Posted on 02/13/2010 7:22:39 AM PST by Willie Green
GUANGZHOU, CHINA ----
China's investment in high-speed trains will push it into a leadership role in the industry, the vice president for policy and development at Amtrak said.
With $100 billion of China's stimulus funding funneled into building tracks and trains, "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," Amtrak executive Stephen Gardner said, The New York Times reported Friday.
China will have 42 separate high speed train routes by 2012 with 5,000 miles of track that can accommodate 155 mph trains and 3,000 miles that can handle trains running 215 mph, the deputy chief engineer of China's railway ministry Zhang Shuguang said.
Currently, the fastest bullet train in China runs from Guangzhou to Wuhan, traveling 664 miles at and average speed of 215 mph.
By comparison, in the United States, the first high speed train is scheduled to open in 2014, an 84-mile jaunt from Tampa to Orlando, Fla., in a train that will run about 170 mph.
In Florida in January, President Barack Obama said, "Other countries aren't waiting (to invest in high-speed trains). They want those jobs. China ... Germany ... they are going after them hard, making the investments required."
Westinghouse was the developer and leader in maglev technology for high speed trains years ago. They sold it to China for reasons I don’t remember.
Er, are there any customers who want to travel and can afford to buy tickets? If so, is the fare they are paying sufficient to cover the capital outlay?
I would trust a Chinese “fast train” about as much as the Vancouver luge track.
Yeah, Willie - pimping trains again. Last I checked, China was on the edge of a massive bubble from government overspending on infrastructure and development. Yet you look to them for inspiration for this country? And you do realize that Obama and the Democrats love to pimp trains as well? Trains that cannot function without subsidies?
Look at the cost for “high-speed rail” vs. the costs of expanding the highway system, number of riders, etc. It’s financially feasible in China since they can expropriate the land for nothing, use extremely low-cost/no-cost labor, and subsidize the rail lines. Further, their highway infrastructure outside of the major cities is very poor.
Here in the US, we already have the highway infrastructure in place. For a rail line, land costs would bankrupt any line attempting such a project. Rremember that we had to give land to generate the cross-US rail lines. Second, take a look back at the Trans-Texas corridor. This was part of the proposal. We would be required to use union labor (Ka-Ching). The costs of rail road cars and engines would be tremendous. Couple that with limited capacity (how many you can run at any one time on a line) and it’s an economic non-winner. It would never be viable against air lines and car travel.
We’re having to subsidize AmTrac through the nose since it can’t pay for itself, even in the northeast and on the west coast. The Las Vegas monorail, touted as the next chapter of rail, has gone bankrupt, even with the millions that vist Vegas. There is not a single public transit rail system that is paying for itself in the US. And people expect high-speed rail to be economically viable?
You can’t compare what happens in China with what is possible economically in the US. Totally different systems, economically and politically.
Er, are there any customers who want to travel and can afford to buy tickets?
No... only a bunch of bankrupt oil addicts who have pawned their futures to the global oil pimps.
China has 5000 miles of track with 42 trains. That’s 119 miles of track per train.
China has a much denser population with 358 people per square mile. The USA has 95 people per square mile. Plus their population is not used to owning cars. Trains don’t make as much sense for us.
The North east has commuter trains, and a denser population. The trains just aren’t high speed. But most of the country doesn’t have even slow speed commuter trains because it’s not commercially viable. Nobody wants to take trains or buses.
The Chicoms don’t have labor unions to deal with.
The best solution for America, is to build nuclear plants so that energy is cheap and plentiful.
Imagine the boon to the economy if electric prices dropped in half.
And if oil costs go too high, we would be in a position to convert to hydrogen or battery power.
I also think we should automate driving. We are getting closer. With GPS, collision avoidance systems, DARPA, etc.
I think we should upgrade GPS until it’s accurate enough to maintain a car in a lane. But automated driving shouldn’t rely on GPS except for routing. It needs to rely on visual examination of the road.
Imagine if most cars were driven by computers that had a very very low accident rate. Just the savings in time and gas from traffic tie ups from the reduction in wrecks would be a huge savings. Not to mention traffic tickets, accidents, auto body repairs, auto insurance, accident related medical care, ambulance chasing lawyers, etc. Plus youth and elderly who cannot drive would be freed.
Groovy music, dude!
Uh, Willie, it isn't just the GOP that's opposed to it.
And it's not just passenger rail infrastructure that the GOP is opposed to...
(I used to think it was simply a partisan thing...
payback to the urban ghetto people for not voting "R" or something along those lines)
But no.... the Dubai Ports fiasco and the effort to "privatize" the Nafta highway have convinced me that the Stupid Party intends to continue to Do Nothing until all our national infrastructure crumbles and decays nationwide.
Their fascist "private sector" fanaticism not only accelerates the decline of our industrial manufacturing sector, but also the decay of our highways, bridges, tunnels, levees locks & dams, water supply and wastewater treatment systems, etc. etc.
I'm sick and tired of a braindead GOP who keeps on promising that some omnipotent Wall Street "Invisible Hand" is gonna wave a magic wand and solve all our infrastructure problems...
It's a pile of crap that I've heard for too many years from "conservative" politicians, and I'm not tolerating it any longer.
When gas hit $4 a gal, Amtrack was at full capacity on the east coast and they were STILL in the red.
Probably the only good thing about that otherwise horrible show that might have killed NBC.
This one doesn’t have as groovy music but I got this footage at a local railroad model club. I hope to get into that one day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VTobWJlKlQ
A friend of mine has been doing the brass models for over 30 years http://www.brasslocomotive.com/
Beautiful crafstmanship.
Why not? They can't fool anyone into thinking they need more empty cities, so why not empty trains?
Very nice and bookmarked.
I don’t know if they even make kits anymore, but someone is still building them.
Those completed ones sure are pricey!
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