Posted on 12/28/2009 12:20:35 PM PST by OldDeckHand
In the week that Britain's high speed rail link closed down because the wrong sort of snow interfered with the engine's electronics, China unveiled the world's fastest train service on one of the coldest days of the year.
Days after thousands of passengers were left stranded when Eurostar services were cancelled, China's new system connects the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 217mph - and it took just four years to build.
The super-high-speed train reduces the 664-mile journey to just a three-hour ride and cuts the previous journey time by more than seven-and-a-half hours, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Work on the project began in 2005 as part of plans to expand a high-speed network aimed at eventually linking Guangzhou, a business hub in southern China near Hong Kong, with the capital Beijing, Xinhua added.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Amen to that
Just noticed I put an extra n in dam. ooops
Its a big project and a huge impact on the area and people. Not so sure its a good thing.
Theres another huge dam down in South America, think its brazil. Pretty much the same problems where they built the foundation on shaky ground.
People talk about how great the Chinese are, but they frequently use engineers from the west to complete their projects.
I was reffering to the Hong Kong current metro rail lines in my post. I should have been more spicific - allot different from the PRC which I have seen :o)
and you are right...
I completely agree with you, and for the reason you stated. That is a large-scale assessment, however. The project in question is of a socialist (government) type. And I recognize here the standard socialist "we've got to surpass" mentality (as I am sure you'll recall both China and Russia were constantly "surpassing America" in steel production, wheat crops, etc.) They did not just build a rail link -- they made it the fastest in the world. [ The safety remains to be seen, of course, unless its operations are outsourced to Westerners.]
Totalitarian regimes, by their very nature, can allocate resources to a single aim, which is then achieved quite quickly. Precisely because that aim is taken by itself, other areas of economics/society/culture suffer. Hence my earlier statement: given the stated goal of achieving happiness for all, totalitarian regimes are ineffective (they never achieve the stated goal). But they can send a satellite into Earth's orbit faster than democracies (the Soviets); they can militarize faster and better (the Nazis), etc.
Sorry if these points were stated even less clearly in the previous post.
Impressive, alongside China now a market equal to the US for cars.
I have doubts we could do this, in any amount of time.
It still leaves open the question of which form of capitalism is better? A totalitarian capitalism or a democratic capitalism?
So far, both seems quite crummy for the ordinary man on the street....though in different ways.
I just did a search for construction deaths on the Three Gorges Dam and High Speed Trains. Amazingingly - it seems that China does not have any deaths on these types of projects!
This as well as most of your previous posts shows you to be troll. "Western colonialism" that "impoverished many countries;" alleged American "theft" of technology in XIX century; claim that capitalism is bad for the average man; claims that America lacks know-how to build speed trains...
As in the case of most leftists, the logic of your statements is so poor that they deserve no reply. Like all leftists, you don't even bother with the facts. One could argue with an intelligent leftists that have intellectual integrity. You don't exhibit any, however: you clearly aspouse leftist views and entered this forum merely for entertainment and propaganda.
You are nothing but a troll. Go crawl in bed with your socialist anti-American buddies.
90% of the Chinese still have in abject poverty, 99.99% have zero freedom, do not be fool by the communist system propaganda. Any country that has no freedom is going nowhere. China is going nowhere.
There is no point in personal attacks. I personally think both political parties are corrupt and are fundamentally serving the same interests. The question of exactly why this country can’t seem to build feats of modern engineering as it did say 50 years ago or even maintain the infrastructure created decades ago is one of great concern.
fool=fooled
you are right. but i will just take a couple of month to prove it as i’m Chinese must to ride it. wow
no, should be several dollars an hour
crowed pepeople is true. but the place is different for two pictures. your picture took at Guangzhou, and the photo in news is took at Wuhan
The south terminal of Wu-Guang High-speed railway is Guangzhounan(Guangzhou South) station, which is even much bigger than Wuhan Station(as the pic shows), is still under construction.
http://image155.poco.cn/mypoco/myphoto/20090916/20/4468546320090916205954084.jpg">
It’s very sad to see that. I mean, what California has built in the last 70 years? Cow Palace? Not mentioning spending 20 years to fix a shaky Bay Bridge? Do Americans know that China has build over 50 bridges of such size in the last 10 years?
What a joke!
Environmentalists are happy too. If all 1200 passenger (per train) travel via air instead of the electric train, tons and tons more CO2 will be emitted. High speed train is a perfect alternative to air traveling.
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