Posted on 07/26/2011 7:52:07 PM PDT by Nachum
With all the other horrible events of the weekend, China's high speed rail crash sort of faded into the background. But the toll is horrific: 43 dead, and hundreds more injured after one high speed train ran into another. Critics, such as Michael Sainsbury of The Australian, are now arguing that this is the result of cut corners in the construction process:A picture is beginning to emerge of a network that has been built to unrealistic and politically driven timetables, using a mix of technologies that were given little time to be properly integrated.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
a network that has been built to unrealistic and politically driven timetables, using a mix of technologies that were given little time to be properly integrated.
Oh, you mean like Obama is proposing for us, in transportation and in space.
I am not all that concerned with the rail system...that might cost a few dozen lives at a time.
It is the Three Gorges Dam that worries me. If that thing lets go, it will make the Johnstown Flood look like an overflowing drainage ditch.
I hope to God I don’t wake up some morning to that. If it happens, it could be one of the worst human disasters of all time.
The root causes would be the same, though.
Choo-choo ping.
Pei Ping.
They already had a wonderful train between Beijing and Shanghai that goes 100-150mph. Why they thought they need another faster train parallel to that is beyond me. Pure hubris I guess.
I can’t tell from the stores if it’s the new train or the older one that had the accident.
My understanding (it’s been on the new here, I’m in Shanghai waiting for my clients to show up) is that it was a “D” train accident, the older, slower 100-150 MPH trains. It wasn’t the new 220+ MPH CRH “G” trains.
Now, as far as the US is concerned with AMTRAK and all, a 100 MPH train is streakingly fast! But in the rest of the world (like Europe), this would be the slower, Inter-City Express train, not the bullet/high-speed train...
Sorry, “new” should be news - the effects of jet-lag are to blame! :) That and a heat-index of 125 deg...;)
high speed trains to those empty cities they built?
It looks more like high-speed population control. I bet that “surplus” material from construction was sold on the black market.
It strikes me that this is not the country that will conquer the world. It is the country that will nuke itself in the foot.
Somehow, I think I agree with you. Besides, they like to party a lot, drink a lot, and screw around. Maybe we should find out what they like to drink and offer to put a factory to sell it at cost over there. Keep the peace.
I am surprised Willie Green did not comment on this thread.
How many different countries will China split into when the facade finally falls down?
Free (Tax Payer Provided) Wi-Fi would have prevented that. Where’s Willie?
I’ve got a technology even faster than a 220 mph G train. An airplane.
Reminds me of the In-Laws:
Speaking of which, one of my clients is bidding on providing PA systems for China’s new airports...
China’s planning to build 45 new airports in the next 5 years, and 80 over the next decade. Each airport will have at least 3 runways and 50 gates. They can use a few planes to go with those trains!
It’s amazing what it takes to mobilize a billion people, spread out of a country the size of the US...
Viking kitties ate him and his trains late last year.
Ooooh. Great question. 25? More? Let's start the list:
Hong Kong So long, low-class Commie iliot! Don't think it not fun since 1997. Not that we gave you time of day! We go make money. You go pound sand. Okay?
Macau Need you like hole in head, Mandalin dog. We go make money like Hong Kong.
Tibet Bye, we meditate and play fo you, Commie fatso. TTFN!
Guangdong We build new empi'e, make toys. Change name: Maybe ToyLand. Maybe WalMa't!
Shanghai If Mao-man need bank loan, no call us, we call you.
Shandong This age of gold, baby! Gold what we got. We open Las Vegas East next week. You want us obey you, Red Boy? Show me money! . . . I no accept Yankee T-bill.
Uighur World Come to Muslim fashion show in Khotan next week, Commie infidel. Show you nice lady headsca'f—twisted on you neck!
Greater Beijing Like Detroit, it will be penniless and crime-ridden, populated by state employees, their families, and slaves. It will also be the only area in China speaking the currently state-mandated dialect of Mandarin. . .
Just for starters.
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