google.com/transla...5%85%89%E7%A5%96&prd=button_doc_jinru&act=url
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng_Guangzu

The head of Rail transport Agency under Ministry of Transport: Ludong Fu, was Shanghai rail bureau chief during the Wenzhou accident. his name is not Studying... I don't get why google translate do that, his name don't even mean that...)
http://translate.google.com/transla....com/wiki/%E9%99%86%E4%B8%9C%E7%A6%8F&act=url

Personally, I not happy with the choices. The wenzhou accident people has not being punished and allowed to keep run things and even get promoted.


----------



## Never give up

Be aware China. See the Danish Railways thread (IC4 scandal) and the Dutch-Belgian thread (Fyra scandal)

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/metros/ansaldobreda-agrees-chinese-partnership.html?channel=542


----------



## big-dog

*
China's railway infrastrucure investment up 28%*
Updated: 2013-04-12 10:04
( Xinhua)




> BEIJING - China's investment in railway infrastructure increased 28 percent to 54.51 billion yuan ($8.65 billion) in the first three months of 2013, the China Railway Corporation (CRC) said on Thursday.
> 
> The growth rate was slighter higher than the 20.9 percent registered in the first two months.
> 
> To reduce bureaucracy, the National People's Congress, China's parliament last month adopted a cabinet reshuffle plan which included the dismantling of the Ministry of Railways into administrative and commercial arms.
> 
> On March 14, the CRC, which took over the commercial functions of the former MOR, went into business.
> 
> The corporation said it is mobilizing resources to ensure the completion of key projects on schedule. The passenger lines between Nanjing and Hangzhou, Hangzhou and Ningbo, Tianjin and Qinhuangdao and Panjin and Yingkou have gone through technical examinations.
> 
> According to the national plan, China will invest 520 billion yuan in railway infrastructure this year and 5,200 km of new lines will be put into use.


----------



## FM 2258

Silly_Walks said:


> All diesel lines, or all under construction?


It looks like construction to me...I can see where pylons for the overhead wires will be placed. 




dao123 said:


> I see that many people 'liked' the photo showing the interchange in Yichang, which was even commented as 'epic'.
> 
> Why do you guys like it? Is it of grand scale?


It just looks beautiful. New rail lines crossing each other eventually meeting at one point. :cheers:


----------



## gdolniak

*Chinese on the train*



> *Chinese on the train*
> 
> Trains have a special place in the memories of many Chinese people, especially those who were born before the boom of commercial airlines and personal cars. If bicycles bear the individual stories of several generations of Chinese, then trains bear the stories of several decades of China and its development. Through those carriage windows, one sees a miniature China.
> 
> Below are pictures taken by Chinese photographer Wang Fuchun, who used to work at China’s Brother Rail. He loves trains; and he loves taking pictures. His pictures record pieces of life on China’s traditional “green-skin” trains from 1982 to 2000, before the advent of the flashy high-speed bullet train.
> 
> The pictures have led to quite some nostalgia on Weibo, China’s leading microblogging service. One netizen 珠珠玉芃 commented: “So real. Make me think about my own experiences riding a green-skin train.” Another netizen 夜幕的身影 sighed: “These only exist in memory – the train, and those faces. You won’t find them in today’s China.”
> 
> http://offbeatchina.com/chinese-on-the-train?utm_source=Sinocism+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a0e62b53c3-Sinocism04_12_13&utm_medium=email


Follow the link for the pictures.


----------



## :jax:

Never give up said:


> Be aware China. See the Danish Railways thread (IC4 scandal) and the Dutch-Belgian thread (Fyra scandal)
> 
> http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/metros/ansaldobreda-agrees-chinese-partnership.html?channel=542





> ANSALDOBREDA and Chongqing Chuanyi Automation (SICC) have established a joint venture based in Chongqing, China, that will produce and develop electric traction systems, auxiliary services and train monitoring control systems for metro trains.


In addition to the train scandals across Europe, I am quite sure that the city of Oslo won't buy any more trams/light rail from them again. If there is a European rail company with more quality problems than AnsaloBreda I don't know of it.


----------



## hmmwv

FM 2258 said:


> It looks like construction to me...I can see where pylons for the overhead wires will be placed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It just looks beautiful. New rail lines crossing each other eventually meeting at one point. :cheers:


I absolutely agree, it's an industrial form of beauty.


----------



## gdolniak

*Railway Investment Rises in Q1*

*Railway Investment Rises in Q1*
Nearly 55 billion yuan spent on new lines in first three months, up 28 percent year on year
By staff reporter Lu Bingyang

http://img.caixin.com/2013-04-15/1366016314237325.jpg

(Beijing) – Investment in railway infrastructure in the first quarter rose more than one-fourth on the same period last year, a source at the new China Railway Corp. said.

Some 54.5 billion yuan was invested in new lines in the first quarter, the source said, up 28 percent compared to the same period in 2012. Some 29.4 billion yuan was spent in March.

The former Ministry of Railways said in January it planned to spend 650 billion yuan on the railway system this year, 520 billion yuan of that on infrastructure.

In March, the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, said the Ministry of Railways would be split in two. The China Railway Corp. handles passenger and freight transport, and is in charge of drafting investment and construction plans.

The State Railway Administration was placed under the Ministry of Transport to handle administrative matters.

China Business News, a financial newspaper, reported that the State Council released a notice recently that said the State Railway Administration would have 130 employees. Another seven subordinate supervisory administrations, with total 350 employees, will be established to monitor regional railways.

The source at China Railway Corp. said Lu Dongfu, former vice minister of the Ministry of Railways, will head of the State Railway Administration.

The Ministry of Railways website went shut on March 20. A site for China Railway Corp. has not opened.

http://english.caixin.com/2013-04-15/100514494.html


----------



## big-dog

Spring of Datong-Qinhuangdao railway (Daqin Railway)

*Daqin Railway:*
a 653km freight rail designed for coal transportation, the annual freight volume is 440 million tons (2011), the busiest freight line in the world.










by Luo Chunxiao


----------



## Coccodrillo

Do you have any news or photo about the 33 km New Guanjiao tunnel?


----------



## big-dog

Coccodrillo said:


> Do you have any news or photo about the 33 km New Guanjiao tunnel?


The new Guanjiao Tunnel is still under construction. It's planned to dig through by the end of 2013 and open in 2014.

Here's some background:

*new Guanjiao Tunnel:*

Length: 32.65km, longest highland tunnel (avg. elevation 3780m)
Location: on Xining-Golmud railway, Qinghai Province
Cost: 2.6 billion yuan
The new tunnel will increase the Xining-Golmud railway speed to 160km/h and reduce travel time from 11 hours to 6 hours.











link1, link2


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> It's planned to dig through by the end of 2013 and open in 2014.
> 
> The new tunnel will increase the Xining-Golmud railway speed to 160km/h and reduce travel time from 11 hours to 6 hours.


In which month of 2014?
Also, in which month of 2014 shall Lanzhou-Xining-Urumqi high speed railway open? And what shall the trip time be Lanzhou-Xining by high speed railway?


----------



## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> In which month of 2014??


Not disclosed yet.


chornedsnorkack said:


> Also, in which month of 2014 shall Lanzhou-Xining-Urumqi high speed railway open? And what shall the trip time be Lanzhou-Xining by high speed railway?


December 2014.
Lanzhou-Xining travel time: 1 hour


----------



## big-dog

*2020 rail operational target length set at 146,000 km*

Per new National Urban Planning by the government, the 2020 rail operational length target is set at *146,000 km*, up by 26,000 km from previous planning. Commuter rail and city cluster rail will replace HSR to become the investment focus. i.e. Pearl River Delta's total rail projection is 370 bln yuan ($59.2 b), 118 bln ($18.88b) wll be completed between 2012 and 2020. Rail investment for Jiangsu Province is 86 bln yuan ($13.76 b) during 2010 ~ 2015. Its 2016~2020 rail investment has been increased to 210 bln yuan (33.6 b).

link


----------



## hammersklavier

That's a great sign. Relative to its intercity sector, China's commuter rail is grossly underdeveloped. Regions like the Shanghai, Beijing-Tianjin, and the Pearl River Delta require what will be, in all likelihood, some of the most complex commuter rail networks on Earth.


----------



## hmmwv

big-dog said:


> Rail investment for Jiangsu Province is 86 bln yuan ($13.76 b) during 2010 ~ 2015. Its 2016~2020 rail investment has been increased to 210 bln yuan (33.6 b).
> 
> link


This is the sign that the new Yangtze River bank high speed rail project may finally move into construction phase in the next few years, and that the five or so suburban commuter rails around Nanjing will also be completed.


----------



## Sunfuns

big-dog said:


> The new Guanjiao Tunnel is still under construction. It's planned to dig through by the end of 2013 and open in 2014.
> 
> Here's some background:
> 
> *new Guanjiao Tunnel:*
> 
> Length: 32.65km, longest highland tunnel (avg. elevation 3780m)
> Location: on Xining-Golmud railway, Qinghai Province
> Cost: 2.6 billion yuan
> The new tunnel will increase the Xining-Golmud railway speed to 160km/h and reduce travel time from 11 hours to 6 hours.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> link1, link2


So this will be the 4th longest railway tunnel in the world (not counting subways) after it opens in 5th longest few years later when Gotthard base tunnel become operational. 

Do you have any additional technical data about it? What is the greatest overburden? Is there an emergency station in the middle like in Gotthard? Maintenance tube?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> Pearl River Delta's total rail projection is 370 bln yuan ($59.2 b), 118 bln ($18.88b) wll be completed between 2012 and 2020.


Including Longhua-Futian-Kowloon West high speed railway, all of which lies in Pearl River Delta and is completed by 2016 (partly paid in Hong Kong dollars), and a part of Longhua-Xiamen high speed railway which lies in Pearl River Delta,and is completed by October 2013?


big-dog said:


> Rail investment for Jiangsu Province is 86 bln yuan ($13.76 b) during 2010 ~ 2015.


Including a large part of Shanghai-Beijing high speed railway lying in Jiangsu and invested in 2010 and first half of 2011, and most of Shanghai-Nanjing high speed railway, invested in first half of 2010?


----------



## gnatho

chornedsnorkack said:


> Including Longhua-Futian-Kowloon West high speed railway, all of which lies in Pearl River Delta and is completed by 2016 (partly paid in Hong Kong dollars), and a part of Longhua-Xiamen high speed railway which lies in Pearl River Delta,and is completed by October 2013?
> 
> Including a large part of Shanghai-Beijing high speed railway lying in Jiangsu and invested in 2010 and first half of 2011, and most of Shanghai-Nanjing high speed railway, invested in first half of 2010?



Longhua-Xiamen HSR update. The track lying begun on Monday, it would take at least a couple of months, then the testing needs to be done as well. I guess it'll open by the end of the year


----------



## gdolniak

*Railway construction corp confesses to 830m yuan in entertainment costs*



> *Railway construction corp confesses to 830m yuan in entertainment costs*
> Global Times | 2013-5-9 0:28:01
> By Global Times
> 
> China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), the country's second-largest State-owned construction firm, admitted Wednesday that its 2012 entertainment bill was relatively high.
> 
> CRCC said it would try to lower its entertainment budget by at least 10 percent this year.
> 
> According to the company's annual report released in March, more than 830 million yuan ($135 million), or 10 percent of the company's net profit, was spent on entertainment. This included spending on catering, accommodation, gifts and travel arrangements for clients related to daily business operations.
> 
> This figure only accounted for 0.17 percent of the company's revenue in 2012, and that did not violate any rules, according to a response from CRCC to the Xinhua News Agency Wednesday.
> 
> The admission has ignited a heated discussion among Web users, with many questioning how the State-owned enterprise (SOE), which benefits from favorable State policies and subsidies, could be so extravagant.
> 
> "This relatively high [entertainment] expenditure has drawn the company's attention several years ago and controlling the entertainment cost has become critical to evaluate the company's governance," an anonymous CRCC executive told the Beijing News Wednesday.
> 
> The executive said the 830 million yuan is made up of costs from over 11,000 subsidiaries in over 60 countries. He added that the company will carefully implement the frugal work style called for by President Xi Jinping.
> 
> Two other SOEs, China Communications Construction Company and Sinohydro Group also spent over 100 million yuan on entertainment in 2012, China National Radio reported Sunday, although CRCC spent the most.
> 
> Global Times
> 
> http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/780308.shtml#.UYtLHbX-GSo


Party like 2012... Spending $135 million dollars on "entertainment".


----------



## big-dog

Sunfuns said:


> Do you have any additional technical data about it?


Unortunately I don't have the tech data about this tunnel.



chornedsnorkack said:


> Including Longhua-Futian-Kowloon West high speed railway, all of which lies in Pearl River Delta and is completed by 2016 (partly paid in Hong Kong dollars), and a part of Longhua-Xiamen high speed railway which lies in Pearl River Delta,and is completed by October 2013?
> 
> Including a large part of Shanghai-Beijing high speed railway lying in Jiangsu and invested in 2010 and first half of 2011, and most of Shanghai-Nanjing high speed railway, invested in first half of 2010?


The answer is yes to both questions.


----------



## Coccodrillo

Sunfuns said:


> So this will be the 4th longest railway tunnel in the world (not counting subways) after it opens in 5th longest few years later when Gotthard base tunnel become operational.
> 
> Do you have any additional technical data about it? What is the greatest overburden? Is there an emergency station in the middle like in Gotthard? Maintenance tube?


The tunnel lies at around 3300 m, and mountains around here are around 4200 m high according to Google Maps, so the overburden should be around 1000 m.

Apparently there is no maintenance tube and it is being built from the two portals without intermediate access (there wouldn't be any road to reach them anyway). If there is an emergency station it could only be an enlarged section in each tube linked one to the other, but without external access, like the emergency station of the Koralm tunnel under construction in Austria (around 32.8 km in length, maximum overburden 1200 m, but at a much lower altitude than the new Guanjiao tunnel: only around 500 m).


----------



## Sunfuns

Coccodrillo said:


> The tunnel lies at around 3300 m, and mountains around here are around 4200 m high according to Google Maps, so the overburden should be around 1000 m.
> 
> Apparently there is no maintenance tube and it is being built from the two portals without intermediate access (there wouldn't be any road to reach them anyway). If there is an emergency station it could only be an enlarged section in each tube linked one to the other, but without external access, like the emergency station of the Koralm tunnel under construction in Austria (around 32.8 km in length, maximum overburden 1200 m, but at a much lower altitude than the new Guanjiao tunnel: only around 500 m).


Thanks. Some of their tunnels are very long, but not much information about them available in languages I understand. This one is particularly interesting because of very high altitude.


----------



## big-dog

Shenyang North - Taiyuan Z194










by @anytrain


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> Shenyang North - Taiyuan Z194


This seems to be the only Z train from Shenyang. Whereas Taiyuan is served by three Z trains.

What are the differences between Z and T trains on same route?


----------



## UD2

better stock, faster running speed, more expensive tickets


----------



## foxmulder

what really struct me in those pictures is the urbanization... 

sorry for ot


----------



## foxmulder

Order/investments...



> Chinese rail industry to see more orders
> English.news.cn 2013-05-24 13:25:36
> BEIJING, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Booming demand for urban rail transit from an increasing number of Chinese cities would reignite the railway equipment industry, the China Securities Journal reported Friday.
> 
> The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Thursday revealed an urban transit plan for Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province, that features a total investment of 63.49 billion yuan (10.34 billion U.S. dollars).
> 
> The NDRC, China's top economic planner, has approved urban transit construction plans for several cities, including Guiyang and Chongqing, for 2013.
> 
> Official statistics indicate that total urban transit investment has reached 1.23 trillion yuan thus far, of which 189.6 billion yuan was used to build 337 km of subway lines in 2012. Another 220 billion yuan will be used to build 290 km of subway lines in 2013.
> 
> The increased input has accelerated the expansion of the rail equipment industry.
> 
> China CSR and China CNR, China's two biggest train manufacturers, have boosted their business with the help of the increased investment. China CSR is filling orders for urban transit vehicles in the cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Chengdu, while China CNR has signed agreements concerning train manufacturing or cooperation in public transit with several cities.
> 
> The increasing development of intercity railways will also benefit the rail equipment industry. The Pearl River Delta, one of China's most developed areas, will spend 118 billion yuan on intercity railways from 2012 to 2020. China CSR and China CNR have produced new trains that specifically cater to intercity railway networks.
> 
> The intercity railway market is hoped to boost the slumping profits of the two companies, which have seen their income drop due to the country's suspension of bidding for bullet trains in 2010.
> 
> China CSR saw its year-on-year net profits fall in the first quarter of 2013, with income from bullet train sales slumping 50 percent from a year earlier to 3 billion yuan, according to a report from UBS Securities.
> 
> China CNR's quarterly report also showed weak performance, as its total sales amounted to 18.15 billion yuan, down 1.35 percent year on year.
> 
> However, the gloomy trend is likely to be reversed in 2013 due to the looming resumption of bullet train bidding, the journal reported.
> 
> The China Railway Corporation (CRC), newly formed in March 2013 after the breakup of the Ministry of Railways, has finished preparing for restarting the bidding, which is expected to begin in May or June.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

*Fuzhou West*

Fuzhou is to open a new station:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/fuzhou/e/2013-05/28/content_16539747.htm
Which railways serve that station? Slow or fast?


----------



## xinxingren

I've just noticed the picture at #5041, and have some more explanation. The train shown on the line under the bridge is at 3400 metres altitude (11,150 ft asl). The line was designed in the 1950s for steam engines and maintains a gradient of ~1%. The valley runs down from right of photo to left. From the summit tunnel to valley mouth is 16 kilometres in a straight line, but there are 32 kilometres of rail track twisted down the valley to descend 350 metres altitude.

If you imagine the train shown in that photo to be turned around and going up, in about two cars length it will start turning to the right 275 degrees at 300 metres radius. There is 160 metres of straight line, then the overbridge continues the curve another 142 degrees, another 135 metres straight then 50 degrees, straightening out on the second highway overbridge after a total 465 degrees of turn. 

Center right of the photo you can see the station building at Erlang. After this the line goes out of picture to the right thru a 200 degree horseshoe loop to the left, coming back into picture. In the center of the photo you can see embankments and a bridge as the line turns 270 degrees to the right going thru four small tunnels. On the ridge above the last tunnel, vertically above the station building in the photo, I had my camera for this youtube clip. My companion was not willing to climb the ridge from where Luo chunxiao took his magnificent photo.


----------



## silent_dragon

*Vactrain development*

A little off-topic. The English wiki says that a 1000kph train can be put into operation in 10 years (that is 2020). And currently being researched in Southwest Jiaotong University. 

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

Is there any university near HK/SZ or GZ that offers masters degree focusing on these development?

I been looking everywhere in HK none. So i end up in enrolling into a financial engineering instead in HK. I am not yet officially enrolled but already admitted. 

I really would like to return to core engineering research and dev. I am an electronics engineer by profession and systems/software engineer by work.


----------



## silent_dragon

Meir David said:


> Hai friends
> 
> I feel very curious to travel in this train!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



You mean riding in the 1000kph train? If yes, then god speed.  maybe ride after 1 year trial service. :lol: hundred of things can go wrong at this speed.. This really needs lot of brainpower to develop this kind of technology to ensure safety.


----------



## xinxingren

chornedsnorkack said:


> Fuzhou is to open a new station:
> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/fuzhou/e/2013-05/28/content_16539747.htm
> Which railways serve that station? Slow or fast?


Just for now it'll be mostly slow, the Xiamen Fuzhou CHR might come right thru town bypassing the old Fuzhou Central. 
There is work visible on two new HSR lines,
Fuzhou Nanping Shangrao Huangshan and
Fuzhou Sanming Nanchang
but when trains start running on them is a mystery of the orient.


----------



## dao123

silent_dragon said:


> A little off-topic. The English wiki says that a 1000kph train can be put into operation in 10 years (that is 2020). And currently being researched in Southwest Jiaotong University.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain
> 
> Is there any university near HK/SZ or GZ that offers masters degree focusing on these development?
> 
> I been looking everywhere in HK none. So i end up in enrolling into a financial engineering instead in HK. I am not yet officially enrolled but already admitted.
> 
> I really would like to return to core engineering research and dev. I am an electronics engineer by profession and systems/software engineer by work.


Hey, I can recall two national key universities located in Guangzhou:
1. 中山大学 Zhongshan University; Sun Yat-sen University
2. 华南理工大学 South China University of Technology

South China U of Technology has the following schools that might fit you: School of Electronic and Information Engineering, School of mechanical and automotive engineering, School of computer science.

Sun Yat-sen U has the school of information science and technology.

I don't know if they offer research programs in high-speed rail. Hope it helps.


----------



## gdolniak

*Work on Guangzhou Metro Line 6 destroys five ancient tombs*



> *Work on Guangzhou Metro Line 6 destroys five ancient tombs*
> Monday, 17 June, 2013, 5:51am
> 
> Guangzhou Metro is facing a public outcry after contractors destroyed a group of ancient imperial tombs in the Menggang district during construction of Line 6 of its subway system.
> 
> The tombs, ranging from 2,200 to more than 3,000 years old and still being studied by archaeologists, were wrecked by excavators on Friday night.
> 
> The protected site, on the eastern slope of Da Gong mountain, had been sealed off by the Guangzhou Archaeology Research Centre, with warning signs posted and red lines marking the protected area.
> 
> It was fine when archaeologists left on Friday but had been torn up by the time they returned on Saturday.
> 
> "Yesterday we were still conducting archaeological excavations, but all five tombs were gone this morning," said an archaeologist quoted by Southern Metropolis Daily yesterday.
> 
> One of the archaeology technicians responsible for the site, Miao Hui , said: "At least five of them were destroyed … this time. They date from the late Shang dynasty to the Warring States. This is not the first time the construction company has destroyed ancient tombs. The area they dug up was sealed by red lines. They even specifically moved our archaeological tools aside before blazing in."
> 
> A foreman hired by the centre said the site was impossible to miss. "We have begun working with one of the tombs and used plastic film to cover the unfinished site. It's a very large and obvious target, it's impossible that the workers could miss it."
> 
> Yesterday's reports in most Guangzhou media put the number of tombs at five, while Xinhua reported on Saturday that six tombs were destroyed.
> 
> A manager for Guangzhou Metro's construction agent said the workers were confused by unclear warning signs and markings left by the archaeologists.
> 
> A Guangzhou Metro spokesman said the construction work had already been approved by the archaeology centre, according to Southern Metropolis Daily.
> 
> However, it was reported that the centre wrote to the company last month to say the site had not been cleared for construction.
> 
> The research centre's director, Zhang Qianglu , said the slope's densely packed tombs had significant historical value.
> 
> The subway project is reported to have destroyed more than a dozen ancient tombs in the first five months of the year.
> 
> The damage has triggered an outcry online, with internet users describing it as outrageous and shameless. One said she did not believe it was simply a mistake. "The constructor has never taken the historical relics seriously. If you are not sure where to dig, why don't you ask? They must be severely punished, otherwise we'll only see more cultural relics being destroyed."
> 
> _This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Guangzhou subway work destroys five ancient tombs_
> 
> Warning: might be behind a paywall: _http://bit.ly/19lUf3q_


Maybe not directly related to railway, but there seem to be an increasing number of articles on how developers destroy historic sites.


----------



## xinxingren

gdolniak said:


> Work on Guangzhou Metro Line 6 destroys five ancient tombs


Bad fengshui. Watch for mysterious things happening to travellers on this line ...


----------



## silent_dragon

xinxingren said:


> Bad fengshui. Watch for mysterious things happening to travellers on this line ...



Yeah probably the ancient souls may ride for free in the trains.. :banana:

Cant blame the workers. Blame the managers :bash:


----------



## hmmwv

xinxingren said:


> Bad fengshui. Watch for mysterious things happening to travellers on this line ...


Like what Shanghai did to the elevated road pillar, they need to build something to calm those souls.....


----------



## silent_dragon

big-dog said:


> *1.25 news on Beijing Station and Beijing West underground connection line*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The 9.15km double line tunnel will be completed by July this year, the whole connection line will open in 2014 when millions of passengers don't have to suffer the transition difficulties between the two stations.
> 
> This project is way behind schedule. This is one of the most difficult digging projects of Beijing due to delay of land acquisition and hard geological conditions.
> 
> link



Is this a direct line between these two rail stations? not the current u/c line 7?
So no stations in between?


----------



## Silly_Walks

^^


Seems it actually is the legendary railway tunnel, not a metro tunnel.


I wasn't even aware they had already started construction


----------



## hmmwv

Yup it's a HSR tunnel so G and D trains can go from Beijing West to Beijing Station.


----------



## luhai

gdolniak said:


> Maybe not directly related to railway, but there seem to be an increasing number of articles on how developers destroy historic sites.


Railways and tombs going way back in China, even in the 19 century when very few tracks are built in China.
http://tv.cntv.cn/video/C18529/892c4b3a5e7440a1a7bbcd9ad6924ca8


----------



## hmmwv

HXD1D in commercial service


----------



## big-dog

Silly_Walks said:


> ^^
> 
> 
> Seems it actually is the legendary railway tunnel, not a metro tunnel.
> 
> 
> I wasn't even aware they had already started construction


It's 81% completed by May 30th. The tunnel will open in 2014.

source


----------



## Woonsocket54

I've been reading about this on and off for years. This should have been completed a while ago.









http://www.cctv.com/english/special/news/20091029/103579.shtml


----------



## hmmwv

Woonsocket54 said:


> I've been reading about this on and off for years. This should have been completed a while ago.


Yes I believe this large HSR tunnel under downtown Beijing is now complete.


----------



## big-dog

> July 8
> 
> *China ex-rail minister Liu Zhijun gets suspended death for bribery*
> 
> China gave former railways minister Liu Zhijun a suspended death sentence for bribery and abuse of power, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday, in a case seen as a test of President Xi Jinping’s resolve to crack down on pervasive graft.


Reuters in Beijing


----------



## drezdinski

Rest of life in his own flat, that's pretty much it...


----------



## xinxingren

Meanwhile his successor hits the ground running http://dynamic.12306.cn/surweb/

Customer Satisfaction Survey with Redeemable Bonus Points :cheers:


----------



## foxmulder

drezdinski said:


> Rest of life in his own flat, that's pretty much it...



Punishment is not severe enough?


----------



## gdolniak

foxmulder said:


> Punishment is not severe enough?


Compare it with punishments other people get, when they are not officials: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/world/asia/14china.html (fortunately for the farmer, the sentence was dropped)


----------



## hkskyline

A staff member from the maintenace crew checks a train in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 8, 2013. Known as the "Train Hospital", the maintenance crew provide 24-hour-services for examining and cleaning trains. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin) 























































Staff members from the maintenace crew clean a train in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 8, 2013. Known as the "Train Hospital", the maintenance crew provide 24-hour-services for examining and cleaning trains. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin)


----------



## hmmwv

foxmulder said:


> Punishment is not severe enough?


I think it's a fair sentence, personally I think it's a little bit harsh because of his historical contribution to the Chinese railway system, no one in the world has done so much for a country in terms of rail transit than him (well besides Stevenson perhaps). I'd rather have ten corrupt officials who get things done than a clean one whose only goal is to keep the status quo.


----------



## dao123

hmmwv said:


> I think it's a fair sentence, personally I think it's a little bit harsh because of his historical contribution to the Chinese railway system, no one in the world has done so much for a country in terms of rail transit than him (well besides Stevenson perhaps). I'd rather have ten corrupt officials who get things done than a clean one whose only goal is to keep the status quo.


Clicking the 'like' button is not enough.
I can't agree with you more.
He wrote an epic story.

It is said that when new high-speed train prototypes were being tested, Liu would grab a few high-ranking railway officials, get on-board the driver's cabin with them. If anything went wrong with the prototype, Liu, together with these officials are the ones to pay with their lives. 

I wish him well.


----------



## foxmulder

Great pictures, hkskyline. Thanks a lot for sharing. Do you have similar ones for high speed trains. 

By the way, I think punishment for Liu is fair because he was a minister. He should have been an example for others.


----------



## hkskyline

foxmulder said:


> Great pictures, hkskyline. Thanks a lot for sharing. Do you have similar ones for high speed trains.
> 
> By the way, I think punishment for Liu is fair because he was a minister. He should have been an example for others.


No .. I will keep an eye and post in the high-speed thread if I come across any. I came across this set by chance after browsing the news website.


----------



## hkskyline

A freight train runs past the Kunlun Mountain on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in northwest China's Qinghai Province July 9, 2013. Within seven years after its operation, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the longest and highest railway in the world, has carried nearly 64 million passengers and 300 million tonnes of goods. (Xinhua/Hou Deqiang)


----------



## Cosmicbliss

drezdinski said:


> Rest of life in his own flat, that's pretty much it...


Is it not also true that he single handled completely modernized and overhauled one of the worlds biggest networks? hno: Lets give him credit for this too.


----------



## luhai

hmmwv said:


> I think it's a fair sentence, personally I think it's a little bit harsh because of his historical contribution to the Chinese railway system, no one in the world has done so much for a country in terms of rail transit than him (well besides Stevenson perhaps). I'd rather have ten corrupt officials who get things done than a clean one whose only goal is to keep the status quo.


Kind of remind me of this



> The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872 involved the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America (no relation to the French Credit Mobilier) construction company in the building of the western portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. In 1868 Congressman Oakes Ames had distributed Crédit Mobilier shares of stock to other congressmen, in addition to making cash bribes, during the Andrew Johnson presidency.
> ....
> 
> In 1867, Crédit Mobilier replaced Thomas Durant as its head with the Congressman Oakes Ames.[3] In that year Ames offered to members of Congress shares of stock in Crédit Mobilier at its discounted value rather than the market value, which was much higher. The high market value of the stock was due to the superb performance of Crédit Mobilier of America as a corporation; which was in turn due to its major contract with the Union Pacific.
> ....
> 
> During the 1872 presidential campaign, the New York City newspaper, The Sun, broke the story. The paper opposed the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant and was regularly publishing articles critical of his administration. Following a disagreement with Ames, Henry Simpson McComb, an associate of his and a later executive of the Illinois Central Railroad, leaked compromising letters to the newspaper.
> ...
> 
> A Congressional investigation of thirteen members led to the censure of Ames and James Brooks, a Democrat from New York. A Department of Justice investigation was also made, with Aaron F. Perry serving as chief counsel. During the investigation, the government found that the company had given shares to more than thirty representatives of both parties, including James A. Garfield, Schuyler Colfax, James W. Patterson, and Henry Wilson.
> 
> Garfield denied the charges and succeeded in gaining election as President in 1880, so the scandal did not have much effect on him. The Republicans replaced Colfax on the ticket, who was being renominated for Vice President. But they named Henry Wilson as the new candidate, who had also been implicated in the scandals.


Perhaps every rapid rail expansion will have its dark side.


----------



## hmmwv

^^I think it's the "dark side" of things that enabled all those rapid infrastructure expansions.


----------



## stoneybee

xinxingren said:


> 800 km of line from Xining to Ge'ermu has had double track, electric, and upgrade to 160km/hr since the opening of the Ge'ermu to Lhasa section in 2006. This required some small and some larger straightening and new tunnels. Remaining work on this section is the 32.6km Guanjiao tunnel. There is significant mineral traffic from this region eastwards to central China.
> 
> My guess as to why Ge'ermu - Lhasa is not in a hurry for double track electric is, traffic density too low, and the train would be the only substantial user of electricity, needing new HV transmission lines thru a desolate alpine region.


Agreed. I would even venture to guess that we will likely see the construction of a second Tibet route from either Sichuen or Yunnan into Lhasa before we ever see the double tracking of the existing line.:cheers:


----------



## Pansori

How is the demand/capacity ratio on the Qinghai to Lhasa route? Is there actually a demand for a second track? Railways don't need be double track unless there is an actual demand for it. Overtaking loops are enough in such cases. The population of Tibet region is tiny. What about freight traffic? Maybe once the line to Nepal is open there will be a need to increase capacity?


----------



## silent_dragon

big-dog said:


> *July 26 10AM The tunnel is dug thru, finally, after 8 years construction*
> 
> it's a 9151m, double-line tunnel connecting Beijing Railway Station and Beijing West.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> by Beijing Railway


It looks like the tunnel ring blocks were not alternately positioned. Normally tunnel ring blocks were placed alternately not in line with each other to increase structural integrity. Well lets hope the ring blocks are interlocking.. like the TBM tunnel rings. Because by the looks of it, the tunnel ring blocks were manually positioned.


----------



## stingstingsting

^^

It looks to me that its in-situ rather than precast concrete segments.

So in this case, those lines show the formwork, not segments as you say.

Also, it looks like that a TBM was not used here.


----------



## big-dog

^^ the blue characters on the left say "tunnel boring machine construction" so I guess the boring machine is located behind the people in the picture.


----------



## hmmwv

silent_dragon said:


> It looks like the tunnel ring blocks were not alternately positioned. Normally tunnel ring blocks were placed alternately not in line with each other to increase structural integrity. Well lets hope the ring blocks are interlocking.. like the TBM tunnel rings. Because by the looks of it, the tunnel ring blocks were manually positioned.


The picture is taken at the station end, the TBM is behind the people so not very visible. The tunnel itself has interlocking rings as you can see in following construction pictures:


----------



## hkskyline

*China's rail freight volume down 2.8 pct *

BEIJING, July 18 (Xinhua) -- The volume of freight carried on China's railways declined 2.8 percent year on year during the January-June period as economic activities slowed, official data showed on Thursday.

Chinese railroads transported 1.94 billion tonnes of cargo in the first half of the year, down 55.07 million tonnes from the volume seen in the same period last year, according to statistics from China Railway Corporation.

The drop came as China's economic growth slid to 7.6 percent during the January-June period, the weakest first-half performance in three years.

The China Railway Corporation last month announced its plan to revamp its freight transport business, including simplifying rules and tailoring transportation to customers' needs, in a bid to better tap the logistics market.


----------



## saiho

This reminds me I heard that there are electrified railroads capable of handling double stacks in China. If so do you know which lines? Is there any pictures or videos on it?


----------



## hmmwv

I don't think they can handle the standard double stack, it has to be slightly lower containers.


----------



## xinxingren

There are a number of stories about having to either use lower height containers for Chinese internal traffic, or raise the wires. It looks like neither has happened. This China Daily story seems to have got lost in translation, or I don't understand how containers are measured. You can see on Youtube plenty of clips of standard flat wagons hauling 48 or 50 ISO 40 foot containers under the 25kv wires, plus this one of low stack wagons being used single loaded. There's an unanswered comment on that page asking for pix of double stacking ...


----------



## stoneybee

hmmwv said:


> I don't think they can handle the standard double stack, it has to be slightly lower containers.


First of all, I am no expert here, so I could be dead wrong here.

IMO, I dont see any reason why the standard electrified railway cannot handle double decking of standard container with a low profile carriage. They should not need to either raise the electrical wire or create a new container standard. In fact, this is already done in a lot of places in the world.

The key is low profile carraige beds which China did not have in the past and is only slowly adopting. The standard configuration is usually two 20 foot container in the sunken bay and then you can stack a 40 foot even an 48 foot container on top.

Looking at the youtube video, I think there is enough clearance for that.


----------



## xinxingren

saiho said:


> This reminds me I heard that there are electrified railroads capable of handling double stacks in China. If so do you know which lines? Is there any pictures or videos on it?


I've found a picture in an obvious place, dunno where the train was tho'.
12306.cn has on the right hand side, just below the splash banner, a little panel rotating thru pics of goods trains. 
One of those frames clearly shows a HXn loco pulling double stacked low wagons out on the open line.


----------



## hmmwv

stoneybee said:


> First of all, I am no expert here, so I could be dead wrong here.
> 
> IMO, I dont see any reason why the standard electrified railway cannot handle double decking of standard container with a low profile carriage. They should not need to either raise the electrical wire or create a new container standard. In fact, this is already done in a lot of places in the world.
> 
> The key is low profile carraige beds which China did not have in the past and is only slowly adopting. The standard configuration is usually two 20 foot container in the sunken bay and then you can stack a 40 foot even an 48 foot container on top.
> 
> Looking at the youtube video, I think there is enough clearance for that.


I'm fairly certain the Chinese rail containers that get double stacks are lower than the standard TEU. The Chinese system allows a maximum of two 2.4m containers or one 2.6m + one 2.4m containers to be double stacked, while in America they can double stack two 2.9m units. Standard TEUs are 2.6m and 2.9m. They do use low profile carriages but I don't think the clearance is enough, probably has something to do with catenary inside tunnels?


----------



## XAN_

That have something to do with standard Chinese loading gauge, according to that everything is build.


----------



## hmmwv

^^ Of course, that's what set the catenary heights and such.


----------



## big-dog

Railway photography, August 2013










by 扈军


----------



## doc7austin

Some photos from a departing Z Sleeper Train at Fuzhou Railway Station.
Train Z57/60 leaves each day at 16:51 for Beijing. It travels via Yingtan, Huangshan, Nanjing.

Fuzhou is the Capital of Fujian Province in the Southeast of China, close by Taiwan.












Fuzhou Railway Station is the station where most classical sleeper trains originate. Coastal High-Speed trains Hangzhou-Ningbo-Wenzhou-Fuzhou Xiamen do not stop here.
Fuzhou South Railway Station is rather far away. Public bus takes 70 minutes.












The old station is a big construction site due to modernization:













The platforms:







































Train Z57/60 Fuzhou - Beijing is ready to depart:
















































Z57/60 takes 19 hours and 47 minutes to cover nearly 2067 kilometers. It goes via Yingtan, Huangshan, Nanjing and Jinan.

Here is the complete video of the departure scene:


----------



## doc7austin

Lanzhou Railway Station, Gansu Province


----------



## doc7austin

Soft Sleeper in Train T116 Shanghai - Xian - Lanzhou


----------



## doc7austin

Hard Sleeper in Train T116 Shanghai - Xian - Lanzhou


----------



## big-dog

^^ it depends. For train trips lasting more than 5 hours I would pay for a sleeper if there's a choice.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> ^^ it depends. For train trips lasting more than 5 hours I would pay for a sleeper if there's a choice.


Even in daytime?

Looking at Beijing-Guangzhou:
It is less than 8 hours by G train. Second class seat on G train costs 862 yuan, first class seat 1380 yuan, business class seat 2724 yuan. By my estimate, one business seat on G train is 316 % the price of second class seat.
The fastest T train, T201, takes 20:53. For some reason, no D trains Beijing-Guangzhou. The prices are hard seat 251 yuan, hard sleepers upper 426 yuan, middle 441 yuan, lower 456 yuan, soft sleepers upper 750 yuan, lower 784 yuan, luxury soft sleepers upper 1383 yuan, lower 1445 yuan.

Upper soft sleeper looks like 299 % hard seat price, lower soft sleeper 312 % hard seat price. So if a car with soft sleepers were added to a G train, the price difference between lower soft sleeper and business class should be lower soft sleeper about 34 yuan cheaper, at say 2690 yuan.

See that upper hard sleepers are just 170 % the hard seat price. Lower hard sleepers are more expensive at 182 %. So, an upper hard sleeper on a G train should cost like 1465 yuan. Which is just 85 yuan more than the 1380 yuan ticket in first class seat.

Would you like to try and spend your day working in an upper hard sleeper of a G train?


----------



## big-dog

^^ While at present I can still seat in a vehicle for 8 hour and continue my busines when offboard. But as I'm getting older things will be tough.

Even in RMB1465 it's still in the same range with air fare and since most sleeper schedules are overnight trips, people can save the travel time entirely if they can have a good sleep on the train. So for Beijing-Guangzhou overnight trip I will go for Sleeper option.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> Even in RMB1465 it's still in the same range with air fare and since most sleeper schedules are overnight trips, people can save the travel time entirely if they can have a good sleep on the train.


Yes - if the sleeper actually is "overnight". Which is not the case with longer train trips. Nor, for some reason, with high speed trains.
Say Beijing-Guangzhou. I must have missed the fastest possibility - it is T15. 20 hours 31 minutes. Leaving 11:01, arriving 7:32.
You may have good sleep on the train, and arrive in Guangzhou well rested, having eaten a good breakfast in train restaurant and ready to embark on Guangzhou Metro to reach your destination in Guangzhou between 8 and 9. But the problem is, you will have spent most of the previous day on the train as well. You could instead have left Beijing rather later than 11:01, flown to Guangzhou and spent a hotel night there.


big-dog said:


> So for Beijing-Guangzhou overnight trip I will go for Sleeper option.


Yes, but how about overday trip? Like G71, departure 8:00, arrival 17:38 - not really time for night´s sleep. Would you prefer business class seat, or a sleeper bunk?


----------



## xinxingren

Now when this HSR line is finished thru Gansu & Xinjiang surely there will be sleeper cars on whatever replaces T35/T38. Currently G96/G97 is the fastest Guangzhou Nan to Xian taking 7h 40' for 2119km, requiring 14h 15' for the remaining 2565km at a D train average 180km/h. Or will flying remain the only option to T35? :horse:


----------



## hmmwv

big-dog said:


> IMO it's a waste not using the HSR tracks at night time. It'll be fascinating if they can install the Japanese invented pea pods sleepers


What's the major advantage this system has over the current sleeper trains? It seems to be less efficient use of space, less privacy, and provides less luggage space.

HSR tracks are maintenance intensive so it's good that they are taking the time to do repairs and inspections during the night. During which the upgraded conventional lines can be used to run overnight trains.


----------



## big-dog

^^ It's like an upgraded version of sleeper coach so it should be confortable sleeping there. And the concept is inspired by capsule hotel so it should be space efficient (assume its' double deck). Let alone the customized HSR coach which give passenger good view while travelling. I know it'll lead to cost issue but the concept is pretty attractive.


----------



## hmmwv

I think it's more comfortable than hard sleeper but I would take soft sleeper over this anyday, this design's biggest problem compare to soft sleeper is privacy and access to amenities. But yeah for the same space you can fit six pea pods but only four soft sleeper bunks.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> But yeah for the same space you can fit six pea pods but only four soft sleeper bunks.


Or six hard sleeper bunks.


----------



## big-dog

Nanchang Railway Bureau, Jingxi Province










by Luo chunxiao


----------



## hkskyline

*Train ticket cancellation fees to rise *
28 August 2013
Shenzhen Daily

RAILWAY travelers will be able to cancel or return tickets at any railway station in the country but also could be subject to significantly increased cancellation fees under new regulations that take effect Sunday.

Passengers previously could only make changes at their departure station or the station where they bought the tickets. Under the new regulations, people who return tickets more than 48 hours before departure will be given a refund minus 5 percent of the fare, China Railway Corp. said.

People who cancel tickets 48 to 24 hours before departure will lose 10 percent of the cost, while 20 percent will be charged to people who return tickets less than 24 hours before departure, the railway operator said.

Previously, railways deducted only 5 percent for all cancellations.

Travelers tend to book more tickets than needed, through methods such as asking friends to book online during peak travel seasons when tickets are in short supply, or even buying tickets for different classes of seats on the same train, reducing the supply for other travelers.

The trend invariably leads to high cancellation numbers, especially 24 hours before a train’s scheduled departure time. Railway authorities said the new regulations are aimed at cutting the high cancellation rates and easing demand during peak seasons.

Additionally, canceling tickets has become much easier since the start of online ticket sales in late 2011, shortly before the Spring Festival travel peak, when millions of Chinese ride trains during the nation’s biggest annual holiday.

From January to mid-July this year, there was a 77.6- percent rise in ticket cancellations compared to the same period last year.

The Spring Festival peak saw triple the average daily level of cancellations and a 110-percent rise compared to the same time last year. The pre-summer vacation period saw the cancellation rate double from a year ago.

About 74 percent of the cancellations occurred less than 24 hours before departure, while only 15 percent occurred more than 48 hours in advance.

(SD-Agencies)


----------



## FM 2258

^^

Those pictures from Jingxi province are beautiful. This generally confuses me when I see a CRH1 on a conventional line. Does that mean these CRH1's run at high speed (200km/h) on these lines or are CRH1's sometimes used in place of conventional trains for conventional service?


----------



## Silly_Walks

^^


Are they conventional lines or upgraded lines?

Are they perhaps shared conventional lines that lead from stations to highspeed tracks?


----------



## hmmwv

The answer is both, they run on newly constructed CR Grade 1 Trunk Lines which is the highest level of conventional rail lines in China, they are capable of supporting 200-250km/h EMU trains, 160km/h conventional passenger trains, and 120-140km/h freight trains. They also run on upgraded conventional lines which are essentially older lines upgraded to the CR Grade 1 line standard. In the former case EMUs can run at 200-250km/h most of the way, in the latter case certain sections have speed restrictions (i.e. 160km/h).

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think CRH1s are used on proper high speed lines (350km/h), at least not very often.


----------



## foxmulder

If this is shared before, sorry for double post.

Lovely video:


----------



## drezdinski

Quick question~ What is the general price per km for these high speed elevated railways? Is there such a data available? Thanx.


----------



## foxmulder

~25 million/km


----------



## big-dog

^^ yes for 300kmph HSRs such as Beijing-Shanghai, the per km fare is 0.42 RMB = US$ 0.0677


----------



## drezdinski

25 million RMB or USD per km? I'd say it's RMB, right?


----------



## Traceparts

drezdinski said:


> 25 million RMB or USD per km? I'd say it's RMB, right?


 150 million RMB /km 25 million USD/km


----------



## drezdinski

OK~ Thanx all.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Traceparts said:


> 150 million RMB /km 25 million USD/km


Does it mean that the construction of a railway is repaid by 357 million second class tickets? Then what remains is to repay the operating costs during the service of these passengers.


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Does it mean that the construction of a railway is repaid by 357 million second class tickets? Then what remains is to repay the operating costs during the service of these passengers.


Ticket income covers the operating cost, what remains pays back the construction cost. Of course other things pays into that pool too, such as profit from freight service, real estate sales around the station, retail space rental in the station, advertisements, etc.


----------



## Sunfuns

I'm surprised the cost is so high. If I remember correctly TGV standard in France is about 20 million euros per km on flat land. Not elevated of course, but still. I thought in China it would be cheaper...


----------



## foxmulder

Well not elevated and flat.. that is the cheapest it can get. 25million/km is average for China so I think it is still significantly cheaper.


----------



## doc7austin

drezdinski's wrote


> 25 million RMB or USD per km? I'd say it's RMB, right?


25 million USD/km is very cheap.

For 25 million RMB/km you wont even cover the cost of materials.

And compare 25 million USD/km to costs in Japan or Europe. There you are faced with enourmous monetary efforts for planing, court fights, environmental laws, expensive acquisition of land. This all increases the km-price of high-speed rail.

In China, most of the high-speed railways are elevated. And this saves costs and is politically very smart. The farmers do not loose their land.


----------



## xinxingren

I've often wondered if those pillars all go down deep enough to solid footing. We know there has been at least one reported problem with subsoil treatment on standard embankment, People's Daily, Bloomberg. The "collapse" was only 4mm, but the pressure at the base of those viaduct pillars must be greater than a standard embankment...


----------



## Sunfuns

doc7austin said:


> 25 million USD/km is very cheap.
> 
> For 25 million RMB/km you wont even cover the cost of materials.
> 
> And compare 25 million USD/km to costs in Japan or Europe. There you are faced with enourmous monetary efforts for planing, court fights, environmental laws, expensive acquisition of land. This all increases the km-price of high-speed rail.


25 million/km is reasonable, but not particularly cheap. About the same as it would cost in Spain or France provided the geography is not too difficult. 



doc7austin said:


> In China, most of the high-speed railways are elevated. *And this saves costs* and is politically very smart. The farmers do not loose their land.


You sure about that? Elsewhere it would be a lot more expensive and thus not done unless there is a great need (ugly as well, but that's of course a matter of taste). Surely farmland in China is not more expensive than in France.


----------



## hmmwv

xinxingren said:


> I've often wondered if those pillars all go down deep enough to solid footing. We know there has been at least one reported problem with subsoil treatment on standard embankment, People's Daily, Bloomberg. The "collapse" was only 4mm, but the pressure at the base of those viaduct pillars must be greater than a standard embankment...


Not everywhere is Lujiazui's mud so it's actually pretty easy to hit bedrock on a lot of areas. The tolerance is so small on those HSR viaducts if they are not on solid ground they will sink more than 4mm by now.




Sunfuns said:


> 25 million/km is reasonable, but not particularly cheap. About the same as it would cost in Spain or France provided the geography is not too difficult.
> 
> You sure about that? Elsewhere it would be a lot more expensive and thus not done unless there is a great need (ugly as well, but that's of course a matter of taste). Surely farmland in China is not more expensive than in France.


Well if it cost France 20 million Euro to lay track on embankment then 25 million USD for viaduct work is significantly cheaper. I agree though using viaduct may not be a "cheap" solution, but one that's popular because it's less intrusive to the local residents. The advantages are obvious, in urban and suburban areas it saves a lot of land acquisition cost, the girders are manufactured on assembly line style factories so efficiency and quality can be better managed.


----------



## foxmulder

hmmwv said:


> Not everywhere is Lujiazui's mud so it's actually pretty easy to hit bedrock on a lot of areas. The tolerance is so small on those HSR viaducts if they are not on solid ground they will sink more than 4mm by now.


Or, they are build on deep concrete piles like skyscrapers do in China.


----------



## xinxingren

My concern is if someone had scrimped the quality or quantity of concrete ...
I've seen 25 year old Chinese skyscrapers with concrete cancer worse than 80 year old buildings in other countries.


----------



## hmmwv

xinxingren said:


> My concern is if someone had scrimped the quality or quantity of concrete ...
> I've seen 25 year old Chinese skyscrapers with concrete cancer worse than 80 year old buildings in other countries.


Then let's hope those comprehensive inspection trains they run at night can detect the slightest deformations if that's the case.


----------



## hkskyline

*Rail route to Europe improves freight transport*
13 September 2013
China Daily	

With shorter transport times and lower costs for freight, international rail lines linking central and western China with Central Asia have helped to improve connectivity and trade between the regions.

Starting in Chongqing, the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe International Railway passes through Xi'an, Lanzhou, Urumqi and the Alataw Pass, where it enters Kazakhstan, before continuing through Russia, Belarus and Poland, finally ending in Duisburg, Germany.

Stretching 11,179 kilometers, it takes just 16 days on average to transport goods from China to Europe by rail, 20 days fewer than by sea from China's eastern ports, making rail ideal for goods with a shorter shelf life.

The cost is one-fifth that of transporting cargo by air, and there is just one customs inspection along the whole route between Chongqing and Central Asia. Since it began operating in 2011, the cost of transporting goods on the line has also fallen, from 80 cents per 22 metric tons of cargo for every kilometer, to 70 cents.

Goods transported along the route include electronics, cars, and medical equipment.

It has been compared with the second Eurasian Continental Bridge, a train line that starts at Lianyungang in East China's Jiangsu province and passes through the Alataw Pass in Xinjiang before ending at Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

The Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe line has provided a boost to Chongqing's economy. According to Yuxinou Logistics, which provides logistics services along the railway, from January to May this year, freight transported out of Chongqing rose 5.9 percent, and freight into the city rose 8.3 percent.

The line links South China's manufacturing hub and Southwest China's industrial belt with European markets. Along the route into Europe is Nizhny Novgorod, a major transportation and distribution hub in Russia.

With the rapid development of Sino-Russian economic and trade relations in recent years, an increasing range of Chinese goods have been distributed through Nizhny Novgorod Railway Station, with an average annual growth of 8 percent.

Of the 2,627 containers that passed through the station in the first half of this year, 846 came from China, carrying building materials, cars, groceries and chemical products.

Kazakh crossroads

Meanwhile, the railway has also received praise from officials in Kazakhstan.

"It changes the transportation networks in Kazakhstan and turns the country into the crossroads connecting China and Russia as well as Europe," said a vice-president of Kazakhstan state railway company KTZ.

The railway is very important for Kazakhstan, and the country will take further measures to tap its potential, including improving the efficiency of customs clearance and bringing in more powerful train engines, he said.

According to the Central Asian news provider TREND, at a meeting in May, the customs authorities of China and Kazakhstan agreed to establish a system for conducting customs clearance and control along the railway line. The two customs authorities aim to develop a strategic plan of cooperation for the 2014-18 period, it said.

"Economic cooperation and investments between China and Central Asian countries have developed very fast in recent years, which helps increase demand for better and faster logistics of those countries," said Sun Zhuangzhi, a researcher of Central Asian studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Central Asian countries are all inland states, so railways are especially important for them, because the railway offers them better connectivity with the outside world, so that they can better take part in global economic cooperation," he said.

In addition, the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe railway allows those Central Asian countries to gain access to the ports of China as well as European countries, he said.

Challenges ahead

Despite its apparent success, the line faces a few challenges in the years ahead.

A steady stream of imports and exports is required to keep the Chongqing-Europe railway going, but there are currently few exports from European countries. Chongqing is trying to solve this by promoting the line to Europe, and there is no guarantee of success.

There is also some competition with other lines that provide similarly low-cost overland transport to Europe. A line linking Asia and Europe was launched in July, running from Zhengzhou, a business and logistics center in Central China, to Hamburg, Europe's second largest port.

The route reaches Germany via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland, taking 18 days to cover the 10,214 km, more than twice as fast as by sea. It is also about 80 percent cheaper than air transport and significantly cheaper than going by road.

Like the line linking Chongqing and Duisburg, the Zhengzhou-Europe railway has to change gauges twice, a feat that is accomplished by crane.

The first transfer is a change to the Russian broad gauge line at the Alataw Pass on the border between China and Kazakhstan. The second is a transfer to standard gauge at the Poland-Belarus border.

The gauge transfer and technical service is provided by DB Schenker, the transport and logistics arm of Germany's national railway Deutsche Bahn, through its service network in Central Asia and Eastern Europe after the trains leave China.

The first freight train along this route had 41 containers, including 11 carrying vehicle parts, industrial yarn, high-end shoes and clothing on route to Hamburg, and a container of clothes destined for Rotterdam. The goods were valued at $2.33 million.


----------



## trainrover

One of the daftest ideas around ... so many would-be saboteurs along much of this wished route ... and what's with the repetitious gauge changes ... must be a crummy news outlet writing that one :laugh:

Better off sticking with the trans-Siberian line ... hell, even the parallel Mongolian segment's worthier


----------



## foxmulder

trainrover said:


> One of the daftest ideas around ... so many would-be saboteurs along much of this wished route ... and what's with the repetitious gauge changes ... must be a crummy news outlet writing that one :laugh:
> 
> Better off sticking with the trans-Siberian line ... hell, even the parallel Mongolian segment's worthier


?

You need to change gauge in trans-siberian one too. Also I think there is a demand for this service, it is faster than ship slower than air and priced accordingly. Makes sense to me.


----------



## trainrover

Fine, then let the bloody trunk route be recurringly bombed hno: otherwise 3(?) additional days' worth of haulage wouldn't compromise service as much. Plus why devise a repetitious gauge change in a new trunk route, thus that in itself makes no sense, right ... The wish is flimsy, e.g., why ain't dual-gauge track considered. 

If you think the Middle East is bad enough, just wait and watch what'll happen around Central Asia


----------



## xinxingren

trainrover said:


> Plus why devise a repetitious gauge change in a new trunk route, thus that in itself makes no sense, right ... The wish is flimsy, e.g., why ain't dual-gauge track considered.


I don't believe anybody _devised_ a double gauge transfer, it's just a historic fact that the entire previous Soviet system is on broad gauge. Fortunately on this line all the pictured trains I have seen are standard container flat wagons, and a crane sits between the two lines lifting the containers off one onto the other. Not at all like the bogie changes in Mongolia, or at the Polish border. 

Lessee, 6000 km of dual gauge line at $XX/km, plus a truckload of dangerous and unreliable dual gauge switches. Or would you rather change the whole Russian (ex-Soviet) system to standard gauge? I know they did the whole Great Western over one weekend, but that was a smaller job ...


----------



## Obuyama

Project canceled, & may start as Iran-China:
*Китай пока отложил строительство жд в Узбекистан:*

Железную дорогу Китай-Кыргызстан-Узбекистан так и не построят[/URL]


> Есть другой проект, гораздо более выгодный. Его предлагает официальный Тегеран, ратующий за прокладку трассы *Иран-Афганистан-Таджикистан-Кыргызстан-Китай*. Причем строиться она будет за персидские деньги, и нам не придется потом расплачиваться. Вторая причина, это то, что китайский вариант не решает нашей главное проблемы – соединение Севера и юга страны. Соглашение предполагало, что железная дорога прошла бы через безлюдные места. В частности пастбища. Это, в свою очередь, вызвало крайнее недовольство местного населения, прекрасно понявшего, что это самое настоящее начало экспансии.


----------



## trainrover

Which project? The one touched upon in the article that that moderator fully copied above here?


----------



## Obuyama

Part of. China-Kyrgyz-Ozbekiston.


----------



## trainrover

Ooo yeah







Even riskier than the one being fancied.


----------



## trainrover

xinxingren said:


> I don't believe anybody devised a double gauge transfer


▲▲ ▼▼


hkskyline said:


> Like the line linking Chongqing and Duisburg, the Zhengzhou-Europe railway has to change gauges twice, a feat that is accomplished by crane.
> 
> The first transfer is a change to the Russian broad gauge line at the Alataw Pass on the border between China and Kazakhstan. The second is a transfer to standard gauge at the Poland-Belarus border.
Click to expand...

 ... unless, however, by "double gauge transfer" you mean the following cannot be practiced in -uhm- business:






At any rate, those Asian places there really ought to set about at excelling in diplomacy, otherwise the Urumqi route will remain forever doomed. Even Russia can't overcome its defensive stance by sorting out its gauge impediment. All in all as it currently stands, it would make for the crappiest of investments


----------



## Obuyama

On Chinese side, I'd make politic measures to obtain back a part of Russian Far East, cause year by year population is dropping, & around 2030 year will drop to 3-4 million only (now 6). It is a good chance for China now attract poor people of Russia there on her side. After this, they can build railways anywhere till even Japan.


----------



## hkskyline

trainrover said:


> One of the daftest ideas around ... so many would-be saboteurs along much of this wished route ... and what's with the repetitious gauge changes ... must be a crummy news outlet writing that one :laugh:
> 
> Better off sticking with the trans-Siberian line ... hell, even the parallel Mongolian segment's worthier


The Central Asian countries have a vested interest in this line. The article mentioned Kazakhstan was particularly interested, as it will make imports and exports far easier. They don't get any benefits from a Siberian rail line, and they certainly don't want over-reliance on Russia. Ironically, this over-reliance argument is a major reason why Mongolia wants to strengthen its infrastructure with Russia rather than have its minerals reach out to the world through China.

None of those Central Asian countries are in turmoil like Afghanistan and Iraq. Seems like some readers have a crummy knowledge of geopolitics and current events.


----------



## trainrover

What part of "wait" can you not understand ... or maybe better yet, what's discernable between news whiteout and blackout, right ...


----------



## foxmulder

What's up with the altitude, trainrover? Take it easy. It is only a logistical train service. It is more like trial operation on existing lines.


----------



## hkskyline

He's not capable of giving a more intelligent contribution to SSC anyway. No need to lose sweat over how these blokes work.

It would be silly to run a single line from end to end on this new Europe-Asia route anyway. It won't work from a logistical efficiency perspective. I envision shorter lines that will still connect through Central Asia, which would make changing gauges twice or more not necessary. I suspect the Kazakhs see that opportunity to build themselves as a transfer traffic hub.


----------



## trainrover

More? You must be greedier than I'd have cared to suppose ... or lazier, coz lobbing the topic in the corresponding inter-country thread would've been exciting ...


----------



## hkskyline

trainrover said:


> More? You must be greedier than I'd have cared to suppose ... or lazier, coz lobbing the topic in the corresponding inter-country thread would've been exciting ...


Don't see why an international railway which includes connecting China and having China pay for part of the construction should not be discussed in the China thread. If you think otherwise, I wonder why you posted an article on increased US inspections on US railways in the Canada Railways thread with a faint reference to Lac Megantic despite the fact the inspections are not part of the disaster's investigation or how trains travel on Canadian soil.

Had you been not so lazy but to actually read the contents of the China Daily article, you would quickly realize it has more to do with the Chinese side, especially the impact on Chongqing and Zhengzhou, than an international one, thus here it is in this thread.

Feel free to cross-post in the Eurasia thread.


----------



## saiho

trainrover said:


> One of the daftest ideas around ... so many would-be saboteurs along much of this wished route ... and what's with the repetitious gauge changes ... must be a crummy news outlet writing that one :laugh:
> 
> Better off sticking with the trans-Siberian line ... hell, even the parallel Mongolian segment's worthier


Man someone needs to go out and see the world more often. hno:



hkskyline said:


> It would be silly to run a single line from end to end on this new Europe-Asia route anyway. It won't work from a logistical efficiency perspective. I envision shorter lines that will still connect through Central Asia, which would make changing gauges twice or more not necessary. I suspect the Kazakhs see that opportunity to build themselves as a transfer traffic hub.


Exactly, if the project was just for Sino-EU Freight only then it would be like the keystone XL pipeline; Only the ends of the line support it and everyone else on the ROW is against it. However it is not the case for the "new silk road", everyone can use it. That is why the countries on the route support it, a lot of countries want to trade with other countries on the line, particularity with China (just like the old silk road).



foxmulder said:


> What's up with the altitude, trainrover? Take it easy. It is only a logistical train service. It is more like trial operation on existing lines.


+1 :chill:


----------



## trainrover

hkskyline said:


> in the Canada Railways thread


No sweat ... your dismissiveness of both my informative indexing of and fun ridiculing the exposé of shortsighted, greedy powerbrokers' being caught red-handed is quite acceptable  although, I would hardly refer to a matter whereat the FBI is willingly complying with Le Sûreté du Québec's investigative requests faint ...


----------



## hkskyline

trainrover said:


> No sweat ... your dismissiveness of both my informative indexing of and fun ridiculing the exposé of shortsighted, greedy powerbrokers' being caught red-handed is quite acceptable


You should stop looking at yourself in the mirror.


----------



## trainrover

It's 1-way, no reflection necessary ... besides, you really needn't muddle me in with that awfully vain, unclassy Montrealer habit of obsessing himself with his appearance in the nearest available reflection


----------



## xinxingren

trainrover said:


> ▲▲ ▼▼
> ... unless, however, by "double gauge transfer" you mean the following cannot be practiced in -uhm- business:
> 
> Home Made Dual Guage Points


Home Made? Says it all ...
You could always ask the Australians what they think of multi-gauge lines. The Chinese have had the good sense to put them in a museum.

BTW do you know how many times goods were transferred from one (camel) train to another along the original Silk Road?


----------



## trainrover




----------



## hkskyline

*China's Guangxi becoming hub for China-ASEAN trade*
9 September 2013
Xinhua


Train station in Nanning by Vueltaa, on Flickr

NANNING -- Over the past decade, China has been striving to build the remote Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region into an international transportation hub that can support the increasingly frequent exchanges between China and the ASEAN.

China and the ASEAN established a strategic partnership in 2003, and the two sides have witnessed their bilateral trade volume increase fivefold and the scale of two-way investment expand threefold since then.

Serving as a gateway to the ASEAN, Guangxi has played an important role in improving transportation connecting the two sides and boosting bilateral trade and exchanges.

Early in 2005, an expressway linking Nanning, capital city of Guangxi, and Friendship Pass, a pass bordering Vietnam, was put into use, marking the first highway that connects China and the ASEAN countries.

Over the past decade, extensive highway construction has taken place in the region to give more cities of the ASEAN member countries better access to Guangxi. Approval has been granted in the region to 28 international roads, 11 of which have been opened for freight and passenger transport.

*The first train route linking Nanning and Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, has served more than 130,000 passengers since it started running in 2009.*

*The Debao-Jingxi Railway, the second train line linking Guangxi and Vietnam, which opened in December, 2012, has also played a great role in boosting bilateral trade.*

In addition, Guangxi now has 12 international airlines with regular flights flying to major cities of eight ASEAN countries. The region is now trying to speed up construction of airport facilities and open to more international airlines.

Meanwhile, the port cluster in the Beibu Gulf now has more than 30 container shipment routes that link over 200 global ports. Its handling capacity hit 174 million tonnes last year, making it a new highlight in China-ASEAN cooperation.(XBW)


----------



## General Huo

Eye candies from NE China
http://www.guancha.cn/life/2013_09_19_173527_s.shtml


----------



## silent_dragon

^^very pretty.


----------



## big-dog

September 26th

*636 km Xiangtang-Putian Railway opens*











big-dog said:


> *12.11 Xiangtang-Putian Railway (向莆铁路) tracklaying completed, opening in September 2013*
> 
> -- 中国铁路
> 
> Length: 635.861km
> Design Speed: 200km/h
> Stations: 24
> 
> Xiangtang-Putian Railway connects Jiangxi Province directly to Fujian Province, providing a 3-hour seaport access to inland province of Jiangxi. With its opening Nanchang to Fuzhou's travel time will be reduced from current 11 hours to 3.5 hours.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --xinhuant


----------



## silent_dragon

Thats a lot of time savings from 11 to 3.5 hours


----------



## hhzz

*Lhasa-Shigatse Railway,Southwest China*

*December 31,2013*
The track-laying has completed in Lhasa-Shigatse Railway,which is an extension line of Qinghai-Tibet Railway.


----------



## big-dog

*12/27 Guangtong-Kunming double line opens*

This is part of Pan Asian Railway, 106.3km long. Design speed 160 kmph (reserved capacity to upgrade to 200 kmph).

Project started in October 2007 this is a difficult rail to build. Xiuning Railway Tunnel, *13.187km*, is one of the critical sub-project on the route.



--yunnannews


----------



## flankerjun

*NEW locomotive, HXD3D have been delivered to railway corporation,There will be 40 new locomotives before the lunar new year. HXD3D is a kind of passenger locomotive,160KM/H,7200KW,quite powerful.

*


----------



## big-dog

*Non-HSR Railway openings at 2013 year end*



big-dog said:


> *12/27 Guangtong-Kunming double line opens*
> 
> This is part of Pan Asian Railway, 106.3km long. Design speed 160 kmph (reserved capacity to upgrade to 200 kmph).
> 
> Project started in October 2007 this is a difficult rail to build. Xiuning Railway Tunnel, 13.187km, is one of the critical sub-project on the route.
> 
> --yunnannews





big-dog said:


> *12/28 Xi'an-Pingliang Rail and Xi'an-Ankang II Rail opened*
> 
> Location: Shaanxi, Sichuan Provinces
> 
> Xi'an-Pingliang Rail: 265km, 120km/h
> Xi'an-Ankang II Rail: 247km, 160km/h
> 
> source





big-dog said:


> *12/28 Handan-Huanghua Port Rail opened*
> 
> Location: Hebei Province
> Length: 432.87km
> Stations: 32 (18 passenger stations)
> Standard: Grade I
> Cost: 1.957 bln yuan
> 
> This is mainly a freight rail, providing a new port rail for cities of north Hebei.
> 
> source





big-dog said:


> *12/28 Fuyang-Lu'an Rail opened*
> 
> Location: Anhui Province
> Length: 167.8km
> Stations: 13
> Speed: 160 km/h
> Construction: 4 years
> 
> Source





big-dog said:


> *12/30 Suzhou-Huai'an Rail opened*
> 
> Location: Anhui and Jiangsu Province
> Length: 210.421km
> Stations: 13
> Bridges (large/medium): 104 (17% of total length)
> Construction: 4.5 years
> 
> source





big-dog said:


> *12/31 Haiqing Rail opened*
> 
> Location: Haitian-Pingdu-Qingdao-Gaomi, Shandong Province
> Length: 91.7km
> Grade I
> Cost: 3.3 bln yuan
> Design speed: 160 km/h
> 
> source


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> *Non-HSR Railway openings at 2013 year end*
> 12/28 Handan-Huanghua Port Rail opened
> 
> Location: Hebei Province
> Length: 432.87km
> Stations: 32 (18 passenger stations)
> Standard: Grade I
> Cost: 1.957 bln yuan


22.12 km for 1 yi yuan.


big-dog said:


> 12/31 Haiqing Rail opened
> 
> Location: Haitian-Pingdu-Qingdao-Gaomi, Shandong Province
> Length: 91.7km
> Grade I
> Cost: 3.3 bln yuan
> Design speed: 160 km/h


Just 2,78 km for 1 yi yuan.

Seeing that both are "Grade 1", Handan-Huanghua railway looks like good value for money.


----------



## xinxingren

flankerjun said:


> *NEW locomotive, HXD3D have been delivered to railway corporation,There will be 40 new locomotives before the lunar new year. HXD3D is a kind of passenger locomotive,160KM/H,7200KW,quite powerful.*


Seeing them all backed down a siding with no overhead wire, I'm tempted to quip,

Batteries Not Included :nuts:


----------



## big-dog

> *Report Says Death Of China Railway President May Be Linked To Anticorruption Campaign*
> 
> 
> The death of the president of China Railway Group Ltd. may be tied to the recent anticorruption campaign, reported 21st Century Business Herald, a Guangdong-based newspaper. Bai Zhongren, who had been in charge of the state-owned railway giant since 2010, jumped from the building where he lived on Jan. 4. The company dropped 4.1%, the most in six months, to close at HK$3.75 on Jan 6.
> 
> The 21st Century Business Herald, citing anonymous sources working in China’s railway sector, said Bai’s death may be related to the ongoing anticorruption campaign that led to the downfall of Liu Zhijun, China’s former railway minister who was given a suspended death sentence in July for abuse of power and taking bribes.  Under Liu’s tenure, China’s railway builders were mired in debt, waste and embezzlement. China Railway Construction Corp.Ltd., the country’s second largest infrastructure contractor, spent 837 million RMB ($135 million)on hospitality in 2012. A year earlier, the National Audit Office found officials embezzled 187 million RMB ($28 million) from just the Beijing-to-Shanghai portion of the high-speed railway project.
> 
> Caixin, an investigative journal based in Beijing, reported that the central government is stepping up its efforts to root out corruption in the railway sector. The publication, also citing anonymous sources, said corruption problems of railway projects will soon be exposed in a “bigger scale” and managers of the railway sector are under immense pressure.
> 
> ... ...


Link


----------



## big-dog

> *China's rail traffic to surge in 2014*
> 
> 2014-01-09 16:23 Xinhua Web Editor: Gu Liping
> 
> China's railways are expected to carry *2.27 billion* passengers this year, up 10 percent year on year, a top railway official said here on Thursday.
> ... ...
> 
> According to CRC estimates, China's railways will also carry 3.28 billion tons of cargo this year, up 2 percent from last year.
> 
> In 2013, a total of 2.08 billion passengers traveled by rail, up 10.7 percent year on year, with the daily peak number reaching more than 10 million.
> 
> China's railways carried 3.22 billion tons of cargo in 2013, which is equal to the number in 2012, according to the CRC.
> 
> ... ...


Link


----------



## gdolniak

*CSR Train Cars, Parts Shipped to Australia Tainted with Asbestos*

*CSR Train Cars, Parts Shipped to Australia Tainted with Asbestos*
By Staff reporters Wu jing and Lu Bingyang










(Beijing) – Train cars and parts exported by CSR Corp. Ltd., China's biggest train maker, to Australia have been found to contain hazardous materials, and CSR is working to make sure the news is contained.

The exports were sent to Bradken Ltd., an Australian mining products group.

The Australian customs officials have isolated the cars and equipment containing asbestos, which can cause cancer and other diseases if exposure is prolonged. They are continuing to investigate.

It is unclear how many cars are involved.

The Economic and Commercial Section of China's consulate in Melbourne announced a probe was underway on January 7. The website of China's Ministry of Commerce posted the news a day later.

However, information regarding the episode has been removed from both websites. A source close to CSR said the company negotiated with relevant departments immediately after the incident to limit publicity.

CSR said the news release by the Ministry of Commerce was removed from the website because some aspects were not entirely accurate, but declined to say what exactly was inaccurate.

This is not the first time that a CSR export has been found to contain asbestos, the source at the company said.

Australia banned the use of asbestos in 2004 and importers are required to ensure and declare on import documents that their goods do not contain the material.

Sources in the railway industry say that Chinese manufacturers sometimes use banned materials to keep costs low and make their exports more competitive.

The report on the Ministry of Commerce website that was removed said that a spokesman at Bradken said this was the first time the company had imported CSR products. He added that although an examination showed train cars contained white asbestos, employees faced no health hazards and the episode would not affect future cooperation with Chinese companies.

A spokesman for Australian customs said Bradken is likely to be fined AU$ 850,000 or up to three times the value of the locomotive.

A CSR spokesman said earlier that the subway cars it sells domestically are better quality than the ones its exports.

http://english.caixin.com/2014-01-09/100627064.html


----------



## hmmwv

big-dog said:


> Link


What CRC should do is halt more freight traffic on CRH/freight mixed use lines, which tend to be longer and branches into more rural areas, and run some temporary EMUs. We have never seen DL or GL trains, that'd be fun.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

hmmwv said:


> What CRC should do is halt more freight traffic on CRH/freight mixed use lines, which tend to be longer and branches into more rural areas, and run some temporary EMUs. We have never seen DL or GL trains, that'd be fun.


Freeing space on railways makes sense - the freight is not produced anyway at New Year when workers are at home, and what does get produced could wait.

But does China have surplus high speed trains to serve crush loads, or are all existing trains in service all time anyway?


----------



## hmmwv

chornedsnorkack said:


> Freeing space on railways makes sense - the freight is not produced anyway at New Year when workers are at home, and what does get produced could wait.
> 
> But does China have surplus high speed trains to serve crush loads, or are all existing trains in service all time anyway?


I don't think there is a shortage of trainsets, and if there are they can always extend the operating hours to accommodate more trains. Not by cutting into maintenance hours at night, but by extending its daytime hours, for example extend operating time by two hours each way (early morning and late night).


----------



## xinxingren

hmmwv said:


> We have never seen DL or GL trains, that'd be fun.


Hmmm, I wonder what D643/2 is? For the timetable impaired, Changsha-Quzhou-Shanghaihongqiao, 12 hour running, overnight, 16 intermediate stops, mostly only 2 or 3 minutes, longest 9 minutes at Zhuzhou.


----------



## Silly_Walks

gdolniak said:


> *CSR Train Cars, Parts Shipped to Australia Tainted with Asbestos*
> By Staff reporters Wu jing and Lu Bingyang
> [...]
> 
> A CSR spokesman said earlier that the subway cars it sells domestically are better quality than the ones its exports.
> 
> http://english.caixin.com/2014-01-09/100627064.html



If China wants to be big in exporting trains, why would it ever admit that?!

"Don't worry, citizens, you are not getting the crappy shit we're selling to the foreigners".


----------



## FM 2258

The new HxD locomotives look great and 160km/h(99mph) is no joke. Only 25mph lower than "high speed"


----------



## luhai

Silly_Walks said:


> If China wants to be big in exporting trains, why would it ever admit that?!
> 
> "Don't worry, citizens, you are not getting the crappy shit we're selling to the foreigners".


Here is the original News, dated 11/27/2013.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-26/chinese-imports-spark-railway-worker-asbestos-scare/5118242

This the train in question, which is not used China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSR_Ziyang_SDA1

Asbestos is not banned in China, while it's being banner in most developed countries. So it would be a big problem in the future as the standards does not conform. Given the problems Asbestos cause, and Chinese government increasingly start to foot the tab on medical costs. It's in their best interest to ban it. However, it seems Canada is a supporter of White Asbestos, which is weird...
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/09/25/asbestos-industry-strikes_n_979790.html


----------



## Silly_Walks

luhai said:


> However, it seems Canada is a supporter of White Asbestos, which is weird...


Canada supports it because they produce asbestos in the town called Asbestos... :nuts:


----------



## bearb

Guangzhou-Shenzhen Intercity Train from Shenzhen Station to Zhangmutou Station


----------



## Huhu

Silly_Walks said:


> Canada supports it because they produce asbestos in the town called Asbestos... :nuts:


Yes the Canadian government has faced a lot of criticism about chrysotile (white asbestos) production both domestically and internationally. Previously the government claimed that it was "safer" than other types of asbestos if used "properly." Of course the main problem with asbestos is how to dispose of it and whether those doing the deconstruction know about it, so it negates the "proper use" argument.

The mines shut down in 2011 and the government has finally agreed to stop official support of asbestos.


----------



## spin_dive

D308 from Xi'an North to Shanghai




























Have to say, it's one of the nicest overnight trains I've ever taken.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Pansori said:


> I wonder, however, if there will be any under 7 hour services between Shenzhen/Guangzhou and Shanghai once the missing parts of 350km/h track are built between Changsha and Shanghai? It just doesn't seem right not to have direct G train services between PRD and Shanghai.


It looks wrong even now. There are 2 daily G trains Guangzhou-Jinan via Wuhan, Hefei and Bengbu - G276 and G280 - and G280 goes all the way to Qingdao with total trip time 12:37. But no G trains Guangzhou-Wuhan-Nanjing or Guangzhou-Wuhan-Shanghai.


----------



## Pansori

chornedsnorkack said:


> It looks wrong even now. There are 2 daily G trains Guangzhou-Jinan via Wuhan, Hefei and Bengbu - G276 and G280 - and G280 goes all the way to Qingdao with total trip time 12:37. But no G trains Guangzhou-Wuhan-Nanjing or Guangzhou-Wuhan-Shanghai.


You're right. Guangzhou-Shanghai probably wouldn't take more than 10 hours and technically there should be no reason not to have such service via Wuhan.

I guess the reason is that there are very few passengers who would actually go all the way from Guangzhou to Shanghai. 10 hours (that's what it would take from Guangzhou to Shanghai with a G train via Wuhan ) is just not competitive with air transport. Average speed is around 200km/h (which is pretty good but still it just takes too long). So perhaps it is understandable why there are no G or D services between Guangzhou/Shenzhen and Shanghai besides the Coastal Corridor.

Once Hangzhou-Changsha is completed the distance between Guangzhou and Shanghai will be 1700km. A G train service going at 310km/h max could do an average speed of up to 270km/h which means that the journey would take 6.5 hours. If one day the speed will come back to originally used 350km/h then it could take perhaps just 5 hours and 30-40 minutes. That would get to a level where it could be competitive with airlines and would actually make sense having at least one or two G services with few stops.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Pansori said:


> You're right. Guangzhou-Shanghai probably wouldn't take more than 10 hours and technically there should be no reason not to have such service via Wuhan.
> 
> I guess the reason is that there are very few passengers who would actually go all the way from Guangzhou to Shanghai. 10 hours (that's what it would take from Guangzhou to Shanghai with a G train via Wuhan ) is just not competitive with air transport. Average speed is around 200km/h (which is pretty good but still it just takes too long). So perhaps it is understandable why there are no G or D services between Guangzhou/Shenzhen and Shanghai besides the Coastal Corridor.


Not by comparison.

Wuhan-Guangzhou: distance nominally 1069 km, actually by new line 969 km. Fastest time 3:39 (2 trains)
Wuhan-Xian: distance nominally 1050 km
Fastest time 4:00 (G96)
Wuhan-Beijing: distance nominally 1229 km
Fastest time 4:19 (G66)
Wuhan-Taiyuan: distance nominally 1172 km
Fastest time 5:31 (G622)
Wuhan-Jinan: distance 956 km
Fastest time 5:18 (G258)
Wuhan-Shanghai: distance 811 km
Fastest time 4:59 (G578)

Service frequency:
Guangzhou-Wuhan-Xian: 7 direct trains daily, 7:40 (G96) to 9:22 (G840)
Guangzhou-Wuhan-Beijing: 5 direct trains daily, 8:00 (G66) to 9:54 (G68)
Guangzhou-Wuhan-Jinan: 2 direct trains daily, 9:47 (G276) and 9:58 (G280)
Guangzhou-Wuhan-Taiyuan: 1 direct train daily, 9:36 (G622)
Guangzhou-Shanghai: no service

Even if the trains do take over 9 hours, seeing that both trains Guangzhou-Jinan and also all trains Guangzhou-Xian and Guangzhou-Beijing save one express on each line do the same, it should be an option for Guangzhou-Shanghai as well. Yet it is not.


----------



## flankerjun

*those 9600KW powerful locomotives,HXD2B AND HXD3B*


----------



## flankerjun

*NEW HXD3D,very very new one.*


----------



## flankerjun

*A CAT under the locomotives*


----------



## Pansori

flankerjun said:


> NEW HXD3D,very very new one.


How does it differ from HXD3B?


----------



## flankerjun

Pansori said:


> How does it differ from HXD3B?


HXD3B is a cargo locomotive,with a top speed of 120km/H,power 9600KW,it is one of the most powerful locomotives.HXD3D is a passenger locomotives,with a top speed of 160KM/H,power 7200KW,and has the ability to supply power(DC600V) to the coach.
for the technology,HXD3B is from bombardier,HXD3D is a mix of Toshiba and Chinese own technology.


----------



## flankerjun

*to tell the cargo and passenger locomotive,the best way is to look at the face of locomotives.the two red things in the face is the socket to supply power,with a output DC600V,BUT cargo ones do not have these things.*


----------



## dimlys1994

From Railway Gazette:



> http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...construction-of-22-km-amur-bridge-begins.html
> 
> *Construction of 2·2 km Amur bridge begins*
> 14 Mar 2014
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ASIA: A ceremony on February 26 officially launched construction of a 2 209 m railway bridge across the River Amur or Heilong between Nizhneleninskoye in Russian's Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Tongjiang in China's Heilongjiang province. Construction is expected to take 2½ years, for opening in December 2016.
> 
> The bridge is intended to provide a much shorter rail route between the regions to support growing traffic between China and Russia, and will have a greater capacity than the existing ships and seasonal pontoon road crossing. Traffic is predicted to start at 5·2 million tonnes/year and grow to 20 million tonnes/year.
> 
> The bridge has been designed by Institut Giprostroymost to meet both Russian and Chinese standards. It will carry gauntletted 1 435 mm and 1 520 mm gauge tracks, offset by 800 mm and thus allowing only a single train to cross at once.
> 
> The two governments signed an agreement to build the bridge in October 2008.
> 
> Heilongjiang province and China Railway Corp will provide US$422m for the Chinese portion of the bridge and associated works, while Russia's Far East & Baikal Region Development Fund is supporting the US$500m cost of works on the Russian side. This will include an upgrade of the branch to Nizhneleninskoye from Birobidzhan on the Trans-Siberian line


----------



## Cosmicbliss

How much trade/people to people contact exists between the border areas of Russia and China?


----------



## flankerjun

NEWS:yesterday China had succeed in pulling 31500-tons with four locomotives.this train has totally 315 C80 freight cars.


----------



## Surel

dimlys1994 said:


> From Railway Gazette:





> ASIA: A ceremony on February 26 officially launched construction of a 2 209 m railway bridge across the River Amur or Heilong between Nizhneleninskoye in Russian's Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Tongjiang in China's Heilongjiang province. Construction is expected to take 2½ years, for opening in December 2016.
> 
> The bridge is intended to provide a much shorter rail route between the regions to support growing traffic between China and Russia, and will have a greater capacity than the existing ships and seasonal pontoon road crossing. Traffic is predicted to start at 5·2 million tonnes/year and grow to 20 million tonnes/year.
> 
> The bridge has been designed by Institut Giprostroymost to meet both Russian and Chinese standards. It will carry gauntletted 1 435 mm and 1 520 mm gauge tracks, offset by 800 mm and thus allowing only a single train to cross at once.
> 
> The two governments signed an agreement to build the bridge in October 2008.
> 
> Heilongjiang province and China Railway Corp will provide US$422m for the Chinese portion of the bridge and associated works, while Russia's Far East & Baikal Region Development Fund is supporting the US$500m cost of works on the Russian side. This will include an upgrade of the branch to Nizhneleninskoye from Birobidzhan on the Trans-Siberian line


Would it be actually feasible for the Chinese to haul oil on rail from the Russian Far east, like it happens in the USA atm?

Could the railway make new oil wells more accessible for the Chinese market?


----------



## hmmwv

Surel said:


> Would it be actually feasible for the Chinese to haul oil on rail from the Russian Far east, like it happens in the USA atm?
> 
> Could the railway make new oil wells more accessible for the Chinese market?


IIRC there are already oil pipelines from Russia to China, that's going to be cheaper and quicker than hauling via rail.


----------



## hmmwv

Cosmicbliss said:


> How much trade/people to people contact exists between the border areas of Russia and China?


In 2013, out of the USD 89 billion China-Russia trade $22.4 billion were conducted on the border between Helongjiang Province and the Russian Far East.


----------



## hhzz

*Qinghai-Tibet Railway,2014*

Tanggula railway station,5067m above sea level,is the world highest station.And the Tanggula Pass,5072m above sea level is the highest point of the railways in the world.It's respectful for those who work in such a harsh condition area with thin air and extremely cold climate.
1.








2.








3.








4.








5.








6.








*From china.com.cn*


----------



## Sunfuns

Will trains actually be stoping at this station? As far as I have read there is absolutely nothing around to stop for and hence it will not be possible to leave or come on board the train there. 

If that is so then which station would be the actual highest working station? I mean a station to which you can buy a ticket.


----------



## SerdarOrtac

:cheers:


----------



## hhzz

Sunfuns said:


> Will trains actually be stoping at this station? As far as I have read there is absolutely nothing around to stop for and hence it will not be possible to leave or come on board the train there.


Yes,but it's extremely rare.No passenger is allowed to get it off here.



Sunfuns said:


> If that is so then which station would be the actual highest working station? I mean a station to which you can buy a ticket.


By your standard,it's Amdo railway station,4702m above sea level.It's a Qinghai-Tibet railway station,there're several trains stop here every day,passengers can get on or get off the trains here.


----------



## Sunfuns

That's surely still quite a bit higher than stations anywhere else in the world.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> *There will be over 7000km railway openings this year*
> 
> Government has raised up 2014 railway construction level,
> 
> 
> New constructions: from 44 projects to 48 projects
> Railway fixed asset investment: from CNY 700 bln to CNY 720 bln
> Openings: from 6600km to 7000km
> Approvals: ensure 10 approvals among 33 proposed projects


Are there any lists as to what these 7000 km openings, 48 new construction projects and 33 proposed projects are?


----------



## xinxingren

big-dog said:


> *15 injured after train derailed in NE China*
> 
> A passenger train stops on a track after derailing in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, April 14, 2014.


I saw that on last nights CCTV news. Looks like one of the middle cars derailed and took down 3 or 4 on each side of it. The loco and the last 3 cars stayed on the rails. It must have been going slow, as the downed cars are all neatly lying on their side or nearly upside down, but bogies scattered all over the scene. Miracle only 15 injured, which hints again at low speed, so the question, how, why?


----------



## flankerjun

*World's Longest Plateau Rail Tunnel Completed*

The Xinguanjiao Tunnel, the world's longest plateau rail tunnel on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, was completed on Tuesday, local authorities said.

Spanning 32.645 km, the tunnel was finished on Tuesday afternoon, making it the longest rail tunnel in China, according to Zhi Changying, an official with the China Railway Tunnel Co. Ltd. (CRTC), a partner in the project.

The tunnel is part of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway's second trunk that links Golmud in northwestern Qinghai with Xining, the provincial capital. The 763.5-km-long line has been open to traffic since November 2010, except for the tunnel.

A project by the CRTC and the China Railway 16th Bureau Group Co., Ltd. (CRBGC), the tunnel took almost seven years to build. The "bottleneck" project posed challenges for engineers due to high altitude, complicated geological conditions and tight budgets, said Liu Hairong, an official with the CRBGC.

The tunnel, expected to open to traffic at the end of the year, will give a much-needed boost to the transportation capabilities of the high-profile Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which connects the northwestern Qinghai Province and Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Zhi Changying said.

"It will allow the railway to better connect Qinghai and Tibet," Zhi said, adding that the tunnel is another improvement in the railway network in western China.


----------



## keber

^^ Tunnel entrances are here and here. How much did all this projects shorten travelling times from the original Qinghai-Tibet railway project from 2006?


----------



## hmmwv

keber said:


> ^^ Tunnel entrances are here and here. How much did all this projects shorten travelling times from the original Qinghai-Tibet railway project from 2006?


According to news reports it shortened the time to pass through the mountain pass from 2 hours to 20 minutes, so 1 hour 40 minutes saved.


----------



## Sopomon

flankerjun said:


> *World's Longest Plateau Rail Tunnel Completed*


How does one define a 'plateau' rail tunnel?


----------



## keber

hmmwv said:


> According to news reports it shortened the time to pass through the mountain pass from 2 hours to 20 minutes, so 1 hour 40 minutes saved.


What about improvements on railway between Xining and Golmund, done in 2010/2011, how much travelling time has been slashed off?


----------



## ziemon

*New diesel locomotive D2F*

I just stumbled upon this news item, including an image of a new diesel locomotive series: D2F

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/asia/china-increases-2014-rail-investment-budget-to-$us-116bn.html?channel=540

Anyone heard about it before?


----------



## flankerjun

ziemon said:


> I just stumbled upon this news item, including an image of a new diesel locomotive series: D2F
> 
> http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/asia/china-increases-2014-rail-investment-budget-to-$us-116bn.html?channel=540
> 
> Anyone heard about it before?


It is hxd2f,and there is also a hxd1f,not disel,9600kw electrial loco,8 axles,axle load 30tons.they will be used in some coal lines,and the buyers are coal company,not the national railway company.today there is a problem for chinese freight loco is that they are very powerful,9600kw is common,but the axle load are only 25 or 27 tons,they do not have enough adhesive force,and the wheels always slip on a slop.the HXN3 is orignal from US,it only have a power of 4800kw,but a 32 tons axle load,and can pull 10,000 tons in the plain area in northeast of China.

来自我的 HTC One 上的 Tapatalk


----------



## ziemon

okay thanks!

9.6MW already seemed overrated, especially for freight traffic. The 8-axle double electrics should be doing better than the 6 axle unibody models right?

Searching for HXD2F delivers some more information, thanks!


----------



## big-dog

xinxingren said:


> I saw that on last nights CCTV news. Looks like one of the middle cars derailed and took down 3 or 4 on each side of it. The loco and the last 3 cars stayed on the rails. It must have been going slow, as the downed cars are all neatly lying on their side or nearly upside down, but bogies scattered all over the scene. Miracle only 15 injured, which hints again at low speed, so the question, how, why?


It's a crime. The suspect, a railway worker is arrested


----------



## foxmulder

Sopomon said:


> How does one define a 'plateau' rail tunnel?



I pretty sure they meant *land *tunnel.


----------



## Sopomon

^^ 
Then it's untrue, as the Lotschberg Base Tunnel is longer at 34.5 km.

What constitutes a plateau for those who are looking to achieve world records?


----------



## Silly_Walks

They might mean a plateau as in a high altitude area of flat terrain.


----------



## foxmulder

Sopomon said:


> ^^
> Then it's untrue, as the Lotschberg Base Tunnel is longer at 34.5 km.
> 
> What constitutes a plateau for those who are looking to achieve world records?



Those lying bastards..!


----------



## big-dog

Silly_Walks said:


> They might mean a plateau as in a high altitude area of flat terrain.


Yes. Xinguanjiao Tunnel sits on Tibetan Plateau. The tunnel has an average elevation of 3600m.


----------



## gdolniak

Sopomon said:


> ^^
> Then it's untrue, as the Lotschberg Base Tunnel is longer at 34.5 km.
> 
> What constitutes a plateau for those who are looking to achieve world records?


It's probably like with those new Olympic events, when nobody knows clearly what it is, but has a vague idea about it. So "plateau" here means something not involving a sea and disqualifying Lotschberg Base Tunnel, or about any other such (longer) tunnel being outside of China 

I think the original article is here: http://www.china.org.cn/business/2014-04/15/content_32104074.htm Only in the headline, the article's author had said that this tunnel is "world's longest". Official person from the construction company said that is only "the longest rail tunnel in China". Also remember, journalists are paid to write, not to think.


----------



## luhai

xinxingren said:


> I saw that on last nights CCTV news. Looks like one of the middle cars derailed and took down 3 or 4 on each side of it. The loco and the last 3 cars stayed on the rails. It must have been going slow, as the downed cars are all neatly lying on their side or nearly upside down, but bogies scattered all over the scene. Miracle only 15 injured, which hints again at low speed, so the question, how, why?


Sabotage. Here is the news report, supposedly it's because the worker was passed over for a promotion. Matter still under investigation.
http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2014-04-17/093929952811.shtml


----------



## flankerjun

*China railway corporation announced its first purchase plan in 2014.*

locomotive（8-axles 9600KW）：345
passenger cars：25G：1428 25T：1357
freight cars：3700

quite a large number.next month there will be the bid for bullet train,about 50 billion yuan.


----------



## foxmulder

flankerjun said:


> *China railway corporation announced its first purchase plan in 2014.*
> 
> locomotive（8-axles 9600KW）：345
> passenger cars：25G：1428 25T：1357
> freight cars：3700
> 
> quite a large number.next month there will be the bid for bullet train,about 50 billion yuan.


I guess this is all the detail we have?


----------



## kunming tiger

Survivors from Yunnan tunnel collapse "in good condition"

[InKunming--Yunnan] Fourteen workers rescued from a collapsed tunnel early Sunday are "in pretty good condition", said their doctors in the southwestern province of Yunnan.
The workers were saved at around 3 a.m., after being trapped for 131 hours in the debris of a collapsed railway tunnel in Funing County.
A thorough checkup showed they were in pretty good condition, said Zhang Jinlong, vice president of the People's Hospital in Funing County.
"Four of them had low potassium, as a result of unbalanced diet and particularly lack of vegetables," said Zhang. "They will recuperate soon after a few days of normal diet."
Xinhua reporters saw the workers were either sleeping or playing with cell phones in their hospital beds. Some were chatting with friends.
Zhang said they would spend Sunday night in hospital and if all was well, they were expected to be discharged Monday morning.
About 20 meters of a 13.5-km tunnel, known as Funing No. 1 tunnel, collapsed at 4 p.m. Monday, in Funing County of Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Wenshan, trapping 15 workers. More than 400 rescuers were mobilized to save the trapped men.
Rescuers drilled a hole in the collapsed tunnel Tuesday and managed to send food, water and flashlights to the workers.
Rescue work continued Sunday for the last missing worker.
The tunnel was on a pivotal railway linking Yunnan with south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region


----------



## hhzz

*Lhasa-Shigatse Railway will open soon*

Shigatse railway station
1.








2.








3.








*From xinhuanet.com*


----------



## kunming tiger

Lijiang-Shangrila Railway starts construction

[InKunming--Yunnan] The Lijiang-Shangrila Railway, an important part of the Yunnan-Tibet Railway and railway network in west China, started construction on July 22.
The Yunnan-Tibet Railway, the second railway to enter Tibet, is a sky-road connecting Tibet with other regions of China. It represents the Central Government's concern for ethnic minorities.
"The local government and the construction organization should cooperate and finish construction with high quality and efficiency," said Li Jiheng, governor of Yunnan province.
Ding Shaoxiang, Yunnan province's vice-governor, said that the construction of Lijiang-Shangrila Railway had carried the dreams of the people of Yunnan.
"I hope that the construction can be finished safely and efficiently," Ding added.
The Lijiang-Shangrila Railway runs 139.66km from Lijiang to Shangrila with an investment of 10.37 billion yuan ($1.67billion). The construction is expected to finish within six years. The Lijiang-Shangrila Railway will play an important role in improving the transportation in northwest regions of Yunnan.
More importantly, the railway will extend to the north and connect with the railway lines of Lhasa to make up the Yunnan-Tibet Railway.

By : China Daily | Published: 2014-July-23


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## lunarwhite

China plans to extend Tibet railway to Nepal, India and Bhutan. Here is the link.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/china-extend-tibet-railway-line-india-nepal-bhutan-borders-1458091


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## hkskyline

*Courier services delivering boost to rail sector*
1 August 2014
2014 China Daily Information Company. All Rights Reserved.

The first special trains for e-commerce freight delivery services between Shanghai and Beijing will start running on Friday, marking the initial step of opening up rail services to commercial clients, China Railway Corp said Thursday.

CRC has reached an initial agreement with courier service providers and postal services authorities that the fast trains for e-commerce freight delivery may extend to the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Bohai Rim, according to the 21st Century Business Herald.

The report also said that SF Express, one of China's largest courier services, contracted the first fast freight delivery train between Beijing and Shanghai.

SF Express confirmed the information on Thursday, saying that the company intends to take advantage of rail deliveries in the future.

Other e-commerce platforms and courier services also are in negotiations with CRC to contract trains for parcel delivery, according to CRC.

Market insiders said the launch of the services will benefit multiple parties involved in commercial shipping, as rail delivery is faster than road transportation and much cheaper than cargo shipping.

"Current air freight from Shanghai to Beijing may cost more than 0.8 yuan (13 cents) per kilometer, while train freight is under 0.4 yuan per kilometer. Intercity freight by train may be both cost-saving and time-saving," said Huang Zhijun, a freight agent in Shanghai.

According to Shi Jianjun, manager with Shanghai Yuntong Shipping Consultancy Service Ltd, railroad freight may be attractive to shipping service providers for several reasons.

"Train freight is stable and safe, and a train's capacity is much larger than a vehicle for road transportation or a cargo plane," Shi said.

But for long-term cooperation and smooth operations, railway services must improve current warehousing and their flow management. Developing solutions to meet courier services' needs is needed, including adjusting to their schedules and linking up railway and couriers' outlets, said Shi.

Launch of the service may also help railroads to generate more revenue and turn around the slumping performance of commercial shipping.

According to a report by CRC, in the first half of 2014, combined parcel delivery volume by rail in China totaled 770,000 metric tons, a 23.4 percent year-on-year drop.

As commodity freight has been dropping over the past few months, CRC has been working to develop potential capacities for parcel freight, the CRC report said.

CRC launched special fast-train freight delivery in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, transporting milk and construction materials to other parts of the country, according to railway authorities.

More fast trains for e-commerce and courier clients running between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou will be launched by the end of August, the 21st Century Business Herald reported.


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## Sunfuns

Found this document (in English) about the new Harbin-Jiamusi railway: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/extern...d/PDF/857330ISDS0Chi00Box382160B00PUBLIC0.pdf

Jiamusi is located on the Russian border. Key facts: 343 km vs 507 for the current alignment, less than 2 h travel time for express trains (I assume 200 km/h line standard) vs 7 h currently, mixed passenger and freight traffic, 12 new stations to be constructed and about half of the line will consist of tunnels or bridges. 

As I understand construction is just about to start.


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## big-dog

Aug 15
*Lhasa-Xingatse Railway opens*

Length: 251km
Speed: 120km/h
Cargo: annual 8.3 mln tons
Construction: 2011.1 ~ 2014.8 


(qingzangrailway)


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## chornedsnorkack

big-dog said:


> Aug 15
> *Lhasa-Xingatse Railway opens*
> 
> Length: 251km
> Speed: 120km/h


What is the trip time:
fastest?
with all stops (how many?)
How many trains serve the route daily, and how many of them go on to Xining or beyond?


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## big-dog

chornedsnorkack said:


> What is the trip time:
> fastest?
> with all stops (how many?)
> How many trains serve the route daily, and how many of them go on to Xining or beyond?


2 hous 57 minutes is the fastest travel time; 6 stops total;

At this moment there's only K9821/K9822 reaching Xingatse from Lhasa.


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## foxmulder

Apparently, the new line in Tibet cost 13.28 billion yuan.

In the long term, I think there may be a line that will cover whole south-west region of China from Urumqi to Kashgar from there to Pakistan border and from there to Xingatse.


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## hkskyline

*Tibet's second railway line opens*

LHASA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A second railway line in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the world's highest, was officially put into use on Friday.

The 251-km railway line links the regional capital Lhasa and Xigaze, the second-largest city in the region. It reduces the travel time from the current four hours by highway to around two hours.

Tickets for the new line went on sale Friday. The first passenger train is scheduled to leave Lhasa for Xigaze at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Construction of the railway started in 2010 with an investment of 13.28 billion yuan (2.16 billion U.S. dollars). Due to complicated geological conditions, numerous bridges and tunnels and hefty investment in environmental protection, the cost of the railway exceeded 50,000 yuan per meter on average, making it the most expensive in China's history.

"The railway will make transportation of our goods more convenient and reduce the transport costs a lot, compared with highways," said Jampa Daintar, general manager of a Tibetan foodstuff company in Xigaze, which produces traditional barley liquor and other food products.

The new railway brings the total length of operating railways in Tibet to 802 km.

Zhang Lizhong, deputy head of the Lhasa-Xigaze railway construction headquarters, said the rail route design has attempted to bypass a state-level black-necked crane nature reserve in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangpo River and a water source protection area in Qushui County.

To lessen the impact on the migration of wild animals, viaducts were built on major sections of the route, said Zhang.

The Lhasa-Xigaze railway represents a new stage in Chinese rail construction, said Xu Hongchun, the railway's chief designer.

It demonstrates that China has gained mature technologies for high plateau construction, he said.

The Lhasa-Xigaze railway passes through harsh terrain, including Nagqu, Damxung and Nyemo, all active regions with high-temperature geothermal springs in southern Tibet.

Its route also extends through the 60-km-long Yarlung Zangbo River Grand Canyon region, which has multiple hot or thermal springs ranging from 40 to 90 degrees Celsius.

"Drilling into the hot rocks, rail workers had difficulty breathing due to oxygen deficiency," said Xu.

The Lhasa-Xigaze railway, which lies in alpine valleys along the Yarlung Zangbo River, showcases China's modern railway bridge and tunnel-building technology.

Its 116 bridges and 29 tunnels account for 46 percent of the total length of the railway.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which began service in 2006, has greatly boosted Tibet's tourism and other sectors.

Tourist arrivals in Tibet reached 12.9 million last year from 1.8 million in 2005. Tourism revenue increased from 1.94 billion yuan to 16.5 billion yuan during the period.

Tonzhub, a hotel owner in Lnaze County, Xigaze, says he plans to renovate and expand the hotel.

"More tourists will come here with the new railway in operation," says Tonzhub.


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## hhzz

*Lhasa-Shigatse Railway opens*

Length: 253 km
Speed: 120 km/h
Elevation :3600~4000m
1.








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*From xinhuanet & chinanews*


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## hkskyline

*Chinese Premier stresses social funds in railway construction*

BEIJING, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has encouraged the China Railway Corporation (CRC) to further emancipate the mind and seek more social capital, the central government's website reported on Sunday.

"Railway construction invested solely by the government and promoted by administrative orders will not work any more," said the premier during an inspection tour to the CRC on Friday.

Li said innovations in investment and financing are key to reform in the railway sector. He asked the CRC to explore ways of better soliciting non-governmental funds and gather experience for other state-owned enterprises.

"Railway development is multifunctional as it can stabilize economic growth, enhance social harmony and push forward urbanization," said the premier.

China spent a lot on railways in recent years and attached great importance to reforming railway investment and financing mechanism since the CRC's inception in March 2013.

The State Council, the cabinet, released an action plan to deepen reform in railway investment and financing in April after an executive meeting chaired by Li.

According to the plan, a railway development fund will be set up and open to social investment. The fund's value is expected to reach up to 300 billion yuan (48.6 billion U.S. dollars).

In addition, 150 billion yuan of railway bonds will be issued this year. The government will also encourage banks to fund railway construction.

Rail links in central and western regions will be prioritized to expand investment, boost related sectors, and help urbanization, noted the plan.

Shortly after the cabinet meeting, the CRC raised railway investment target for 2014 to 800 billion yuan and aimed to put over 6,600 kilometers of new lines into operation, mostly in the central and western regions.


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## feisibuke

hkskyline said:


> *Tibet's second railway line opens*
> 
> LHASA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A second railway line in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the world's highest, was officially put into use on Friday.


I traveled this new railway on August 22 and 23: from Lhasa to Shigatse by train K9821, from Shigatse to Qushui by road, and from Qushui County to Lhasa by train K9822. Here are some pictures:

Lhasa Railway Station









In Front of Lhasa Station









Ticket Office in Lhasa Station









Platform 1 in Lhasa Station









Dining Car of Train K9821









Motorway From Lhasa City to Airport









View From the Window









Xierong Railway Station, 3604 Meters Above Sea Level









Inside the Train









River Yarlung Tsangpo, Known As Brahmaputra in India









Near Renbu Railway Station









The Railway Line Crosses Yarlung Tsangpo Multiple Times









Scenary Near Shigatse









On the Platform in Shigatse Railway Station









Shigatse Station









Shigatse is the Second Largest City in Tibet









Tashilhunpo Monastery, Seat of Panchen Lamas




































Shigatse Skyline









August 23, Road Trip Shigatse to Qushui, View of Yamdrok Lake, 4441 Meters Above Sea Level













































Qushui Railway Station


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## Highcliff

:cheers::cheers2::cheers::cheers2:


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## gael atangana

feisibuke said:


> I traveled this new railway on August 22 and 23: from Lhasa to Shigatse by train K9821, from Shigatse to Qushui by road, and from Qushui County to Lhasa by train K9822. Here are some pictures:
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Wow im impressed. Think countries in South Asia need to learn alot from China and other east asian countries like south Korea,Taiwan etc. Since i have been to both regions and most say south Asia lags far far behind in all fields. Dont know why really.


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## big-dog

WOW great photos.

one question: does K9821 (Lhasa-Xingatse) go to Lanzhou and Xining as well? I saw Xining and Lanzhou from the sign in this photo.



>


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## hhzz

very beautiful.I like the Qushui railway station.:banana:


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## feisibuke

big-dog said:


> WOW great photos.
> 
> one question: does K9821 (Lhasa-Xingatse) go to Lanzhou and Xining as well? I saw Xining and Lanzhou from the sign in this photo.


This trainset goes to Xining under train number K9811.


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## Rail1435

flankerjun said:


> *to tell the cargo and passenger locomotive,the best way is to look at the face of locomotives.the two red things in the face is the socket to supply power,with a output DC600V,BUT cargo ones do not have these things.*


And cargo locomotives do not need to run at 160 km/h (~100 mph)

But this locomotive can also used for (light) cargo trains.


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## Nexis

abcpdo said:


> Because so far there hasn't been a need. Office workers live within range of the metro. Rich house owners can afford to drive cars everyday. Only in the biggest sprawls like Beijing and SH are commuter trains starting to be built.


Ah I see , I forgot about the Sprawlness of most Chinese cities. Some of the new Beijing Suburban lines are Diesel , is there a reason behind that?


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## kisssme

i like chinese trains


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## Highcliff

big-dog said:


> 9.1km. Opening in early 2015.


huge tunnel...:master::master:


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## Sopomon

kunming tiger said:


> I assume the question you are asking is why are some Chinese cities building Urban Rail systems instead of the cheaper alternative Suburban Rail?
> 
> Smaller Chinese cities while having smaller populations but have high population densities high land costs etc that make Urban Rail systems the perferred model of transportation.
> 
> In larger cities as they expand their networks outwards to outlying areas may find Suburban Rail to be more cost effective especially when connecting to outlying cities. Hence their networks will be a combination of both.


Not only cheaper alternatives but often more efficient for longer, less heavily trafficked lines. Commuter rail allows for express services that get far flung commuters into the city centre very quickly. If one tried to get into central Beijing or Shanghai from the suburbs on the edge of the city, it'd take a very long time using only the current metro style all-stops systems.


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## chornedsnorkack

kunming tiger said:


> I assume the question you are asking is why are some Chinese cities building Urban Rail systems instead of the cheaper alternative Suburban Rail?
> 
> Smaller Chinese cities while having smaller populations but have high population densities high land costs etc that make Urban Rail systems the perferred model of transportation.
> 
> In larger cities as they expand their networks outwards to outlying areas may find Suburban Rail to be more cost effective especially when connecting to outlying cities. Hence their networks will be a combination of both.


But they often don´t need to build rails - they are there. Sometimes not even stations, because they also have been built. All that is needed is actually use the stations well.
Look at, for example, Kowloon-Canton railway. 183 km Kowloon to Canton.
The stations are:

Hung Hom - 1975
Mong Kok East - 1910
Kowloon Tong - 1982
Tai Wai - 1983
Sha Tin - 1910
Fo Tan - 1985
University - 1956
Tai Po Market - 1983
Tai Wo - 1989
Fanling - 1910
Sheung Shui - 1930
Lo Wu - 1949
Shenzhen - 1910
Sungang - 1962
Shenzhen East - 1911
Pinghu
Shigu - 1911
Tangtouxia
Zhangmutou
Changping - 1911
Hengli - 1911
Nanshe - 1911
Chashan - 1911
Shilong
Honghai - 1989
Shitan - 1911
Xiancun - 1910
Shapu - 1917
Xintang - 1910
Nangang - 1910
Xiayuan - 1975
Jishan - 1916
Shipai
Guangzhou East
Yunlu - 1911
Guangzhou - 1974

So - where are the passenger trains regularly connecting, say, Yunlu and Xintang?
How many railways exit Kunming? And how many passenger stations do they have in first, say, 50 km out of Kunming?


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## ccdk

*Beijing - Bejing West Underground Tunnel to open 2015.3.20*

It will take about 15 minutes for the "shuttle" train to run the 9.15km line.
When opened, the Shijiazhuang - Chengde K7743/2, K7744/1 will be through trains connecting the two stations, and passengers can use this service to connect their trains at Beijing and Beijing West.

Not much further info was given.
http://auto.news18a.com/news/20150310/story_815166.html


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## NergiZed

Ah, I've heard about this tunnel.

Too bad I only ever use Beijing South due to HSR, I don't think there's ever a time I'd need to fo from Beijing station to Beijing West, but I'm glad its' there.

Now the Beijing CDB People mover in the works, there's a system I would use frequently.


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## 孟天宝

ccdk said:


> It will take about 15 minutes for the "shuttle" train to run the 9.15km line.
> When opened, the Shijiazhuang - Chengde K7743/2, K7744/1 will be through trains connecting the two stations, and passengers can use this service to connect their trains at Beijing and Beijing West.
> 
> Not much further info was given.
> http://auto.news18a.com/news/20150310/story_815166.html


Cool, it's flown way under the radar lately. Totally forgot that it existed.

Any word on what kind of tunnel or rail line it is?


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## Robi_damian

^^ Does it have intermediate stops or connections, for example to the metro? Looks like an opportunity to build an RER-type system...


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## chornedsnorkack

Robi_damian said:


> ^^ Does it have intermediate stops or connections, for example to the metro? Looks like an opportunity to build an RER-type system...


On the other hand, it is a connection of major railways. Compare the 8 km tunnel between Shenzhen North and Futian stations.


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## kunming tiger

chornedsnorkack said:


> But they often don´t need to build rails - they are there. Sometimes not even stations, because they also have been built. All that is needed is actually use the stations well.
> Look at, for example, Kowloon-Canton railway. 183 km Kowloon to Canton.
> The stations are:
> 
> Hung Hom - 1975
> Mong Kok East - 1910
> Kowloon Tong - 1982
> Tai Wai - 1983
> Sha Tin - 1910
> Fo Tan - 1985
> University - 1956
> Tai Po Market - 1983
> Tai Wo - 1989
> Fanling - 1910
> Sheung Shui - 1930
> Lo Wu - 1949
> Shenzhen - 1910
> Sungang - 1962
> Shenzhen East - 1911
> Pinghu
> Shigu - 1911
> Tangtouxia
> Zhangmutou
> Changping - 1911
> Hengli - 1911
> Nanshe - 1911
> Chashan - 1911
> Shilong
> Honghai - 1989
> Shitan - 1911
> Xiancun - 1910
> Shapu - 1917
> Xintang - 1910
> Nangang - 1910
> Xiayuan - 1975
> Jishan - 1916
> Shipai
> Guangzhou East
> Yunlu - 1911
> Guangzhou - 1974
> 
> So - where are the passenger trains regularly connecting, say, Yunlu and Xintang?
> How many railways exit Kunming? And how many passenger stations do they have in first, say, 50 km out of Kunming?


 To answer your question there are stations 50 kms out of Kunming but as the city is sprawling outwards and taking the metro with it those areas will be intergrated into the metro footprint by 2030


The cities lying more than 100 kms will connect to the HSR in the future. The intercity lines to cities between 50 to 100 kms will be a mixture of commuter rail then urban rail once in the downtown area though those are long term projects.


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## kunming tiger

NergiZed said:


> Ah, I've heard about this tunnel.
> 
> Too bad I only ever use Beijing South due to HSR, I don't think there's ever a time I'd need to fo from Beijing station to Beijing West, but I'm glad its' there.
> 
> Now the Beijing CDB People mover in the works, there's a system I would use frequently.


 Any more details on the proposed Beijing APM?


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## kunming tiger

Should a seprate thread set up for commuter rail projects in China?


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## Nexis

kunming tiger said:


> Should a seprate thread set up for commuter rail projects in China?


No , each City thread is enough for now. Down the road if there's an explosion in projects then I think it would be good to setup a new thread.


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## chornedsnorkack

Nexis said:


> No , each City thread is enough for now. Down the road if there's an explosion in projects then I think it would be good to setup a new thread.


China already has metro lines of no specific city: between Guangzhou and Foshan, and between Shanghai and Suzhou. While many cities are big enough to run commuter trains within their borders, many densely settled areas with lines fit for commuter service span city boundaries.


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## ccdk

*Coolest Guy!!*

This guy has 5 train driving licenses, one steam locomotive, one diesel locomotive, one electric locomotive, and 2 for high speed trains, how cool is that!!


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## drezdinski

That hairstyle


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## chornedsnorkack

NergiZed said:


> Too bad I only ever use Beijing South due to HSR, I don't think there's ever a time I'd need to fo from Beijing station to Beijing West, but I'm glad its' there.


From which direction do you go to Beijing South?

Which stations shall Beijing-Zhangjiakou high speed railway use in Beijing?


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## ccdk

chornedsnorkack said:


> Which stations shall Beijing-Zhangjiakou high speed railway use in Beijing?


Construction of a high-speed line linking Beijing and Zhangjiakou, co-host cities bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, will start later this year.

Covering 174 kilometers, the line will have nine stations between *Beijing North* and Zhangjiakou South and is scheduled to be complete in four-and–a-half years, said Zhu Huigang, vice executive chief of the Beijing railway bureau, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Tuesday.

The section around Badaling, the most difficult part of the line, will start construction this year, Zhu said.

Extending 15.44 km, the Badaling section will go through a tunnel from Juyongguan to Badaling, with an investment of 1.7 billion yuan.

China Railway Corp, relaunched from the former Ministry of Railway, approved the project in December following a feasibility study for the Badaling section which got the go ahead from the National Development and Reform Commission a month earlier, the newspaper said.

The Beijing-Zhangjiakou project, which had been scheduled to start in August 2009, was shelved due to a change in the country's overall plan for high-speed rail.

In other developments, Zhu said three more rail lines will be opened in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region this year, covering 800 km, or 10 percent of the country's rail network goal for 2015.

The new lines are an extension of the Beijing-Tianjin link and the ones connecting Tianjin with Baoding and Zhangjiakou with Tangshan.

Zhu said they will relieve Beijing's pressure as a traffic hub, quoting as an example the Tianjin-Baoding line, where passengers from the north will in future have the option to travel directly south instead transferring in Beijing.


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## 孟天宝

I_ll_be_Back said:


> I am waiting for an eurasian railway between Europe and China trough Central Asia ( Turkmenistan,Kazakhstan )


Technically, there are trains that pass through Kazakhstan.  I've taken the train from Urumqi to Almaty. From there, I could have taken a train to Astana and thence to Moscow. There's also trains heading from Moscow to Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. From Tashkent there is a sexy high speed train called "Afrosiyob" that goes to Samarkand. As for Turkmenistan, it has lines that go close to the border, but from memory I don't believe any actually *cross* the border. Taking an iron silk road trip is one of my dreams, but some of the paperwork (visas, etc) make it a bit daunting.


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## 00Zy99

What does the green line stand for?


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## hmmwv

00Zy99 said:


> What does the green line stand for?


Ascending routes to Mt. Everest from south and the north.


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## voyager221

Five new 3250kw(4418hp) HXN3B shunters made by CNR Dalian on their way to Zhengzhou

by 专运处DF11Z


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## 00Zy99

ccdk said:


> the rumoured tunnel under Mount Everest. You can identify the peaks according to the height marked on the picture





hmmwv said:


> Ascending routes to Mt. Everest from south and the north.


Thanks. What's that green icon on the bottom at 5364m? 

And I'm guessing the black-white dashed line is the route South?

What's the Green writing along it, and why is the point at 5560m noted?


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## snapdragon

i think reason for building a long tunnel under Mt Everest has little to do with cost and more to do geographical feasibility. As the real challenge for a laying down a railway track is the permafrost and extreme variations in temperatures which cause the metal tracks to contract and also these are all electric lines running metal wires. 


Ofcourse to a large degree most of these challenges were addressed in the construction of the lhasa line. Yet as they curve around mountains towards nepal they might just face too many of these problems for it to be feasible. A tunnel does ensure a much more stable weather condition and might actually be a more feasible engineering feat than fighting the nature.

Infact the mount blanc also has a tunnel running under it so in my view its no big deal :dunno:


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## ccdk

00Zy99 said:


> Thanks. What's that green icon on the bottom at 5364m?
> 
> And I'm guessing the black-white dashed line is the route South?
> 
> What's the Green writing along it, and why is the point at 5560m noted?


green writing is the base camp on the south ascending routes.
dotted lines are routes to the north base camp as the green writing indicates


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## ccdk

duplicate


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## voyager221

One of the symbols of China railway from 50's and 60's, Yingtan-Xiamen(鹰厦) railway, winding along the banks of the rivers, romantic and sloooooow

By 贺磊


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## 00Zy99

Are there any other maps of the rail line over Everest? I'd like to see how the rest of the route will go.


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## voyager221

"Is it really necessary to have four tracks between Nanning East and Nanning Station?"
"Oh, yes, otherwise you won't be able to see this happening..."

By 杆哥在地铁二号线



















The stretch of railway on Googlemap
https://goo.gl/maps/XQHys


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## chornedsnorkack

voyager221 said:


> "Is it really necessary to have four tracks between Nanning East and Nanning Station?"
> "Oh, yes, otherwise you won't be able to see this happening..."


How long is that section? And how many stations does it have?


----------



## voyager221

chornedsnorkack said:


> How long is that section? And how many stations does it have?


It's just over 10km from Nanning East to Nanning Station.

The S-shape section seen in the pictures is about 1.2km long.


----------



## hkskyline

*China railway cargo volume down 9 pct y-o-y in Q1*
_Excerpt_

BEIJING, Apr. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's railway freight volume totaled 870 million tones (tonnes) in the first quarter of this year, down 9 percent year on year, according to data provided by the China Railway Corporation.

According to the CRC data, China's railway passenger traffic in the first quarter of this year increased 8.8 percent year on year to hit 590.77 million riders.

China's daily passenger volume stood at 5.76 million yuan, 6.89 million yuan and 7.08 million yuan, respectively, in January-March, higher than the levels in the same period of last year.


----------



## hkskyline

*China to allow guide dogs on trains*
_Excerpt_ 

BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Visually impaired passengers will be allowed to take guide dogs onto trains from May 1, according to new rules announced by China Railway Corporation.

The company made the rules after joint studies with the China Disabled Persons' Federation in an effort to improve barrier-free services to the disabled.

Visually impaired passengers can tell train stations their needs to ride with guide dogs when buying tickets, or calling the railway customer service center 12 hours before train departure.

Passengers can also seek help from staff at stations if they fail to contact the service center in advance, the temporary rules read.


----------



## voyager221

18th of April eight years ago, China railway started the 6th Speed Up Campaign, also saw the introduction of 200km/h mordern CRH EMUs into services.

By 铁路小亨

Beijing to Tianjin









CRH2 on Beijing-Guangzhou railway, leaving Beijing West station









CRH5 on Beijing-Qinhuangdao railway









CRH1 on Shanghai-Kunming railway









CRH1 from Beijing to Shanghai, service no. D31









CRH5 on Beijing-Guangzhou railway









CRH5 on Beijing-Harbin railway









CRH2 on Beijing-Guangzhou railway









CRH1E Beijing-Chengdu sleeper train


----------



## ccdk




----------



## voyager221

Suihua(绥化)-Jiamusi(佳木斯) railway at the end of September

By 哈局动车段


----------



## FM 2258

voyager221 said:


> 18th of April eight years ago, China railway started the 6th Speed Up Campaign, also saw the introduction of 200km/h mordern CRH EMUs into services.
> 
> By 铁路小亨
> 
> Beijing to Tianjin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CRH2 on Beijing-Guangzhou railway, leaving Beijing West station
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CRH1E Beijing-Chengdu sleeper train


Are these CRH trains running on conventional railway lines? Is running CRH on conventional rail lines a long term plan? I remember seeing a video of CRH running on conventional line between Shanghai and Nanjing but not sure if they still do that.


----------



## voyager221

FM 2258 said:


> Are these CRH trains running on conventional railway lines? Is running CRH on conventional rail lines a long term plan? I remember seeing a video of CRH running on conventional line between Shanghai and Nanjing but not sure if they still do that.


Yes，those in the pictures were running on conventional railway lines. As soon as the parallel HSRs were opened, they were all moved onto the HSRs. AFAIK, only when HSR services reached to their near capacity in holiday/festival time, a few CRH trains on parallel conventional railway lines were introduced for a short period of time.
There's still quite a few CRH services running on 200km/h conventional railway lines with no parallel HSRs, like Jining(集宁)-Baotou(包头) second line, Jiaoji(胶济) PDL, Xiangpu(向莆) railway, Longyan(龙岩)-Xiamen(厦门) railway, etc.


----------



## voyager221

By Z9_Z10_SWQ

Where on the map:
https://goo.gl/maps/YKMIi


----------



## foxmulder

> China inks 5.5 bln USD infrastructure construction contracts in Africa
> 
> English.news.cn 2015-04-27 23:33:18
> 
> BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Two big construction orders in Africa totalling nearly 5.5 billion U.S. dollars have been signed by China' largest railway constructor, China Railway Construction Corp. (CRCC).
> 
> The contracts, signed by CRCC China-Africa Construction LTD., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CRCC, include a 3.506 billion dollars contract for an inter-city railway project in Nigeria and a 1.93 billion dollar residential construction project in Zimbabwe.
> 
> The Nigerian project further cements the company's leading role in the Nigerian construction industry, and is also a milestone in the "going global" of Chinese railway, said Meng Fengchao, board chairman of CRCC.
> 
> CRCC China-Africa Construction LTD. is now the largest rail transit contractor in Africa.


Do you guys know the line mentioned here?


----------



## voyager221

Nanning-Kunming railway + green-skinned 22B non air conditioned carriages = Heaven for some railway fans

By 麦辰_DF11-0008


----------



## voyager221

*Real harmony*
At the top, CRH2C from Nanjing to Shanghai on the Shanghai-Nanjing inter-city HSR
At the left, DF4D+25G passenger train from Nanjing to Wuhu on Nanjing-Wuhu railway(Non-electrified single track)
In the middle, a freight going right to Nanjing East station
At the right, ND5 hauling freight out of Nanjing East to Wuhu, will have to wait for the passenger train to go first


----------



## voyager221

Shenhua Group's 12-axle(3xBo-Bo) electric locomotive hauling heavy coal train
What's the name of this version of HXD1, Shen12?


----------



## skyridgeline

_steam locomotives_


----------



## dimlys1994

From Rail Journal:



> http://www.railjournal.com/index.ph...nalise-merger-to-become-crrc.html?channel=522
> 
> *CNR and CSR finalise merger to become CRRC*
> Tuesday, June 02, 2015
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _CRRC's first chairman Mr Cui Dianguo_
> 
> _THE merger of China's two rolling stock manufacturers, CNR and CSR, was finalised on June 1 to form CRRC Corporation Limited, the world's largest train builder_
> 
> The CRRC board of directors held its first meeting on June 1, chaired by Mr Cui Dianguo, the former CNR chairman while CNR's president, Mr Xi Guohua, becomes president of CRRC. Former CSR chairman Mr Zheng Changhong and president Mr Liu Hualong become vice-chairmen of CRRC
> 
> ...


----------



## voyager221

By 旅行家灰灰

Z8801 train from Lhasa to Xigazê(Shigatse)









40km second track added to Houma-Xi'an railway, this section also part of Huangling-Hancheng-Houma railway, the river in the pictures is the Yellow River.


----------



## voyager221

Again the spectacular Lhasa-Xigazê(Shigatse) railway
By 旅行家灰灰


----------



## voyager221

Yunnan metre gauge railway newly opened Jianshui sightseeing train
By 做奥迪的王大师


----------



## voyager221

Qinghai-Tibet railway next to Cuona Lake
By 旅行家灰灰


----------



## Wisarut

So many Chinese merchants want Thai - China railway project (中泰铁路 / 中泰鐵路) as the stimulant to start the construct Yuxi - Mohan railway project (玉磨铁路 / 玉磨鐵路) which is to be constructed this year to boost the trades between Thailand and China to trade more rice, rubber, fruit, vegetables and other industry productssince trains can carry more cargo than trucks with less damage
http://world.people.com.cn/n/2015/0617/c157278-27171909.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2015-06/17/c_1115650686.htm
http://www.chinesetoday.com/big/article/1011367

EIA on Yux - Mohan railway project (玉磨铁路 / 玉磨鐵路) started at Yuxi west station (玉溪西站) Hong Ta district (红塔区) Yuxi city (玉溪市) Eshan (峨山县), Yuan Jiang (元江县),, Xinping (新平县) , Puer (普洱市), Mojiang (墨江县) Ning ger (宁洱县) 
Shimao (思茅区), Jinhong city (景洪市) in Xipsongpanna (西双版纳州) Mengla (勐腊) Lao - China border at Moha (磨憨口岸至中（国）老（挝）) with the distance of 513 km with 26 stations in 2506 hectars of land 
Electrified double tracking from Yuxi to Jinhong (景洪市) in Sipsongpanna (西双版纳州) and single track from Jinhong (景洪市) in Sipsongpanna (西双版纳州) to Mohan checkpoint (磨憨) 
http://cx.xxgk.yn.gov.cn/Info_Detail.aspx?DocumentKeyID=3C89778B042942EA8F985C551AC17CD3


----------



## kunming tiger

Sipsongpanna (西双版纳

I believe you are referring to Xi Shuang Ban Na or simpy Ban Na


----------



## voyager221

Bird's eye view of the marshalling yard at newly renovated Liuzhou South Station.


----------



## foxmulder

That is really cool, tnx for sharing.


----------



## Anticalaca

voyager221 said:


> Bird's eye view of the marshalling yard at newly renovated Liuzhou South Station.


Wow ^^ Maybe this is naive, but... Has any other country in the world something that massive? (I can`t find the word to describe this kind of train infraestructure, in spanish we call it "parrilla", I guess)


----------



## 00Zy99

Anticalaca said:


> Wow ^^ Maybe this is naive, but... Has any other country in the world something that massive? (I can`t find the word to describe this kind of train infraestructure, in spanish we call it "parrilla", I guess)


The English term is railyard, classification yard, switching yard, or just yard.

And yes, the US has quite a few this size or bigger, as do other nations: 

Here's the Netherlands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_yard#/media/File:Classification_yard_Kijfhoek_01.jpg

And here's Canada:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...media/File:CN_MacMillan_Yard_(3496432845).jpg

And this is Conway Yard in Pennsylvania, second-largest in the world (not all shown):

http://thecrhs.org/image/view/3553/_original


----------



## voyager221

Anticalaca said:


> Wow ^^ Maybe this is naive, but... Has any other country in the world something that massive? (I can`t find the word to describe this kind of train infraestructure, in spanish we call it "parrilla", I guess)


USA has the largest one, China makes up by quantities, across the country there are at least 15 super large marshalling/classification yards which are capable of sorting over 7000 goods wagons each day. 

Zhengzhou North, not sure if it's still the largest in China.


----------



## ren0312

How does China keep such a high average speed for its z class trains of 60mph, since it's railway also handles a lot of freight rail, which would slow down regular passenger rail, how do theu fix the schedules.


----------



## Cosmicbliss

What is the news on the following:

1. China-Vietnam border railway
2. China-Thailand border railway
3. Yuxi-Mohan Laos border
4. Ruili-Mynamar railway
5. China-Nepal railway
6. Indian border railway?


----------



## kunming tiger

1. Kunming-Hekou Railway complete.
2. There is no such railway.
3. U/C 2015
4 U/C 2015
5. tbc
6. tbc


----------



## NakedSnake

chornedsnorkack said:


> Are there any plans to connect Tibet with Yunnan? Xinjiang?


that would be some low ridership between 2 of the poorer less populated areas


----------



## timeandspace

mwuah it would be a nice N-S and both are very popular tourist destinations. 

too mountainous alas and not dense enough


----------



## skyridgeline

foxmulder said:


> @skyridgeline,
> 
> If that is the case, it is great. More on power lines less on rails. Also, waterlines are bless for China. Can you imagine the* CO2 emission* if that was carried over by trucks!



_The proving ground for LNG trucks is China, where there are more than 330,000 medium- and heavy-duty trucks on the road, according to Shell—and that number is expected to triple in the next five years . That compares to about 23,000 in the U.S. and only 2,000 in Europe. ...
“There are Chinese engines on the way which will meet EPA standards in the U.S. market in the next couple of years,” Abraham told Fleet Owner in a follow-up interview. ..._

- Jun 12, 2015 http://fleetowner.com/fuel/natural-gas-trucks-coming-soon-china


Sept. 5, 2014 http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-tries-natural-gas-to-fuel-shippers-on-the-yangtze-river-1409913743









_
By the end of June 2013, 121 ships (115 inland ships and 6 seagoing ships) had been approved by China Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) to conduct ship conversion; 107 of which are currently undergoing major modifications. Moreover, according to a document (Ministry of Transport of China 2014) published on October 21, 2014, there will be another 979 newly built LNG-fueled ships and more than ten LNG-filling stations by the end of 2016. The main ship types include bulk cargo ships, container ships, and port tugs._

- April 2015 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13437-015-0080-6


----------



## chornedsnorkack

NakedSnake said:


> that would be some low ridership between 2 of the poorer less populated areas


Qinghai has fewer people than either Yunnan or Xinjiang.


----------



## hkskyline

China Railway SS8 0173, Kowloon Tong (Hong Kong) by Howard Pulling, on Flickr


----------



## xinxingren

foxmulder said:


> That rail line will be passing an impassible geography. It will be a great scenic route.


Umm, how much will you actually see from the train? Nice scenery along the Chengdu-Kunming line, but 430+km of the 1100 is inside tunnels, often arranged so you get 3 seconds daylight max from inside one mountain to inside the next. With nothing to see they often run pax trains overnight. And tunnelling has got a lot better with the HSR experience. Sorry I'm seeming gloomy, but they put those lines inside the mountains to stop rocks falling on the rails, and the mountains in Tibet are moving, inside...


----------



## foxmulder

Remaining time from the tunnels will be enough


----------



## dimlys1994

From Rail Journal:



> http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/asia/china-railway-debt-reaches-dolus-680bn.html?channel=540
> 
> *China Railway debt reaches $US 640bn*
> Friday, May 06, 2016
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _CHINA Railway Corporation (CRC) has almost twice as much debt as the Greek government, according to an external audit of the company's first quarter results, which reveals total debts reached Yuan 4.14 trillion ($US 640bn) at the end of March, a 10.4% year-on-year increase_
> 
> Beijing-based business publisher Caixin reported on May 5 that the auditor's findings were posted on the website of China Central Deposit and Clearing Company on April 29
> 
> ...


----------



## skyridgeline

^^

Caixin :lol:.

Beijing clamping down on speculative property prices. Caixin starts bitching about trains. It's predictable.


----------



## hhzz

*Sichuan-Tibet Railway,May 2016*

Lhasa-Nyingchi section 

1.








2.









---------
xinhuanet


----------



## Svartmetall

skyridgeline said:


> ^^
> 
> Caixin :lol:.
> 
> Beijing clamping down on speculative property prices. Caixin starts bitching about trains. It's predictable.


Can I ask why you feel that this invalidates the news? Do you not feel that if there are significant debts it might have a knock-on effect on the investment in new lines and long-term sustainability of the current business model? (These are just questions, I don't know the answer).


----------



## Woonsocket54

URUMQI, May 17, 2016 -- Passengers board the train running from Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to Shenzhen of south China's Guangdong Province, at Urumuqi South Railway Station in Urumuqi, on May 17, 2016. The first through train connecting Urumqi and Shenzhen started to operate on Tuesday.

http://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail...rain-running-from-urumqi-news-photo/531997222









URUMQI, May 17, 2016 -- A passenger passes by the train running from Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to Shenzhen of south China's Guangdong Province, at Urumuqi South Railway Station in Urumuqi, on May 17, 2016. The first through train connecting Urumqi and Shenzhen started to operate on Tuesday.

http://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail...y-the-train-running-from-news-photo/531997272

More photos here: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2016-05/17/c_135366576_5.htm


----------



## skyridgeline

Svartmetall said:


> Can I ask why you feel that this invalidates the news? Do you not feel that if there are significant debts it might have a knock-on effect on the investment in new lines and long-term sustainability of the current business model? (These are just questions, I don't know the answer).


It's not a business. It's mainly about getting things built right now in China. The debts are just psychological. 

China is still developing. Per capita wise, there is still a lot of work to do.


----------



## 00Zy99

skyridgeline said:


> It's not a business. It's mainly about getting things built right now in China. The debts are just psychological.
> 
> China is still developing. Per capita wise, there is still a lot of work to do.


Economics is 90% psychological. As soon as somebody,_ anybody_, thinks the debt is real, it is.


----------



## dimlys1994

From Railway Gazette:



> http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...w/crrc-opens-european-office-in-budapest.html
> 
> *CRRC opens European office in Budapest*
> 25 May 2016
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> HUNGARY: The CRRC Industrial Investment Co subsidiary of Chinese rolling stock manufacturing conglomerate CRRC has opened a European office in Budapest.
> 
> The company said it is aiming to ‘explore European state-of-the-art technologies and industries’, and invest in them though technical co-operation ventures
> 
> ...


----------



## foxmulder

00Zy99 said:


> Economics is 90% psychological. As soon as somebody,_ anybody_, thinks the debt is real, it is.


Dept is really not real  Government taking from one pocket and putting into another. Banks are public, infrastructure companies are public, train producers are public. At max, you can see this as government dept to the people. Risk is extremely low.


----------



## kunming tiger

agreed

Are the SOEs really going to default on their financial obligations to the central government without fearing the consequences?


----------



## luhai

kunming tiger said:


> agreed
> 
> Are the SOEs really going to default on their financial obligations to the central government without fearing the consequences?


If we look at what happened last time, the wirst ones will be liquidated, and government can float additional shares in the stock market to raise funds. (during last round, funds are raised by selling SOE subsidized rental to renters at discount, both alleviating a huge burden on the SOE and increase homeownership in China)

Right now, Rail Corp is not floated in the market, unlike Sinopec etc, akd it owns vast amount of land and other assets around the country.


----------



## dixiadetie

*Photoed by @刘俊俊良良 *


----------



## ccdk

*China's Longest Railway Starts Operation*
http://english.cri.cn/12394/2016/05/15/3941s927716.htm










The launch of the first Urumqi-Qiqihar railway, K1084, on Sunday marks a new era for China.

The line stretches for 4,818 kilometers, the longest one in China until now.

It passes through 40 stations across 8 provinces and the city of Tianjin before arriving in Urumqi.

The ticket prices vary from 439 yuan to 1,244 yuan.

Also on Sunday, China put an additional 3,400 new passenger trains into service.

This is the largest increase in passenger rail services in a decade.

More than half of them will be on high-speed rail lines.

Most of the newly added high-speed services will be added to routes which service small-and-medium-sized cities and in the country's western regions.

Around 100 new inter-city trains are also going to be added to the lines to help people commute between big cities and their neighboring small towns.


----------



## 00Zy99

Is that an Urumqi-Guangzhou/Hong Kong line at the bottom? How long is it?

How long do these two services take?


----------



## luiz_otavio

Do you know the cost to build it?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

00Zy99 said:


> Is that an Urumqi-Guangzhou/Hong Kong line at the bottom?


Actually Urumqi-Shenzhen.


00Zy99 said:


> How long is it?


Urumqi-Shenzhen 4657 km, of which Urumqi-Guangzhou 4510 km.
For comparison, Urumqi-Qiqihar is 4818 km, of which Urumqi-Harbin 4530 km


00Zy99 said:


> How long do these two services take?


Urumqi-Shenzhen, Z232: 2:00:43 - departs 18:45, arrives 19:28, 2 days later.
Urumqi-Guangzhou, Z232: 1:22:55 - arrival 17:40
Urumqi-Qiqihar, K1082: 2:19:32 - departs 23:08, arrives 18:40, 3 days later
Urumqi-Harbin, K1082: 2:15:41 - arrival 14:49


> Do you know the cost to build it?


Nothing. All parts of the lines have been built long ago. What is new is that one train connects these particular stations, rather than ending and connecting somewhere in between.
How long does it take to travel Brazilian railway system from Fortaleza to Uruguay border aboard the same, scheduled passenger train?


----------



## 00Zy99

chornedsnorkack said:


> Actually Urumqi-Shenzhen.
> 
> Urumqi-Shenzhen 4657 km, of which Urumqi-Guangzhou 4510 km.
> For comparison, Urumqi-Qiqihar is 4818 km, of which Urumqi-Harbin 4530 km
> 
> Urumqi-Shenzhen, Z232: 2:00:43 - departs 18:45, arrives 19:28, 2 days later.
> Urumqi-Guangzhou, Z232: 1:22:55 - arrival 17:40
> Urumqi-Qiqihar, K1082: 2:19:32 - departs 23:08, arrives 18:40, 3 days later
> Urumqi-Harbin, K1082: 2:15:41 - arrival 14:49


Thank you very much!

However, I am slightly confused. I know that the Z and K numbers designate the train, and I recognize military time on the right, but what do the three-number sets in the middle mean?

Do they refer to day:hour:minute? Would that mean that it is two days and 43 minutes Urumqi to Shenzhen?

What are the reverse arrival and departure times (ie Shenzhen to Urumqi)?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

00Zy99 said:


> but what do the three-number sets in the middle mean?
> 
> Do they refer to day:hour:minute? Would that mean that it is two days and 43 minutes Urumqi to Shenzhen?


Correct.


00Zy99 said:


> What are the reverse arrival and departure times (ie Shenzhen to Urumqi)?


Qiqihar-Urumqi: K1084, travel time 2:13:48, departs 6:00, arrives 19:48 2 days later
Shenzhen-Urumqi: Z230, travel time 2:00:17, departs 9:30, arrives 9:47 2 days later

Another big news is that there is now a direct train Yining-Shanghai.


----------



## 00Zy99

chornedsnorkack said:


> Correct.
> 
> Qiqihar-Urumqi: K1084, travel time 2:13:48, departs 6:00, arrives 19:48 2 days later
> Shenzhen-Urumqi: Z230, travel time 2:00:17, departs 9:30, arrives 9:47 2 days later


Thanks!



> Another big news is that there is now a direct train Yining-Shanghai.


Wow! Now I'm wondering how long that would take. 

I would also like to know what the travel times are Peking-Pyongyang. I am attempting to figure out what a (theoretical post-Kim) Pusan-Urumqi conventional (non-HSR) route would take (and eventually going out the Silk Road towards Europe but that's not relevant here). 

It is 5:30 Pusan-Seoul on a conventional train. Does anyone have a pre-WWII timetable that shows how long it took to get up to Mukden/Shenyang?


----------



## chornedsnorkack

00Zy99 said:


> Wow! Now I'm wondering how long that would take.


2:07:16 for 4742 km.


00Zy99 said:


> I would also like to know what the travel times are Peking-Pyongyang.


1:01:03. But this includes station stops of 2:20 in Dandong and 3:30 in Sinuiju.
Beijing-Dandong is 13:55 by the K27 that continues to Pyongyang - and 6:13 by G397.


----------



## 00Zy99

chornedsnorkack said:


> 2:07:16 for 4742 km.
> 
> 
> 1:01:03. But this includes station stops of 2:20 in Dandong and 3:30 in Sinuiju.
> Beijing-Dandong is 13:55 by the K27 that continues to Pyongyang - and 6:13 by G397.


Thank you very much!

It looks like Pyongyang-Sinuiju is five hours. Pyongyang is about half-way between the DMZ and the Yalu. Assuming that the tracks are upgraded to modern standards, then it would probably be about five hours all the way through (which coincides with a six-hour trip on regular trains from Seoul to Pusan).

I found this online at Seat61.com. It looks like Beijing-Urumqi is about 27 hours by Z train (is that completely non-stop?) and 40 hours by T train:

Beijing, Xian ► Ürümqi
Westbound...
Train Z69 10:00 day 1 18:09 day 2


Ürümqi ► Xian, Beijing
Eastbound...
Train Z70 13:06 day 1 20:20 day 2

Train T178 17:08 day 1 09:36 day 3

Wow. All told, it appears to be about 60 hours Pusan-Urumqi. That's a little over 2.5 days.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

00Zy99 said:


> Thank you very much!
> 
> It looks like Pyongyang-Sinuiju is five hours. Pyongyang is about half-way between the DMZ and the Yalu. Assuming that the tracks are upgraded to modern standards, then it would probably be about five hours all the way through


The distance Pyongyang-Sinuiju, 225 km, also matches the distance Dandong-Shenyang (224 km).
For 277 km on old line, K27 takes 3:42. For 208 km on new line G395 takes 1:15.


00Zy99 said:


> I found this online at Seat61.com. It looks like Beijing-Urumqi is about 27 hours by Z train (is that completely non-stop?) and 40 hours by T train:
> 
> Beijing, Xian ► Ürümqi
> Westbound...
> Train Z69 10:00 day 1 18:09 day 2


No. Z69 does not pass through Xian (makes a shortcut via Taiyuan) and makes 18 intermediate stops.


----------



## 00Zy99

chornedsnorkack said:


> The distance Pyongyang-Sinuiju, 225 km, also matches the distance Dandong-Shenyang (224 km).
> For 277 km on old line, K27 takes 3:42. For 208 km on new line G395 takes 1:15.


What does that 277 km represent? And where does G395 come from (I saw G397 before)?

How long do you think that it would take for the run through North Korea if the tracks were upgraded?



> No. Z69 does not pass through Xian (makes a shortcut via Taiyuan) and makes 18 intermediate stops.


Sorry.

I took that off of Seat61.com and was just copying parts of a table.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

The distance on the old Shenyang-Dandong railway between old Shenyang station and old Dandong station is 277 km. This is now served by 8 slow trains, the fastest of which is K27m taking 3:42.
The distance between old Shenyang station and old Dandong station on the new, 250 km/h line is 223 km.
The fastest trains cover that 223 km distance with 1 stop in 1:16.
There are a total of 29 D and G trains between Shenyang and Dandong stations.
There are also 6 D and G trains which travel to Dandong from other stations in Shenyang - Shenyang South and Shenyang North. None of these 6 also stops at Shenyang station.
Train G395 comes from Beijing and skips Shenyang station but stops at Shenyang South.
How much upgrading do you plan for railways of North Korea?
The old railway Shenyang-Dandong is 277 km as stated, and the old railway Sinuiju-Pyongyang is 225 km. When a new 250 km/h rail line is built between Dandong and Pyongyang, it may be shorter than the existing one. But in any case, I expect Danddong-Pyongyang should not take over 1:15 at 200 km/h, and Beijing-Pyongyang should be feasible in 7:30.


----------



## dimlys1994

From Railway Gazette:



> http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...w/deutsche-bahn-signs-chinese-agreements.html
> 
> *Deutsche Bahn signs Chinese agreements*
> 13 Jun 2016
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CHINA: Deutsche Bahn CEO Rüdiger Grube signed two memoranda of understanding to undertake projects in China on June 13, during a visit to China by Chancellor Angela Merkel.
> 
> The first covers the provision of maintenance and repair support to rolling stock manufacturer CRRC. This continues co-operation to optimise high-speed trainset maintenance, and provide mutual support in addressing operating problems related to the wheel-rail interface
> 
> ...


----------



## hkskyline

voyager221 said:


> Qinghai-Tibet railway next to Cuona Lake
> By 旅行家灰灰


*Tourism booms on plateau after 10 years of Qinghai Tibet Railway*
_Excerpt_

LHASA, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Tuotuohe River Station maybe small but it is an important stop along the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the world's highest altitude train line, which links the Tibetan capital Lhasa in southwest China and Xining, capital of Qinghai in the northwest. 

Tuotuohe is about 4,000 meters above sea level in Qinghai Province. After Tuotuohe, the trains climb even higher along Kunlun Mountain. It is the last stop for many tourists on their way to Tibet. 

Medical workers are on standby at the station to treat those who fall ill. "All kinds of people come by train and many insist on continuing with their journey if they fall with altitude sickness," said Phurdo Tashi, 40, who sells food near the station. Many people get off the train at Tuotuohe, to try and catch a glimpse of the rare plateau animals like the Tibetan gazelle, and to take in the unparalleled beauty of the source of the Yangtze River.

"During the summer season, all the carriages are full to bursting. The number of people on one day is more than we saw over six months just a few years ago," said Tashi. The 1,956-kilometer railway, which at its highest point is 5,072 meters above sea level, turns 10 on July 1. 

Over the last decade, it has helped tourism boom along the rail link. "Riding on the trains, the highest in the world, is a rare experience," said Wang Songping, deputy director of Tibet tourism department. 

"The train has made many unseen areas such as Yarlung Zangbo River Grand Canyon and Mount Qomolangma accessible to visitors," he said. 

In 2015, 20.2 million holiday makers visited Tibet, 11 times more than before the railway started service. Moreover, tourism spending last year exceeded 28 billion yuan (about 4.3 billion U.S. dollars), 15 times more than a decade ago. More than 100,000 people in Tibet ware working in tourism, with per capita earning of more than 10,000 yuan every year.


----------



## tjrgx

*World's highest plateau railroad marks 10-year anniversary*


----------



## tjrgx

*Plan aims for 150,000 km of rail by 2020*






http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2016-06/30/content_25917640.htm

China set forth new goals on Wednesday for a long-term, more comprehensive plan for the country's rail network, including 150,000 kilometers of rail lines by 2020.

The plan was approved at a State Council meeting that was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

It endorses rail as the country's key form of transportation and the lifeline for China's economy.

The plan also calls for more balanced rail construction to increase accessibility to more of the country, and it vows to build a comprehensive network combining rail, road, water and air transportation.

"It is still a pressing task for us to usher in the development of China's railway. It is the lifeline for China's national economy," Li said.

Compared with developed countries of a similar size, the length of China's operating railways is still not long enough, the premier said. Railway construction is important for stabilizing economic growth and structural reform, especially in central and western China, he added.

*By the end of last year, China had 121,000 km of operating rail lines, including 19,000 km of high-speed railways, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.*

In 2008, the NDRC issued a national rail plan that aimed for an operating rail network of more than 120,000 km by 2020.

*The plan approved on Wednesday is a revision of the 2008 plan and targets a network of 150,000 km by 2020. Of this, 30,000 km will be high-speed rail.

Key measures include expanding the high-speed rail network connecting major cities and other urban areas to eight rail lines running north to south and eight going east to west.*

*Intercity rail lines will also be enhanced.*

*Once the plan is achieved, rail travel between neighboring major and medium-sized cities will take from one to four hours.*

The plan also envisions boosting rail construction in central and western China.

Comprehensive rail development is vital for China in maintaining stable growth and structural reform, Li said.

"We should seek innovation in developing China's railway project with both social and economic implication in mind, and this new plan should be planned well in advance with consideration not only given to demand but also financial feasibility," Li stressed.

*China will spend 800 billion yuan ($120.5 billion) this year on building railways*, said Wang Dongming, deputy director of the Institute of Comprehensive Transportation of the NDRC.

Expanding the rail network is a form of investment in fixed assets to prop up slowing economic growth by providing more employment opportunities and reducing logistics costs, Wang said.

"The central government is to balance regional development, and less-developed regions will benefit from the new plan with more access to convenient railways," Wang added.

Contact the writers at [email protected] and [email protected]


----------



## hhzz

*Qinghai-Tibet Railway*

*10th birthday of the world's highest altitude train line *
The Qinghai-Tibet railway celebrates its tenth birthday on Friday, since its second section, linking Golmud in Northwest China's Qinghai province and Lhasa in Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, opened to traffic on July 1, 2006.
The 1,142-km section, out of the 1,956-km Qinghai-Tibet Railway, put an end to Tibet's inaccessibility by rail.

1.








2.








3.








4.








5.








6.









----------
chinadaily


----------



## chornedsnorkack

tjrgx said:


> http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2016-06/30/content_25917640.htm
> 
> China set forth new goals on Wednesday for a long-term, more comprehensive plan for the country's rail network, including 150,000 kilometers of rail lines by 2020.
> 
> Compared with developed countries of a similar size, the length of China's operating railways is still not long enough, the premier said. Railway construction is important for stabilizing economic growth and structural reform, especially in central and western China, he added.
> 
> *By the end of last year, China had 121,000 km of operating rail lines, including 19,000 km of high-speed railways, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.*
> 
> In 2008, the NDRC issued a national rail plan that aimed for an operating rail network of more than 120,000 km by 2020.
> 
> *The plan approved on Wednesday is a revision of the 2008 plan and targets a network of 150,000 km by 2020. Of this, 30,000 km will be high-speed rail.
> 
> Key measures include expanding the high-speed rail network connecting major cities and other urban areas to eight rail lines running north to south and eight going east to west.*
> 
> *Intercity rail lines will also be enhanced.*
> 
> *Once the plan is achieved, rail travel between neighboring major and medium-sized cities will take from one to four hours.*


This means that 29 000 km should be built, including 11 000 high speed railways and 18 000 km slow speed railways.
Does "by 2020" mean by beginning of 2020, or by end of 2020?


----------



## tjrgx

chornedsnorkack said:


> This means that 29 000 km should be built, including 11 000 high speed railways and 18 000 km slow speed railways.
> Does "by 2020" mean by beginning of 2020, or by end of 2020?


I think they mean by the end of 2020


----------



## dixiadetie

*Photoed by @温兰旅客*


----------



## hhzz

*Sichuan-Tibet Railway,July 2016*

Chengdu-Pujiang section,Sichuan Province,Southwest China. 










---------------
chnrailway.com


----------



## hkskyline

*Himalayan rail route endorsed*
5 August 2016
China Daily _Excerpt_

China has the technology and experience to build line from Tibet to South Asia, experts say

A Himalayan train ride at more than 100 kilometers per hour at the foot of the world's highest snow-capped mountains and oldest glaciers is no longer just a dream, Chinese railway experts say.

With more than 19,000 km of high-speed - up to 350 km per hour - railways, China has accumulated the technology and experience to build a rail link between the Tibet antonymous region and the South Asian subcontinent, they say.

The Himalayan railway would start from Xigaze, a city in Tibet, run to Gyirong, a land port on the Chinese border, and extend into Nepal, although it would not be a high-speed railway, the researchers said on Thursday at a forum in Beijing run by the China Tibetology Research Center, a Tibetan studies organization.

In 2006, China built a railway running for more than 1,100 km to connect the highland region of Tibet with the rest of the country. In 2014, it built a 250-km rail link between Lhasa, the Tibet regional capital, and Xigaze, the region's second-largest city.

Trains run at 100 km per hour throughout the Tibetan rail system, which according to China's railway plan for 2016 to 2020, will stretch from Xigaze to Gyirong.

Nepal hopes that China can connect this port with Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, as part of the China-Nepal international railway.

China hopes the rail link will boost economic, cultural and religious communication with Nepal as part of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping.

"The construction of a railway crossing the Himalayan mountains is now economically and technologically feasible," said Zong Gang, deputy director of the Science and Technology Department at Beijing University of Technology.

The altitude at Gyirong port is 2,800 meters above sea level, while the Gyirong mountain pass to Nepal lies at about 1,800 meters, making the railway geographically feasible.

In contrast, Lhasa is about 3,700 meters above sea level and the altitude at Xigaze is about 3,800 meters.

Losang Jamcan, chairman of the Tibet autonomous region government, said on July 1 that building rail links is the most powerful way to help Tibet open up to South Asian countries.

After a meeting between Premier Li Keqiang and Nepalese Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli in March, the two countries said their governments will further discuss construction of a cross-border railway and also support companies conducting preliminary research.

At least two Chinese companies have shown an interest in developing rail networks connecting China with Nepal, the Kathmandu Post reported on July 2.

China CAMC Engineering Co has proposed building a 121-km railway linking Kathmandu and Rasuwagadhi, a land port in Nepal facing Gyirong.

China Railway Construction Corp has applied to the Railway Department in Nepal for a Kathmandu-Rasuwagadhi railway feasibility study.

Ma Jiali, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said a trans-Himalayan railway would be of great economic value as it could later connect China, the largest economy in Asia, with India, the continent's third-largest economy.

He said that landlocked Nepal is willing to have a more convenient link to China because it believes that China's development will offer great opportunities for Nepal.

Zhou Yuhui, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University who has just returned from a field visit to the China-Nepal border, said, "There are rich tourism resources, including virgin forest, canyons and historical relics in Gyirong, which has hardly been developed.


----------



## doc7austin

Soviet-style Hard Seat car for train Shanghai - Huang Shan:


----------



## doc7austin

Soft Sleeper cabin (train Nanjing - Beijing):


----------



## doc7austin

A photo and video report of the Chinese overnight express train K53 Beijing - Shenyang North Railway Station (Liaoning Province):

The train is branded as "Mobile Hotel" between Beijing and Shenyang.
The Shenyang Railway Bureau runs this train. This consists of one RW19K luxury soft sleeper car.
The train leaves Beijing at 22:24 and arrives around 9 hours later in Shenyang at around 07:25 (or a bit earlier).
The distance is 727 km. Train travels nonstop on the The Beijing–Harbin Jingha Railway via Beidaihe, Qinhuangdao and Shanhaiguan.
On my journey it definitely did not pass through Tianjin.

Here is the video of the ride with train K53:








Beijing Railway Station - departure board with our train K53 to Shenyang listed:












Beijing Railway Station - platforms:





















Special train signpost for the K53/K54 overnight service:












Branding of Train K53/K54: Mobile Hotel












Aisle of the Luxury Soft Sleeper car (RW19K):












Our cabin:












Inside the Luxury Soft Sleeper cabin:












A big mirror in the door:












A mini couch:












A safety deposit box:












Door to the bathroom (toilet and basin only; no shower)





















Earphone kit:












PTV with a number of viewing options:












PTV with some German classical music stuff (Festspielhaus Baden-Baden):












Train service guide:





















Public wash basin in a soft sleeper car (RW25G):












Public toilet (Western style):












Conductor appartment:












Aisle seat:












Open passageway to other car:












The next morning:






























Perspective from the upper berth:





















Approaching Shenyang North Railway Station:





















Shenyang North Railway Station:












19K denotes a Luxury Soft Sleeper car:












Shenyang North Railway Station - platforms:





















Another daytime express train from Shenyang to Dalian:












SS9-0069 electric locomotive pulled us between Beijing and Shenyang:












The SS9-0034, the HXD3C-0269 and the SS9-0069 in one photo:












Here is again the video of this journey:








Enjoy!


----------



## chornedsnorkack

To remind: China has 2 railway companies (Guangzhou and Qinghai-Tibet) and 16 bureaux. How are cross-border trains handled?


----------



## tjrgx

*Chinese rail company eyes ASEAN market*






Singapore and Malaysia are moving closer to building a high-speed rail link between their countries and China is among those preparing to bid for the lucrative contract. However, Chinese firms are already establishing a firm foothold in Malaysia’s rail industry. China’s CRRC Zhuzhou, purported to be the largest rolling stock manufacturer in the world, is now running an assembly plant in Malaysia. It plans to also target the ASEAN market from here, while also hoping for a role in the high-speed rail project. CCTV’s Rian Maelzer reports from Perak, Malaysia.


----------



## tjrgx

*China replaces tracks of highland Qinghai-Tibet railway with seamless tracks*











China completed Monday morning replacing the tracks of the Qinghai-Tibet railway with seamless tracks.

The project was aimed to reduce the impact of train on the joints and extend service life of the tracks and trains.

Workers have to overcome many difficulties in fulfilling the most difficult part of the project such as lack of oxygen and low temperature at night.

Meanwhile, technicians also designed and developed a plateau air-pressure rail-welding machine, which uses oxygen and acetylene as fuel to heat the steels, exerts forces to the steels and weld the rail sections.

The 1,956-kilometer-long railway, which began service in July 2006, is the world's highest and longest plateau railway and also the first railway connecting the Tibet Autonomous Region with other parts of China.

It runs from Xining, capital of the northwestern Qinghai Province, to Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region.


----------



## tjrgx

*Qinghai-Tibet railway track replacement completed after 7 years*



tjrgx said:


> China completed Monday morning replacing the tracks of the Qinghai-Tibet railway with seamless tracks.
> 
> The project was aimed to reduce the impact of train on the joints and extend service life of the tracks and trains.
> 
> Workers have to overcome many difficulties in fulfilling the most difficult part of the project such as lack of oxygen and low temperature at night.
> 
> Meanwhile, technicians also designed and developed a plateau air-pressure rail-welding machine, which uses oxygen and acetylene as fuel to heat the steels, exerts forces to the steels and weld the rail sections.
> 
> The 1,956-kilometer-long railway, which began service in July 2006, is the world's highest and longest plateau railway and also the first railway connecting the Tibet Autonomous Region with other parts of China.
> 
> It runs from Xining, capital of the northwestern Qinghai Province, to Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region.


----------



## Yux

I have never seen a double decker passenger train in china before...as shown in that photo earlier


----------



## tjrgx

*Promo of CRRC Corporation after Merger at 2016 Berlin InnoTrans*


----------



## tjrgx

*More Promos about CRRC and its "Intelligent Train" Concept shown at Berlin InnoTrans2016*


----------



## tjrgx

*China's railway to carry 110 mln holidaymakers*

The peak travel period for the National Day holiday began on Friday night. The Ministry of Transport expects 650 million people will hit the nation's roads, with the average daily figure hovering over 90 million. National railway officials expect to see 110 million passengers, up 11 percent from a year earlier.


----------



## ilovecoffee

Records keeping breaking everyyear


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## chornedsnorkack

ilovecoffee said:


> Records keeping breaking everyyear


Which records?
How does the number of passengers for National Day compare to number of passengers for New Year?


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## luhai

ilovecoffee said:


> Records keeping breaking everyyear




I don't consider that to be good, as it place too much stress on the nation capacity during a few short periods, while the usage during non-peak period are significantly less. It would be best if work culture in China could change a bit and people would actually use their flexible vacation time to do those visits. 

For example, my aunt and uncle who are nearing their retirement (thus don't give a damn about work anymore) took their vacation to Tibet, Xinjiang even aboard to Nepal and North India back in September and it was are refreshing experience for them not having to fight the crowds anymore.


----------



## hkskyline

*Station to close after 106 years*
China Daily _Excerpt_
Oct. 27, 2016 










Station to close after 106 years

Students from Macao, who are studying in Beijing, take photos at Qinghuayuan Railway Station as their train makes a stop at the station on Tuesday.Zou Hong / China Daily

Construction of a new high-speed railway is expected to be completed in 2019

Trains will stop at a 106-year-old station in Beijing for the final time on Monday next week before the tracks are torn up to make way for a high-speed rail link.

The buildings at Qinghuayuan Railway Station will remain as a memorial, but the lines will be removed to allow the construction of a tunnel for the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Originally built in 1910, the station was the first stop out of Xizhimen (now Beijing North Railway Station) on the old Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway, the first line to be designed and constructed entirely by Chinese engineers.

The station was rebuilt in the 1950s due to a slight change in the rail route. The original buildings now lie deep within a residential community and are listed as cultural relics.

At its peak, between the 1960s and 1980s, Qinghuayuan handled about 60 freight and passenger trains daily.


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## chornedsnorkack

Where will the trains on slow speed Zhangjiakou-Beijing railway go?


----------



## skyridgeline

chornedsnorkack said:


> Where will the trains on slow speed Zhangjiakou-Beijing railway go?



Slow speed trains on a fast track will likely cost just as much as high speed trains. There will likely be express/non-express high speed trains on the line.


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## tjrgx

*Site of ultimate high bridge： 701m high Nujiang railway bridge at proposed Sichuan-Tibet railway*

Site of ultimate high bridge： 701m high Nujiang railway bridge at proposed Sichuan-Tibet railway






From 02:20-06:00 is G318 Nujiang arch bridge.

A new railway suspension bridge planning to build nearby around 2018. With 1064m span and 701m high from deck to water, Nujiang railway bridge of Chuanzang railway(Sichuan to Tibet) will become ultimate high bridge in the world, also the highest railway bridge, more than twice higher than Chenab railway bridge which under construction in India. This super bridge located in Basu county,Tibet,not far from this old G318 Nujiang bridge.

Nujiang railway bridge deck elevation about 3400m elevation, Nujiang water level about 2700m elevation,old Nujiang highway arch deck about 2730m elevation.

More (in Chinese):
http://news.ifeng.com/a/20161016/50108733_0.shtml


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## itfcfan

Yux said:


> I have never seen a double decker passenger train in china before...as shown in that photo earlier


The Urumqi-Kashgar line runs double-deck passenger trains. I travelled hard sleeper on that line and both top and bottom decks had two levels of bunks (so 4 bunks per group) rather than three levels of bunks (6 bunks per group) on a normal single-deck hard sleeper. It's quite a spacious train.


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## voyager221

Suihua-Jiamusi railway in autumn

By 西直门折返段


----------



## tjrgx

*How "slow" train survives China's high-speed railway era?*


----------



## xinxingren

voyager221 said:


> Suihua-Jiamusi railway in autumn
> 
> By 西直门折返段


Top pic is a great shot - with a pusher loco on the far side track. You can just see the single loco at the head of that train in green and white like the near one. :righton:


----------



## voyager221

Qinghai-Tibet railway

By 我是隔壁王某人


----------



## tjrgx

*Intercity railway opens in central China*






An intercity railway linking three cities in central China's Hunan Province was put into service on Monday. The Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Intercity Railway is 95.5 kilometers long, with a designed speed of 200 km per hour. It has 21 stops along the line, including 8 underground ones.


----------



## voyager221

Jinhua-Wenzhou railway in east of China

By 金温旅客


----------



## tjrgx

*White paper details goals for more efficient network of China's transportation*


----------



## tjrgx

*Railway guards protect passengers against danger*






Four men have kept patrolling in a railway tunnel in south China for more than 1,500 days! They helped prevent water and sand gushing disasters and ensure safety for passengers.


----------



## tjrgx

*China Railway sets out 2017 targets*

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/financial/china-railway-sets-out-2017-targets.html

CHINA Railway (CRC), the state-owned national operator, has been *appropriated a Yuan 800bn ($US 115.13bn) budget for 2017* as it pushes ahead with network and service expansion following a record-breaking 2016.

*The budget announcement, which is the same as 2016, was made during a China Railway Work conference held in Beijing on January 3 and will support the construction of 2100km of new main line railway, 2500km of track-doubling and electrification of 4000km of railway during the year 2017.*

This work follows the completion of Yuan 801.5bn of investments in 2016, including the opening of 3281km of new main line railway. In 2016 the network carried a record 2.7 billion passengers, an increase of 11.2% year-on-year, with 1.44 billion of these trips on its high-speed network, which now exceeds 20,000km. Internet tickets accounted for 60% of total sales, with mobile phone tickets accounting for 40% of the total.

Chinese rail freight volumes amounted to 2.65 billion tonnes, with intermodal (40%), automotive goods (53%) and bulk freight (25%) reporting substantial increases. There was also particular growth in trains travelling to and from Europe, with 1702 trains travelling from China, an increase of 109%, and 572 making the return journey, an increase of 116%.

In 2017, passenger traffic is expected to increase to 3.025 billion passengers, and rail freight volumes to 2.75 billion tonnes or 34.55 trillion tonne-km.


----------



## Short

New opportunities for a landlocked nation.



> *China-Kazakhstan grain passage opens
> Shenzhen Daily
> February 6th, 2017*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A train carrying 720 tons of wheat from Kazakhstan reaches a logistic base in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province, yesterday. The wheat will be transferred to a ship and head for Vietnam. This is the first wheat shipment from Kazakhstan to be sent to Southeast Asia via China, marking the opening of the China-Kazakhstan grain passage. In this way, Kazakhstan wheat will be sold in Southeast Asia at lower prices than that from Australia and with shorter delivery times.
> 
> Original Article


----------



## tjrgx

*China to start construction on 35 new railway projects in 2017*

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-02/19/c_136068507.htm

BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- It is full steam ahead for China's railway sector as construction on 35 new railway projects will start in 2017 as the country plans to expand the network, according to a recent report in Xinhua-run Economic Information Daily.

Construction will begin on 2,100 km of new rail line, 2,500 km of double-track lines and 4,000 km of electrified railways this year, the report cited unnamed authorities as saying.

To achieve the targets, China Railway Corp. (CRC) has been assigned a budget of 800 billion yuan (116.8 billion U.S. dollars) by the central government, the same as in 2016.

The vice minister of transport, Yang Yudong, disclosed earlier that China will spend 3.5 trillion yuan on railway construction during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).

By 2020, China will have increased the length of high-speed railways in operation to 30,000 kilometers, connecting more than 80 percent of its big cities.

By the end of 2016, China had a 124,000 km railway network, featuring the world's largest high-speed rail network of more than 22,000 km.

While the vast network has enhanced connectivity in large swathes of the country, construction lags behind in the less developed western regions. The government wants to address this gap.

Much of this year's construction projects will happen in China's central and western regions, to support the wider poverty-relief campaign, according to CRC.


----------



## excel919

Stunning pictures


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## tjrgx

*13th Five year development plan (2016-2020) of modern integrated transportation system*

full text PDF（in Chinese）: http://docdro.id/EROkYMa

Including railway, airport, highway, urban mass transit, seaport and gas/oil pipeline, lots of details


----------



## tjrgx

*2016 China Railway Photography Exhibition*

http://www.cpanet.org.cn/detail_picdetail_108725.html


----------



## ccdk

*Harbin Railway Administration Launches Through Passenger Train to Kunming*
http://www.china-railway.com.cn/en/newscenter/Corporation/201702/t20170220_63560.html

The first through passenger train from Harbin to Kunming was put into service on January 5, which ended the history of no train access between the city of ice and the city of spring.

　　The newly-operated passenger train K728/725, made its debut on January 5 from Harbin station to Kunming station, bypassing 53 stations including Changchun, Shenyangbei, Shanhai Pass, Qinghuangdao, Tangshan, Tianjin, Heze, Fuyang, Nanchang, Zhuzhou, Loudi and Guiyang. The 4,581km journey will take 63h 34min in travel time.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

ccdk said:


> The first through passenger train from Harbin to Kunming was put into service on January 5, which ended the history of no train access between the city of ice and the city of spring.
> 
> The newly-operated passenger train K728/725, made its debut on January 5 from Harbin station to Kunming station, bypassing 53 stations including Changchun, Shenyangbei, Shanhai Pass, Qinghuangdao, Tangshan, Tianjin, Heze, Fuyang, Nanchang, Zhuzhou, Loudi and Guiyang. The 4,581km journey will take 63h 34min in travel time.


But it is a slow train. Could have been opened long ago.
Kunming and Harbin are both on CRH now!


----------



## xinxingren

chornedsnorkack said:


> But it is a slow train. Could have been opened long ago.
> Kunming and Harbin are both on CRH now!


And that's the advantage of CRH: now its carrying about half the passenger traffic they can start to convert some "ordinary" mainline expresses back into slower trains. After all, the CRH doesn't stop at Granma's village...


----------



## chornedsnorkack

xinxingren said:


> they can start to convert some "ordinary" mainline expresses back into slower trains. After all, the CRH doesn't stop at Granma's village...


And neither do these slower trains... despite being disproportionately slow relative to the stops they serve.
K728, Harbin-Kunming:
53 stops
4581 km
trip time 63:34
average 85 km between stops
average speed 72 km/h
G403, Beijing-Kunming
22 stops
nominally 2760 km (Beijing-Changsha is exaggerated)
trip time 12:53
average 120 km between stops nominal
average speed nominal 216 km/h


----------



## xinxingren

chornedsnorkack said:


> And neither do these slower trains... despite being disproportionately slow relative to the stops they serve.
> ...


"...disproportionately slow relative..."
Yeah, I'm being reminded of the successive speed lift programs culminating in "mainline" speeds of 140 or 160km/hr. So, is Chengdu-Kunming mainline? or Lanzhou-Xining? ChengKun is single track nearly all the way, with three sections of 150 kilometres at 1.4% gradient, plenty of curves rated at 60km/hr max. Lanzhou-Xining is not double tracked, in spite of what shows on the maps, it has a newer higher speed single track parallel to the old track with similar ratings to ChengKun. 

Speed is only one advantage HSR has over ordinary trains. HSR also has the advantages of being double track, and Passenger Dedicated. But with the mad rush of passenger traffic to HSR I'm not holding my breath for more slower trains to resume service to little village stations...


----------



## chornedsnorkack

xinxingren said:


> "...disproportionately slow relative..."
> Yeah, I'm being reminded of the successive speed lift programs culminating in "mainline" speeds of 140 or 160km/hr. So, is Chengdu-Kunming mainline? or Lanzhou-Xining? ChengKun is single track nearly all the way, with three sections of 150 kilometres at 1.4% gradient, plenty of curves rated at 60km/hr max.


True, that´s a problem. Though a lot of China proper is on plains... where 120 km/h even on single track lines should not be hard.


----------



## sotavento

chornedsnorkack said:


> And a Talgo car that can cross from 1435 mm to 1520 mm in Brest can also cross at Khorgos.
> What is the maximum speed of a 1435/1520 mm Talgo car on 1435 mm?


Certified for 1435mm/1672mm at 250km/h in th eform of class 130 EMU and 730 Hibrids 

Certified for 350km/h single gauge 1435mm


----------



## Gusiluz

^^ The Iberian gauge is 1,668 mm, not 1,672.
Here I explain in more detail, and I'm sure you understand Spanish well:


Gusiluz said:


> *La variación de ancho en España desde 1.674 a 1.668 mm*
> El ancho ibérico de seis pies castellanos, fijado en el Informe Subercasse en 1844, corresponde a 1.671 mm, que terminaron siendo 1.674 por la necesaria traducción a las medidas británicas, según acabamos de ver (#*77* ); sin embargo actualmente el ancho oficial es el de 1.668 mm. Veamos el cómo y el porqué de dicha variación.
> 
> En marzo de 1955 se publica el informe “Reducción del juego de vía”, del Departamento de Estudios y Reconstrucción de Renfe, donde se explica la necesidad de reducir la holgura o “juego de vía” entre las pestañas de las ruedas y los carriles para mejorar las condiciones de rodadura. Según el informe, en 1926 la Oficina de Unificación de Material Ferroviario había decidido calar las ruedas de coches y automotores a 1.596 mm, y posteriormente la Dirección de Material de Renfe fijó en 1.588 mm distancia entre arcos de las locomotoras; de ello resultaba un juego en la pestaña de 13 mm para coches y de 21 mm para locomotoras. El redactor considera excesivos estos juegos por lo que propone unificarlo a 7 mm para todos los vehículos, resultando superior en 1 mm al recientemente aprobado por la SNCF para la renovación de vías con traviesas de hormigón.
> Tras ello, se llega a la conclusión de que adoptando los 1.668 mm como ancho de vía, solo existiría una diferencia de 3 mm con el ancho portugués (1.665 mm) y esta medida disminuiría el juego de la vía a 7 mm. Este ancho se adoptó en todas las renovaciones de vía desde que se aplican traviesas de hormigón (primero bibloque y luego monobloque). Sin embargo, en las líneas en las que no se ha renovado la vía desde 1955 el ancho sigue siendo de 1.674 mm; por otros motivos, ése continúa siendo el ancho de la línea 1 del Metro barcelonés (TMB).


----------



## tjrgx

*Through the lens: Chinese photographer captures traces of time on the train*






https://news.cgtn.com/news/346b6a4e79597a6333566d54/share.html

When Wang Fuchun steps inside a train carriage, he pays no mind to where his seat is, but instead directs his lens towards the faces that inhabit the train. 

He has been doing this for over 30 years.

Wang Fuchun was destined for the railway. After graduating from the photography department at Harbin Normal University, he began to work in the railway system. One day, his superior asked him to take photos for the workers. This was the beginning of his career as a professional photographer.

Over the past three decades, he has captured travelers' lives, and with it the traces of what society looked like at various moments in time. 

During the 1980s and 90s, when waves of migrant rural workers traveled to find work, the steam locomotives carried whole communities of people leaving and returning to their hometown. During Spring Festival travel rushes, it wasn't even possible to get on the train through the doors, forcing people to climb through the windows. But Wang's photos show people looking delighted – the passage of going home by train was itself worth celebrating. 

Wang describes trains as spaces that are like temporary micro societies – travelers from all across the country, speaking different dialects must share a single space together.

Wang's focus on people reflects his belief that every photo is a story, and every person has a story to tell. He has an intimate and poetic approach to photography that turns each photo into a story.

His photos also reflect the country's transformation. Green and steam locomotives have been replaced by bullet trains. People now carry smart phones and tablets instead of brick cell phones. "You can find traces of all eras on the train," says Wang. 

Nowadays, 74-year-old Wang Fuchun is still an active photographer. "Actually, I take photos on the train out of my affection," he explains. "Had it not for the affection for the railway, I couldn't have made it this far."

"You take a photo today, it will become history tomorrow. You can't repeat it, nor can others."


----------



## Zaz965

by little universe


little universe said:


> https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/37261093150/sizes/l
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/2626[email protected]/37261092460/sizes/l
> ​


----------



## saiho

So this just happened... I am expecting more quad tracking and new conventional railways to be built to handle the new demand. It does rise a good question about possible "needs improvements" of China's railways. It mentioned that shipping goods from Xingtai, Hebei to Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces takes two days by truck but a week by rail. At such long distances rail should be faster and more cost effective. Something should be done to improve freight rail transport.



> *China's small factories fear 'rail Armageddon' with orders to ditch trucks*
> 
> Thousands of small factories in China, making everything from steel to chemicals, are scrambling for access to the country’s clogged rail network as Beijing curbs the use of diesel trucks in an effort to tackle air pollution.


Source


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Locomotives are diesel, too.


----------



## KavirajG

deleted


----------



## tjrgx

*Over 132 million railway trips made during holiday*

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/09/c_136667642.htm

BEIJING, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Over 132 million railway trips were made during the past 11 days of holiday travel rush, up 11.6 percent year on year, according to the China Railway Corporation (CRC).

The travel rush of the National Day holiday lasted from Sept. 28 to Oct. 8, with the holiday extended by one day this year as the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival fell on Oct. 4.

Several railway traffic indices set new highs, with the daily average number of passengers over 10 million for nine consecutive days. Oct.1 alone witnessed 15 million trips, the highest ever on a single day.

During the holiday, on average 7,852 trains were scheduled each day, 713 more than the same period last year, including 5,273 high-speed trains, 788 more than that of 2016.

More than 700 million tourists traveled around the country and generated 584 billion yuan (about 88 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue, according to the China National Tourism Administration.


----------



## xinxingren

chornedsnorkack said:


> Locomotives are diesel, too.


Some of them. And the electric ones are powered by new "clean coal" stations away out on the coast where they can't be seen. It's a pity the industry is in such flux you can't get stable stats on proportions of solar, wind, hydro, coal, and nuclear...


----------



## xinxingren

xinxingren said:


> Is this line going to be only for slow trains?


Answering my own post, bad etiquette :bash: but I've recollected the reason for this to stay standard: they'll be running "fast" (160km/hr?) freight trains on this line for the "Belt and Road" business. Double track and easy grades sure beats humping over the single track Qinling Pass to Baoji, then back up thru the hills via Dingxi.


----------



## saiho

chornedsnorkack said:


> Locomotives are diesel, too.


Yes some of them, but the ecological advantages of using DMUs on rural lines to serve villages instead of roads you keep harping about all day applies here. A a diesel freight train locomotive may be 2-3 times more polluting than a truck but it also hauls way more than 2-3 times the amount of freight so on a pollution emitted per km-ton hauled basis, longer high volume trips are better on rail. The difference is that entire cities are just sending cargo between each other on massive fleets of trucks when the same could be accomplished with a few trains, a smaller fleet of trucks and train to truck transfer facilities.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

saiho said:


> Yes some of them, but the ecological advantages of using DMUs on rural lines to serve villages instead of roads you keep harping about all day applies here. A a diesel freight train locomotive may be 2-3 times more polluting than a truck but it also hauls way more than 2-3 times the amount of freight so on a pollution emitted per km-ton hauled basis, longer high volume trips are better on rail.


Yes. The true advantage of rail is lower rolling friction of steel on steel compared to rubber.

But what you need is rural/suburban branch lines designed for efficient mixture of freight and passenger traffic. And that cannot be built in a month - it takes several years.


----------



## Zaz965

:cheers:


> China has a long term plan to expand the network to 274,000 km (170,000 mi) by 2050


source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_China


----------



## chornedsnorkack

> China has a long term plan to expand the network to 274,000 km (170,000 mi) by 2050


US railway network was expanded from 80 000 km to 140 000 km from 1870 to 1880, and from 140 000 km to 260 000 km from 1880 to 1890. Largely by Chinese, too.


----------



## Gusiluz

^^ I have other figures, although similar:
Year: 1835 1840 1850 1860 1870 1890 1913
km: 1,500 6,000 14,517 49,286 85,155 208,845 457,000

What is happening is that it is not the same to put tracks and sleepers through almost uninhabited places, than to build a line with the very rigid current standards of densely populated areas.


----------



## tjrgx

*Crowdfunded Train Rescues Stranded Travelers*

http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-10-11/101154979.html

Hundreds of Chinese vacationers in interior Shaanxi province are new converts to “crowdfunding” after their local rail operator used the high-tech tactic to get them home at the end of the recent weeklong National Day holiday.

The Oct. 1 National Day is one of the busiest periods in China, with many passengers finding themselves unable to get tickets home as they compete with hundreds of millions of other Chinese travelers.

Liu Hongyan, from the small Shaanxi city of Yulin, was one such passenger, becoming stranded in the provincial capital of Xi’an after discovering that all tickets back to her hometown were sold out.

With no better alternatives, she was told to take a chance using a new crowd funding service, the China Youth Daily reported. That service, provided by the local rail operator, promised to provide trips home on an extra train if more than 50% of seats were sold from travelers using a crowdfunding-style event on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

The new service eventually attracted 122 people, far fewer than the 50% needed to fill the train. But in the end, the Xi’an rail operator decided to run the train anyway, and ultimately sold every one of the 1,200 seats using traditional, low-tech ticket windows.

The new trial won praise from people online and ordinary citizens, who have long criticized the rail operator for ignoring passengers’ real needs.

In the past, it was often difficult to gather such customer information, but recently it has become much easier thanks to the internet, Zhang Yujing, a representative from the Xi’an rail operator, told the Beijing Youth Daily.

Despite praise for the extra train, there is still a lot of room for improvement to the program, Wang Jianlin, an official from the Xi’an operator told China Youth Daily. For example, he added, the crowd funding platform was limited to Weibo, so it excluded anyone without an account.

“Because the country is pushing supply-side reform, we should let passengers have a say in what they want,” he said. “We are improving our services based on their needs.”


----------



## tjrgx

*A life on the line: Veteran train driver’s career from steam to bullet trains*

https://news.cgtn.com/news/3559544e7a597a6333566d54/share_p.html






In China, every generation has its own memory of trains.

People born in the 1970s are familiar with smoky and noisy steam locomotives, while those born in the 1980s will have a lasting impression of the crowded green trains with no air conditioning from that era. The memories of the post-90s generation are likely to be entwined with clean, fast electric trains. And youngsters born after 2000 will know little other than high-speed bullet trains.

A handful of train drivers still in the business have sat in the cab of many of these trains over the decades. In a career that has lasted 31 years with no terminus yet called, Xue Jun has acquired six different licenses necessary to drive each new type of train.

Xue, from Jinan in east China’s Shandong Province, dreamed of being a train driver from a very early age. In 1987, after graduating from a railway school, he got his first driving license to operate steam locomotives running at 60 km/h.

However, the reality did not match his dreams – steam trains were dirty and smelly, and driving one was a tough gig.

As the train proceeded into the teeth of the wind, Xue’s cab would be filled with dust and coal ash. The drivers even made up a doggerel saying to make light of the grueling experience: “He looks like a sloppy beggar, or a dirty miner, but when he comes close, he’s actually a train driver.”

In the 1980s, with the popularity of diesel locomotives, steam trains receded. In 1992, as Xue says, he "kept up with the times" by obtaining his second driving license for diesel locomotives with a speed of 90 km/h.

In 1997, China launched a campaign to step up the speed of railway networks to 160 km/h. Against this backdrop, Xue got his third license in 1998. Compared with before, working conditions on diesel locomotive were improved a lot. "There was at least a fan and an electric stove. I could also drive the train in clean clothes," Xue said.

In 2006, he acquired his fourth license when electric locomotives were zooming across the country. He was so satisfied with the comfortable new berth that he determined to keep driving until he retires.

However, Xue had to upgrade his skills once again when China ushered in a new era of high-speed trains in 2007. Bullets trains capable of 250 km/h were put into operation. In 2009, he got a fifth license to drive these vehicles. For the first time in his life, Xue felt what he calls the “Chinese speed” – "The trains can go 83 meters per second".

China is now one of the few countries in the world with the ability to develop bullet trains running at 350 km/h.

In 2011, a new national campaign to further speed up the trains shortened the time needed to travel between Jinan in Shandong Province and Nanjing in the eastern Jiangsu Province from 10 hours to merely 130 minutes. It was in the same year that Xue got his sixth driving license.

As Xue has pursued his childhood dreams with his own increasingly awesome train set, he has kept in mind that high speed could also mean high risk. He concentrates hard on his driving at all times to ensure safety.

The highly qualified driver always remembers "There are more than 1,000 passengers on board, and their families are waiting for them.”

Named by the Jinan Railway Bureau as a model member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xue has made many sacrifices in his career. He has even kept a strict diet to avoid any digestive crises which might lead to delays. "No 'incidents' for me!" said the 49 year old.

The record is not only a sign of regard for his health, but also of Xue’s professional devotion and commitment to the hard-working and selfless principles of the CPC.


----------



## lawdefender

*Electrified Railway Length in Operation Ranking in the World
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...t_network_size

Rank/ Country Date of information/ Electrified Railway Length in Operation(km)

1 China (2016) 80,000

2 South Africa (2014) 24,800

3 India (2016) 23,883

4 Germany (2010) 19,973

5 Poland (2008) 17,358

6 Japan 92009) 16,702

7 Italy (2007) 16,683

8 France 2008 15,140

9 Ukraine (2010) 9,752

10 Spain (2012) 9,623


United States (2014) 1,600

============================

*List of countries by rail transport network size*


Rank/ Country/Railway Length in Operation(km)/Date of information

1	United States 250,000[2]	2014

2	China 124,000	2016

3	Russia 86,000	2013

4	India 68,525	2016	

5	Canada 46,552	2008

6	Germany	43,468	2010

7	Australia 38,445	2008

8	Brazil	37,743	(2014)

9	Argentina 36,966	2008	

10	South Africa 31,000	2014


----------



## Gusiluz

*World % electrified*

^^ Data of the UIC:

*% electrified 2005 2010*
SWITZERLAND 99 99
LUXEMBOURG 95 95
BELGIUM 84 86
NETHERLANDS 73 76
SWEDEN 77 71
ITALY 69 71
AUSTRIA 62 68
JAPAN 61 61
POLAND 61 60
KOREA 49 60
SPAIN 56 60
GERMANY 57 59
U.E.-15 52 56
FRANCE 50 52
PORTUGAL 51 52
U.E.-25 50 52
FINLAND 46 52
RUSSIA 49 51
SOUTH AFRICA 42 48
CHINA 31 46
BULGARIA 69 44
SLOVAKIA 43 44
SLOVENIA 41 41
TURKEY ? 38
ROMANIA 37 37
HUNGARY 36 36
REP. 32 34
UNITED KINGDOM 32 33
INDIA 28 29
DENMARK 28 24
AUSTRALIA 20 23
ESTONIA 14 17
GREECE 3 14
LATVIA 19 14
LITHUANIA 7 7
IRELAND 3 3
USA 1 1
CANADA 0 0
WORLD TOTAL 30 35


----------



## xinxingren

tjrgx said:


> http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-10-11/101154979.html
> 
> Hundreds of Chinese vacationers in interior Shaanxi province are new converts to “crowdfunding” after their local rail operator used the high-tech tactic to get them home at the end of the recent weeklong National Day holiday.


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/11/c_136671971.htmhttp://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/11/c_136671971.htm 
The "on-demand service" is a pilot program set up by Shaanxi Railways Bureau, which allows them to add additional train services based on real-time bookings. At this stage it is only available on the Xi'an - Yulin route, which is owned and managed by the provincial authority.....
....The bureau said the new service is an innovation in regional train services, but it will be difficult to extend it to the national level as adding extra services would require advanced coordination between different rail authorities and train stations.


----------



## Sunfuns

I wouldn't have guessed South Africa is so high on the list for electrified railways...


----------



## Gusiluz

^^


Gusiluz said:


> ^^ Data of the UIC:
> 
> *% electrified 2005 2010*
> SWITZERLAND 99 99
> LUXEMBOURG 95 95
> BELGIUM 84 86
> NETHERLANDS 73 76
> SWEDEN 77 71
> ITALY 69 71
> AUSTRIA 62 68
> JAPAN 61 61
> POLAND 61 60
> KOREA 49 60
> SPAIN 56 60
> GERMANY 57 59
> U.E.-15 52 56
> FRANCE 50 52
> PORTUGAL 51 52
> U.E.-25 50 52
> FINLAND 46 52
> RUSSIA 49 51
> *SOUTH AFRICA 42 48*
> CHINA 31 46
> BULGARIA 69 44
> SLOVAKIA 43 44
> SLOVENIA 41 41
> TURKEY ? 38
> ROMANIA 37 37
> HUNGARY 36 36
> REP. 32 34
> UNITED KINGDOM 32 33
> INDIA 28 29
> DENMARK 28 24
> AUSTRALIA 20 23
> ESTONIA 14 17
> GREECE 3 14
> LATVIA 19 14
> LITHUANIA 7 7
> IRELAND 3 3
> USA 1 1
> CANADA 0 0
> WORLD TOTAL 30 35


----------



## tjrgx

*Window or Aisle? China Train Riders Can Finally Choose*

http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-10-13/101156079.html

Chinese bullet train lovers who buy their tickets online can finally decide between a window or aisle seat.

Such simple but important decisions, which have been open to travelers in the West for years, have officially come to China’s high-speed railroad with the launch of a feature that allows for seat selection when booking online. The move comes as the rail operator, China Railway Corp. (CRC), tries to become more customer-friendly as it breaks from its history as a government entity.

The new service, which began on Thursday, will allow passengers to select seats from a map that pops up during the booking process. If no seat is available, an automatic distribution system kicks in. A notice on the operator’s website detailed the booking process.

Unlike airlines, which are more market-oriented due to competition, trains in China were until recently operated by a government monopoly. But under new reforms, the operator has been forced to be more responsible for its own finances, and be more consumer-focused. Since then, CRC has been trying to make life more convenient for travelers, and now offers a number of services online.

The new online seat-selection service answers years of yearning from consumers, especially those traveling with families, who complained they could not sit together due to the inflexible ticket booking system.

The move was welcomed by ordinary consumers and experts alike. “It is a step truly putting consumers in mind and a milestone for the rail operator to truly transform from a government entity into a service provider,” said Feng Haining, a public affairs commentator for the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News.

Still, the new service was limited to types of seats, but not specific rows, which means that passengers still can’t select exact positions. In addition, the new service is limited to high-speed trains, and has yet to be rolled out on the conventional railways that remain a common form of transportation for many.
“The process to book a ticket for both high-speed and conventional trains is the same, which means there should not be any technical barriers excluding the latter,” Feng wrote.


----------



## lawdefender

Gusiluz said:


> ^^ Data of the UIC:
> 
> *% electrified 2005 2010*
> SWITZERLAND 99 99
> LUXEMBOURG 95 95
> BELGIUM 84 86
> NETHERLANDS 73 76
> SWEDEN 77 71
> ITALY 69 71
> AUSTRIA 62 68
> JAPAN 61 61
> POLAND 61 60
> KOREA 49 60
> SPAIN 56 60
> GERMANY 57 59
> U.E.-15 52 56
> FRANCE 50 52
> PORTUGAL 51 52
> U.E.-25 50 52
> FINLAND 46 52
> RUSSIA 49 51
> SOUTH AFRICA 42 48
> CHINA 31 46
> BULGARIA 69 44
> SLOVAKIA 43 44
> SLOVENIA 41 41
> TURKEY ? 38
> ROMANIA 37 37
> HUNGARY 36 36
> REP. 32 34
> UNITED KINGDOM 32 33
> INDIA 28 29
> DENMARK 28 24
> AUSTRALIA 20 23
> ESTONIA 14 17
> GREECE 3 14
> LATVIA 19 14
> LITHUANIA 7 7
> IRELAND 3 3
> USA 1 1
> CANADA 0 0
> WORLD TOTAL 30 35


*2016 China electrified railway reach 64.5%*


----------



## tjrgx

*Lujiang-Tongling railway*

http://vip.people.com.cn/do/userbuy.jsp?aId=1092872


----------



## tjrgx

*China's railway investment to exceed $121b yuan in 2017*

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/10-19/277588.shtml

This year's fixed investment in the railway sector might exceed 800 billion yuan ($121.04 billion), a target set by China Railway at the beginning of 2017, Economic Information Daily reported Wednesday, citing unnamed industry source.

The source attributed his prediction to current construction progress and the fact that generally the fourth quarter is a peak season for railway building.

In the first eight months, fixed investment in the railway sector nationwide reached 453.6 billion yuan, up by 4.7 percent year-on-year, according to China Railway's data cited by the Economic Information Daily.

Currently, two major railway lines are under construction.

Construction on the Lianyungang-Xuzhou railway line, which is located in East China's Jiangsu province, has been underway since July 13. Construction on this line, which runs for 180.39 kilometers and is expected to cost 28.17 billion yuan, is projected to be finished by December 2020.

On Aug 8, construction on the Dunhua-Baihe railway started. This line, with a length of 113.5 kilometers, when finished four years later, will cut the travel time between Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, and the Changbai Mountain, a resort in Jilin province, to four hours.

Another railway line, the Chongqing-Kunming railway, with a length of 720 kilometers and an expected investment of 117 billion yuan, is expected to start within this year, according to the Economic Information Daily. The railway spans Chongqing municipality, Sichuan province, Guizhou province and Yunnan province.


----------



## lookback718

Could this train have taken the Dunhuang Golmud railway? I remember seeing that most of that railway is in trail operation with the rest in testing somewhere that I can't find now. It was possibly a map that I saw. 

Otherwise what is the date for Dunhung Golmud railway to open? 

Cargo train links China's Qinghai with Russia
Xinhua | Updated: 2017-08-21 10:28
XINING - A new China-Europe freight train service began Sunday, linking Russia with Golmud in Qaidam Basin, Northwest China's Qinghai province.

The train, loaded with containers of chemical, left China through the Alataw Pass in Xinjiang, and will pass Kazakhstan before reaching Perm in Russia.

The trip covers about 6,360 kilometers and takes 10 days, 30 days less than the previous sea route.

"The new service can boost the international competitiveness of local goods," said Meng Hai, governor of Haixi Mongol and Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Qinghai.

Encouraged by the Belt and Road Initiative, more than 20 Chinese cities now run trains to central Asia and Europe.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2017-08/21/content_30899923.htm



Edit: - The map was here posted by tjrgx



tjrgx said:


> From [email protected]
> 
> update: 20170725
> PDF:
> http://docdro.id/qWEe4vN
> 
> red: in construction
> brown: testing phase
> yellow: feasbility study
> green: long-term plan
> blue: in operation
> 
> thin line: <160kph
> thick line: HSR
> dot-line: electrification


----------



## tjrgx

*Southern Xinjiang Railway*

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

From 京包大拿@weibo


----------



## General Huo

^^^^
These pictures are epic.


----------



## lawdefender

World's first railless train hits road, autonomous driving likely by 2020

https://www.ecns.cn/cns-wire/2017/10-24/278203.shtml

(ECNS) -- The world's first railless train hit the road on Monday afternoon in Zhuzhou City, central China's Hunan Province, and its developer forecasts that autonomous driving of the train will be possible by 2020.

The 32-meter-long train, carrying rail experts and journalists from home and abroad, appeared on Shennong Avenue in Zhuzhou at 4:30 in the afternoon.

The train is part of the intelligent rail express system, called Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit (ART). It has been independently developed by the CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co.

The latest success marks the completion of the 3.1-kilometer phase-one demonstration line of the world's first ART system, which will soon be put into trial run. The first three trains are set to go into operation around the Spring Festival in the coming year.


----------



## tjrgx

*Breathtaking scenery: Aerial view of Qinghai-Tibet Railway in SW China*


----------



## DingeZ

lawdefender said:


> World's first railless train hits road, autonomous driving likely by 2020
> 
> https://www.ecns.cn/cns-wire/2017/10-24/278203.shtml
> 
> (ECNS) -- The world's first railless train hit the road on Monday afternoon in Zhuzhou City, central China's Hunan Province, and its developer forecasts that autonomous driving of the train will be possible by 2020.
> 
> The 32-meter-long train, carrying rail experts and journalists from home and abroad, appeared on Shennong Avenue in Zhuzhou at 4:30 in the afternoon.
> 
> The train is part of the intelligent rail express system, called Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit (ART). It has been independently developed by the CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co.
> 
> The latest success marks the completion of the 3.1-kilometer phase-one demonstration line of the world's first ART system, which will soon be put into trial run. The first three trains are set to go into operation around the Spring Festival in the coming year.


That’s just an optical guided bus and has existed in some places in Europe for decades.
By the way, this is the railways section, not urban transport.


----------



## z0rg

What's the difference between a bi-articulated bus and that alleged railess train? In any case, as a bus it would be world's largest, since it is 4m longer than Curitiba's 28m buses. Make them double-decker and we'll have a true world wonder of mass transit systems.


----------



## Dr.Dennis.Deng

Hello,

Can somebody tell me, if the high speed connections from Guiyang to Chongqing and from Guiyang to Chengdu are finished, how long will travel take from Guiyang to those two cities?


----------



## Short

Dr.Dennis.Deng said:


> Hello,
> 
> Can somebody tell me, if the high speed connections from Guiyang to Chongqing and from Guiyang to Chengdu are finished, how long will travel take from Guiyang to those two cities?



The high speed lines are under testing from Guiyang to Chongqing at the moment. So it will take 8 hours & 43 minutes by conventional rail still at the moment on the fastest service. I had friends in North East Guizhou on the weekend lamenting the lack of high speed service.


----------



## Dr.Dennis.Deng

Well, what is the assumed time then?


----------



## lookback718

Dr.Dennis.Deng said:


> Well, what is the assumed time then?


Chongqing-Guiyang Railway undergoes inspection



> An inspection of the Chongqing-Guiyang High Speed Railway (HSR) is currently underway, reported Guizhou Daily on July 27.
> 
> Extending a total length of 345 km, the Chongqing-Guiyang HSR will service a total of 12 stations along the line and will be capable of speeds of 350 km per hour.
> 
> Guizhou has sent more than 500 workers for the inspection and adjustment of equipment along the railway to ensure that the whole construction will be completed at the end of the year.
> 
> After the completion, the railway will connect to Lanzhou-Chongqing HSR and Guiyang–Guangzhou HSR, forming part of a larger railway network and becoming another important access route to the sea.
> 
> The railway is expected to improve the flow of passengers and freight through the railway transport corridor and relieving increasing pressures on existing conventional railway lines in the region.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/guizhou/2017-07/28/content_30277701.htm


----------



## tjrgx

*Tongliao-Huolinhe railway*

http://weibo.com/u/2014444995?refer_flag=1005055014_


----------



## ccdk

CRC freight on/to Mars :banana:



tjrgx said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Xinjiang_Railway
> 
> From 京包大拿@weibo


----------



## hightower1

^^

Haha, yeah, I was just going to post the same thoughts!

Looks like a terraformed Mars with a breathable atmosphere.


----------



## tigerleapgorge

Hohhot 呼和浩特 to Ulanqab 烏蘭察 drivelapse.


----------



## hkskyline

November 19, 2017 
*Record number of freight trains link China, Europe*
Xinhua _Excerpt_

BEIJING – The number of China-Europe freight trains reached a new annual record this year since starting operations in 2011 in a sign of closer economic ties between the two major markets.

More than 3,000 cargo trains have traveled on 57 lines between cities on the two continents, surpassing the past six years combined, and pushing the aggregate to over 6,000, China Railway Corporation (CRC) said Saturday.

"The trend is solid," CRC said in a statement.

A coordination committee was established in May to further bring down logistics costs and improve efficiency, added the statement.

The cargo service has been growing rapidly, now bridging 35 Chinese cities, including Xi'an and Yiwu, and 34 European cities such as Hamburg and Madrid. It is considered a significant part of the Belt and Road Initiative.


----------



## ccdk

*Zhengzhou Landport, a main hub for China-EU freight trains*
https://www.henandaily.cn/content/wxiang/yxzhi/2016/0321/2542.html


----------



## tjrgx

*Govt to expand rail network to 150,000 km*

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-11/24/content_34948878.htm



China will expand the railway network to 150,000 kilometers by 2020, including 30,000 km of high-speed rail, according to the 13th five-year plan (2016-20) for railway construction issued by the nation's top economic regulator on Friday.

The network is expected to cover all cities with population of more than 200,000, and the high-speed railway network is expected to connect more than 80 percent of China's major cities, according to the plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission.

The total length of China's railway has reached 121,000 kilometers and that of high-speed rail has touched 19,000 kilometers as of 2015.

China will enhance oversight over investment in PPP high speed railway projects, as part of efforts to dissolve financial risks, the plan said.

China will facilitate debt to equity swaps for railway projects with promising returns, the plan added.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

tjrgx said:


> China will expand the railway network to 150,000 kilometers by 2020, including 30,000 km of high-speed rail, according to the 13th five-year plan (2016-20) for railway construction issued by the nation's top economic regulator on Friday.
> 
> The network is expected to cover all cities with population of more than 200,000, and the high-speed railway network is expected to connect more than 80 percent of China's major cities, according to the plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission.
> 
> The total length of China's railway has reached 121,000 kilometers and that of high-speed rail has touched 19,000 kilometers as of 2015.


Now, as of December 2017, which cities with population of more than 200 000 are not covered by railway network?


----------



## General Huo

I think some of cities are located in the remote mountainous Yunnan Province Like Xishuangbanna (370,000) and Ruili (120,000). However, railroad are being built toward there. Dali-Ruili railway will go to Burma and Xishuangbanna is located on the railway to Laos.



chornedsnorkack said:


> Now, as of December 2017, which cities with population of more than 200 000 are not covered by railway network?


----------



## ccdk




----------



## ccdk

*In pics: desert express in Xinjiang*
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/09/c_136813333_6.htm

The 485-km train route linking two major oasis towns Kashgar and Hotan, runs through some of the remotest areas in Xinjiang, and has transformed life in the desert since its launch in 2011. It is the first and only railway in Hotan, via the railway the underdeveloped prefecture is linked to the rest of the country's rail network, which boasts 22,000 km of high-speed railway lines. Poor transport infrastructure has caused China's west to lag behind eastern regions in terms of economic competitiveness. Building more railways has become a necessity for the country's western region to expand growth and social development along the Silk Road. There was only one train per day when the passenger service was launched in June, 2011. Another train was added in 2016 to better meet local demand. In each trip some 1,000 passengers can board the 19-carriage train to cross the desert. The seven-hour ride costs only 28 yuan (4.2 U.S. dollars), one of the cheapest passenger train services in the country. Traveling used to be vexing in Hotan, where sand and dust storms dominate weather about 200 days of the year. "My clothes were a mess when I used to travel on donkey back or by car," says Seydiehmet Kichik, from Hotan, "Now the train brings me to more job opportunities outside." Working as a cotton picker in Aksu Prefecture, about 600 km from his hometown, Seydiehmet can earn 12,000 yuan in a three-month harvest season, more than his entire income for the previous year. The railway has shortened the distance between local people and their ideal schools and jobs. 15 million trips were made during the past six years, according to local railway authorities.


----------



## General Huo

Lanzhou to Chongqing Railway航拍兰渝铁路通车


----------



## chornedsnorkack

ccdk said:


> *In pics: desert express in Xinjiang*
> http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/09/c_136813333_6.htm
> 
> The 485-km train route linking two major oasis towns Kashgar and Hotan, runs through some of the remotest areas in Xinjiang, and has transformed life in the desert since its launch in 2011. It is the first and only railway in Hotan, via the railway the underdeveloped prefecture is linked to the rest of the country's rail network, which boasts 22,000 km of high-speed railway lines. Poor transport infrastructure has caused China's west to lag behind eastern regions in terms of economic competitiveness. Building more railways has become a necessity for the country's western region to expand growth and social development along the Silk Road. There was only one train per day when the passenger service was launched in June, 2011. Another train was added in 2016 to better meet local demand. In each trip some 1,000 passengers can board the 19-carriage train to cross the desert. The seven-hour ride costs only 28 yuan (4.2 U.S. dollars), one of the cheapest passenger train services in the country. Traveling used to be vexing in Hotan, where sand and dust storms dominate weather about 200 days of the year. "My clothes were a mess when I used to travel on donkey back or by car," says Seydiehmet Kichik, from Hotan, "Now the train brings me to more job opportunities outside." Working as a cotton picker in Aksu Prefecture, about 600 km from his hometown, Seydiehmet can earn 12,000 yuan in a three-month harvest season, more than his entire income for the previous year. The railway has shortened the distance between local people and their ideal schools and jobs. 15 million trips were made during the past six years, according to local railway authorities.


Total of 4 daily trains Kashgar-Hotan:
7557, about 7 hours (6:54) Kashgar to Hotan, 28 yuan as specified in hard seat, 72 in hard sleeper. Originates Urumqi, 7 stops between Kashgar and Hotan
5809, originates Kashgar, 5:53 trip time with 5 stops. 33 yuan hard seat, 77 yuan hard sleeper
K9717, trip time 7:06 with 5 stops. Originates in Yining. 69 yuan hard seat, 130 yuan hard sleeper, 194 yuan soft sleeper
T9527, trip time 5:30 with 5 stops. Originates in Urumqi. 69 yuan hard seat, 130 yuan hard sleeper, 194 yuan soft sleeper


----------



## tjrgx

*World's longest heavy-duty railway under construction in Yueyang City, central China*

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/25/c_136850733.htm










^^Photo taken on Dec. 24, 2017 shows the construction site of a railway bridge over the Dongting Lake, the second-largest freshwater lake in China, in Yueyang City, central China's Hunan Province. The 1,290-meter bridge is an important part of the world's longest heavy-duty railway for coal transport. The 1,837-km railway is still under construction and is designed to link the coal-rich western Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with Ji'an City in east China's Jiangxi Province. The railway line is scheduled for operation in 2020. (Xinhua/Zhu Xiang)


----------



## General Huo

China's newly built railway prioritizes ecosystem protection






CGTN
Published on Dec 28, 2017

China's newly built Jiujiang-Jingdezhen-Quzhou Railway prioritizes ecosystem protection. During its construction, the railway avoided passing through 19 natural reserves and had bird repelling devices installed along the route. The 333-kilometer line is designed for both passenger and freight transport, with a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour.


----------



## General Huo

Selected beautiful railway routes in China


----------



## tjrgx

*Beijing launches two new railway lines*

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/31/c_136863260.htm

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Beijing authorities have launched two new railway lines.

One of the new lines, linking the city proper with Tongzhou District, became operational on Sunday morning. The 38.8-km-long line connects Shijingshan District in the west with Tongzhou in the east. Five stations have been set up, though only four are currently operational. With the new line, passengers only need 28 minutes to get from Beijing Railway Station to Tongzhou.

The line is expected to help ease transport pressure between the city center and Tongzhou.

Another line links Changping District with the suburb districts of Huairou and Miyun. It spans 135.6 km and has six stations. Currently only three stations are in operation.


----------



## hkskyline

China Railway SS8 0173, Fanling (Hong Kong) by Howard Pulling, on Flickr


----------



## tjrgx

*China targets 2018 rail investment of $113 billion*

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1ER042

(Reuters) - China's national railway operator said on Tuesday that the country plans to invest 732 billion yuan ($113 billion) in rail fixed assets in 2018, its lowest target since 2013.

China Railway Corp. made the comments through its news publication, People's Railway Network. The country, which invested 801 billion yuan in rail fixed assets in 2017, has for the last four years set an annual target of 800 billion yuan. Its target for 2013 was 660 billion yuan.

*The railway operator also said that it aimed to build 4,000 kms (2,485 miles) of new lines this year, 3,500 kms of which will be high-speed rail tracks.*


----------



## tjrgx

*China Railway Map - 20171231*

From 贵广十标段@ditiezu

PDF version:

Color: 

http://docdro.id/ima2Fjw

Terrain:

http://docdro.id/gEu5yJT


----------



## xinxingren

*Kunming metre-guage "temporary" shutdown*



> As with all important announcements in Kunming, this one was made with a hastily printed single sheet of paper pasted on a wall. The city's beloved but little-used 35.2-kilometer narrow gauge railway — stated the note — has ceased operations in lieu of construction of a more modern option — the subway.


More and links to Chinese sources at https://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/item/4070/bye_bye_for_now_kunming_narrow_gauge_railway


----------



## Dr.Dennis.Deng

tjrgx said:


> http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-12/31/c_136863260.htm
> 
> BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Beijing authorities have launched two new railway lines.
> 
> One of the new lines, linking the city proper with Tongzhou District, became operational on Sunday morning. The 38.8-km-long line connects Shijingshan District in the west with Tongzhou in the east. Five stations have been set up, though only four are currently operational. With the new line, passengers only need 28 minutes to get from Beijing Railway Station to Tongzhou.
> 
> The line is expected to help ease transport pressure between the city center and Tongzhou.
> 
> Another line links Changping District with the suburb districts of Huairou and Miyun. It spans 135.6 km and has six stations. Currently only three stations are in operation.


What kind of train sets are they using on the "Huaimi" line to Huairou? 
Is it the same commuter trains as on the Sub-Central line?


----------



## Gusiluz

^^ According to the Wikipedia on the Huairou-Miyun Line will be the NDJ3 for 160 km/h.










Have not they electrified a new commuter line in Beijing?


----------



## ccdk

The double deck sleeper bullet train - speed reduced to 150km/h to allow a full night sleep


----------



## chornedsnorkack

ccdk said:


> The double deck sleeper bullet train - speed reduced to 150km/h to allow a full night sleep


On which lines?


----------



## Short

ccdk said:


> The double deck sleeper bullet train - speed reduced to 150km/h to allow a full night sleep


I will wonder how these trains will compare with the older compartmentalised high speed sleeper trains that could converted to seating for day use. Also it will be interesting to know what routes and availability of these high speed services too.


----------



## cheehg

chornedsnorkack said:


> On which lines?


Shanghai to Beijing line.

https://www.shine.cn/archive/viral/win/New-CRH-highspeed-trains-debuts/shdaily.shtml


----------



## cheehg

Short said:


> I will wonder how these trains will compare with the older compartmentalised high speed sleeper trains that could converted to seating for day use. Also it will be interesting to know what routes and availability of these high speed services too.


I took the old CRH1E before. the lay out is similar to other no-CRH soft sleeper (4 beds in each compartment, on one side of the train, aisle in the other side). Which when used as day time CRH, the two low beds space sold as 6 seats. This new CRH1E is different. The beds are on two sides of the train and the aisle is in the middle. the beds are in the same direction of the train. i don't think it will be converted to seats for the purpose of selling more tickets.


----------



## cheehg

Gusiluz said:


> ^^ According to the Wikipedia on the Huairou-Miyun Line will be the NDJ3 for 160 km/h.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have not they electrified a new commuter line in Beijing?


this is not a new line. they just use the old line but new train route. this train is the same as the one to Great Wall S2 line. 
the other new route to Tongzhou uses CRH6A train. it also passes the new BJ west to BJ station underground section. so eventually this tunnel is used for Suburban line too.


----------



## FazilLanka

It is a great that adding 3500 Km high speed rail track. This means in a few more years anybody can reach to all major cities by a high speed train in China.


----------



## tjrgx

*1,500 workers complete a reconstruction project of a railway station within 9 hours in Fujian province*






http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/23/c_136918319.htm

FUZHOU, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- In just eight and a half hours, over 1,500 workers completed the installation of a new railway line as part of a train station upgrade in east China's Fujian Province.

Construction began at 6:30 p.m. Friday and by 3 a.m. Saturday, workers had completed the removal of old tracks, the laying of new tracks, and the installation of railroad switches at the station in the city of Longyan.

Seven trains and 23 excavators were used in the project.

The train station was upgraded to connect a newly-built line with three existing railway lines.

The newly-built line, linking Longyan with the city of Nanping in mountainous western Fujian, will begin operation at the end of 2018.

With a maximum designed speed of 200 kilometers per hour, the high-speed rail line will cut the travel time between the two cities from seven hours to just 90 minutes.

The 246 km Nanping-Longyan railway line will include stops in Shaxian, Sanming, Yong'an, and Zhangping.

Previously, three railway lines, namely Ganzhou-Longyan, Ganzhou-Ruijin-Longyan and Zhangping-Longchuan, passed through Longyan.

Once operation begins, the new railway line will further integrate the less developed part of Fujian with the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.


----------



## tjrgx

*Aerial View Lhasa to Nyingchi Railway*


----------



## tjrgx

*Deicing team works to ensure railway transportation safety in China's Henan*

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136934300.htm









^^Members of a deicing team work at Guanyintang Tunnel in Sanmenxia City, central China's Henan Province, Jan. 25, 2018. The team's work is removing ice hanging on the wall of the tunnel to ensure railway transportation safety in winter. (Xinhua/Li An)


----------



## tjrgx

*Changing the chassis of an international train*

Trains running from Moscow to Beijing need to get their chassis changed at Erlien Station in north China’s Inner Mongolia because Mongolia and Russia use 1520-mm wide rail, while China uses 1435 mm of the standard rail. Mechanics work in minus 30-degree-Celsius temperatures to ensure the train can travel safely. Passengers can stay on the train while the chassis gets changed.


----------



## hkskyline

China Railway Shangyou (SY) Steam Locomotive by 陈 中杰, on Flickr


----------



## tjrgx

*Reassemblers that run 10 kilometers every day in Asia’s biggest marshaling yard*






“Decouplers” at Zhengzhou North Railway Station run 10 kilometers every day on shifts that last 12 hours. They relink carriages so that trains can operate smoothly. Every day, they reassemble at least 50 trains, each with 60 carriages.


----------



## ccdk

*Relics of another time: Last Steam Trains in Xinjiang*


----------



## tjrgx

*A family's 120-year-long tie with Chinese railway*


----------



## tjrgx

*China Expected to Transfer 9 Mln Passengers by Rail on 5th Day of Spring Festival Travel Rush*






A total of nine million passengers are expected to travel by trains across China on Monday or the fifth day of China's Spring Festival travel rush. 

Railway stations in Beijing and Shanghai have been very busy. The number of passengers departing from the two places is expected to reach 800,000 and 1.43 million respectively on Monday. 

Many railway stations have added extra trains to deal with the surging passenger flow. 

The Spring Festival is the Chinese Lunar New Year. It is the country's most important traditional festival. Most people working away from hometown will return for a family reunion. This year the festival falls on February 16. 

The travel rush started on February 1 and will last for 40 days.


----------



## CxIxMaN




----------



## tjrgx

*Guangtong-Dali Railway in SW China reports major progress*






The 10.22-kilometer-long Xiangyun Tunnel was successfully completed in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Tuesday morning, marking a major progress in the construction of Guangtong-Dali Railway.


----------



## lookback718

tjrgx said:


> The 10.22-kilometer-long Xiangyun Tunnel was successfully completed in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Tuesday morning, marking a major progress in the construction of Guangtong-Dali Railway.


So glad to see this line finally being completed in July as it will tie together Yunnans high speed rail tourism very nicely and make popular tourist towns like Lijiang and Dali even easier to access. It will also be part of the Kunming Burma line one day.

If my memory serves me right, construction initially started in 2009, but was stopped when Myanmar decided to put a planned Chinese backed railway on ice. I think the Dali Ruli line also started construction around the same time. It was rumoured that Chinese engineers were in Myanmar surveying the route and even that pre-construction works had occurred when Myanmar pulled the pin. This coincided with Myanmar and US relations quickly improving. 

Dali is turning into a major hub with:

Dali - Kunming
Dali - Lijiang - Deane - Tibet
Dali - Ruli / Myanmar 
Dali - Lichang
Dali [Lijiang] - Panzhihua 

Railways.


----------



## Short

A nice and interesting article in the English language side of Chongqing News website.



> *Railways suitable for photographing in Chongqing *
> _2018-02-09 09:57:49
> CHONGQING (CQNEWS)_
> 
> 
> Green trains, rails and old platforms may recall your childhood. And there are many retro railways in Chongqing for you to take photos.
> 
> 
> *Funiuxi Changzhengchang (Long Match Factory) 伏牛溪长征厂 *
> 
> Located at Funiuxi, Dadukou District, Chongqing, the old Changzhengchang witnessed the growth of the children of the factory workers. The 30-year-old railway there shall still be switched manually. The red train and plants next to it are best for taking photo and will make you feel like you are in Chiengmai.
> Ticket: Free
> Route: Line 2 – Xinshancun – Xianggangcheng – Bus 235 – Changzhengchang
> 
> 
> *Masangxi Ancient Town 马桑溪古镇*
> 
> Masangxi Ancient Town is next to the former plant of Chongqing Iron and Steel Company. There are many sculptures of old Chongqing style and an old fashion railway. It is the first old Chengdu – Chongqing Railway built after the founding of New China. With a ferryboat on the Yangtze River in front, green train behind and cable bridge above, the ancient town is the epitome of “three-dimensional” Chongqing.
> Ticket: Free
> Route: Bus 489 – Jianqiao Dadao 1 Zhan – walk about 12 minutes
> 
> 
> *Qiezixi Old Railway 茄子溪老铁路*
> 
> Unlike the hot spot timber hub at the port of Qiezixi, the old railway beside the port is deserted. Walking along the freight railway, you can see some tile-roofed bungalows, with writing scrawled in chalk on door — features of old Chongqing.
> Ticket: Free
> Route: Line 2 – Dadukou Station – Bus 225 – Qiezixi
> 
> 
> *Tongguanyi Old Street 铜罐驿老街*
> 
> Tongguanyi Railway Station is on the Chengdu – Chongqing Railway route. The freight transport platform in Tongguanyi Town has remained in the style of the 1980s and is suitable for taking “retro” photos. The railway here is the only way to Old Tongguanyi, and there will be a train every 30 minutes.
> Ticket: Free
> Route: Follow GPS to Shawan Bus Station at Tongguanyi, or Zhongliangshan tunnel – Baishiyi Interchange - Provincial Highway S107 – Taojia – Tongguanyi
> 
> Original article
> 
> (Translated by Ma Shuangshuang, Fathom Language Limited)
> Editor:Jiang Yiwei



I might have to check these places out on my next visit to Chongqing, unfortunately there were no sample pictures with the original article.


----------



## Short

We have all seen news reports on accidents and crashes at level crossings from many parts of the world but this is something that is certainly unexpected. A cow running down the railway line runs into an unsuspecting sedan as it goes across a level crossing in Ningbo, China.


From a Japanese Twitter account - Unusual level crossing accident in Ningbo, China


----------



## ccdk

*Evolution of Train Tickets*
http://news.hbtv.com.cn/p/1170057.html


----------



## doc7austin

Some photo and video impressions of the Direct Express Train Z163 Lhasa - Shanghai in a Soft Sleeper Cabin.
The train was just used between Nanjing and Shanghai.






































































































Full video report on this Tibet train:








Enjoy!


----------



## doc7austin

There is no real first or second class in these classical Chinese night trains.

You have:
- Superior/Deluxe Soft Sleeper with two berths and an en-suite toilet [no shower] (only available on a limited number of trains)
- Soft Sleeper with four berths in an enclosed compartment
- Hard Sleeper with six berths in an open compartment
- Hard Seat


----------



## ccdk

Online Ticketing development during Chinese New Year travel rush, >80% online ticketing estimated for 2018


----------



## xinxingren

doc7austin said:


> Some photo and video impressions of the Direct Express Train Z163 Lhasa - Shanghai in a Soft Sleeper Cabin.
> The train was just used between Nanjing and Shanghai.


You were going Eastbound. For a long time (might still be) there was a certain point westwards beyond which they will not let you do a short stage like that, in case you are naughty, stay on the train, and go all the way to forbidden Tibet. In 2012 I was refused Baoji-Xining on this train because (their excuse) I didn't have the Tibet permit.


----------



## hkskyline

SS8 0148 by Su Zhenyuan 苏振源, on Flickr


----------



## General Huo

Dali to Ruili railway general situation大瑞铁路工程概况
Including 490m span,212m high Nujiang Railway Bridge Darui(the largest railway arch in the world),and 34.538km Gaoligongshan Tunnel:


----------



## hkskyline

March 17, 2018 
*Trans-Asian Railway construction on track*
China Daily _Excerpt_

Yunnan province will speed up construction of the Trans-Asian Railway within the province and aims to complete a railway network connecting China with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. 

"Our goal is to build a modern railway network that could connect the provincial capital, Kunming, with the bordering nations in five hours and neighboring provinces within eight hours," said Wang Gengjie, general manager of China Railway Kunming Group Co.

Yunnan, in Southwest China, is the center of the Trans-Asian Railway, which is a project to create an integrated freight railway network across Europe and Asia.

As a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress, Wang revealed during the two sessions that all the construction work connecting China with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar is speeding up and expected to be finished by 2021.

Under the current plan, the cross-border railway network will mainly serve freight trains for commercial trade, according to Wang.

The Kunming-Hekou Line connecting Yunnan's capital to the border with Vietnam now has two types of train tracks with different gauges.

The one-meter-wide single track, which matches the track size in Vietnam, has been used for decades and now serves freight trains.

In 2014, the bureau adopted new technology to successfully transform the track size into a wider one, and the one-meter-wide old track still can be used.

The wider track increased the train speed and cut the traveling time from Kunming to Hekou from 18 hours to only six.


----------



## lawdefender

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Rail_map_of_PRC.svg


----------



## Neufunk

I still do not understand why China doesn't get more of its freight on the rails. The investments in high-speed passenger rail are truly mindblowing, but the freight sector is minuscule when compared to countries like USA or Canada, without including bulk transport (with it included, it is still small). 

In Europe, even the smaller container ports have a rail connection, while in China, there are a lot of huge container ports without one. Looking at China's congestion and environmental problems, I can't understand why there is no will to invest in this sector. I am sure that the resources to make this happen are available and that the results in the long term will be great. 

A single, double-stacked, train gets at least 90 trucks off the roads and moves the freight at a fraction of the energy while being much more environmentally friendly. Now think about a dedicated corridor, which allows much longer and heavier trains. You can get as many as 600 trucks off the roads in one single go. Besides, in a well-managed system which isn't overloaded, the railway isn't that susceptible to events such as traffic jams, accidents, etc... 

Here is an example of a 6-kilometre long train. There you have 1,200 TEU. 17 trains like this and you fill one of the new 20,000 TEU COSCO container ships. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdId4rtaeQ


----------



## ScientisT.bass

Neufunk said:


> I still do not understand why China doesn't get more of its freight on the rails. The investments in high-speed passenger rail are truly mindblowing, but the freight sector is minuscule when compared to countries like USA or Canada, without including bulk transport (with it included, it is still small).
> 
> In Europe, even the smaller container ports have a rail connection, while in China, there are a lot of huge container ports without one. Looking at China's congestion and environmental problems, I can't understand why there is no will to invest in this sector. I am sure that the resources to make this happen are available and that the results in the long term will be great.
> 
> A single, double-stacked, train gets at least 90 trucks off the roads and moves the freight at a fraction of the energy while being much more environmentally friendly. Now think about a dedicated corridor, which allows much longer and heavier trains. You can get as many as 600 trucks off the roads in one single go. Besides, in a well-managed system which isn't overloaded, the railway isn't that susceptible to events such as traffic jams, accidents, etc...
> 
> Here is an example of a 6-kilometre long train. There you have 1,200 TEU. 17 trains like this and you fill one of the new 20,000 TEU COSCO container ships.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdId4rtaeQ


Waterways.


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## Neufunk

Sure, but still, from official statistics, there is 5x more transportation on highways than on waterways. I can imagine huge cities such as Chengdu, Xian, etc... and a lot of smaller cities (>1m inhabitants) which still generate a lot of freight traffic. Of course, it is useless to build a dedicated freight corridor parallel to a waterway, but there are lot of places not covered by railways. 

Besides, railways and waterways don't exclude each other. Based on the profitability, you can choose to take containers directly to a coastal port or to an inland one, the containers going further downstream by barge.


----------



## cheehg

Neufunk said:


> I still do not understand why China doesn't get more of its freight on the rails. The investments in high-speed passenger rail are truly mindblowing, but the freight sector is minuscule when compared to countries like USA or Canada, without including bulk transport (with it included, it is still small).
> 
> In Europe, even the smaller container ports have a rail connection, while in China, there are a lot of huge container ports without one. Looking at China's congestion and environmental problems, I can't understand why there is no will to invest in this sector. I am sure that the resources to make this happen are available and that the results in the long term will be great.
> 
> A single, double-stacked, train gets at least 90 trucks off the roads and moves the freight at a fraction of the energy while being much more environmentally friendly. Now think about a dedicated corridor, which allows much longer and heavier trains. You can get as many as 600 trucks off the roads in one single go. Besides, in a well-managed system which isn't overloaded, the railway isn't that susceptible to events such as traffic jams, accidents, etc...
> 
> Here is an example of a 6-kilometre long train. There you have 1,200 TEU. 17 trains like this and you fill one of the new 20,000 TEU COSCO container ships.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYdId4rtaeQ


actually back 10 years ago when MOR planed the master HSR lines there was a plan for 20 container terminals all over the country. the idea was to run scheduled container trains between those terminals so the service will be at least the same travel speed as low level passenger trains. the original HSR plan mean to be replace the most passenger services so the railway can put more freight trains. the lose from HSR will be balanced by incomes from freight. a lot of new lines at that time built with the spec. the railway can handle double stacked container trains, such as the line from Ningbo -Shenzhen, designed for 250km/h passenger and 120km/h freight mixed. but in reality this line has more than 60-80 pairs of HS trains a day in most sections. the freight train won't fit into the schedule. 

I think this plan went to nowhere after the Mr. Liu was removed from Minster. also HSR gains popular over the years. the focus is on building more HSR instead of improving freight service. It may need a more efficient management to actually put CR in a global logistic position. BTW the China-Europe international freight trains are more in focus now. so maybe some day the container terminals plan will be on the table again.


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## Neufunk

.

China - Europe trains are far when it comes to volume from what we could see for domestic Chinese trains. Besides, in other parts of the world, profits from the railway business mostly come from freight instead of passengers. Also, the Europe - China trains have another role when compared to domestic trains.

I can think for example of a Dalian - Shenyang - Changchun - Harbin corridor, with major container terminals in the aforementioned cities and smaller ones along the way, near cities such as Anshan and Siping. None of the cities can make use of their waterways for efficient transportation of containers, but they are highly industrialized and the area hosts a huge population.

Maybe it would even represent an alternative for Russian containers (more than it already does), coming through the Zabaykalsk crossing point, down on "conventional" trains up until Harbin then switching over to the cargo corridor in order to reach the port of Dalian. 

In the long run, by connecting such "local" corridors, China could have a nation-wide network of railways allowing double-stacked containers, which will dominate the market of domestic container transportation, freeing up roads and reducing energy consumption and pollution. When not used for container transportation, these corridors can also be used for other types of freight, freeing up the other lines for passenger traffic, which often travels at much higher speeds and gets in the way of freight trains.


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## cheehg

i think there is another problem for double stacked container trains running on electrified railways in China. the net height of the overhead net is not enough for double stacked TEU. 

you mentioned shaft freight from highway to railway is also the long term plan. that's also the reason China is investing very big in railway. not only HSR but also freight railway too. the first North-South freight railway Meng-Hua (from Baotou-Ji'an) will be finished contraction soon. but the process is slower compare to passenger shafting. High-speed trains are taking express way inter-city passengers in big volume. after 10 years of massive investing in HSR, they are now starting to building regional and suburb railways to connect those to the cities and HSR. railway will play a bigger role in short distance public transportation. in 2017 the average passenger traveled more than 400 km per trip by railway. this distance will be reduced over the years when more regional and suburban railways in service. CRRC already developed some 120-160km/h type of EMU.


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## Neufunk

Of course, it isn't, but I am sure that China has the power to adapt the railways, should that need arise. Besides, even with the current infrastructure, the precentage of freight other than bulk on the railways is quite small. 

Also, with China's need for suburban and regional trains increasing, more pressure will be put on the 'normal' railways, which are also used by freight trains. However, due to their frequence and much higher speed, they will be a great impediment to freight traffic. On a dedicated freight corridor, there would be no such problems, as all trains would probably have the same speed. The MengHua railway is surely a progress, but its main purpose is transporting coal instead of containers.


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## timeandspace

cheehg said:


> in 2017 the average passenger traveled more than 400 km per trip by railway. .


interesting. what is the source?


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## Neufunk

http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2016/indexeh.htm


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## hkskyline

DF4D 0525 by Su Zhenyuan 苏振源, on Flickr


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## General Huo

It is not simply put a second route. It is a total upgrading. The new line will have speed to 200km/h for whole route, much faster than old one. It is double track, fully electrified. Basically it builds a new HSR (200km/h) along old route which has less curvature. It has 63% of whole route either on bridges or in tunnels, which is very high.



Sunfuns said:


> Do you have a map with an approximate route of this new line?
> 
> Do I understand correctlu that this is a second route to supersede this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangtong–Dali_railway


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## General Huo

There are several super long tunnels in the new Kunming-Dali railway, like Pupeng No1 Tunnel (普棚一号隧道) is 13.795km (8.57mi) long double track tunnel, and Xianghe Tunnel (祥和隧道) is 10.22km (6.35mi) long double track tunnel.


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## lookback718

General Huo said:


> Kunming-Guangtong-Dali Railway will open soon. It is part of Sino-Burma Railroad. Speed is 200km/h.


Glad to hear this long delayed project is finally nearing completion. From memory it started in 2008/9 and then was put on ice when the Dali-Ruli railway construction was paused around 2011. 

It's a pity, because the delay from circa 2011 of the lines from Yunnan to Myanmar and Laos has cost SE Asia forgone economic growth. Also with the line to Lijiang in operation, the old very slow line was like a missing link for tourists. 

Also, looking forward to taking this line sometime. I've been to Dali a couple of times and always used to take the bus. Next time I'm their I'll be able to take a train to Shangri La, Burma, and Xishuangbanna. I'd even be able to take a train from Kunming to Chengdu, in a timely manner unlike the very slow line that currently exists. Maybe even there will be a line from Lijiang (Dali) to Panzhihua and then onwards to Chengdu or where ever.



Sunfuns said:


> Do you have a map with an approximate route of this new line?


Yeah I've got a google earth KML map. Send me a private message and I'll email it to you.


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## xinxingren

General Huo said:


> It is not simply put a second route. It is a total upgrading. The new line will have speed to 200km/h for whole route, much faster than old one. It is double track, fully electrified. Basically it builds a new HSR (200km/h) along old route which has less curvature. It has 63% of whole route either on bridges or in tunnels, which is very high.


Anning-Guangtong has been in operation since mid-2014. The section Kunming-Anning was being dug/tunnelled under Kunming streets during late 2014. Local coal trains were still using the old line to Lufeng.


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## General Huo

Laying tracks on Tangshan-Caofeidian Railroad
近日，河北唐（山）曹（妃甸）铁路完成桥梁架设，工人正加紧铺轨。据介绍，该线路设计时速160公里，计划今年6月底通车。


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## General Huo

Muzhailing Tunnel on Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway, it is 19.06km dual tube tunnel, one of most difficult tunnels in the world. It opens in 2017


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## General Huo

Xijiang Railroad bridge rotates for closure
新疆跨度最大双线铁路桥完成转体合龙 全长1063米的乌西乌北铁路联络线上跨乌奎高速双线立交特大桥逆时针转动55度，历时74分钟跨越乌奎高速公路，两端梁体实现精准对接，这标志着新疆跨度最大的双线铁路转体桥合龙施工顺利完成。


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## General Huo

Largest beam manufacture center in China for Menghua railroad
鸟瞰蒙华铁路全国最大制梁场


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## General Huo

Hongdao Railroad Station will serve Jinan-Qingdao HSR and Qingdao-Lianyungang HSR. It will open by end of 2018


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## lawdefender

http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/2018-05-02/doc-ifzvpats0596198.shtml

China Railway Corporation recently disclosed the 2017 annual report. During the period, the company's total revenue was approximately RMB 1.02 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.9% from the same period of 2016; total profit was RMB 60.795 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 53.35 % to 2016.

According to the 2017 annual report, its total liabilities continued to climb, rising to 4.99 trillion yuan. Among them, the long-term liabilities were 4.19 trillion yuan, accounting for 83.98% of the total liabilities. In addition, the China Railway Group’s quarterly report in 2018 showed that liabilities amounted to approximately 5.04 trillion yuan, the highest in five years.


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## cheehg

lawdefender said:


> http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/2018-05-02/doc-ifzvpats0596198.shtml
> 
> China Railway Corporation recently disclosed the 2017 annual report. During the period, the company's total revenue was approximately RMB 1.02 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.9% from the same period of 2016; total profit was RMB 60.795 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 53.35 % to 2016.
> 
> According to the 2017 annual report, its total liabilities continued to climb, rising to 4.99 trillion yuan. Among them, the long-term liabilities were 4.19 trillion yuan, accounting for 83.98% of the total liabilities. In addition, the China Railway Group’s quarterly report in 2018 showed that liabilities amounted to approximately 5.04 trillion yuan, the highest in five years.


The liabilities in other countries will be the investment from the National Treasure. It is just a way to not put them in the national budget. or bypass the legal procedures needed for national budget approval. In a way, that's why China can build HSR so fast.


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## General Huo

Meng-Hua Railroad, the longest heavy-haul rail in China, is from Inner Monglia to Jiangxi.

蒙华铁路是国内最长运煤专线，北起内蒙古浩勒报吉站，终点到达江西省吉安市。线路全长1837公里，规划设计输送能力为2亿吨每年。预计2019年3月全部完成架梁铺轨建设任务。


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## General Huo

Jinhua-Taizhou Railroad u/c. It is 226km long
金台铁路连接着金华、丽水、台州三地市，全长226.12公里，预计2019年底前建成通车。


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## godetto

General Huo said:


> *Kunming-Guangtong-Dali Railway* will open soon. It is part of Sino-Burma Railroad. Speed is 200km/h.
> 中缅国际通道昆广大铁路开始联调联试


Really interesting info. 
Has the opening date been announced? 

Some articles in the web tell "July 2018". Is this date correct?


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## tjrgx

*Hanjiang Bridge of Menghua Railway under construction in C China's Hubei*

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-05/08/c_137163381.htm

The Hanjiang Bridge of the Menghua Railway is under construction across the Hanjiang River in Xiangyang City, central China's Hubei Province, May 7, 2018. The 5,242-meter bridge is an important part of the 1,817-kilometer heavy-duty railway for coal transport linking north China's coal-rich Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with central and south China. (Xinhua/Jin Wei)


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## tjrgx

*Menghua Railway built for coal transport from north China to central and south China*

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-05/08/c_137163640.htm

Workers prepare a track panel for the Menghua Railway construction in Xiangyang City, central China's Hubei Province, May 7, 2018. The 1,817-kilometer heavy-duty railway under construction is for coal transport from north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to central and south China. (Xinhua/Du Huaju)


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## tjrgx

*China approves railway project in Xinjiang*

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-05/08/c_137164333.htm

BEIJING, May 8 (Xinhua) -- China's top economic planner has approved a railway project linking Hotan Prefecture and Ruoqiang County in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, with a total investment of 22.15 billion yuan (3.48 billion U.S. dollars).

Spanning 825 kilometers in southern Xinjiang, the railway will have 69 stops, with a top-speed of 120 kilometers per hour, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

The project, which will take 3.5 years, is expected to help boost local economy, support poverty alleviation projects, and promote coordinated development in Xinjiang, the commission said.

China spent 801 billion yuan on railway projects and put 3,038 km of new tracks into operation in 2017, meeting its annual targets of 800 billion yuan of investment and 2,100 km of new lines, according to the China Railway Corporation.

By the end of 2017, China's railways in operation reached 127,000 km. Among the total, high-speed railways rose to 25,000 km, from 22,000 km at the end of 2016.


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## General Huo

Menghua Railroad u/c
蒙华铁路加紧施工 蒙华铁路北起内蒙古鄂尔多斯，终至江西吉安，是“北煤南运”的重要运输通道，也是目前世界上一次性投资建成里程最长的重载铁路，规划年运输能力超过2亿吨。新华社记者 李安 摄


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## General Huo

Jingxi-Longbang Expressway u/c in Guangxi
中越边境靖西至龙邦高速公路有望年底通车


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## Sopomon

The bottom pictures seem to be of a highway?


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## General Huo

Yuanjiang Rail Bridge for Sino-Laos Railway u/c. The bridge has world's tallest pier for rail bridge, 154 meters tall.

中老铁路首座跨红河双线特大桥开始架梁
元江特大桥位于云南省元江哈尼族彝族傣族自治县，是中老铁路全线重点控制性工程和红河上第一座铁路双线特大桥。大桥最高的3号桥墩高154米，相当于54层楼高，是世界双线铁路特大桥第一高墩；主跨249米，为世界同类桥梁最大跨度。
http://www.peoplerail.com/rail/show-478-383429-1.html























































http://finance.chinanews.com/cj/2018/06-22/8544050.shtml


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## General Huo

Europe-bound freight trains from Urumqi exceed 1,200 since 2016
A transport hub in China's Urumqi has run more than 1,200 westbound trains on China-Europe routes since it opened in 2016.


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## hkskyline

_B9A5522 by Mahkram, on Flickr


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## General Huo

Sneak peek of supersize bridge for China-Laos railway

Supersize me! Builders have installed the first steel truss complex of the massive Yuanjiang railway bridge in Yunnan, southwest China. This is a milestone for the ambitious China-Laos railway project.


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## ccdk

*In Europe's east, a border town strains under China's Silk Road train boom*
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...der-chinas-silk-road-train-boom-idUSKBN1JM34M

YIWU, China/MALASZEWICZE, Poland (Reuters) - When cargo trains from China began arriving at the Polish border town of Malaszewicze almost a decade ago, they were considered a novelty - able to ship laptops and cars to Europe in as little as two weeks, but extremely infrequent, with one service a month.

However a surge in the number of trains over the past year, fueled by Beijing’s plans to grow trade along ancient Silk Road routes to Europe, has left authorities scrambling to meet demand that has ballooned to as many as 200 locomotives a month.

Rail shipments have experienced delays of over ten days at land ports in both Europe and China, bogged down by insufficient infrastructure and paperwork pileups, shippers say. That congestion is anticipated to worsen as Chinese authorities encourage a further ramp up in volumes.

The situation illustrates how China’s Belt and Road initiative is delivering some successes but also how its partners are struggling to keep up.

The rail network, used by companies like Hewlett Packard, the sports gear company Decathlon and the carmaker Volvo, handled 3,673 train trips between China and Europe in 2017, up from 1,702 in 2016 and just 17 in 2011, according to China Railway, the national operator.

To view a graphic on China-Europe Railway Express img, click: tmsnrt.rs/2txkLZJ

The network remains unprofitable and heavily supported by subsidies, but Chinese city authorities have launched new services with fervor after it was subsumed under the four-year-old Belt and Road initiative.

In 2016, China’s top state planner named the network “China Railway Express” and said it wants train trips to hit an annual number of 5,000 by 2020.

By April, the number of regular rail services linking China and Europe jumped from just one in 2011, between Chongqing and Duisburg in Germany, to 65, connecting 43 Chinese cities and 42 destinations in 14 countries including Spain and Britain, China Railway said on its website.

Carsten Pottharst, managing director of InterRail Europe, is among a number of freight forwarders who expressed frustration to Reuters about congestion on the network, citing insufficient government investment in European railway infrastructure.

“They believed that they would come, but they didn’t believe that it would become that big,” he said.

CONGESTION

While congestion occurs across the network, much of the shippers’ frustrations are being directed at Malaszewicze, which handles roughly 90 percent of the cargo.

There, containers which travel from China through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus on Russian gauge tracks are transferred to other trains running on European standard ones.

The land port processed nearly 74,000 containers in 2017, four times the volume it handled in 2015, earning Poland nearly 400 million zlotys ($109.02 million) in tax and customs revenues last year, Polish tax and customs authorities said.

But PKP Cargo, the Polish state-controlled rail operator that runs the main terminal, said in March that the current infrastructure was unable to handle the anticipated growth. Europort, which runs a private rail terminal, said that in late 2017 there were queues as long as 100 trains awaiting entry to Poland from Belarus.

“This is a huge challenge and a huge chance,” said PKP Cargo’s chief executive, Czeslaw Warsewicz in March.

PKP Cargo said in an e-mail that there were currently no queues at its terminal, and that it was looking to expand capacity and cooperate with private terminal operators to shorten loading times. Poland’s infrastructure ministry, meanwhile, said the government was considering opening a second border crossing with Belarus.

However, shippers say they are concerned that the improvements will not happen fast enough.

This is worrying locals such as Krzysztof Iwaniuk, mayor of Terespol Municipality, which includes Malaszewicze, who has seen the town and surrounding areas benefit from the rail trade.

On a recent visit to Malaszewicze, Reuters saw navy blue shipping containers emblazoned with the China Railway Express logo stacked up in rail terminals, as well as new roads and a local government headquarters.

Iwaniuk said he was worried that PKP Cargo’s upgrade plan would not meet anticipated volume growth and that the town would lose traffic to other transhipment hubs.

“We are sounding an alarm that we use this historic opportunity,” he said. “If we don’t properly use these five minutes in history, it will be over.”

AMBITIOUS TARGETS

In China, meanwhile, the flood of containers into Europe is expected to keep surging as city authorities try to outdo each other promoting Belt and Road, President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative.

Chongqing in southwestern China, which recorded 663 trips last year, is targeting 1,000 trips, while Xi’an, home to China’s terracotta army, also wants to hit 1,000 trips, according to state media and government statements.

Yiwu city in the eastern province of Zhejiang, home to one of the world’s largest wholesale trading centres, plans to increase trip numbers from 168 in 2017 to 350 this year, said Simon Jian, assistant to the chairman of Yiwu Timex Industrial Investment, a rail service provider.

Slideshow (10 Images)
Industry executives say the network is currently unprofitable as cargo volumes have not reached a sustainable level, and costs are higher than shipping by sea.

But it is attracting business from companies selling goods like cars and electronics because it can deliver them as much as 20 days faster than sea at a lower cost than by air.

“We’ve probably managed to reduce our logistics costs thanks to China Railway Express,” said Hu Jie, a Suzhou-based logistics director at Pegatron Corp, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that began using the rail route in 2015.

For now, Chinese government subsidies are supporting the rail operations.

A study published by the Shanghai-based Donghua University last year estimated that provincial governments in China had collectively spent $303 million subsidizing China-Europe block trains - generally those carrying goods to destinations without being split up en route - between 2011 to 2016.

Jian said that firms would likely need to charge $10,000 per container to make a profit but subsidies allowed many to charge about $3,000-6,000 per container. Some were offering rates as low as $1,000 per container, about the same as shipping by sea.

“It’s very chaotic,” he said.

INFRASTRUCTURE

There is currently far less rail congestion on trips back from Europe to China, reflecting the large trade deficit between two partners.

Polish government sources said there was concern that China was not doing enough to open its market to foreign producers. One official said there was growing concern that the new Silk Road might become a one-way gateway to flood Europe with China-made goods.

The United States is currently threatening a trade war with Beijing in a bid to cut its own trade balance with China.

As trains pile up in Malaszewicze, some shippers are looking to move goods through Finland, which launched a rail freight service with China in November, or Lithuania and Estonia.

But new transhipment hubs also had drawbacks, they said, citing longer travel times and less familiarity with services and issues like processing paperwork.

“We need the entire network to be upgraded and more railway stations to be built,” said an executive at Wuhan Asia-Europe Logistics, which manages trains from Wuhan, in central China.

Ronald Kleijwegt, the managing director of Jusda Europe, a logistics unit of the contract manufacturer Foxconn, said that would be an uphill task in Europe.

“It’s a win-win if we start ironing out all these bottlenecks,” said Kleijwegt. “But the demand and requirements of supply chain are sometimes difficult to understand for politicians to understand.”


----------



## saiho

Something I didn't know. Shaoxing opened a commuter railway service on the Xiaoshan–Ningbo railway in April 2018 using CRH6As.










Pic Source

Source


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## chornedsnorkack

saiho said:


> Something I didn't know. Shaoxing opened a commuter railway service on the Xiaoshan–Ningbo railway in April 2018 using CRH6As.


What is the distance?
How many stops?
What is the trip time?


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## cheehg

saiho said:


> Something I didn't know. Shaoxing opened a commuter railway service on the Xiaoshan–Ningbo railway in April 2018 using CRH6As.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pic Source
> 
> Source


Yes. Ningbo did same for S1 Ningbo-Yuyao section using 3 CRH6F, 2 8-car sets and 1 4-car set.

Shaoxin uses 2 4-car sets. 

The trains are still operating by CR shanghai. Local gov. buys train sets and pays fee to use the paths.

Zhejiang province has its own plan for the suburban lines for 5 cities mostly independent from National railway system.
Most of the lines will use railway standard. some of them are metro standard.
operators will be local public transit companies. 

Zhejiang has shares on Xiaoshan-Ningbo line. This line has spare capacity.


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## chornedsnorkack

cheehg said:


> Zhejiang has shares on Xiaoshan-Ningbo line. This line has spare capacity.


This line also has deprecated stations.
For 23 km between Cicheng and Shushan, only deprecated Yejia and Zhangting stations. Their longest interval is 10 km. And 27 km from Yuyao West to Shangyu, with 3 deprecated stations, longest interval 9 km between them.


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## ozwuli

The length of the China's high speed rail system is staggering. It's longer than the rest of the world's HSR system combined.


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## cheehg

chornedsnorkack said:


> This line also has deprecated stations.
> For 23 km between Cicheng and Shushan, only deprecated Yejia and Zhangting stations. Their longest interval is 10 km. And 27 km from Yuyao West to Shangyu, with 3 deprecated stations, longest interval 9 km between them.


They will re-open those stations in the second phase.
Now those trains run like an intercity direct but it should be more like a commuter.


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## teddybear

OOT. Found a video in 2005 accident on railway in Osaka Japan. many loss lives and injured. So it's not true that Japan has no railway accident, like some questions from forumers previously. We are all humans, and can make mistakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdHIVcGtANk


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## Pansori

teddybear said:


> So it's not true that Japan has no railway accident, like some questions from forumers previously. We are all humans, and can make mistakes.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdHIVcGtANk


I don't think anyone ever said that there were no railway accidents in Japan resulting in loss of life.

Perhaps you are mixing up with the fact that there were no high-speed rail accidents in Japan resulting in loss of life?


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## General Huo

Menghua Railway Aerial 航拍蒙华铁路河南段


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## General Huo

The first 10,000 tonne freight train in northwest China's Xinjiang has been put into use.


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## General Huo

Two heavily loaded trains were used to protect a rail bridge on Fu River in Sichuan from collapsing by heavy flooding.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2018-07-11/doc-ihfefkqq3893896.shtml


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## General Huo

Two cargo trains helped prevent a bridge from collapsing due to the rising water levels of a river in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The trains, each weighing thousands of tons, stabilized the Fujiang bridge by increasing its weight. Torrential rain in the province has contributed to damaging floods and landslides.


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## tigerleapgorge

Balls of steel to be driving the train in that condition.


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## General Huo

Menghua Railroad Fen River Bridge u/c
http://www.cr124.com/Product/Show.aspx?type=15&id=1939


----------



## juicycoconuts

Wanted to share this https://youtu.be/4_1FONt_xRA


----------



## General Huo




----------



## General Huo

http://sx.sina.cn/news/xian/2019-09-18/detail-iicezzrq6600929.d.html

Western Network News (Reporter Qin Yi) The reporter learned from China National Railway Group Co., Ltd. that the national "Northern Coal South Transportation" new channel, China Railway Freight Demonstration Line - Inner Mongolia Haole Baoji to Jiangxi Ji'an Railway (hereinafter referred to as Haoji Railway, ie The original Mengxi-Central China Railway will soon be opened for operation, and the Chinese railway map will add a new energy transportation channel that runs through the north and south.

The total length of the connected Haoji Railway is 1813.5 kilometers. It is the world's longest-running railway with the longest operating mileage. It runs from the South China, Erdos City, Inner Mongolia, to the South China Railway Station, passing through Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hubei. Hunan and Jiangxi provinces and seven provinces, and finally to the Ji’an Railway Station. The circuit design has a speed of 120 kilometers per hour and is a state-owned railway I-class electrified railway with a design investment of 193.04 billion yuan. Among them, Haole reported that the south of Taoli to the south of Taoli Temple and the section of Yueyang to Ji'an are single-track railways, and two-line conditions are reserved. The rest are two-line. railway. There are 77 new stations on the whole line, with an annual transportation capacity of more than 200 million tons.


----------



## General Huo




----------



## TM_Germany

Is that railway going to be used exclusively for coal transports? How about container or liquids? I assume that China wants to get rid of/reduce the amount of coal fired power plants in the mid-term as well, so building all this new infrastructure for coal transportation seems a little strange to me.


----------



## General Huo

Hao-Ji Railway


----------



## General Huo




----------



## xinxingren

TM_Germany said:


> Is that railway going to be used exclusively for coal transports? How about container or liquids? I assume that China wants to get rid of/reduce the amount of coal fired power plants in the mid-term as well, so building all this new infrastructure for coal transportation seems a little strange to me.


China has been building a number of new "clean coal" power stations along the southeast coast. I presume at Ji'an these coal trains will move onto other lines towards the coast, and eliminate the present double handling of coal by rail to Qinhuangdao then by ship to the coastal power stations.


----------



## General Huo




----------



## General Huo




----------



## foxmulder

That (hospital train) is smart. Good idea. 

As another note, that smart freight train is just the beginning. With the 5G, divers will become just redundancy to keep passengers happy and for some extreme emergency protocols.


----------



## General Huo




----------



## General Huo

Changchun-Songyuan rail by new trains with speed of 160 km/h.


----------



## zergcerebrates

General Huo said:


> Changchun-Songyuan rail by new trains with speed of 160 km/h.



It’s cool that China started to paint its trains with different colors but I think if they use the traditional darker green with the gold stripe it’ll look very classy.


----------



## Bhurki18

zergcerebrates said:


> It’s cool that China started to paint its trains with different colors but I think if they use the traditional darker green with the gold stripe it’ll look very classy.


Do these trains run on conventional ballasted tracks or ballastless PDL ?
Just found out the answer, the C1557 going from Changchun to Tongyu first goes to Baicheng using HSR track and then uses conventional track to turn around towards tongyu.


----------



## cheehg

Bhurki18 said:


> Do these trains run on conventional ballasted tracks or ballastless PDL ?
> Just found out the answer, the C1557 going from Changchun to Tongyu first goes to Baicheng using HSR track and then uses conventional track to turn around towards tongyu.


Those trains CR200J are to replace the conventional trains on legacy tracks. Although in China, some PDL lines are used by both conventional and HS trains. 
the benefits:
quick turn around at the terminal.
low maintenance costs than HS train sets. 
better passenger riding experience (better seats)


A lot of fans don't like it because the ticket price is more expensive than Z series trains. But for the passengers in the area without HSR, those trains are more popular than conventional trains. 

So we will see more Green CR200J in China in the future. except extra long distance trains, they will replace most other conventional trains in next few years.


----------



## General Huo

Dali-Lincang railroad


----------



## General Huo

Lahsa-Nyingchi railway will open next year.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

cheehg said:


> Those trains CR200J are to replace the conventional trains on legacy tracks. Although in China, some PDL lines are used by both conventional and HS trains.
> the benefits:
> quick turn around at the terminal.
> low maintenance costs than HS train sets.
> better passenger riding experience (better seats)
> 
> 
> A lot of fans don't like it because the ticket price is more expensive than Z series trains. But for the passengers in the area without HSR, those trains are more popular than conventional trains.
> 
> So we will see more Green CR200J in China in the future. except extra long distance trains, they will replace most other conventional trains in next few years.


Are those CR200J only EMUs, or also DMUs?


----------



## cheehg

chornedsnorkack said:


> Are those CR200J only EMUs, or also DMUs?


CR200j is EMU only. i think they are also doing DMU and dual one.


----------



## saiho

CRH6A testing on the Zhuji Intercity Line posted by Kejin


----------



## General Huo

Shashangou Railway Bridge敦格铁路沙山沟特大桥


----------



## General Huo

Dunhuang-Golmud railroad
12月15日无人机拍摄的塞什腾山附近敦煌铁路铁道









12月16日无人机拍摄的敦煌铁路大柴旦站附近的一处铁路桥









12月18日，在青海格尔木，中国铁路青藏集团有限公司西宁机务段列车司机季仁千扎西在开通仪式上准备发车。









这是12月15日无人机拍摄的塞什腾山附近敦煌铁路铁道。









12月18日在青海格尔木市拍摄的敦煌铁路开通仪式现场









12月16日无人机拍摄的敦煌铁路大柴旦站附近的一处铁路桥。









12月15日无人机拍摄的敦煌铁路塞什腾隧道。









12月16日无人机拍摄的敦煌铁路大柴旦站附近的一处铁路桥。










12月18日，在青海格尔木，列车驶出格尔木站。


----------



## General Huo




----------



## General Huo

Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen intercity rail


----------



## General Huo




----------



## General Huo

Bravo to Chinese rail works. They are the BEST!

http://www.sohu.com/a/337208474_784145


----------



## Augustão d2

edit


----------



## gao7

*China's railways report 3.57b passenger trips in 2019*
BEIJING - The number of passenger trips served by China's railways reached 3.57 billion in 2019, up 7.7 percent year on year, according to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.
Of the total, around 2.29 billion passenger trips were made on bullet trains, up 14.1 percent from 2018.
Meanwhile, the country's railways carried 3.44 billion tonnes of cargo last year, up 7.8 percent year on year.
Revenue of the railway transport industry totaled 818 billion yuan (about $118 billion), increasing by 6.1 percent from a year ago.
By the end of 2019, China's railway operation mileage reached 139,000 km, with 35,000 km on high-speed railways.
http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202001/03/WS5e0eada7a310cf3e355824c4.html


----------



## chornedsnorkack

gao7 said:


> BEIJING - The number of passenger trips served by China's railways reached 3.57 billion in 2019, up 7.7 percent year on year,





gao7 said:


> Of the total, around 2.29 billion passenger trips were made on bullet trains, up 14.1 percent from 2018.
> Meanwhile, the country's railways carried 3.44 billion tonnes of cargo last year, up 7.8 percent year on year.
> Revenue of the railway transport industry totaled 818 billion yuan (about $118 billion), increasing by 6.1 percent from a year ago.


Compare-
volumes:
7,7 percent
14,1 percent
7,8 percent
revenue 
6,1 percent
Revenue increase is smaller than any of the volume increases.
Therefore rail travel must have got cheaper!


----------



## NCT

Or growth in volumes was concentrated on shorter distance flows.


----------



## cheehg

Actually the freight rate is reduced and passenger rate is increased.


----------



## hkskyline

*Tibet to enhance rail, flight network in 2020 *

LHASA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region will continue to enhance its railroad, flight and highway network in 2020, according to the ongoing third session of the 11th People's Congress of the region.

The construction on the Sichuan-Tibet Railway will be accelerated, including the Lhasa-Nyingchi section of the railway, said Qizhala, chairman of the regional government.

A new terminal at the Lhasa Gonggar Airport will also be built to greatly slash the travel time between Tibet and other regions, according to Qizhala.

The Sichuan-Tibet Railway is the second railway into Tibet after the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The line will go through the southeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, one of the world's most geologically active areas.


----------



## foxmulder

AMAZING pictures with the workers here.


----------



## NCT

foxmulder said:


> AMAZING pictures with the workers here.


Insufficient PPE.


----------



## foxmulder

NCT said:


> Insufficient PPE.


Your positive energy blossoms like cherry trees. Could you be more negative next time?


----------



## Pansori

foxmulder said:


> Your positive energy blossoms like cherry trees. Could you be more negative next time?


I share your emotion but he does have a point here. Proper use of PPE and following H&S rules tend to have an extremely strong correlation with society's level of sociocultural and to an extent economic development. Basically, these photos shout about themselves 'we are backward because we don't care about our health and safety'. Lack of consideration to one's health, safety and immediate surroundings is attributable to poor, underdeveloped and backward countries that China is trying not to be. Chinese railways are among the strongest showcases of development and progress. That's why next time they pose for a photo op on a construction site they should put the f*cking helmets on. Better even, put them on at all times while onsite.


----------



## foxmulder

Pansori said:


> I share your emotion but he does have a point here. Proper use of PPE and following H&S rules tend to have an extremely strong correlation with society's level of sociocultural and to an extent economic development. Basically, these photos shout about themselves 'we are backward because we don't care about our health and safety'. Lack of consideration to one's health, safety and immediate surroundings is attributable to poor, underdeveloped and backward countries that China is trying not to be. Chinese railways are among the strongest showcases of development and progress. That's why next time they pose for a photo op on a construction site they should put the f*cking helmets on. Better even, put them on at all times while onsite.


Fatal accident in Chinese HSR construction is almost nonexistent. When you consider the scale of the network it is incredible and proves there is consideration for health and safety. Procedures are more important than the face saving measures.


----------



## KillerZavatar

I see a lot of areas where regulations require special glasses, ear protection and helmets and a lot of workers do not wear them. I think the problem is enforcement of safety measures and trying to shape the mentality of the workers. I did an internship in a company producing steel pipes before and some managers were not wearing ear protection, gloves or glasses. Of course the regular workers won't wear them either and the managers won't make them, if they are not doing it themselves.


----------



## Pansori

KillerZavatar said:


> I see a lot of areas where regulations require special glasses, ear protection and helmets and a lot of workers do not wear them. I think the problem is enforcement of safety measures and trying to shape the mentality of the workers. I did an internship in a company producing steel pipes before and some managers were not wearing ear protection, gloves or glasses. Of course the regular workers won't wear them either and the managers won't make them, if they are not doing it themselves.


What country? Singapore, Japan, UK?


----------



## cheehg

foxmulder said:


> Fatal accident in Chinese HSR construction is almost nonexistent. When you consider the scale of the network it is incredible and proves there is consideration for health and safety. Procedures are more important than the face saving measures.


It is not true. they just don't report those accidents right way.


----------



## saiho

SS-287


----------



## saiho

火车天下


----------



## saiho

火车天下


----------



## hkskyline

* Track-laying progresses in Xinjiang *
China Daily _Excerpt_
May 13, 2020

Track-laying work has picked up steam on a major railway project in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, marking huge progress for a loop line circling the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, according to the country's top railway operator.

The 825-kilometer railway, linking Hotan prefecture with Ruoqiang county in the Mongolian autonomous prefecture of Bayingolin, saw track-laying work begin on Sunday, according to China State Railway Group.

With a designed speed of 120 km per hour, it will pass seven prefecture-level regions in Xinjiang and finally be connected to the Golmud-Korla railway, linking the city of Golmud in Qinghai province and the city of Korla in Xinjiang, the latest passage in and out of Xinjiang that is scheduled to open to traffic later this year.

With construction having started in 2018, the Hotan-Ruoqiang railway is expected to be put into operation next year. By then, a loop railway network circling the Tarim Basin will have taken shape, said China State Railway Group.

The loop railway will greatly cut travel time for local residents and play an important role in promoting regional socio-economic growth, the company added.

More : Track-laying progresses in Xinjiang


----------



## saiho

做奥迪的王大帅


----------



## saiho

Lifan_Z


----------



## General Huo

Mile-Mengzi railway in Yunnan under construction


----------



## General Huo

Fuzhou-Pingtan Rail u/c


----------



## saiho

幺局幺段


----------



## indianrailfan

^^^^
Daqin line? Or Haoji?


----------



## General Huo

The first local PPP railway Wenma Railway in Guizhou is almost built


----------



## saiho

indianrailfan said:


> ^^^^
> Daqin line? Or Haoji?


Actually I think it's the connection line between Shanghai Hongqiao Station and the Jinghu Conventional Line.


----------



## General Huo

Jinhua-Taizhou Rail u/c in Zhejiang


----------



## saiho

兰局天段


----------



## lawdefender

*Official Data from Transport Ministry :*

Till the end of 2019,

*the national railway operating mileage was 139,000 kilometers*, an increase of 6.1% over the previous year.

Among them, *the operating mileage of high-speed railway reached 35,000 kilometers.*

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is estimated that by the end of 2020,

*the total mileage of national railway operations will reach 146,000 kilometers, *covering approximately 99% of cities with a population of 200,000 and above.

Among them, *the high-speed railway (including intercity railway) is about 39,000 kilometers*


http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0512/c1004-31705742.html

½»Í¨ÔËÊä²¿£º½ñÄêµ×È«¹úÌúÂ·×ÜÀï³Ì½«´ï14.6Íò¹«Àï--ÈËÃñÍøÆû³µ--ÈËÃñÍø


----------



## General Huo

Chengdu-Kunming Railway new line from Miyi to Panzhihua opens to traffic, speed up to 160 km/h.


----------



## General Huo

Quzhou-Ningde railway sets to open in september


----------



## saiho

一方沃土0


----------



## saiho

绿皮本务摄影工作室


----------



## saiho

宁错停不盲行


----------



## saiho

LSBandLEX


----------



## saiho

马小LLiaannngggg


----------



## saiho

Seagull4B


----------



## saiho

温兰旅客


----------



## kyah117

Great shots ! Do you have the location of these ?


----------



## saiho

I have no idea exactly where these are taken. The orginal post is pictures showing how DF4 locos are still being operated throughout China. So if you can figure out where DF4s are still being used, that will narrow things down.


----------



## Zaz965

dear saiho, how much percent of China railways are elictrified?


----------



## saiho

Zaz965 said:


> dear saiho, how much percent of China railways are elictrified?


About 70% or ~100,000 km, the longest electrified network in the world.

Source


----------



## saiho

温兰旅客


----------



## Zaz965

dear saiho, is there toilet inside the locomotive?


----------



## saiho

温兰旅客


----------



## saiho

温兰旅客


----------



## saiho

温兰旅客


----------



## Transhumanista

What is the progress on the railway line to Nepal?
Has this come out of the planning phase yet?


----------



## Vishek

Transhumanista said:


> What is the progress on the railway line to Nepal?
> Has this come out of the planning phase yet?


Isn't the region too mountainous for a high speed railway? I've been arguing that the Indian high speed railways should be built to broad gauge rather than standard gauge, mainly because there's very few international rail links that can be made from India. Nepal is one exception but the country is in broad gauge anyway, so I'm wondering whether this Chinese proposal will be in high speed or legacy speed? Even if the Chinese were willing to build a high speed railway, it's unlikely that Indians and Chinese would see any real time benefits considering the distances to the far-eastern cities where Chinese people actually live and Indians will want to visit.


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Vishek said:


> Isn't the region too mountainous for a high speed railway?


The whole existing line from Xining through Lhasa to Shigatse is slow speed anyway. Any plans to continue across Nepal border?


----------



## saiho

HXD3G high power loco by T495


----------



## saiho

广铁海段 Haikou commuter trains

 
 
 
 
 
 
URL=imgbox - fast, simple image host]







[/URL]


----------



## saiho

CJ5E-A regional EMU by 铁道视界


----------



## saiho

CRH6F and CJ6 regional EMUs on the Changzhutan Intercity Railway by 奥雷里亚诺·SS8-0215


----------



## Ghostpoet

28·8 MW freight locomotive unveiled


CHINA: CRRC Zhuzhou has unveiled first of eight 28·8 MW six-section electric locomotives which mining company China Shenhua Energy Co has ordered for hauling 10 000 tonne coal trains on 1·2% gradients on the 266 km Shenmu - Shuozhou line. Designated Shen 24, ...




www.railwaygazette.com





Ghostpoet


----------



## gao7

*China approves $US 68bn inter-city plan for Pearl River Delta*
China's National Development and Reform Commission (NRDC) has approved a Yuan 474.1bn ($US 67.91bn) plan to develop inter-city railway connections in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay area of southern China.

The plan comprises 13 separate new line projects, which will add a total of 775km to the railway network, two track expansion projects, and the redevelopment of Guangzhou Railway Station and Guangzhou East Railway Station. The plan envisages that the region will have 4700km of railway infrastructure in operation or under construction by 2025, expanding to 5700km by 2035, covering all major cities in the region.

The plan comprises seven new line projects on which construction will start before 2022:

Qianhai Free Trade Zone – Huicheng South section (including Dapeng branch line) of the Shenzhen – Huizhou line (133km, Yuan 78.1bn)
Shenzhen Airport – Pingshan section of the Shenzhen Airport – Daya Bay inter-city line (70km, Yuan 43.5bn)
Guangzhou North – Guangzhou section of Guangqing inter-city line (26km, Yuan 6.3bn)
Guangzhou – Dongguan – Shenzhen inter-city south extension (35km, Yuan 24.4bn)
Xiaojinkou – Huizhou North section of the Guanhui inter-city line (8km, Yuan 4.3bn)
Guangqing Intercity north extension (21km, Yuan 6.3bn), and
Guangzhou – Guangzhou South (15km, Yuan 7.7bn).
Construction on a project to add a fifth and sixth track between Guangzhou East and Xintang (29km, Yuan 5.8bn) and to redevelop Guangzhou East Railway Station Reconstruction Project (Yuan 2.5bn) will also start before 2022.

A further seven new line projects, one track expansion scheme and the redevelopment of Guangzhou Railway Station (Yuan 18.3bn) are planned but with no confirmed start date:

Zhongnan – Tangxia section of the Zhongnanhu inter-city line (63km, Yuan 22.2bn)
Tangxia – Longgang (65km, Yuan 22.4bn)
Changping – Longhua (40km, Yuan 16.5bn)
Nansha – Zhuhai (79km, Yuan 48.6bn)
Foshan – Guangzhou – Dongguan (107km, Yuan 95.3bn)
Guangzhou East – Huadu Tiangui (38km, Yuan 28.5bn)
Fangcun – Baiyun Airport (39km, Yuan 32.5bn), and
Guangzhou – Guangzhou East track quadrupling (7km, Yuan 5.5bn).









NRDC says the new projects will improve integration with existing high-speed, suburban railway networks as well as transit services at major hubs centred on Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, on the border with Macau, along with Zhaoqing East and Pearl River Delta Airport stations. The goal is to offer journey times of one hour between the major cities in the Greater Bay Area and in Guangdong province, and three hours to other provincial capitals.

Guangdong province is responsible for the organisation and implementation of the projects. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area covers 56,000km² and has a population of 72.65 million.

https://www.railjournal.com


----------



## hkskyline

* China plans to expand railway network to 200,000 km before 2035 *
_Excerpt_ 
Aug 13, 2020

BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to expand its railway network, the second largest in the world, by one-third in the next decade and a half, as part of a long-term plan to rev up urbanisation and stimulate local economies.

China aims to have about 200,000 kilometres (124,274 miles) of railway tracks by the end of 2035, including about 70,000 km of high-speed railway, according to a plan issued by state-owned China State Railway Group.

The targets compare with a total length of 141,400 km of existing rail lines as of end-July, among which 36,000 km are high-speed routes, the most in the world, company data showed.

The goals would mean a 33.3% increase in China’s railway network from this year and a 133% expansion in high-speed railway, according to Reuters calculations. 

More : China plans to expand railway network to 200,000 km before 2035


----------



## foxmulder

hkskyline said:


> * China plans to expand railway network to 200,000 km before 2035 *
> _Excerpt_
> Aug 13, 2020
> 
> BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to expand its railway network, the second largest in the world, by one-third in the next decade and a half, as part of a long-term plan to rev up urbanisation and stimulate local economies.
> 
> China aims to have about 200,000 kilometres (124,274 miles) of railway tracks by the end of 2035, including about 70,000 km of high-speed railway, according to a plan issued by state-owned China State Railway Group.
> 
> The targets compare with a total length of 141,400 km of existing rail lines as of end-July, among which 36,000 km are high-speed routes, the most in the world, company data showed.
> 
> The goals would mean a 33.3% increase in China’s railway network from this year and a 133% expansion in high-speed railway, according to Reuters calculations.
> 
> More : China plans to expand railway network to 200,000 km before 2035



Amazing. This possibly means rumor of a more direct route from Beijing to Shanghai, east of the current line, may turn into reality.


----------



## Bhurki18

hkskyline said:


> * China plans to expand railway network to 200,000 km before 2035 *
> _Excerpt_
> Aug 13, 2020
> 
> BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to expand its railway network, the second largest in the world, by one-third in the next decade and a half, as part of a long-term plan to rev up urbanisation and stimulate local economies.
> 
> China aims to have about 200,000 kilometres (124,274 miles) of railway tracks by the end of 2035, including about 70,000 km of high-speed railway, according to a plan issued by state-owned China State Railway Group.
> 
> The targets compare with a total length of 141,400 km of existing rail lines as of end-July, among which 36,000 km are high-speed routes, the most in the world, company data showed.
> 
> The goals would mean a 33.3% increase in China’s railway network from this year and a 133% expansion in high-speed railway, according to Reuters calculations.
> 
> More : China plans to expand railway network to 200,000 km before 2035


This is probably the most worthwhile projection.

When the first high speed line was opened up in 2008, the target was
2020 -10,000 km.

But they achieved this by 2013, so new targets were -
2020 - 20,000 km
2030 - 35,000 km

20,000 km was achieved by 2017, so it was again up-revised to -
2025 - 38,000 km
2030 - 45,000 km

But they have already completed 36,000 km in the H1 2020, hence the even higher target.

At current pace of construction, which is about 3,500 km/annum, the 70,000 km target will be completed before 2030.


----------



## gao7

*Fujian section of Quzhou-Ningde railway starts test runs*

















> Aerial photo taken on Aug. 20, 2020 shows a test train running on the Quzhou-Ningde railway in southeast China's Fujian Province. The Fujian section of Quzhou-Ningde railway, linking Quzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province with Ningde in Fujian, started test runs on Thursday.


Fujian section of Quzhou-Ningde railway starts test runs - Xinhua | English.news.cn


----------



## hkskyline

* China planning building spree in Tibet as India tensions rise, sources say *
_Excerpt_
Sept 4, 2020

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is planning a more than 1 trillion yuan ($146 billion) push to accelerate infrastructure investment in Tibet, including new and previously announced projects, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The renewed push to step-up development of the remote and impoverished southwestern region signals Beijing’s intent to bolster frontier security amid heightened border tensions with India in recent months, two of the sources said.

Last week, during a senior Communist Party meeting on Tibet’s future governance, President Xi Jinping lauded achievements and praised frontline officials but said more efforts were needed to enrich, rejuvenate and strengthen unity in the region.

He said a number of major infrastructure projects and public facilities would be completed, including the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, according to remarks published by the official Xinhua news agency.

The construction plans include completion of the challenging middle section of a high-elevation Sichuan-Tibet railway link, a railway line between Nepal and Tibet that has remained in the planning stages, and a newly planned dry port in the Tibet Autonomous Region, the sources said.

More : China planning building spree in Tibet as India tensions rise, sources say


----------



## hkskyline

* Number of China-Europe freight trains hits new high *

BEIJING, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The number of China-Europe freight trains hit a record high of 1,247 in August, up 62 percent year on year, data from the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. showed Wednesday.

This marks the sixth consecutive month that the number registered double-digit growth.

The freight trains have played a crucial role in helping stabilize the international logistics supply chain, transporting 113,000 twenty-foot equivalent units of cargo last month, up 66 percent from a year earlier, according to the company.

Increasing demand for the freight trains came amid China's economic recovery and limited international air and sea transport during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source : Number of China-Europe freight trains hits new high - Xinhua | English.news.cn


----------



## saiho

CRH6A regional rail trains for the Huairou–Miyun line by 车到福到-RW


----------



## hkskyline

*Xinjiang's border port sees 3,000 trips by China-Europe freight trains*
_Excerpt_

URUMQI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The number of China-Europe freight trains handled by Horgos port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has reached 3,000 so far this year, the customs authority said.

A train that departed from the city of Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, for Lodz in Poland on Thursday, became the 3,000th China-Europe freight train to pass through the port since Jan. 1.

The port dealt with 495 China-Europe freight trains in July, up 55.17 percent year on year. It handled 482 China-Europe freight trains in August, up 62.29 percent year on year.

More : Xinjiang's border port sees 3,000 trips by China-Europe freight trains - Xinhua | English.news.cn


----------



## chornedsnorkack

Khorgos is just one of the rail border crossings in Xinjiang, and total 4 in general direction of Europe.
How are the freight trains to Europe divided between Khorgos, Alashankou, Transmanchurian and Transmongolian?


----------



## saiho

Shen 24 locos by 假装在铁路


----------



## saiho

发芽毒土豆


----------



## doc7austin

A view back on the year 2012 -> Riding the China Railway Sleeper Train T116 Shanghai - Lanzhou via Xian in Soft Sleeper Class:








Enjoy!


----------



## hkskyline

* Railway plan adds services in 4th quarter *
China Daily _Excerpt_
Oct 12, 2020

A railway operating plan implemented on Sunday will boost China's passenger and freight transport capacity, the country's railway operator said.

Under the new plan, more trains have been put into service than in the previous quarter, with 9,800 passenger trains and 20,163 cargo trains to operate on the country's vast railway network, China State Railway Group said on Saturday.

The new plan will significantly enhance regional transportation capacity and facilitate regional economic integration more precisely, the company added.

Among the newly added passenger train services is the Quzhou-Ningde railway, linking Quzhou, Zhejiang province, and Ningde, Fujian province. The opening of the line connects eight cities and counties in the two eastern provinces with the rest of the country via rail for the first time, it said.

The 379-kilometer railway will operate seven pairs of trains a day running at 160 kilometers per hour, the company said, adding that more passenger train services will be added in the two provinces to bolster regional transport capacity.

One pair of trains represents a same-day return service.

More : Railway plan adds services in 4th quarter


----------



## hkskyline

* China's Zhejiang sees 1,000 China-Europe cargo train trips in 2020 *
_Excerpt_

HANGZHOU, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- A freight train carrying 100 TEUs of goods departed Wednesday from Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, for Minsk in Belarus, marking the 1,000th trip by China-Europe cargo trains in the province this year.

The train with goods such as daily necessities, textiles and toys will leave China via Manzhouli port and is expected to arrive in Minsk in a fortnight.

As of Wednesday, the China-Europe freight train service in Zhejiang has shipped 83,000 TEUs of goods, up 203 percent year on year, accounting for about 10 percent of the country's total.

The province is expected to handle 1,200 China-Europe freight trains this year.

Since its launch in November 2014, the cargo train service in Zhejiang has opened 15 routes, connecting 49 countries and regions in Asia and Europe.

More : China's Zhejiang sees 1,000 China-Europe cargo train trips in 2020 - Xinhua | English.news.cn


----------



## saiho

CRH6 commuter trains by Siuming


----------



## saiho

東風8B-5911_lxy2009


----------



## saiho

宁东的狮子


----------



## General Huo

It is happening, the Yaan Linzhi section of Sichuan-Tibet railway made publicity of its pilot bid results and the pilot construction of 2 super long tunnels and one bridge will start on Nov 10, 2020.

2 super long tunnels are 37.9 km Sejilashan Tunnel (色季拉山隧道 ) close to Linzhi in Tibet and 20.8 km Kangding #2 Tunnel (康定2号隧道 ) and Dadu River Bridge (大渡河特大桥 ) close to Kangding.






川藏铁路雅林段开工在即 优势企业订单将迎高增 | 每经网







www.nbd.com.cn


----------



## little universe

*A Train Passing The Great Wall's Juyong Pass - 北京昌平 列车驶过长城居庸关*
Changping District, Beijing Municipality, Northern China








by 贝城ShellTown on 500px



​


----------



## GojiMet86

Someone forgot that Adobe Flash supported ended......



Adobe Flash out of service, Dalian railroad system down for more than 20 hours – todaychina





> *Adobe Flash out of service, Dalian railroad system down for more than 20 hours*
> 
> TODAYCHINA 2021年1月17日
> 
> Adobe, a U.S. computer software company, ended support for Flash on Dec. 30 last year and banned all Flash content from running on Tuesday (Jan. 12). The Dalian section of the Liaoning Shenyang Railway Bureau recently failed to stop using Flash in a timely manner, making it impossible for some stations to make up train transfer plans and train grouping schedules, and for staff to view train operating charts, causing the railroad system to be paralyzed for more than 20 hours. The system was paralyzed for more than 20 hours, and the station finally had to reduce the software version to stop the chaos.
> 
> The official WeChat of the Dalian section of the Shenyang Railway Bureau said that the staff received a report last Tuesday (12) that the system page could not be displayed, making it impossible for them to view the train diagram. After 30 minutes, almost the entire section's transport production computers failed, paralyzing the railroad transport management information system and interrupting information sharing between the railroad bureau and stations. After investigation, the cause of the accident was related to Adobe's total ban on Flash operation. Dalian section immediately took emergency measures to implement downgrade debugging, start backup equipment, hardware replacement, etc., to try to restore flash operation, and finally restarted service after 1 day.
> 
> However, the section corrected on Friday (15) that the failure did not cause a complete paralysis of the railroad system, and that it was not the railroad dispatching system that was affected by the Flash suspension, but some of the newly purchased computers with the latest Flash version installed, which could not access the statistical current car system through the browser, stressing that the railroad transport production was not affected by the failure in any way.
> 
> In addition, the Dalian section also issued a commendation on WeChat, praising the wonderful performance of this emergency "attack", and the Railway Bureau even said that "everyone is a master", but the relevant posting was sarcastic by netizens, saying that "Flash is no longer in the news, should have updated the railroad system a long time ago", "the last solution is to downgrade, and not to develop new software overnight, there is something worth promoting. The train service section was attacked by netizens and has now deleted the article.



Turns out it wasn't even the legit version of Flash but a bootleg:






After disabling Adobe Flash trains in Dalian, China could hardly open TechNews 科技 新 报







verietyinfo.com


----------



## Gusiluz

Article written by me (in Spanish) on the *Geotrén *website on the New Silk Road, and high speed lines out of Europe:









Nueva Ruta de la Seda, y alta velocidad fuera de Europa


Además de la Nueva Ruta de la Seda para mercancías, y las redes de alta velocidad de China y Japón, hay muchos otros proyectos de alta velocidad (algunos en obras) repartidos por el mundo y que son…



www.geotren.es


----------



## hkskyline

* Curbed by COVID, China's Lunar New Year travel rush turns into trickle * 
_Excerpt_

BEIJING, Jan 28 (Reuters) - As a lone worker in protective gear sprayed disinfectant outside Beijing Railway Station, a slow trickle of passengers wheeled suitcases into the entrance hall - marking the quietest start in recent times to China's Lunar New Year travel season.

Under the old normal, Chinese railway stations would be swarming with travellers jostling to collect tickets and scrambling to board trains bound for distant provinces where many reunite with family to celebrate, in the world's biggest annual human migration event.

But with northern China fighting clusters of COVID-19 infections and several cities under lockdown, authorities - fearful of a super transmission event - are discouraging people from leaving town during the New Year season, which runs between Jan. 28 and March 8 this year.

On Thursday the public appeared to be heeding those warnings.

"It's the first time I see a station like this - almost empty," said programmer Wu Dongyang, 27.

More : Curbed by COVID, China's Lunar New Year travel rush turns into trickle


----------



## saiho

Proposed Guangdong East intercity railway, a Y shaped commuter railway network connecting Chaozhou and Jieyang to Shantou. Posted by alrmark.


----------



## saiho

DF7G-5035


----------



## foxmulder

Epic scenery.


----------



## saiho

Shanghai-Jiaxing regional railway going to start construction. Involves Quad-tracking parts of the Huhang Line for local services. 










Pic Source
Other Source


----------



## NCT

It's a shame Songjiang is losing its old station in the old town with everything rerouted through Songjiang South.

Good to see the train graph and the bits about how to mix stopping and semi-fast services, and using timetabling to determine which stations need 4 platforms.


----------



## saiho

Shen 24 High power Locos by 8K-140_SXC


----------



## gao7

*Lhasa-Nyingchi Railway under construction*































> Laborers work at the construction site of Lhasa-Nyingchi Railway in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Feb. 5, 2021. (Photo by Ren Fuyang)


Lhasa-Nyingchi Railway under construction - Xinhua | English.news.cn


----------



## saiho

广铁广段飞驰的DF11G


----------



## General Huo

Lasa Linzhi Railway is ready to open soon


----------



## Zaz965

New Silk Road (Eurasian Land Bridge). Powerful freight electric locomotives pull behind a lot of container wagons with lots of chinese goods. Freight trains along the world's longest freight rail route are arriving from China to Europe in 12 - 15 days. This is 2 times faster than the sea route through the Suez Canal. Conception One belt - One way in work!
awesome


----------



## saiho

一方沃土0


----------



## Kintoy

Shanghai to Beijing HST


----------



## General Huo

*Power Connected to 1st Electrified Railway in China’s Tibet*


----------



## saiho

李睿-lrmax


----------



## saiho

若重安


----------



## saiho

NANIMONO-何者


----------



## OnRail123




----------



## OnRail123

Amazing 3D animation of the Lhasa to Nyingchi Railway


----------



## WiseSupernova

OnRail123 said:


> Amazing 3D animation of the Lhasa to Nyingchi Railway


How many km of tunnels will there be? :O


----------



## OnRail123

WiseSupernova said:


> How many km of tunnels will there be? :O


There are 47 tunnels totally 216.5km. Six of them are over 10km, with the longest one at 17.3km. There also 84.5km on bridges. The total length of this section is 435km. 

The next section towards Sichuang is going to be even more difficult. In this 1,011km section, there will be 72 tunnels totaling 838km and 87 bridges totaling 114km. And the geological condition is absolutely atrocious.


----------



## Wisarut

Bao Shan tunnel with the distance of 16 km has been dug through on 19 April 2022. This tunnel is on 330-km Dali - Ruili railway line with tunnels and bridges for 76.5% of the route. Once Daili - Bao Shan has been opened in December 2022, the travel time by train from Dali to Bao Shan will be 1 hour while travelling time by train from Kunming to Bao Shan will be 3 hours 
ยูนนานขุด 'อุโมงค์ม้าเหล็ก' หนุนเชื่อมจีน-เมียนมา สำเร็จอีกแห่ง


----------



## hkskyline

* China's rail freight volume up 2.8 pct in Q1 *
_Excerpt_ 

BEIJING, April 5 (Xinhua) -- China's rail cargo volume, a key indicator of economic activities, rose 2.8 percent year on year in the first quarter of the year, data from the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) shows.

A total of 948 million tonnes of cargo was transported on China's railways in the period, 25.87 million tonnes more than that in the same period last year, according to the company.

Noting the strong demand for railway freight transport in the first quarter, a China Railway official said that China's railways have strengthened support for the transportation of anti-COVID-19 supplies, industry raw materials and products, agricultural materials, and coal.

More : China's rail freight volume up 2.8 pct in Q1


----------



## Wisarut

Cargo from Dunhuang to Bangkok via Vientiane carrying 20 wagons of Asbetos with the total weight of 530 metric tons which takes 12 days to reach destination, saving the time by 28 days from shipping and trucks as reported by Xinhua news agency 








“กานซู่” เดินรถไฟสินค้าบนทางม้าเหล็กจีน-ลาว - Chiang Mai News


กานซู่" เดินรถไฟสินค้าบนทางม้าเหล็กจีน-ลาว วิ่งสู่ "กรุงเทพ" ใน 12 วัน หลานโจว, 21 ม.ย. (ชินหัว) – ช่วงเช้าวันพฤหัสบดี (21 เม.ย.) รถไฟสินค้าระหว่างประเทศ เส้นทาง"ตูนหวง-เวียงจันทน์-กรุงเทพฯ"



www.chiangmainews.co.th












(ชมภาพ/คลิป) ‘กานซู่’ เดินรถไฟสินค้าบนทางม้าเหล็กจีน-ลาว นำส่งสินค้าถึง ‘กรุงเทพฯ’ ใน 12 วัน


ขบวนรถไฟสินค้าจากถิ่นทะเลทรายตุนหวงในภาคตะวันตกจีน ประเดิมขนแร่ใยหินผ่านทางรถไฟจีน-ลาว ส่งถึงกรุวเทพฯใน 12 วัน โดยช่วยประหยัดเวลาได้ถึง 28 วัน เทียบกับการขนส่งในปัจุบันใช้เส้นทางทะเลซึ่งกินเวลานาน 40 วัน




mgronline.com












มณฑลกานซู่เดินรถไฟสินค้าบนเส้นทาง "จีน-ลาว" วิ่งสู่ "กทม." ใน 12 วัน | เดลินิวส์


ขบวนรถไฟบรรทุกสินค้าระหว่างประเทศบนเส้นทางรถไฟจีน-ลาว ออกเดินทางจากมณฑลกานซู่ มุ่งหน้าสู่กรุงเทพมหานคร




www.dailynews.co.th












รถไฟจีน-ลาว ขนแร่ใยหิน 530 ตัน 20 ตู้คอนเทนเนอร์ มุ่งสู่ "กรุงเทพ"


สำนักข่าวซินหัว รายงานมณฑลกานซู่ ประเดิมส่งขนแร่ใยหิน 530 ตัน บรรทุกตู้คอนเทนเนอร์ขึ้นรถไฟสินค้าระหว่างประเทศจีน-ลาว และส่งต่อไป "กรุงเทพ" ภายในเวลา 12




www.prachachat.net












'กานซู่' เดินรถไฟสินค้าบนทางม้าเหล็กจีน-ลาว วิ่งสู่ 'กรุงเทพ' ใน 12 วัน


หลานโจว, 21 เม.ย. (ซินหัว) -- ช่วงเช้าวันพฤหัสบดี (21 เม.ย.) รถไฟสินค้าระหว่างประเทศ เส้นทาง "ตุนหวง-เวียงจันทน์-กรุงเทพฯ" ประจำทางรถไฟจีน-ลาว




www.xinhuathai.com


----------



## Wisarut

Finally, 500 metric tons of Thai durian in 27 BCFs has reached destination in Mainland China through Thai trucks and Lao - China Railway on 24 April 2022 after the first 2 BCFs of durian and 1 BCFs of coconut had already been exported to Mainland China.
Next on the line are Mangoesteen from the Southern and Eastern region, Longan from the Northern region, various cultivars of rice, tapioca in various forms, sugar in various forms, mangoes, to boost up more revenues from exports to the country.
The custom protocol for Thai - China exports of fruits at the border has been shortened to 1 day and a half, much faster than the previous round which takes about 3 days to be done.
Next lot will have at least 25 BCFs of Thai Durian from Rayong and Chanthaburi will come to Mainland China via Lao - China Railway next week








ส่งออกทุเรียนไทย ผ่าน รถไฟ “จีน-ลาว” ขบวนแรก ถึงประเทศจีนแล้ว


“อลงกรณ์“ ประกาศความสำเร็จ ส่งออกทุเรียนไทยล็อตใหญ่โดยรถไฟถึงจีนแล้ววันนี้เป็นขบวนแรก ตามนโยบายรัฐมนตรีเกษตรฯ เร่งสร้างรายได้เข้าประเทศ ประกาศความสำเร็จ ระบุ ร่นเวลาการขนส่งเหลือวันครึ่ง ผู้ส่งออกสนใจคึกคัก ขบวนสองจองคิวทันทีสัปดาห์หน้า




www.thansettakij.com


----------



## hkskyline

* China's Hubei launches first freight train via China-Laos Railway *
_Excerpt_

WUHAN, May 17 (Xinhua) -- A freight train departed Tuesday morning from Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei Province, to Laos' Luang Prabang, marking the launch of Hubei's first international freight train that runs via the China-Laos Railway.

The train is loaded with 1,650 tonnes of fertilizer materials and scheduled to arrive in Luang Prabang in seven to ten days.

The route will expand the trade channel between Hubei and major cities of Southeast Asian countries and promote regional economic trade exchanges and people-to-people exchanges.

More : China's Hubei launches first freight train via China-Laos Railway


----------



## Wisarut

hkskyline said:


> * China's Hubei launches first freight train via China-Laos Railway *
> _Excerpt_
> 
> WUHAN, May 17 (Xinhua) -- A freight train departed Tuesday morning from Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei Province, to Laos' Luang Prabang, marking the launch of Hubei's first international freight train that runs via the China-Laos Railway.
> 
> The train is loaded with 1,650 tonnes of fertilizer materials and scheduled to arrive in Luang Prabang in seven to ten days.
> 
> The route will expand the trade channel between Hubei and major cities of Southeast Asian countries and promote regional economic trade exchanges and people-to-people exchanges.
> 
> More : China's Hubei launches first freight train via China-Laos Railway


Seriously consider purchasing more fertilizers after the hike of fertilizer prices.


----------



## Comunicación

*Electrification of Qinghai-Tibet Railway Gera Section*

...state plans to electrify the Gera [_Golmud-Lhasa_] section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in late June 2022, with a total construction period of 3 years and an estimated total investment of 14.84 billion yuan...

Source: 14.84 billion invested! Electrification of Qinghai-Tibet Railway Gera Section--Seetao


I don't know what benefits this will bring to the train service and the users, since I am not an expert on the matter, but I think it's a good change at least for the environment.


----------



## dyonisien

Comunicación said:


> *Electrification of Qinghai-Tibet Railway Gera Section*
> 
> ...state plans to electrify the Gera [_Golmud-Lhasa_] section of the Qinghai-Tibet [...]
> I don't know what benefits this will bring to the train service and the users, since I am not an expert on the matter, but I think it's a good change at least for the environment.


The lines to Lhasa must have important gradients to reach the high altitudes. Keeping line speed on gradients requires more power than on flat lines. Not only does an electric locomotive deliver about twice the power of a diesel one for the same weight at sea level, but due to lower air density available diesel power for a given motor is reduced on high altitudes, a problem unknown with electric power.
Trains running that high also use some power (probably more than usual air conditioning) to provide passenger with more oxygen.
In this context electrification (possibly with 2x25kV) seems a very sane decision.
The second line to Lhasa was electrified from the beginning. You could just ask why this one did not use electric traction from the start.
You can add the advantage of regenerative braking when trains run downhill.


----------



## OnRail123

A new train is ready for charter service.
































Odd shower setup:








More pictures at 多图预警！能办婚礼的列车来了！_政务_澎湃新闻-The Paper


----------



## Comunicación

*Heavy! 4 railways in the 14th Five-Year Plan to start bidding*

Heavy! 4 railways in the 14th Five-Year Plan to start bidding--Seetao


----------



## foxmulder

Comunicación said:


> *Heavy! 4 railways in the 14th Five-Year Plan to start bidding*
> 
> Heavy! 4 railways in the 14th Five-Year Plan to start bidding--Seetao



Significant projects. More strategic than economic but they will surely activate economy, too.


----------



## lechevallierpatrick

Would anybody have a map of railway projects in Tibet?


----------



## lookback718

lechevallierpatrick said:


> Would anybody have a map of railway projects in Tibet?


This map has the latest information about railways in Tibet as far as I know. It's dated 1st of October 2021. Visit the link for the full size map - it's huge. 

Nyingchan - Ya'an is fully under construction and construction sites can be found with satellite images from sources other than Google Earth, like Sentinalhub.

Shigatse - Gyirong is not under construction at this stage, despite some claims on the internet.

Link here in case the image doesn't upload right and for the full size image --> https://i.redd.it/hi7yhbvqd3381.png


----------



## Zaz965

OnRail123 said:


> There are 47 tunnels totally 216.5km. Six of them are over 10km, with the longest one at 17.3km. There also 84.5km on bridges. The total length of this section is 435km.
> 
> The next section towards Sichuang is going to be even more difficult. In this 1,011km section, there will be 72 tunnels totaling 838km and 87 bridges totaling 114km. And the geological condition is absolutely atrocious.


it makes me excited  😋 😁


----------



## OnRail123

New Orient Express in Xinjiang.








































More pictures at 多图！新东方快车为何如此火爆？_政务_澎湃新闻-The Paper


----------



## gao7

*China opens last section of rail loop around its largest desert*































> Passengers have their tickets checked to board the first train of the Hotan-Ruoqiang Railway at Hotan Railway Station in Hotan, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, June 16, 2022. The last section of a 2,712-km rail loop line around China's largest desert, the Taklimakan, in the country's northwesternmost Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was put into operation on Thursday. The opening of the Hotan-Ruoqiang rail line will enable trains to skirt a full circle around a desert for the first time in the world, according to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (Ding Lei)


China opens last section of rail loop around its largest desert


----------



## AndreiB

tjrgx said:


> Prevent moving sand dunes from covering the tracks


They seem to manage in Saudi Arabia without viaducts so this can’t be the only reason.


----------



## hkskyline

*Xinjiang offers cool rail trips for tourists *
China Daily _Excerpt_ 
July 22, 2022

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has become one of the most popular destinations for tourists looking to escape from the heat wave this summer since most of the nation's provincial regions are being scorched by the relentlessly high temperatures.

A dedicated train carrying 333 holidaymakers from across the nation departed the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi on Tuesday to embark on a 14-day trip around the region that will terminate in Kashgar. It is the first time such a train has traveled that specific route.

The Xinjiang Railway Tourism Development Group said that when the train arrives in Kuitun, travelers have the option of transferring to buses that will take them to Dushanzi to explore the landscape along the Duku Highway. On the bus, passengers can take in sites along the 561-kilometer journey to the city of Kuche.

More : Xinjiang offers cool rail trips for tourists


----------



## PippO.SkaiO

AndreiB said:


> They seem to manage in Saudi Arabia without viaducts so this can’t be the only reason.


The saudi line is built in a pretty rocky desert, this Talkamakhan one instead have to deal with ergs and stronger winds.


----------



## Wisarut

Dali railway station for Passenger Trains 









Yangbi railway station for Passenger Trains 









Yongping County railway station for Passenger Trains 









Baoshan railway station for Passenger Trains 

Opening Railway line from Da Li to Bao Shan on Friday 22nd July 2022 at 10 AM by C296 train (Fuxing EMU) from Bao Shan to Dali with the distance of 133 km including 34 bridges across three major rivers (Yangbi River, Yinjiang River and Lancang River) and 21 tunnels across Hengduan Range with total distance of 115.8 km. This line takes 14 years to be done from June 2008 to July 2022 due to the following 4 major tunnels across Hengduan range including:

1) Xiuling Tunnel 秀岭隧道, 17.623 km
2) Dapoling Tunnel 大坡岭隧道, 14.665 km
3) Dazhushan Tunnel 大柱山隧道, 14.484 km
4) Shanyang Tunnel 杉阳隧道, 13.390 km

This Railway line has shortened the travel time from Kunming city to Bao Shan city to 3 hours and 26 minutes and from Dali to Bao Shan to 1 hour and 9 minutes. This line has 4 passenger stations and 1 cargo station listed as follows:
1. Dali (passenger station), 
2. Yangbi (passenger station), 
3. Yongping County (passenger station), 
4. Baoshan North (cargo station), 
5. Baoshan (passenger station) 

7 Pairs of trains are running including 3 pairs between Kunming and Bao Shan and 4 pairs between Dali and Bao Shan. Furthermore, Bao Shan North has stared running 3 cargo trains to carry iron ore, sugar and Fluorie to Chuxiong, Kunming and Yunnan. This railway line is going to bring agriculture products from Myanmar to Chinese market in Kunming while allowing Industrial products, electronic instruments, and chemical products from mainland China to reach Myanmar markets despite of the fact that there are 197 km under the construction from Bao Shan to Ruili including Gaoligongshan Tunnel (高黎贡山隧道) with the distance of 34.538 km and Baoshan Tunnel (保山隧道) with the distance of 16.097 km. Once all 197 km section from Bao Shan to Ruili is done, the travel time from Kunming city to Ruili Checkpoint will be just 6 hours. 















The Dali-Baoshan section of the Yunnan-Da-Rui Railway opens for operation--Seetao


There are 34 new bridges and 21 tunnels on the whole line, with a total length of 115.8 kilometers




www.seetao.com












The section from Baoshan to Dali on the Dali-Rui Railway opens in Yunnan--Seetao


The Dabao section of the Dali-Ruizhou Railway is 133 kilometers long and has 5 stations




www.seetao.com






Dali-Baoshan section of Dali-Ruili Railway enters operation










New railway section opens in SW China


The Dali-Baoshan section of the Dali-Ruili Railway, one of the three railways in Southwest China's Yunnan province serving the Belt and Road Initiative, opened today, ending the history of no trains in Baoshan city, Yunnan province.




www.chinadaily.com.cn












Dali-Baoshan railway to start operations on Friday, as the China-Myanmar international rail corridor achieves a major breakthrough - Global Times







www.globaltimes.cn






Dali-Baoshan section of Dali-Ruili Railway enters operation


Prachachat - ประชาชาติ - เส้นทางรถไฟจีน-เมียนมา พร้อมเปิดบริการ | Facebook | By Prachachat - ประชาชาติ | เส้นทางรถไฟจากยูนนาน ในจีน มาเมียนมา พร้อมเปิดให้บริการ สำนักข่าว CMG จีน ระบุว่า เส้นทางรถไฟระหว่างประเทศเส้นนี้ จะทำทำให้เมียนมาส่งออกทั้ง มะม่วง แตงโม...

GLOBALink | New railway section opens to traffic in China's Yunnan after 14 years of construction - Jul 22, 2022 by New China TV





Opening the first section of China - Myanmar railway after 14 year of struggling on the construction 





Opening the first section of China - Myanmar railway (Thai dubbed) - Jeenthainews - Jul 25, 2022 - original from China Media Group











tjrgx said:


> GLOBALink | New railway section opens to traffic after 14 years of construction
> 
> 
> GLOBALink | New railway section opens to traffic after 14 years of construction-
> 
> 
> 
> english.news.cn
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A new section of the Dali-Ruili Railway in China's Yunnan Province has been put into operation. The rail line extends 330 km. A total of 34 bridges and 21 tunnels were constructed. The tunnels alone are more than 100 km long. The rail line is seen as a major breakthrough in the construction of the China-Myanmar international railway corridor.





General Huo said:


> The tunnels over 10kms in Dali-Ruili railway Dali-Baoshan section:
> 1) Xiuling Tunnel 秀岭隧道, 17.623km
> 2) Dapoling Tunnel 大坡岭隧道, 14.665km
> 3) Dazhushan Tunnel 大柱山隧道, 14.484km
> 4) Shanyang Tunnel 杉阳隧道, 13.390km
> 
> Baoshan-Ruili section (not open yet)
> 5) Gaoligongshan Tunnel 高黎贡山隧道, 34.538km
> 6) Baoshan Tunnel 保山隧道, 16.097km


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## hkskyline

* Freight volume, transport investment back to normal *
China Daily _Excerpt_
July 27, 2022

The Ministry of Transport said on Thursday that national freight volumes, transport investment and express deliveries returned to normal levels in the first half of this year.

According to latest figures from the ministry, commercial freight volume for the first six months totaled 24.3 billion tons, down by 2.2 percent year-on-year. That gap narrowed in June, pulling even with the figure for the same period last year.

Container throughput continued to grow, with roughly 140 million containers handled, a year-on-year increase of 3 percent.

More : Freight volume, transport investment back to normal


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## gao7

*Lijiang-Shangri-La railway under construction*





































> Aerial photo taken on July 26, 2022 shows the entrance of the Haba Snow Mountain tunnel along the Lijiang-Shangri-La railway in southwest China's Yunnan Province. With a designed speed of 120 kilometers per hour, the 140-kilometer Lijiang-Shangri-La railway is expected to shorten the travel time between Lijiang and Shangri-La after its operation. (Chen Xinbo)


In pics: Lijiang-Shangri-La railway under construction


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## tjrgx

Over 2,000 km of new railway put into service across China in H1


Over 2,000 km of new railway put into service across China in H1-



english.news.cn




BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- A total of 2,043.5 km of new railway lines were put into operation across China in the first half of 2022 (H1), according to the country's railway operator.

This includes some 995.9 km of new high-speed tracks, data from China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. showed.

About 1,462.2 km of new railway lines were put into service in June alone, accounting for over 70 percent of the total new railways launched in the first six months of the year, the company said.

China plans to launch new rail lines totaling 3,300 kilometers this year, according to the Ministry of Transport. By the end of last year, the operating length of China's high-speed railway network exceeded 40,000 kilometers.


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## Wisarut

Many Thai economic experts have suggested Thai farmers and Thai enterpreneurs to exploit the benefits from Lao - China railway (Kunming - Vientiane) to export Thai food and Thai agriculture products into Mainland China. Thre latest figure in Year 2021 had shown that Thailand has already exported food and agriculture products to mainland China at 11,411 Million US Dollars or 380,000 million Baht (26.7% of the exported food and agricuture markets of Thailand, up from 15.6% in 2012) . 80% of Thai exports of food and agriculture products to Mainland China have been by shipping. 
Here are the potential of Lao - China Railway:

1. Lao - China Railway has a big potential to cut down the shipping time and shipping cost as the alternative land route to the truck which suffer from the bottleneck at the border checkpoints. The shipping by trucks has the cost of 6,055 Baht per metric ton while taking 2-3 days from Vientiane to Kunming, more expensive than Lao - China Railway which takes only 15 hours with the shipping cost of 15,921.20 Renminbi Yuan or 3,243 Baht per metric ton. 

Furthermore, Thai SMEs could export their food products to mainland China via CBEC [Cross-Border e-Commerce] platform which participated by 812.1 Million Chinese nettizens, especially Gen Z and Gen Y (54.8% of all who participated in CBEC) and expand the food and agriculture product to other countries via Lao - China Railways.

2. Mainland China has imported food at 198,700,000 Million US Dollars (12.3% of all imported products by Mainland china) with the average growth of 9.4% (CAGR year 2010 - 2021). This should be the great oppotunity for Thailand to export more food, especially vegetables and fruits . Thai food which are going to reap the benefits from Lao - China Railway are
2.1. refrigerated and frozen Fresh fruits as well as dried fruits including date palm fruits and nuts => 19.9% growth rate
2.2. refrigerated and frozen chicken => 19.7% growth rate
Just these 2 kinds of Thai food alone will reap the increasing exports by 130 million US Dollars (4,329 million Baht) in 2022 - 2025 with expected goals 10,000 million Baht in 2028-2030.

3. The big concerns are the red tapes at Lao border as well as the export regulations and export restrictions in various forms.

However, Lao - China railway has shown a potential risk of cheap vegetables dumped into Thai market, so Thai faemers and enterpreneurs along with exporters must focus on high value products such as Organic fruits and vegeables along with the food for Chinese consumers who are health conscious.


https://www.prachachat.net/finance/news-998547










รถไฟความเร็วสูงจีน-ลาว โอกาสสินค้าเกษตร-อาหารไทยเจาะแดนมังกร


คอลัมน์ : ระดมสมอง ผู้เขียน : กฤชนนท์ จินดาวงศ์ ศูนย์วิจัย Krungthai COMPASS หลังจากรถไฟความเร็วสูงจีน-สปป.ลาว เปิดให้บริการอย่างเป็นทางการ เมื่อวันที่ 3




www.prachachat.net


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## OnRail123

The difference that a 6-km, 120km/h railway makes: shaving 30 minutes off travel time between Yancheng and Nanjing.









Blue: before; Red: after. The big arrow points to the new line that was opened on August 2.


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## OnRail123

Uniforms for the summer season.

Chengdu Railway (Sichuan area). Camellia, ChongQing's city flower.









Lanzhou Railway (Western region). Porcelain pattern and Dunhuang mural.









Harbin Railway (Northeastern). Snowflakes.









More pictures at: 高铁乘务员夏季制服，你最中意哪款？_政务_澎湃新闻-The Paper


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## OnRail123

Something different: a narrow gauge steam train:






Jiayang Steam Train Leshan: Location, Highlights, Ticket


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## [email protected]




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## OnRail123

For a more technical look of the Qinghai- Tibet Railway:





Or, an interest first person account on the life on the train:


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## OnRail123

A unique railway triangle with three types of railway. Top right: Kunming to HeKou meter gauge railway. Top left: Yuxi to Hekou regular speed railway. Bottom: Mile-Mengzi high speed railway.









Kunming to HeKou meter gauge railway was completed in 1910, connecting Yunnan to Vietnam.








After conversion from 600mm to 1m gauge in 1970, Gebishi Railway (completed in 1936) was connected to the Kunming-Hekou railway. This service was stopped in 2010 but partially restarted in 2020 as a tourist train.









Yuxi to Hekou regular speed railway was completed in 2016. Hekou is on the border, across the Red River from Lao Cai, Vietnam. The railway from Kunming to Yuxi runs at 200 km/h. From Yuxi, the speed is 120 km/h to HeKou and 160 km/h to Mohan and on to Vientiane, Laos.









Mile-Mengzi high speed railway (250km/h) was completed in 2022.









From: 全国独有！4种铁路在这座城市交会_澎湃号·政务_澎湃新闻-The Paper


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## General Huo

*Shocking aerial photography! The mysterious train that crosses no man's land is here!*
2022-09-26 16:39·China Railway
The railway crosses the Qilian Mountains

Off the beaten track, beautiful scenery

There are mountains, grasslands and lakes along the way

And the vast and endless Gobi desert

*Such a diverse landscape

Unique in the world*

This is the *Dunhuang Railway*










On the Dunhuang Railway

There is a special desert train

*Each carriage "capacity 1 person"

The speed is only 8 to 15 kilometers per hour

Open but "domineering side leakage"*

I'm here to reveal the secret to you today

*↓↓Poke the video! Shocking aerial photography is here↓↓










Super rail bridge across the desert*

Dunhuang Railway is located in Jiuquan City and Gansu Province.

In Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province

North from Liugou Station of Lanxin Railway

Via Dunhuang, Aksai, Subei and other stations

Crossing the Qilian Mountains into Qinghai Province

Along the Mahai, Dachaidan

Introducing Yinmaxia Station of Qinghai-Tibet Railway Xige Section

The total length of the line is 671 kilometers










　　When the line crosses the desert, the railway builders cleverly use the support girder bridge to avoid the damage to the railway by the wind and sand. *With a total length of 10.6 kilometers and a maximum height of 30 meters, the Shashangou Bridge is erected by more than 320 piers* , which perfectly combines the engineering landscape and structural functions.










Recently, China Railway Lanzhou Bureau Group Co., Ltd. Jiayuguan Business Section Dunhuang Workshop and Jiayuguan Public Work Section Akesai Line Workshop jointly carried out supplementary stone ballast operations on some lines of the Dunhuang Railway, including the Shashangou Bridge.



















Ballast is a buffer layer between the railway track and the soil subgrade. It not only transmits the gravity of the train to the subgrade evenly, but also controls the longitudinal and lateral displacement of the track line to ensure the safe and stable operation of the train.

The Dunhuang Railway was completed and opened to traffic in 2019. At present, the subgrade is still in the natural settlement period. In order to increase the resistance of the track bed and ensure the stability of the track bed, it is necessary to supplement the ballast section of the line. At this time, a mysterious train will "spark debut".

*Pneumatic ballast dump truck "domineering side leakage"*

It was just dawn, and the operators were ready. They unloaded the tools from the cars, entered the bridge in an orderly manner under the command of the person in charge, and waited for the arrival of the unloader.










The task of the day is to use the 120-minute "skylight" to unload 420 cubic meters of stone ballast, covering 3.5 kilometers of line.




























Pneumatic ballast unloading car is a special kind of hopper car without cover. The *inside of the car is "W" shape* . It consists of car body, ballast unloading system, braking device and other parts. It is mainly used for laying stone ballast when railway lines are newly built and maintained. .



















　　Different from ordinary freight trains, in addition to loading the ballast, each vehicle of the pneumatic ballast unloading car *has an operation room, equipped with a staff to control the valve operating lever* , and grasp the timing to open the bottom door of the unloading according to the progress of the unloading.










During the operation, the person in charge of unloading the ballast, the person in charge of the site and the locomotive driver jointly controlled each other, opened the bottom door of the wind turbine, and the ballast fell on both sides of the track along the funnel.










　　The seemingly simple cooperation tests the driving skills of the train driver. Due to the continuous reduction of the weight of the car body during the ballast unloading process, the traction force of the locomotive will also change accordingly, and there are high requirements for the speed control and smooth operation of the train.



















When unloading the ballast, the train needs to keep running at a uniform speed, so as to avoid the accumulation of ballast or insufficient replenishment, and ensure that the ballast falls evenly on the ballast bed.










Through the lookout holes of each carriage, the operator can check the remaining situation of the stone ballast in the carriage. When the stone ballast in this carriage is about to be unloaded, they will contact the next car to continue the operation.



















　　After unloading the ballast, the operators also need to tidy up the appearance of the ballast bed, rectify the problem of ballast intrusion, and use the end face inspection trolley of the ballast to check the intrusion of the ballast to ensure the normal operation of the train.



















The supplementary ballast operation lasted for nearly 20 days

Operating mileage 150 kilometers

Added ballast 7600 cubic meters










Poverty and desert birds do not fly

Tielong Speeding Frame Passage

Railway people are like those who took root in the Gobi

camel grass

Day after day in no man's land

Ensuring the safe and smooth flow of Dunhuang Railway


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## General Huo

*Construction of the Guangdong Section of the Ruijin-Meizhou Railway started*
original2022-09-30 12:24·The Paper








Schematic diagram of the Ruijin-Meizhou railway.
The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) reporter learned from China National Railway Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the National Railway Group) that on September 30, the Guangdong section of the Ruijin-Meizhou Railway (hereinafter referred to as the Ruimei Railway) officially started construction.
The Ruimei Railway is one of the 102 key projects identified in the national "14th Five-Year Plan". It is located in the southern part of Jiangxi Province and the northeastern part of Guangdong Province. The line starts from Ruijin Station in Ruijin City, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. Via Huichang County and Anyuan County of Ganzhou City to Xunwu County, via Pingyuan County and Meijiang District of Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, and connecting to Meizhou Station of Zhangping-Longchuan Railway. The main line has a total length of 240 kilometers and a design speed of 160 kilometers per hour. It is a national class I single-track electrified passenger and freight co-located railway with a construction period of 4.5 years.
Ruijin Railway has 7 stations including Ruijin Station, Tianxin Station, Huichang Station, Anyuan Station, Xunwu Station, Pingyuan Station and Meizhou Station, among which Tianxin Station, Huichang Station, Anyuan Station, Xunwu Station and Pingyuan Station The station is a new station, while Ruijin Station and Meizhou Station are existing stations. The whole line is mainly passenger transport and freight transport, and all stations can handle passenger and freight business. The Guangdong section of the Ruimei Railway, which is under construction this time, starts from Pingyuan and ends at Meizhou. The main line is 75 kilometers long, with bridges and tunnels accounting for 76% of the total. Among them, the Meijiang Bridge with a total length of 930 meters is a control project for the entire line. .
The Ruimei Railway connects Ganzhou to Ruijin to Longyan in the north and Zhangping to Longchuan in the south. After the completion of the project, it will further improve the road network structure in southern Gansu and northeastern Guangdong, facilitate the travel of the people along the route, and promote the economic and social development along the route.


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## General Huo

*The construction of the Zhejiang section of the Huping-Yancheng Railway starts, and the three places in Jiaxing can reach the main urban area of Shanghai in one hour*
2022-09-28 15:53·The Paper
Zhejiang Pinghu Municipal Government Information Office official WeChat account "Pinghu Release" news, September 28, Shanghai Jinshan to Jiaxing Pinghu city railway - Huping (Pinghu) Yan (Haiyan) Intercity Railway Zhejiang Section started. This is the first inter-provincial (city) express railway in the Yangtze River Delta, which is of great significance for promoting the integration and co-urbanization of Shanghai and the northern part of Hangzhou Bay near Shanghai, and accelerating the construction of the southward expansion belt of the Hongqiao International Open Hub.









The pictures in this article are all from the WeChat account of "Pinghu Publishing"

The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) noted that the completion of the Hu-Ping-Yan Intercity Railway will end the history of lack of railways in the Pinghu, Haiyan and Jiaxing port areas, and achieve a seamless one-hour connection between the three places and the main urban area of Shanghai.









According to reports, the Jinshan-Pinghu City Railway starts from Jinshanwei Station of Shanghai Jinshan Railway, passes through Jiaxing Port District, Pinghu City, and finally reaches Haiyan County, with a length of about 52 kilometers. Avenue Station (new underground station); Zhejiang section has Dushan Port East Station, Dushan Port West Station, Zhapu Station, Lindai Station (reserved), Ping South Station, Haiyan Development Zone Station, and Haiyan East Station. The estimated total investment of the project is about 18.85 billion yuan, the design speed is 160 kilometers per hour, and the construction period is 48 months. After completion, it will be connected to the Shanghai Jinshan Railway.

Jinshan-Pinghu Municipal Railway was included in the "Higher-quality Integrated Development Plan for Transportation in the Yangtze River Delta Region" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transportation in April 2020, and was included in the "Shanghai National Economic and Social Development No. 14" in 2021. A five-year plan and an outline of the 2035 long-term goals, and the overall plan for the construction of the Hongqiao International Open Hub.


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## General Huo

A very cool video showing the Sichuan-Tibet Railway Ya'an-Linzhi section. Sichuan-Tibet Railway is world's ultimate challenge in engineering, period.






今日头条







www.toutiao.com


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## OnRail123

The Dali-Lijiang Railway links two tourist hot spots together, featuring an interesting double decker tourist train as well.

















































More pictures at: 民族风情+美食+美景！丽江至大理双层旅游文化列车上新_澎湃号·政务_澎湃新闻-The Paper


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## General Huo

According to the big data statistics of Infrastructure Link: *From October 1st to October 15th, 26 major projects across the country were started, with a total investment of about 247 billion yuan* . Among them, there are 5 railways with a total investment of about 102.5 billion yuan; 7 highways with a total investment of about 51.4 billion yuan. 

*railway*
*Xiongan New Area to Xinzhou High Speed Railway*

Start date: October 1, 2022

Total investment: 20.9 billion










*Project overview:* The line starts from Xiongan Station of the Jingxiong Intercity Railway in the east, passes through Xiongan New District and Baoding City in Hebei Province in the west, reaches Xinzhou City in Shanxi Province, and connects to Xinzhou West Station of the Datong-Xi'an High-speed Railway. The main line has a total length of 342 kilometers, a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour, and a construction period of 4.5 years. The Xiongxin high-speed rail line has Xiongan Station, Xiongan Intercity Station, Xiaoli Station, Baoding East Station, Baoding South Station, Tangxian Station, Wangdu North Station, Quyang Station, Fuping Station, Wutaishan Station, Wutai County Station, There are 13 stations including Dingxiang North Station and Xinzhou West Station, of which 9 stations including Xiongan Intercity Station are newly built stations

*Winning bidders:* China Railway 11th Bureau, China Railway Tunnel Bureau, China Railway 12th Bureau, China Railway Third Bureau, China Railway 17th Bureau, etc.



*Jiangbei Section of Chaoma Intercity Railway*

Start date: October 1, 2022

Total investment: 8.05 billion










*Project overview:* Chaoma Intercity Railway starts from Chaohu East Station of Shanghe-Hangzhou Railway, and goes eastward through Hanshan County, He County, Zhengpugang New District, Dangtu County, Economic Development Zone, Yushan District, Huashan District, and then leads to Ma'anshan East Station. The main line of Chaoma Intercity Railway is 61 kilometers long, of which the new main line in the Jiangbei section is about 47 kilometers long, with a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour and a construction period of 4 years. There are 5 stations in Chaohu East, Hanshan, Zhengpu Port, Ma'anshan South and Ma'an East.

*Winning bidders:* China Railway Fourth Bureau, China Railway Shanghai Engineering Bureau, etc.



*Harbin-Tieli section of Haiyi high-speed railway*

Start of construction: October 12, 2022

Total investment: 20.92 billion










*Project overview:* The Haiyi high-speed railway starts from Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, passes through Suihua City, and finally ends in Yichun City. The main line is 318 kilometers long, with a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour and a construction period of 5 years. The Haiyi high-speed rail line has 9 stations in Harbin, Harbin North, Hulan North, Xinglong Town West, Suihua South, Qing'an South, Tieli, Riyuexia, and Yichun West. The main line from Harbin to Tieli, which is under construction this time, has a total length of 188 kilometers. It is located in an alpine region, and the geological structure along the line is complex.

*Winning bidders:* China Railway Shanghai Engineering Bureau, China Railway Second Bureau, China Railway 12th Bureau, China Railway Third Bureau, China Railway Construction Bridge Engineering Bureau, etc.



*Shenzhen to Jiangmen High Speed Railway*

Start date: October 9, 2022

Total investment: 51.31 billion










*Project overview:* The line starts from the newly-built Shenzhen Xili Station, goes westward through Dongguan City, Guangzhou City, Zhongshan City, Jiangmen City, and connects to Jiangmen Station of the Jiangmen-Zhanjiang Railway. The main line is 116 kilometers long and the construction period is 5.5 years. The whole line has 7 stations including Shenzhen Xili, Shenzhen Airport East, Dongguan Binhaiwan, Nansha, Zhongshan North, Henglan and Jiangmen Station. Among them, Jiangmen Station is an existing station, and Shenzhen Xili Station and other 6 stations are newly built stations. The design speed of the Shenzhen Xili-Nansha section of the Shenzhen-Xili high-speed railway is 200 kilometers per hour, and the design speed of the Nansha-Jiangmen section is 250 kilometers per hour.

*Winning bidders:* China Railway Twelfth Bureau, China Railway Sixth Bureau, China Railway Fourth Bureau, etc.


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## OnRail123

This is one of the most fascinating travelogues on riding a long distance regular speed train in China. Too bad that there is no subtitle for the humorous commentary. The Google translated introduction provides a good summary.

*48 Hours in a hard seat carriage. From Guangzhou to Urumqi, super-magic realism - all beings in Chinese train cars

China train*
From Guangzhou to Urumqi, it took 48 hours and 33 minutes. Some people got on and off in the carriage. People from the north and south of China gathered in the green color carriage for thousands of miles. Accents, hometowns, ethnicities, and facial features are different, diverse and complex.

From south to northwest,
Forests, grasslands, meadows, deserts, Gobi...

*All beings*
The hard-seat carriage is the cheapest long-distance transportation in China. In this small space, there are people with different identities and origins, and people with different fates.

There are no fences in the seats, everyone fell asleep and staggered, leaning on each other, warming each other when cold, feeding each other when hungry, and bantering with each other when bored.

There are all kinds of stories here, the train attendant who quarreled with the passengers, the aunt in Xi'an who was involved in Pyramid Scheme and ran away from home, the man in Lanzhou who couldn't bear to turn around after being separated from the child on the platform, sang the live broadcast of "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau" in front of the whole carriage "Internet celebrity little brother...

The uncle who had an amputated leg and sat alone from the start to the end, the fat brother who slept and snorted from the time he got in the car to the end, the middle-aged daughter who squatted on the ground all night so that her mother could have an extra seat to lie down...

*Together*
In just two days, each other's seats were disrupted regardless of you and me, and each other's mobile power supplies were exhausted each other... Each passenger's personality and characteristics were well known... After getting off the bus, I said goodbye without looking back. !

Everyone has their own journey and destination, being able to accompany each other briefly, to comfort each other...

Entering Xinjiang from the mainland, high-speed trains, soft sleeper trains, planes... There are so many convenient and comfortable means of transportation, I prefer hard seats: it saves money and is full of emotions, so why not do it.

To be one with the world, to be in the company of all beings, in my opinion, this is what it means.


----------



## OnRail123

A tourist train in Inner Mongolia


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## General Huo

*New Wushaoling Tunnel Completed*

At 10:16 on November 6, after 1,226 days of construction, the entire section of the Xinwushaoling Tunnel of the Lanwu Section of the Lanwu Section of the Lanzhou-Zhangjiakou Line 3 and 4 was successfully completed.



The new Wushaoling tunnel is a control project of the Lanzhou-Zhangjiakou No. 3 and No. 4 railway. It is located on the east side of the existing Wushaoling super-long tunnel on the Lanwu No. 2 line. The two tunnels are basically parallel. The longest super-long tunnel on the whole line is the third-generation tunnel in my country that passes through Wushaoling, and it is also the first tunnel in my country that uses the existing inclined shaft for construction and uses the existing line for ventilation.










Wushaoling is located at the southeastern end of Lenglongling, the northern branch of the Qilian Mountains, at the intersection of the three plateaus of Loess, Qinghai-Tibet, and Inner Mongolia. The altitude is 3,000 meters, the main peak is 3,562 meters above sea level, and the average annual temperature is minus 2.2 °C. The construction time in winter is as long as 7 months. The high cold is anoxic, the air is thin, the temperature difference between day and night is large, the natural environment is harsh, and the ecological environment is extremely fragile. Geological and hydrological The conditions are complex and the construction is quite difficult, so it is known as the "China Geological Museum".



According to reports, in the design of the Xinwushaoling tunnel, the deformation of the tunnel was effectively controlled by adjusting the curvature of the inverted arch, increasing the reserved deformation, radial grouting, double-layer support, and mechanized construction. The paragraphs that are dismantled and replaced are controlled within 1%.










In order to cope with the alpine climate and winter construction requirements of the project location, the participating team, under the leadership of the Lanzhou Engineering Construction Headquarters, implemented fully enclosed management of the mixing station and the production area of the steel component processing plant, and adopted effective methods such as laying heating pipelines on the ground. Make sure that the temperature of the silo is above 10 degrees Celsius during winter application, and the temperature of concrete exiting the machine is above 15 degrees Celsius. The two construction units respectively set up expert groups to carry out technical research on large deformation of high in-situ stress soft rock, optimize the excavation method, ensure that the large deformation section is "one-time forming, one-time forming", and successfully solved the construction problem of high in-situ stress soft rock large deformation.



The Lanzhou-Zhangjiakou No. 3 and No. 4 railways run through the Hexi Corridor, the golden section of the ancient Silk Road. After the completion of the whole line, it will become the second high-speed rail passage from Lanzhou to Xinjiang after the Lanxin high-speed rail. Formation of express passenger lanes. (Source: Lanzhou News Network)


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## General Huo

*The "Panda Train" is new again! Do you want to know about the characteristic soft sleeper and butler service?*
original2022-11-06 10:42·China Railway
November 4 at 7:39

Y886/887 "Panda Train"

Arrived successfully at Chengdu West Railway Station

marks the 4-day

*"Sit on the 'Panda' to Enjoy the Red Leaves" Tour Completed Successfully*










Recently, maple leaves have been red all over the mountains and forests, which is the best viewing period for autumn leaves. On the basis of actively doing a good job in epidemic prevention and control, China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Co., Ltd. has carefully researched and judged the trend of railway tourism passenger flow, and fully utilized the characteristics of the "Panda Special Train" for daytime and nighttime travel. travel experience.



















This "Panda Special Train" departed from Deyang Station at 19:16 on November 1. The trip lasted for 4 days. It led passengers into Bazhong, Sichuan, the core area of the old revolutionary base in Sichuan and Shaanxi, and visited Guangwushan Dam, In the scenic spots such as Eighteen Moon Lake, you can enjoy the beautiful red leaves of Guangwu Mountain, which is known as "the best red leaves in the world".










According to reports, the red leaves of Guangwu Mountain are a unique ecological landscape in the Guangwu Mountain Scenic Area. Every autumn, the Guangwu Mountain is full of forests, and thousands of plants compete in the autumn, with an viewing area of 680 square kilometers.










"This group trip not only saw the red leaves of Guangwu Mountain, but also got on the newly decorated 'Panda Train', and there is a shower room on the bus. The travel experience is great!" Passenger Liu Hui praised the facilities in the car Keep your mouth shut, and keep taking pictures to share with friends and relatives.



This "Panda Special Train" has been newly painted with the theme of "Agreement between Mountains and Seas · Panda Accompanying Travel", and the appearance and interior are completely new.



















The body of the "Panda Special Train" is decorated with bright orange, yellow, purple, etc.; the carriages of Panda Yuefu, Panda Yashe, Panda Guige, Panda Paradise and Panda Restaurant are distinguished by differentiated body textures; All windows and doors are decorated with panda patterns, and the "panda elements" of the whole train are more abundant and eye-catching.










The "Panda Train" includes 1 super soft sleeper car, 2 advanced soft sleeper cars, 5 advanced hard sleeper cars, 1 dining car, and 1 multi-purpose entertainment car, with a total capacity of 252 seats. The cabin is equipped with comfortable household items, smart locks, shower systems and Wi-Fi, creating a comfortable and elegant private space.




























The special train also provides daily necessities such as slippers, bottled water and panda masks for passengers according to the standards of star-rated hotels, and is equipped with two "panda housekeepers" who are responsible for organizing the tourism team and cooperating with the train crew to complete passenger services.










The multi-functional entertainment vehicle is equipped with a singing bar, reading area, chess and card area, and special assistance product promotion area. Passengers can sing, read, have leisure and entertainment here, as well as buy cultural and creative products and local special products.




























In terms of food, in addition to special services such as bartending and tea art, the "Panda Restaurant" is equipped with various cooking equipment, and the professional chef team is in charge. Combined with the food culture of the regions along the journey, the special menus that meet the tastes of the public have been carefully designed. There are a wide variety of specialty snacks such as Dandan noodles, Bobo chicken, Long Chaoshou, Zhong Dumplings, etc., to meet the diverse needs of tourists.



















In order to do a good job in the opening of the "Panda Special Train", Sichuan Chengdu Railway International Business Travel Group Co., Ltd. carefully arranged the itinerary, strengthened the safety training of panda housekeepers and tour guides, and formulated a work plan for epidemic prevention and control. Anti-epidemic materials such as protective masks to ensure a safe and worry-free journey.



Deyang Railway Station and Chengdu West Railway Station have done a good job of ventilation, disinfection and cleaning of the stations in advance, opened up green passages for group passengers, and set up waiting areas in the waiting rooms to ensure smooth travel for passengers.










Next, China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Co., Ltd. plans to launch a number of southwest characteristic tourism train lines, such as the "Southwest Ring Line", "Chuan-Yunnan Line" and "Jiuzhai Special Line", to bring more abundant railway tourism products to passengers, and to provide cultural tourism industry. Development adds new kinetic energy.


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## General Huo

Following the completion of the Chengdu-Dawan High-speed Railway on September 30 and the start of construction of the Xining-Chengdu Railway on October 29, the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle Line High-speed Railway and the West-Chongqing High-speed Railway will officially start construction during the year. , 4 months, there will be 4 railway construction in Sichuan, press the "fast forward button".

*At the same time, the projects under construction such as the Chengdu-Kunming Railway Double Line, the Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway, the Chengdu-Ziyi High-speed Railway, the Chongqing-Kunming High-speed Railway, and the Hanba South Railway have been reported frequently, making great strides towards the established goal of opening to traffic.

With so many railway projects under construction, what changes will it bring to Sichuan?

see length

Sichuan's railway network will be nearly 1/2 longer, and the new total mileage will exceed 2,000 kilometers*

With the intensive construction of railways, the operating mileage will inevitably become longer. According to the China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Corporation, up to now, the railway operating mileage in the Sichuan-Chongqing-Guizhou area under the Chengdu Bureau’s management is 11,476 kilometers, of which the high-speed railway has an operating mileage of 3,886 kilometers. Up to 5000 kilometers. *This means that by 2025, the newly added railway mileage in the Sichuan-Chongqing-Guizhou region will increase by about 1,500 kilometers.*











*Schematic diagram of Xining (Lanzhou) to Chengdu railway*​
*Among them, Sichuan has the largest increment. *The double line of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway is expected to open to traffic by the end of the year. The Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway and the Chengdu-Ziyi High-speed Railway are planned to be completed and opened to traffic by the end of 2023. The Han-Banan Railway is planned to be completed and opened to traffic in 2024. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the new railway lines will be put into operation in Sichuan in batches. For these projects alone, the mileage in Sichuan is about 1,000 kilometers. In addition to the four railway projects started this year, it can be seen that in the *next few years, Sichuan will be the "main battlefield" for railway construction in the southwest.*











*The double line of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway is planned to be completed and opened to traffic by the end of 2022.*​
*The continuous extension of railway lines has made the Sichuan railway network more and more dense.*

In terms of length alone, the current operating mileage of railways in the province is 5,687 kilometers, while the total mileage of projects under construction and upcoming projects in Sichuan involving the Sichuan section exceeds 2,000 kilometers. In the next few years, the length of this "net" will increase by nearly 1/2.

The encryption of the railway network will fill in more "blank" areas. At present, the West Sichuan Plateau Railway is still blank. With the progress of the construction of the Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway and the construction of the entire Xicheng-Chengdu Railway, in five years at most, more than 400 kilometers of railway will climb from the Chengdu Plain to the plateau with an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, and will be erected to Dajiuzhai, Lang The railway passage of the wooden temple.

*The encryption of the railway network will also change the existing traffic patterns of many cities in Sichuan.*

Taking Dazhou as an example, two high-speed railways with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour—Chengda-Wan High-speed Railway and Xi-Chongqing High-speed Railway all pass through Dazhou. Dazhou will also become a high-speed rail hub for Sichuan to the north and east. Lezhi County, Ziyang City will also welcome two high-speed railways, the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle Line High-speed Railway and the Chengda-Wanzhou High-speed Railway, which will meet in Lezhi. The local area is planning to build a new high-speed railway city around the high-speed railway station.











*Schematic diagram of West-Chongqing high-speed railway*​
*watch speed

There are fast lanes for both passenger and freight, and it is expected to form a large railway passage from Chengdu to Beijing and Shanghai at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour.*

High-speed rail has become a beautiful business card in China. In the past few years, Sichuan's high-speed rail has grown from nothing and achieved zero breakthroughs. By the end of 2021, the operating mileage of high-speed rail will reach 1,391 kilometers. With the completion of this batch of railway projects, the Sichuan high-speed railway may set a new record in the next few years.

350 kilometers is the highest operating speed of my country's high-speed railways. At present, only 5 high-speed railways in the country have achieved a normal operation speed of 350 kilometers per hour, namely Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway, Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway, Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway, Chengdu-Chongqing High-speed Railway, and Beijing-Guangzhou High-speed Railway Jingwu. part. It should be noted that although the Chengdu-Chongqing high-speed railway is one of the five, it is the only railway in our province that can reach a speed of 350 kilometers per hour. Among the high-speed railway lines with a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour and completed operation, there are still more than 20 high-speed railway lines that have not reached the speed of operation; and from the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the relevant statements of the railway department, high-speed railways are designed according to design standards. Speed operation is the general trend.

Once "350" is normalized, how will Sichuan catch up with the national speed?

*The landing of these projects has given Sichuan confidence. *The Chengdu-Ziyi high-speed railway, the Chengda-Wanzhou high-speed railway, the Chongqing-Kunming high-speed railway, and the upcoming Chengdu-Chongqing high-speed railway and the West-Chongqing high-speed railway are all projects with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, of which the Chengdu-Ziyi high-speed railway can be completed by the end of 2023 at the earliest open to traffic. In the words of the relevant person in charge of the Chengdu Bureau of China Railway, their completion "will help Sichuan to enter the 'first echelon' of the national high-speed rail."











*Schematic diagram of Chongqing-Kunming high-speed railway*​
These projects are closely connected with the national high-speed rail network of "eight verticals and eight horizontals", which can respectively increase the energy level of the outgoing channel in the east, south and north directions, and form a large railway channel with a speed of 350 kilometers per hour from Chengdu to Beijing, to Kunming, and to Shanghai. Further narrow the space-time distance of the "circle of friends".

*These projects will not only speed up the development of Sichuan in the future, but also speed up the existing railway network. *For example, Bazhong, currently there is no high-speed railway between Bazhong and China. After the completion of the Hanbanan Railway (Banan section) with a speed of 250 kilometers per hour, the travel time between Bazhong and Chengdu will be shortened from the current 4 hours to about 2.5 hours; The Chengdu-Dawan high-speed railway will be completed, and the Han-Banan railway will be connected to the Chengdu-Dawan high-speed railway. The time from Bazhong to Chengdu will be further shortened to about 1.5 hours.

High-speed railways support express passenger flow, while general railways support express logistics. In the northwest direction of Sichuan, the Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway and Xining-Chengdu Railway under construction are both passenger and freight railways. While accommodating the rapid transportation of customers, there is room for the smooth flow of the northwest to southwest railway logistics channel; south, Xuyong to The capacity expansion and reconstruction projects of Bijie Railway and Longxu Railway are in progress, and will form the most convenient railway channel for the new land-sea corridor in the west through Sichuan, and the double-track Chengdu-Kunming Railway, which will be opened to traffic at the end of the year, will profoundly change the freight layout in the southwest region and provide more high-quality and efficient services. Sichuan "going out".











*Schematic diagram of double line of Chengdu-Kunming Railway*​
*see height

Overcome technical difficulties and "explore the way" for national railway construction

The construction of the Southwest Railway is difficult. *The Ankang-Chongqing section of the West-Chongqing high-speed railway, which is about to start construction, is the first railway to cross the hinterland of Daba Mountain so far. The pass section, with bridges and tunnels accounting for 80%, is located in the plateau area at the junction of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces, and faces various problems such as plateau hypoxia and severe cold.











*The Haidong-Huangshengguan section of the Xining-Chengdu Railway, which is the last to be built, is located in the plateau area of the three provinces of Qing, Gan and Sichuan.*​
Facing up to the difficulties and breaking through the difficulties, Sichuan railway construction continued to explore the way, providing valuable experience for the industry.

The Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway, which is about to fill the gap of no railway in the northwestern Sichuan area, is another "sky road" built in my country on the plateau above 3,000 meters above sea level. unprecedented in the history of construction.











*The Chenglan Railway is the first railway to climb the western Sichuan plateau.*​
Xiao Xialin, commander of the Chenglan Headquarters of the Chenglan Railway Company, told Sichuan Online reporter that in order to overcome these technical difficulties, the Chenglan Railway, under the leadership of the China Railway Group, has carried out a total of 16 engineering tests in combination with the engineering problems on site. The research, practice and summary of the project have achieved a series of important technical achievements, effectively solved the technical problems in the engineering construction, guaranteed the orderly construction of the Chenglan Railway, and "also provided strong technical support for the construction of the southwestern mountainous area and high-altitude railway. ."

"We want to build a benchmark and set a demonstration." Wang Weigao, head of the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle Line Railway Headquarters of the Yangtze River Railway Group Sichuan Co., Ltd. said.

The high-speed rail on the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle Line has a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour. It is planned to carry out higher-speed related tests in the section from Dazu Rock Carving to Jianzhou. This section of the line is about 148.8 kilometers, accounting for about half of the total mileage of 291 kilometers. Breaking through the existing "ceiling" of the highest operating speed, the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle Line high-speed rail has attracted much attention from the beginning of its design. Wang Weigao said that the construction will innovate in design, construction, operation and maintenance intelligence and digitization, create a new generation of "smart high-speed rail", demonstrate and lead the construction and operation of high-speed railways with the highest standards and fastest operating speeds in China, and establish a new model for high-speed rail construction and operation. Benchmark.











*Schematic diagram of the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle Line*​
_(Photo provided by China Railway Chengdu Bureau)_


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## General Huo

https://www.toutiao.com/article/7167171558405030436/?log_from=3806c5db8698a_1668744021611



*Amazing time on the trains traveling through China!*
original2022-11-18 10:10·China Railway


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## General Huo

*Chenglan Railway has made new progress and is expected to be completed and opened to traffic by the end of 2023*
2022-11-18 07:53·Guangming Net
On November 17, news came from the Chenglan Railway Company that the last piece of T-beam pouring at the Shifang Beam Manufacturing Yard of the Cheng-Lan Railway was completed that day, marking the T-beam production task for the entire section of the Cheng-Lan Railway from Chengdu to Chuanzhusi (Huangshengguan) All completed, laying a solid foundation for the whole line.









The prefabrication of the last T-beam of Chenglan Railway was completed. Photo courtesy of Chenglan Railway Company

The Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway is an important part of the "Languang" channel in my country's "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed rail network. It starts from the Qingbai River in Chengdu, passes through Maoxian County and Songpan, and extends northward to connect the Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway to Lanzhou. In view of the complexity of the project construction, the section from Chengdu to Chuanzhusi (Huangshengguan) was started as the project test section.

The section from Chengdu to Chuanzhu Temple (Huangshengguan) is located in Sichuan, starting from the Qingbai River in Chengdu, passing through Shifang, Mianzhu, Anzhou, Mao County and ending at Chuanzhu Temple in Songpan. The project has a total length of 275.8 kilometers and 13 stations, including new stations There are 10 seats, and the design speed is 200 km/h. The main line bridge-tunnel ratio is as high as 80%, of which tunnels account for 64%, and there are 3 tunnels over 20 kilometers.

In order to speed up the construction progress and reduce the transportation cycle and transit of beam bodies, two beam manufacturing yards, Shifang and Songpan, were set up on the Chengdu-Chuanzhusi (Huangshengguan) section of the Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway, responsible for the production and supply of 5,396 pieces of T beams along the line.

According to Gao Baocai, executive deputy manager of the Shifang Beam Manufacturing Plant of China Railway No. 8 Bureau, in order to ensure the completion of the production and supply tasks of the entire line of T beams on schedule, China Railway No. 8 Bureau organized a special construction plan and strictly checked the quality of raw materials, safety measures, and on-site civilized construction. A comprehensive inspection and follow-up of on-site prefabricated beam formwork installation, mechanical equipment debugging, and concrete pouring were carried out.









Workers are lashing construction. Photo courtesy of Chenglan Railway Company

"The construction of the entire line is vigorously advancing towards the goal of completion and opening to traffic by the end of 2023." Xiao Xialin, commander of the Chenglan Headquarters of the Chenglan Railway Company, said that at present, the bridges and subgrade projects of the entire line have been basically completed, and the main works of the 10 new stations have been completed. , the remaining decoration and installation works are under construction, and the "four power" projects are progressing in an orderly manner with the completion of offline and laying. The most difficult part of the tunnel construction, only the Desheng Tunnel (formerly known as Yuntunbao Tunnel) has not yet been completed. through.


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## General Huo

*Save almost 1 hour on train travel from this capital city to the border!*
2022-11-17 17:49·China Railway
At 8:06 on November 15, train C384/381 from Kunming to Mohan departed from Kunming Station and arrived at Mohan Station on the China-Laos border 4 hours and 45 minutes later. This train is the train with the shortest travel time from Kunming to Mohan on the domestic section of the China-Laos Railway.










Kunming is located at the intersection of the "three circles" of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone, the Greater Mekong Sub-region, and the Pan-Pearl River Delta Economic Circle. It is an important gateway for my country to open to South Asia and Southeast Asia.

As one of the national-level cross-border economic cooperation zones, the Mohan-Boten Economic Cooperation Zone is located at a key node of the China-Laos Railway.










The optimization of the train operation plan will further support and promote the construction and development of Mohan International Port City, and facilitate business and tourism travel between Kunming and Xishuangbanna.

*Day trip from provincial capital to border*
After the optimization and adjustment of the train operation plan, the one-way running time from Kunming to Mohan *is about 4 hours and 40 minutes, which is nearly 1 hour shorter than before* .




























Train C384/381 from Kunming to Mohan departs from Kunming Station at 8:06 and arrives at Mohan Station at 12:51; train C386/387 from Mohan to Kunming departs from Mohan Station at 17:00 and arrives at Mohan Station at 21:00 44 minutes to arrive at Kunming Station.

The train stops at Mohan for more than 4 hours, allowing passengers to have plenty of time for business and official activities, and to realize a one-day round-trip between Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, and Mohan, the border between China and Laos.

The whole car is divided into first-class seats and second-class seats, the running time is shortened, the interior decoration and services of the car are fully upgraded, and the fare remains unchanged.










Mr. Li, the first "early adopter" passenger, is engaged in engineering construction work in Mohan and needs to travel frequently between Kunming and Mohan. After learning that the EMU operation plan between the two places had been adjusted, he immediately bought the ticket. "The time spent on the road has been shortened, which is very helpful to improve work efficiency. The car environment and ride comfort of this car are very good." Mr. Li said.










*Decoration Upgrade Service Upgrade*
Not only has the running time been compressed, but the interior decoration and train services of the train have also been fully upgraded.

The dining bar and the first-class seats are decorated with the theme of "peace and harmony", embellished and integrated with Chinese peony flowers and Lao chamba flowers, implying "good luck, peaceful coexistence, and eternal friendship between China and Laos".




























*The "Anxin Service Station"* set up by the dining car provides passengers with headrests, data cables, sewing boxes, reading glasses, disposable masks and other supplies.




























*The "China-Laos Railway Cultural and Creative Exhibition Room" is* set up in the No. 2 carriage . Passengers can choose to buy silk scarves with elements of the China-Laos Railway and Yunnan ethnic minorities, round fans printed with peony flowers and champa flowers, and souvenirs with elements of the China-Laos Railway Cultural and creative products such as canvas bags.










Carriage No. 6 is equipped with a mother and *baby room* , which provides nursing curtains, diapers, disposable disinfection gel and other supplies for passengers traveling with babies. In addition to disinfection according to the prescribed frequency, the mother and baby room also achieves disinfection for each guest, so that passengers can use it without worry.










On the basis of retaining the traditional taste, the rice set meal provided by the train restaurant bar adds *papaya chicken, beef with sour bamboo shoots, and Dai-flavored short ribs* , which have unique food characteristics in the areas along the China-Laos Railway.










The freshly ground coffee and freshly brewed Pu'er on the train are mellow and delicious, meeting the diverse needs of passengers.










Since the opening of the China-Laos Railway, the passenger flow has continued to improve. As of the end of October, *a total of 8 million passengers have been transported, with an average of more than 23,000 passengers* per day.










With the continuous optimization of the train operation plan between Kunming and Mohan, the China-Laos Railway will better serve the economic cooperation between China and Laos and the construction of the Mohan port city, and facilitate the travel of people along the line.


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## General Huo

Railroad in Guangxi


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## General Huo

Xinyi-Changxing Railway 新长铁路


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## TedStriker

Del


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## gao7

*Sightseeing rail line in Lijiang starts test run*













































> A train runs on the first phase of the Lijiang tour train project in Lijiang, Yunnan province, Nov 28, 2022. The line links UNESCO world cultural heritage site Lijiang Old Town and national 5A scenic spot Yulong Snow Mountain.


Sightseeing rail line in Lijiang starts test run


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## General Huo

*Lanxin Railway Jinghe-Alashankou Section Addition Second Line Project Started Construction*
2022-11-30 19:41·China News Network








On the 30th, the Jinghe-Alashankou section of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway began construction of the second-line project. Photo by Guan Bo

China News Service, Urumqi, November 30 (Reporter Yan Wenlu) The reporter learned from China National Railway Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Railway Group) that on the 30th, the second line project of the Jinghe-Alashankou section of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway started construction. This will further optimize the function of the western frontier railway network.

The Lanxin Railway Jinghe-Alashankou Section Addition Second Line Project is located in Boertala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang. The line starts from Lanxin Railway Jinghe Station, passes through Jinghe County, Bole City, and Alashankou City, and connects to the national first-class port Station Alashankou Station, with a total length of 70 kilometers and a design speed of 120 kilometers per hour, is a National Railway Class I electrified railway, and the construction period is 2 years.

The second-line project of the Jinghe-Alashankou section of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway will simultaneously renovate and expand the 4 existing stations of Jinghe, Mushroom Beach, Bole East, and Alashankou Station, build a new comprehensive inspection field for Alashankou Station, and renovate the station for container reloading field. After the completion of the project, it will form a double-track railway with the existing single-track railway, further improve the transportation capacity of the New Eurasia Continental Bridge, optimize the function of the railway network in the western border area, and effectively serve and support the bridgehead opening to the west and the core of the Silk Road Economic Belt It is of great significance to promote the construction of the district and promote the quality and efficiency of the China-Europe Railway Express. (Finish)


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## General Huo

*The new Chengdu-Kunming Railway will be tested today, and the new "Fuxing" will be on board*
_2022-12-23 08:23:00  Source: Sichuan Online  Editor: Yu Yiyong _
The new Chengdu-Kunming Railway will be opened soon. On December 23, China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Corporation organized the media to take a trial ride in advance to experience the upcoming new experience of time and space. The reporter from Sichuan Online learned at the scene that the new Chengdu-Kunming Railway will use the third-generation C-type CR200J "Fuxing" EMU for value, which is also the first official appearance of this model.
The third-generation C-type CR200J "Fuxing" EMU has 9 carriages. Compared with the second-generation "Hulk", it has added business seats, swivel seats, etc., and its exterior painting is green and white. This time, the China Railway Chengdu Bureau Group Corporation welcomes back 6 sets of the latest "Fuxing" EMUs, all of which will be used for the new Chengdu-Kunming Railway.


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## General Huo

According to the introduction of the Chengdu Bureau Group, the new Chengdu-Kunming Railway is parallel to the existing Chengdu-Kunming Railway, with a total length of about 860 kilometers and a design speed of 160 kilometers per hour. The remainder of the project is under construction.

According to Zou Yongmu, commander of the Xichang Headquarters of Chenggui Railway Company, the Emian section is the section with the most complex terrain and geological conditions and the most difficult construction on the entire line. There are 49 bridges totaling 30 kilometers and 27 tunnels totaling 170 kilometers, with a length of more than 10 kilometers. There are 6 tunnels, with a bridge-to-tunnel ratio of 88.6%, which has the typical characteristics of long and deeply buried tunnel groups, and the maximum slope of the line is 12.7‰. There are problems in this section such as large ramps, high tunnel ratio, vertical and horizontal ravines along the line, lack of communication signals, and inconvenient turnover. Under the strong leadership of China Railway Group, the construction unit organized tens of thousands of construction troops to work hard and overcome the time Difficult, innovative process technology, overcame many difficulties superimposed by various adverse geology such as high ground stress, mud and water inrush, and returned the construction period that was once lagged behind by nearly three years in the early stage, ensuring the realization of the approved construction period.

　　The new Chengdu-Kunming Railway is a passenger-cargo railway with a design speed of 160 kilometers per hour. After completion, it will run the Fuxing EMU, which will greatly improve the travel conditions for people in remote areas in the southwest, especially in the hinterland of Liangshan. The construction of the new Chengdu-Kunming railway aims to open the whole line by the end of this year. After the completion and opening to traffic, the time from Chengdu to Kunming will be shortened from 19 hours to about 7 hours.


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## General Huo




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## OnRail123

A hydrogen-powered train was unveiled on Wednesday. It is a 4-car inter-city trainset with a maximum speed of 160 km/h and a range of 600 km.


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## Ghostpoet

General Huo said:


> According to the introduction of the Chengdu Bureau Group, the new Chengdu-Kunming Railway is parallel to the existing Chengdu-Kunming Railway, with a total length of about 860 kilometers and a design speed of 160 kilometers per hour. The remainder of the project is under construction.


Which section of the line was opened on Dec 26? I understand it is Emei-Mianning, but China Railway said (through google translation) that the opened section is 240 km long, and Emei-Mianning is definitely longer...
Also, which sections of the Chengdu-Kunming are not modernized/doubled yet?
Finally, which classes of Fuxing EMUs are employed on the line? And, which electric locomotives are used for other passenger and freight services?

Thank you very much and regards
Ghostpoet


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## cheehg

Ghostpoet said:


> Which section of the line was opened on Dec 26? I understand it is Emei-Mianning, but China Railway said (through google translation) that the opened section is 240 km long, and Emei-Mianning is definitely longer...
> Also, which sections of the Chengdu-Kunming are not modernized/doubled yet?
> Finally, which classes of Fuxing EMUs are employed on the line? And, which electric locomotives are used for other passenger and freight services?
> 
> Thank you very much and regards
> Ghostpoet


It is Emei to Manning section. The distance is about 240km. The new double line shorts the distance to 860km from Chengdu to Kunming. This is a totally new 160km/h double line from Emei to Guang tong. The old line from Chengdu to Emei added a single line to become double. Guangdong to Kunming is part of Kunming to Dali line (200km/h). The whole line is finished now. The new line is named E-Guang (Emei to Guang tong). The old line keeps the Cheng-kun line name. It will be only for freight and local slow trains. 
They use CR200J for InterCity trains. I don't know if they will have a special fleet of locomotives for others. You can check what Chengdu and Kunming companies have currently. Z series long distance trains will use 160km/h locomotives.


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## OnRail123

A sleeper-only train is now running between Urumqi and Altay in Xinjiang to serve the avid skiers. Altay claims to be the origin of skiing based on the local cave carvings depicting skiing. The cave carvings were estimated to be 5,000 to 10,000 years old. The train runs overnight for just under 12 hours.
































Additional pictures at: 全列卧铺，夕发朝至！这趟Y字头列车够火爆！_澎湃号·政务_澎湃新闻-The Paper


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