China's hi-speed railway - Symbol of toil and efficiency of the Chinese people

[Brotherhood]

Railway between Nanning, Qinzhou under construction - People's Daily Online November 05, 2010

Workers walk at a construction site of a railway between Nanning and Qinzhou in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nov. 3, 2010. The railway is an important part of the transportation network in Beibu Gulf economic region since the hinterland of Qinzhou port includes large areas in south and southwest China. (Xinhua/Lu Boan)

Workers make efforts at a construction site of the railway between Nanning and Qinzhou in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nov. 3, 2010

 

[Martian2]

People's Daily Online -- China's light maglev "Zhonghua-06" made debut

China's light maglev "Zhonghua-06" made debut
UPDATED: 15:41, May 13, 2005

China's light maglev train "Zhonghua-06" made its debut in Dalian (in northeast China's Liaoning Province) on May 11, 2005.

The train is 9.6 meters long, 1.65 meters wide, and 1.87 meters high. The design speed is 400 kph (i.e. kilometers per hour).

The driver's cabin in the Zhonghua-06 maglev.

China's 1st maglev train starts test run - What's On Xiamen

"China's 1st maglev train starts test run
Updated: 25 Jun 2009

China's first domestically-made low-and-medium speed Maglev trains are now undergoing test run operations.

Maglev trains come in various speeds, not only high-speed trains. Low and medium-speed Maglev trains are more suitable for running in urban city areas, similar to subways or light rail. China's first domestically-made low-and medium-speed Maglev trains are now undergoing test run operations.

This is China's newest Maglev train. The test runs began in Tangshan in Hebei Province on June 15th about one week ago. The train has three carriages. And each carriage has between 100 and 120 seats.

Maglev trains float on a magnetic field and are propelled by a linear induction motor. There are no wheels running along a track, so there is no wheel noise. Just like this newest Maglev train shown here, its working noise can hardly be heard five meters away.

The Maglev train has a design speed of up to 120 kilometers per hour. That's faster than light rail trains, which can attain speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour. The Maglev train also has stronger power going uphill and turning corners. The Maglev train will offer more convenience and faster service for urban transport.

Vehicle power supplies are located inside the train carriages. Even if there is a sudden loss of electricity, these power supplies can help the Maglev train keep on running to a safe area, before gradually stopping. Engineers say there will be very little electro-magnetic radiation created when the power generating machine is running.

Chairman of Beijing Enterprises Holdings Maglev Tech. Devt. said, "Compared with the radiation from television and electric shavers, the electro-magnetic radiation from the Maglev train is minimal."

The operational system of the Maglev train is also designed to increase safety.

Currently, Japan has the most mature technology on low-and medium-speed Maglev train development. Successful test runs on China's newly-developed Maglev trains show that China will be able to mass produce this technology.

SOURCE: CCTV"

 

[Martian2]

China Plans 1000 Km/h Maglev Trains | gizchina.com

"China Plans 1000 Km/h Maglev Trains
Posted by Andi On August - 5 - 2010

China’s locomotive jewel is the Maglev in Shanghai. A train that floats on magnets and can reach a cruising speed of around 500 Km/h, pretty darn fast by our standards, but obviously not fast enough.

Jiaotong University currently has a prototype Maglev that can hit 600 Km/h and is planning a smaller ‘Express’ version, which will hit the dizzying speed of 1000 Km/h!! Twice that of current Maglevs in China or Japan!

The people behind these super fast trains decided the only way to make them go any faster was to reduce friction, but as they already float on magnets there was little they could do to drop it further unless of course they put the whole train and its rails in a tube and created a vacuum……. So that’s what they’ve done!

The cost for the tube is said to be around 10-20 million RMB per kilometer!! And is penned in for testing within the next 2-3 years!"

CHENGDU, CHINA: People visit the high-speed maglev train which is manufactured by domestic CAC Central Air industry on April 8, 2010 in Chengdu, Sichuan province of China. The train has a top speed of 500 km/h.

The interior of the domestically-designed and manufactured maglev train.

China produces first home-grown maglev train CCTV-International

"China produces first home-grown maglev train
2010-04-09 13:49 BJT

China's first home-grown sample maglev train has been completed, making China the third country able to design and produce the trains after Germany and Japan.

This maglev train has a maximum speed of 500 kilometers per hour. It is expected to take its pilot run on the maglev line in Shanghai during this year's World Expo.

Wu Xiangming, Engineer, Maglev Train Dev’t Project’s expert Group, said, "This is the first domestically-designed and produced maglev train in China. We own the independent intellectual property rights. We will make a pilot run to test whether the train has any flaws."

Maglev trains are the fastest mode of ground transportation in the world. The vehicle contains materials that are used on airplanes.

China used to import maglev technology from developed countries, but after years of learning and innovation, the country has now mastered the entire range of production from building the rails to developing the control system.

Dai Ganchang, Engineer, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, said, "We had a deal with Germany. They introduced technology to us and we digested it. Currently, we only import some parts from Germany. The design and manufacturing are totally home-grown."

China's first maglev line officially opened at the end of 2002 in Shanghai. The trains were imported from Germany. The line has transported a total of 23 million passengers since its introduction. It travels at a speed of 430 kilometers an hour."

 

[Martian2]

Vacuum tube maglev train

DailyTech - China Plans 1,000 KPH Super Train

"China Plans 1,000 KPH Super Train
Jason Mick (Blog) - August 5, 2010 1:19 PM

Design would almost double today's record speed

China is planning to build a 1,000 kph locomotive, which would nearly double the current record speed. (Source: China Daily)

We've discussed a couple of times the U.S.'s growing gap in high speed rail compared to China. As fossil fuels become more scarce, more expensive, and more dangerous from a political standpoint, mass transit solutions look increasingly appealing. High speed rail is particularly promising as it promises not only to reduce fossil fuel use, but also to get you to your destination faster.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) reportedly are preparing a record-shattering 1,000 kilometer per hour train, according to the Beijing Times.

The new trains will make use of a vacuum tube to reduce friction losses. They will first build a prototype vacuum magnetic suspension train capable of traveling between 500 and 600 kph. That gives it a shot at breaking the record set by Japan's JR-Maglev train, which achieved a speed of 581 km/h (361 mph). The record for a traditional railed train was set by France's TGV at 574.8 km/h (357.18 mph).

After the prototype, the group plans to implement a smaller train capable of speeds of as much as 1,000 kph. Shen Zhiyun, a member of the research team, comments, "The speed can be reached by making vacuum pipelines for maglev trains to run through, with no air resistance."

Daryl Oster, who owns the U.S. patent on evacuated tube (vacuum) rail, now works at the CAE. Along with Zhiyun and another researcher, Zhang Yaoping, he is leading efforts to deploy the technology. The team hopes to begin laying ETT rail lines within the next ten years.

It would use less steel than current trains, but would be slightly more expensive. China is targeting a cost of 200 million yuan ($29.54M USD) per kilometer for its traditional rail. The Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) rail would cost approximately 210 to 220 million yuan ($31.0M USD to $32.49M USD) per kilometer.

Currently the planned trains travel at 350 kph. A cost increase of 5 to 10 percent seems a fair tradeoff to score nearly twice the speed. It's just one more example of how ambitious China is when it comes to high speed rail."

 

[no_name]

China's light maglev train "Zhonghua-06" made its debut in Dalian (in northeast China's Liaoning Province) on May 11, 2005.

What are the advantages of a hanging design over conventional layouts?

 

[Brotherhood]

China's high-speed trains to reach 400 km/hr speeds in 5-10 yrs - People's Daily Online November 08, 2010

Zhang Shuguang, Deputy Chief Engineer and director of the Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Railways (MOR) said on Nov. 6 that it is conceivable that the speed of China's high-speed trains will reach 400 kilometers per hour in next five to 10 years, and the run speed is expected to exceed 500 kilometers per hour in the next 20 years. In the process of optimizing the design, the high-speed railway will save more energy.

Zhang Shuguang said that it is only in less than six years, the running speed of China's high-speed rail increased from 250 kilometers per hour to 350 kilometers per hour and finally to 380 kilometers per hour this year. The 500 kilometers per hour speed test will be made on Beijing-Shanghai section in March next year. It has taken nearly 30 years in the developed countries to complete this process.

Zhang said that the energy-saving effect of high-speed railways is very obvious. The energy consumption of a train with a speed of 350 kilometers per hours is about one-third the energy consumption of a bus, one-sixth of that of a car and one-fourth of that of an aircraft. It also can be more energy efficient by optimizing the aerodynamic shape, reducing running resistance and other technical measures.

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.

It is understood that developing a higher level of intelligent trains will be one of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Railways' key project of the 12th Five-Year Plan and it was included in the national "863 Plan." The intelligent trains will use advanced sensing technology to control the high-speed train's systems and enhance the train's active safety capacity.

By Yan Meng, People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

Huge road, rail boost in pipeline - People's Daily Online November 09, 2010

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, while high-speed railways will link cities with more than 500,000 residents, said Wu Xiao, deputy director-general of the NDRC's basic industries department.

"The government has eased transport capacity pressures and virtually solved many bottleneck problems... regarding economic and social development," he said at a regional workshop on transport infrastructure in Beijing jointly held by the central government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

China's annual investment in transport fixed assets and highway construction now exceeds 1.1 trillion yuan ($165 billion), of which 967 billion yuan was invested in road construction.

Wu said that, as a proportion of the overall investment, spending on railways will increase by a large margin while the amount expended on road construction will fall.

"Although China has made great improvements in transport development, the country's gross quantity of infrastructure in this respect remains insufficient, and transport in western areas is still underdeveloped," said Li Yong, deputy minister of finance.

The next five years is a critical period for China to promote transport infrastructure construction together with other Asian countries, he added.

Transport infrastructure has played a critical role in helping to boost growth and cut poverty in the Asia-Pacific region, said ADB Vice-President (Finance and Administration) Bindu Lohani.

"It is an important determinant of economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction," Lohani said.

"Improvements in transport infrastructure reduce the costs of transportation and improve its quality. This strengthens economic performance by making goods and services more competitive and by stimulating growth in trade."

The ADB has called on Asian economies to strengthen their infrastructure investment through an effective financing framework to achieve higher and more sustainable growth.

The bank said that as much as $750 billion will have to be invested annually in infrastructure across the region by 2020. This means that about $8.25 trillion will be invested in that period in national and cross-regional infrastructure projects.

The required infrastructure investment for pan-Asian connectivity in the transport, communications and energy sectors in the next 10 years is expected to produce income gains of about $13 trillion throughout Asia, the bank said.

Lohani said that while the benefits of building better transport infrastructure were commonly accepted, these present significant financing challenges for ADB's developing member economies. He suggested that many governments increase their investment in transport infrastructure, and at the same time encourage the private sector to play a bigger role.

He also stressed that "greener" and more efficient urban transport needs to be inserted in city planning and policymaking within the wider context of creating more livable cities.

By Wang Xiaotian, China Daily

 

[Brotherhood]

Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway may open next October - People's Daily Online 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

 

[Brotherhood]

Beijing metro to exceed 300 kms by yearend - People's Daily Online November 09, 2010

The operation length of the Beijing metro will reach 336 kms by the end of 2010 from the current 228 kms, according to the city's metro operation company Tuesday.

Five new lines are currently being tested and operational trials will soon begin, said an official of Beijing Subway Operation Co. Ltd.

Beijing will have a total of 14 metro lines once the new lines are completed by the end of this year, he added.

Presently the metro network runs about 4,000 trains a day, 2,500 more than 2005 when its operational length was only 114 kms. Also since 2005 daily passenger numbers grew from 1.86 million to 5.02 million people, the official said.

Source: Xinhua

 

[Brotherhood]

Track laying for Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway completed - People's Daily Online November 15, 2010

Photo taken on Nov. 15, 2010 shows the ceremony of the completion of track laying of Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Bengbu City, east China's Anhui Province. The last track has been laid at Bengbu section of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway on Monday morning, marking the completion of track laying of the entire 1,318-km railway. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

Workers operate machine to lay the last track of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Bengbu City, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 15, 2010. The last track has been laid at Bengbu section of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway on Monday morning, marking the completion of track laying of the entire 1,318-km railway. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

Workers lay the last track of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Bengbu City, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 15, 2010. The last track has been laid at Bengbu section of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway on Monday morning, marking the completion of track laying of the entire 1,318-km railway. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

Workers operate machine to lay the last track of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Bengbu City, east China's Anhui Province, Nov. 15, 2010. The last track has been laid at Bengbu section of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway on Monday morning, marking the completion of track laying of the entire 1,318-km railway. (Xinhua/Guo Chen)

 

[Brotherhood]

Beijing-Shanghai train takes four hours - People's Daily Online November 16, 2010

Workers lay the last track for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Bengbu, Anhui province, on Monday. ZHANG JIANPING / FOR CHINA DAILY

Track-laying work for the long-anticipated Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway stood complete when Railways Minister Liu Zhijun tightened the line's last bolt on a windy Monday morning.

"The project has entered its last stage," Lu Chunfang, vice-minister of railways, said at a ceremony to celebrate the latest success in the city of Bengbu, situated in the center of the railway line.

Since the project kicked off on April 18, 2008, some 135,000 workers have toiled hard to lay 1,318 km of high-quality tracks.

In the next few months, workers will race against time to install the railway's power supply, communications and signal systems, and carry out operation trials to test the line and trains to ensure the railway can open to traffic next year, Wang Yongping, spokesman of the Ministry of Railways, said.

"The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway incorporates China's latest high-speed railway technologies," he said.

The 1,318-km railway costs 220.94 billion yuan ($33.29 billion) in total.

"The core factor that can tell a country's high-speed railway technology is the speed," said Guo Zhiyong, deputy chief engineer of China Railway Siyuan Survey and Design Group Co Ltd, which is in charge of the line's design.

"The future trial operations on this line are expected to beat the speed record of 416.6 km per hour achieved by the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway on Sept 28. And its future operation speed will also exceed that of the current 350 km per hour," he said.

The ministry aims to slash the travel time between China's two largest cities to only four hours, down from the current 10 hours.

Other technical highlights include engineers' innovations in tunnel design and construction that allow trains to encounter each other in the tunnel at a speed of 350 km per hour safely, and the world's first six-line high-speed railway bridge, the Dashengguan bridge in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, which spans 336 meters and allows trains to pass through at a speed of 300 km per hour.

The railway winds through seven provinces and municipalities along China's eastern coast, where one-fourth of the country's population lives, generating 40 percent of the country's GDP.

Along the way, there are 24 stops, including five major stations - Beijing South, Tianjin West, Jinan West, Nanjing South and Shanghai Hongqiao stations.

The new railway is expected to relieve the existing line of pressures from both passenger and cargo transport, said Wang Yongping.

For a long time, the railway department found it difficult to meet transportation demands along the line. Only 35 percent of the demand for cargo transportation could be met in the past, he said.

With the new rail line ready, the ministry estimates that it can ferry 80 million passengers in one direction annually. This will greatly enhance the railway transport capability between Beijing and Shanghai, as the existing railway will be used for cargo transport, he said.

China now leads the world with 7,431 km of high-speed railways in operation.

The country plans to build a high-speed railway network of 13,000 km by 2012. By then, passengers would be able to reach most provincial capital cities from Beijing in eight hours by train.

By Xin Dingding, China Daily

Workers lay the last track for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Bengbu, Anhui province, on Monday. ZHANG JIANPING / FOR CHINA DAILY

 

[Brotherhood]

Last steam locomotive retires in NE China - People's Daily Online November 18, 2010

A steam locomotive is officially retired at Shenyang Heating and Power Plant, Liaoning province, Nov 17, 2010. Serving as a coal transporter, the 25-year-old locomotive has fulfilled its duty and been replaced by a late-model gas engine train. In 1814, George Stephenson from England invented the world’s first steam locomotive, speeding up the pace of industrialization. China had its first steam locomotive in 1956, named Qianjin, and witnessed the end of the steam era when the last batch of Qianjin retired in Inner Mongolia in 2005. China is the last country in the world with a significant quantity of steam engines in regular service, but the end is rapidly approaching. [Asianewsphoto]

An employee works in a carriage of the steam locomotive to be retired from Shenyang Heating and Power Plant, Liaoning province, Nov 17, 2010. [Asianewsphoto]

A driver looks out from a window to bid farewell to the soon-to-be-retired steam locomotive at Shenyang Heating and Power Plant, Liaoning province, Nov 17, 2010. [Asianewsphoto]

A worker shovels coal into an engine boiler of the soon-to-be-retired steam locomotive at Shenyang Heating and Power Plant, Liaoning province, Nov 17, 2010. [Asianewsphoto]

A late-model gas engine train with green power has been put into use at Shenyang Heating and Power Plant, Liaoning province, Nov 17, 2010. [Asianewsphoto]

An employee steers a late-model gas engine train at Shenyang Heating and Power Plant, Liaoning province, Nov 17, 2010. [Asianewsphoto]

 

[anoop]

People's Daily Online -- China's light maglev "Zhonghua-06" made debut

China's light maglev "Zhonghua-06" made debut
UPDATED: 15:41, May 13, 2005

China's light maglev train "Zhonghua-06" made its debut in Dalian (in northeast China's Liaoning Province) on May 11, 2005.

The train is 9.6 meters long, 1.65 meters wide, and 1.87 meters high. The design speed is 400 kph (i.e. kilometers per hour).

The driver's cabin in the Zhonghua-06 maglev.

China's 1st maglev train starts test run - What's On Xiamen

"China's 1st maglev train starts test run
Updated: 25 Jun 2009

China's first domestically-made low-and-medium speed Maglev trains are now undergoing test run operations.

SOURCE: CCTV"

whats advantage of having an upside down of an maglev model and why it is test model so thin i mean from look i can not more than 1 person in per compartment

and it looks like form 3 pic that china ia working on 2 types of model

good

 

[no_name]

whats advantage of having an upside down of an maglev model:

Maybe harder for people to electrocute themselves. And if people try to 'jump rail' there'll be less of a mess to clean up.

 

[Brotherhood]

High-speed rail between Yunnan and Myanmar on agenda - People's Daily OnlineNovember 22, 2010

Construction of a high-speed rail link between Yunnan province and neighboring Myanmar, part of a project to upgrade transport connections with Southeast Asian nations, will start in about two months, a top rail expert said.

The line, from Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, will be 1,920 kilometers long, said Wang Mengshu, an academic of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Trains will run at about 170-200 km/h once it is completed, he added.

Wang, who is also a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, has been involved in Chinese high-speed rail projects from the outset.

Wang told China Daily that a high-speed rail connection between southwestern China and Cambodia is also under discussion. And an exploratory survey for another route that would link Yunnan and Vientiane, the capital of Laos, is under way.

The three new rail connections being developed, along with another linking China and Vietnam, will form a network that is likely to be completed within 10 years, Wang said.

"The project, which aims to boost cooperation between China and Southeast Asian nations, will greatly enhance the economic development of China's western regions," said Wang.

A national rail plan will see the network extended to 120,000 km by the end of 2020 and to 170,000 km by the end of the 2030, Wang said. Upon completion, 60 percent of the country's railways will be located in western China.
A Ministry of Railways spokesman said a detailed construction plan to link Southeast Asian countries had not yet been finalized, but confirmed that the ministry has set up working groups with these countries.

Piamsak Milintachinda, Thailand's ambassador to China, earlier told China Daily that a ministry team went to Thailand in August to gauge the investment environment for a high-speed railway as well as a rail network connecting Thailand, China and other Southeast Asian countries.

The proposed 240-km high-speed railway in Thailand, estimated to cost about $25.6 billion, would be the first such line in that country and connect Bangkok with Rayong, the industrial base in the east of the country.

Thailand has long intended to upgrade its network and learn from China's experience in "operating a high-speed rail system", the ambassador said.

Chinese experts believe that China has the technical ability to carry out the project, but other considerations may come into play.

"There is no technological barrier to building high-speed railways to Southeast Asian countries but China needs to take profitability into account," said Ji Jialun, a professor with Beijing Jiaotong University.

Domestic companies are upgrading technology to keep up with innovation and growth in the high-speed rail industry and are well positioned to benefit from increased interest in high-speed rail routes.

China's high-speed trains have clocked speeds as high as 416.6 km/hour, according to Zhao Xiaogang, chairman of the China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp, the largest listed railway equipment maker in China.

"Europe, the United States, Russia, India, Brazil and the Middle East are all mulling over plans to develop high-speed railways, indicating a boom in the industry globally," Zhao said.

Tan Zongyang, Zhou Siyu and Liu Yiyu contributed to this story.

By Du Juan and Wan Zhihong, China Daily