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

[no_name]

Have you guys thought about it this way - that the high speed rail may be part of the Hu-Wen legacy left behind. Apparently all currently approved lines are due to be completed by 2012.

 

[greenlion]

Have you guys thought about it this way - that the high speed rail may be part of the Hu-Wen legacy left behind. Apparently all currently approved lines are due to be completed by 2012.

no there's also a lot of lines stated construction this year, and will be completed by 2014 or 2015, and the whole network is hoped to be complete by 2020

 

[gzz]

When I took the high speed train last year, sence I coundn't catch the direct CHR to Beijing,so I took a CHR to Tianjin then change a high speed train to Beijing. It's very convient, you can buy a tikict in the station on the tikict selling machine, it reached 335km/h! When I looked outside the window, I just felt like taking a plane. I got a video shot by cellphone, but it's pity I just can't upload it.

 

[gzz]

In China our transportation is so fast that our road kills are birds!

Haha~ Last year, one of my friends drove to see his parents living in another city. On the highway he met a large group of locusts, so his car~~~ especially his glass. Then he always prepare a bottle of glasswater in the back of his car.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Haha~ Last year, one of my friends drove to see his parents living in another city. On the highway he met a large group of locusts, so his car~~~ especially his glass. Then he always prepare a bottle of glasswater in the back of his car.

Lol. I think that was played for laughs in a Jim Carrey movie.

 

[CardSharp]

Does it compare to this? lol

YouTube - Maeklong outdoor market , Train goes through

Actually third rail electrification are more commonly used for subway systems due to lack of overhead room. Also it seems that the third rail has more power loss over distance which makes it impractical for HSR which travels long distance hence overhead rail is more suitable.

It's going to be a messy day when they decide to install scythe on the wheels...

 

[中国万岁-ProsperThroughCo-]

China: A future on track

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing and Mure Dickie in Tokyo
Published: September 23 2010 22:37 | Last updated: September 23 2010 22:37
Having transferred high-speed rail technology to state-backed groups in exchange for access to a vast market, multinationals find they have created their own low-cost competitors

Wuhan station in central China was completed last December amid a spending programme to ease bottlenecks in the country’s ageing rail system. The investment formed a central component of the government’s stimulus package

There was more than a little historic symbolism on display as California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger posed for photos in front of a Chinese-built bullet train in Shanghai last week.

The “Governator” was on a shopping trip to Asia looking for trains, technology and funding for the planned high-speed upgrade to his state’s rail network, much of which was built in the 19th century by Chinese labourers.

“What I have seen is very, very impressive,” he said in Shanghai. “We hope China is part of the bidding process, along with other countries around the world, so that we can build high-speed rail as inexpensively as possible.”

Beijing could hardly have asked for a better celebrity endorsement for its “harmony express” high-speed trains, which its state-controlled rail companies are churning out for new lines across the country and beyond.

But for the European, Japanese and North American companies that have provided much of the technology for the country’s programme, the visit put the spotlight on a worrying trend.

In what many international executives see as a warning for other industries, these companies have spent years “transferring”, or selling, technology to state-backed partners in exchange for market access – only to be rewarded with shrinking market share in China as a result of state policies that favour local industry.

Now these companies find their high-speed technology has been “digested” – defined by the government as a multistep process of buying foreign technology, innovating on that existing platform then selling it under a domestic brand – by former Chinese partners. Furthermore, the foreigners find themselves competing head-to-head for tenders all over the world with Chinese companies selling digested high-speed technology at discount prices, often with cheap state bank financing thrown in.

The domestic high-speed rail industry has sprung up in a few short years. Although the country’s companies are yet to make a sale overseas, industry experts say the first is likely to be soon – whether to California or to one of a long list of countries eyeing the technology.

The impetus behind the industry’s development is the expansion of the domestic network, a project analysts say is almost certainly the biggest transport infrastructure undertaking since the construction of America’s railroads. These unprecedented plans are crucial for dealing with severe bottlenecks in China’s aging rail system, a constraint on regional and national growth. They also form a central component of the Rmb4,000bn economic stimulus package introduced in 2008.

Today the country has the world’s largest high-speed rail network, which it plans to nearly triple to more than 16,000km by 2020. That will provide enough track to stretch from Beijing to London and back. The government has budgeted well over $100bn each year for the next few years for building and upgrading the creaking system – a figure expected to account for more than half of all global railway spending during that period, according to World Bank estimates.

This enticing market has attracted every major rail group in the world. For more than a decade Beijing has welcomed Germany’s Siemens, France’s Alstom, Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Canada’s Bombardier among others to enter partnerships with state-controlled companies. Amid intense competition, technology transfer was a requirement.

In 2002, to challenge foreign dominance, the railway ministry unveiled the China Star, a home-grown high-speed system developed at a cost of Rmb140m by state-controlled manufacturers using only Chinese intellectual property. But less than two years later, the ministry announced that the core technology was “immature”.

The China Star was quietly shunted into a siding and forgotten as the Chinese companies were encouraged to ramp up digestion of foreign technology instead. As they did so, the ministry continually raised its “local content” requirements.

The ministry refused to answer questions from the Financial Times on these requirements but officials have publicly stated on a number of occasions that at least 70 per cent of equipment for any given rail project must be from domestic companies. As a result, there has been a steep fall in foreign companies’ market share.

In 2002 China invested nearly €4bn in the segment of the high-speed market in which foreign companies compete – carriages, signalling equipment and other high-tech track components – and foreign companies captured about 70 per cent of that. Today China invests as much as €17bn in the segment, of which foreign companies account for only 15-20 per cent, earning roughly the same as eight years ago, according to industry figures.

As it celebrated the introduction of locally assembled high-speed trains in 2007, the railway ministry neglected to mention that they were built on a Japanese technology platform provided by KHI and stressed instead national success in digesting foreign technology. The ministry crowed that state companies had managed to acquire high-speed technology at a cost “clearly below” the standard.

In a gleaming factory in the eastern port city of Qingdao, the latest results of that “digestion and re-innovation” programme are being tested. China Southern Railways Sifang is building bullet trains that can run at up to 380km/h and will travel on the Shanghai to Beijing line scheduled for completion by the end of 2012. A preview reveals trains with an uncanny resemblance to the latest Shinkansen bullet trains being introduced in Japan.

Luo Bin, vice-chief engineer at CSR Sifang’s Technology Development Centre, explains that his company is no longer co-operating with KHI, from which it bought the original technology for trains able to travel at up to 200km/h. “This is an innovative design based on the technology we had already digested,” Mr Luo says, gesturing at the sleek new machine sitting on the test tracks. “This is completely the result of our autonomous design. It’s got nothing to do with Bombardier or Siemens. It’s got nothing at all to do with Shinkansen.”

Yoshiyuki Kasai, chairman of Central Japan Railway, which runs high-speed services and helps parts of the Shinkansen system, says he warned KHI not to pursue a deal that could end up creating a low-cost competitor. “They didn’t take our advice. I think it’s been a bitter experience for them,” he told the FT in March.

“Of course they are angry but they know it would be a waste of time and money to fight against the Chinese government,” says one Japanese executive very familiar with the project to supply trains to CSR. “At the beginning the Japanese and also the Europeans were afraid this situation would happen in the future but they thought it would take more time. The Chinese catch-up speed was so fast; they could not have imagined they would be competing [with the Chinese] for contracts in the US.”

The experience of foreign rail companies is seen by many as ominous for industries from aviation and automobiles to information technology and green technology. In these and other sectors, analysts see strategies emerging in which state-backed companies use the prospect of access to their domestic market to secure transfers of valuable foreign technology that allow them to become global competitors virtually overnight.

The emergence of this strategy in industry after industry has prompted complaints from foreign businesses and spilled over into public criticism from leading foreign industrialists. But companies such as Alstom and Siemens are reluctant to speak out about their difficulties because they fear being locked out of the market. Though they will not complain publicly, some foreign rail executives privately claim that in some cases their technology has been stolen outright and copied by joint-venture partners.

In a recent press conference, railway ministry officials dismissed concerns about forced technology transfer and IP infringement. “China has made use of technology from around the world and through great innovation has made it Chinese,” said He Huawu, chief engineer. However, foreign industry executives estimate that roughly 90 per cent of the high-speed technology used in China is derived from partnerships or equipment developed by foreign companies.

In private, officials from international train manufacturers operating in China say it is futile to complain to Beijing or initiate legal proceedings. Despite its claims that all its high-speed technology is now homegrown, the ministry has organised a team of lawyers and officials to investigate how vulnerable state rail companies will be to IP lawsuits when they start selling in the international market.

Some in the industry suggest that, in seeking to gain advantage over their global competitors in China, foreign companies have transferred much more advanced technology to Chinese partners than they admit publicly, which is one reason the domestic companies have been able to increase the speed of their trains in such a short amount of time. They say that without that assistance it would be very hard to increase the train speeds so much without cutting corners on safety.

The foreign companies are reluctant to go public with complaints not only for fear of being shut out of the market. They also have an eye on burgeoning opportunities to form partnerships with Chinese groups bidding on high-speed projects all over the world, from California to Russia, Brazil and Burma. In a recent case, Siemens dropped its own bid to build and operate a line in Saudi Arabia so it could join a Chinese-led consortium.

Though the bid did not go ahead, it highlighted Chinese companies’ need for foreign assistance on the most advanced components. It also shows the opportunity foreign companies see in partnering with them elsewhere as they are squeezed out of China.

“Alstom, KHI and Siemens are not banks and do not have the political influence or the full weight and money of the state behind them in the way the Chinese rail companies do,” says one senior executive at a foreign rail company.

Although privately livid about having been compelled to create powerful new competitors as a condition of entry into China, foreign companies have started to realise that, if they are not able to beat the upstarts, they may be better off joining them.

‘They just want the world’s biggest and fastest train set’

John Scales, the World Bank’s transport co-ordinator in China, takes a very long view of the country’s high-speed rail plans, which he calls “perhaps the biggest single planned programme of passenger rail investment there has ever been in one country”, writes Jamil Anderlini.

On the desk of his Beijing office sits a framed copy of The Illustrated London News from November 1857 with a story on the great American railway bond crash. “It is obvious that all the gold in the United States would not suffice to pay back to British capitalists the sums they have invested in American railroads,” it states.

Mr Scales’ grasp of historical context and understanding of the numerous financing problems that accompany railway expansion do not deter him from being an ardent supporter of China’s costly plans to expand its high-speed network. But the expansion is controversial among Chinese academics, with many questioning the merit of spending so much on what they regard as prestige projects.

“This high-speed programme is a political project with little economic value,” says Zhao Jian, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University who favours conventional rail rather than high-speed projects. “The government just wants to have the biggest and fastest number one train set in the world.”

While the two agree that individual high-speed rail lines will not be able to cover their costs, Mr Scales thinks that by removing passenger traffic from existing tracks, the high-speed lines will make way for more freight, which could provide the railway ministry with enough new revenues to pay for all the new lines.

Mr Zhao argues that few passenger trains will actually be taken off existing tracks, because they cannot run on the new high-speed lines and the government is not going to scrap all those old carriages.

The railway ministry accounts for as much as 10 per cent of all outstanding debt in the country, according to World Bank estimates. Chinese analysts say the proportion of railway construction funded by debt has increased from under 50 per cent in 2005 to more than 70 per cent last year.

“This is a real debt crisis building up for the government and it is going to break at some point,” Mr Zhao says.

But Mr Scales is far more sanguine. “Even if the ministry can’t pay for all the new lines, the government will step in to cover the costs,” he says. “Governments subsidise their railways in most other countries as well.”

 

[Carnivore]

I like this picture. It's like an air harour in the era of "Star Trek". I have to admit that Chinese engineers have been much more artistically accomplished. This train station is very beautiful.

 

[gzz]

It looks like Beijing South Railway Stantion, right? I've been there 6 hours ago. I'm in Beijing now for a conference. 3 hour's trip, D36, highest speed at 205km/h.
The Airconditioning System of Wuhan Station is ground resource heat pump. 6000 drills.

 

[greenlion]

Breaking News! the first CRH380B, CRH380B-6401L (L means 16 cars train), completed at CNR Tangshan factory by september 21 !

this picture made a mistake on train number, on the following video we can see the train number is CRH380B-6401L

here is a 12 minutes Video for the Official ceromony
???? - ?? - ???? - ????

Official name of CRH 380 series confirmed by this thread

380×îÐÂÃüÃû¹æ·¶ - Ìú·¼°¹ìµÀ½»Í¨·¢ÉÕ°æ - HSHÉϺ£·¢ÉÕÓÑÂÛ̳ - Powered by Discuz!

CRH380A, train No. 6001-6140 (140 trains in total) manufactuer by CSR Sifang Factory, 7 trains completed by september 26
CRH380B, train No.6201-6310 (110 train in total) manufacturer by CNR Changchun Factory
CRH380B, train No.6401-6470 (70 trains in total)manufacturer by CNR Tangshan Factory, 3 trains completed by September 21
CRH380C, train No.6601-6680 (80 trains in total)manufacturer by BST

September 24, CRH380A-6002 test run at Yuyao station, Huhang PDL

 

[Carnivore]

CRH380 test running on Shanghai-Hangzhou railway.

Jinshan north railway station. It's till under construction. Will be open to traffic by October 20.

 

[Carnivore]

New photos on Nanchang-Jiujiang passenger dedicated railway.

Slab track!

 

[greenlion]

Recently news in Chinese media suggests that as a series of new CRH contract will be signed by Chinese MOR and the for Chinese factories, considering at least 1000 km high speed railway at 250km/h level set to be open by next year, and so far the MOR had only ordered 320 trains at this level, so a majority of the new contract will be 250km/h level trains.

Chinese CRH deliver timetable (by contract signed before september 2010)

type       2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 later   total
CRH1A        8   18   12    2   20   20           80
CRH2A       19   41             15   5            80
CRH5A            27   29    4   30                90
CRH1B                  4    9    7                20
CRH1E                       3    8   9            20
CRH2B                 10                          10
CRH2E                  6   14                     20
CRH2C                 10   20   30                60
CRH3C                  7   36   17                60
CRH380A                         40                40
CRH380AL                         6   94          100
CRH380B                         20   20   20 *    60
CRH380BL                        11   49   80 *   140
CRH380C                                   20 **   20
CRH380CL                                  60 **   60
total       27   86   78   88  204  197  180     860
accumulate  27  113  191  279  483  680  860     860

* all CRH380B contract to be deliver before 2012
** all CRH380C contract to be deliver before 2014

Dollar Normalized for Unit price in most recently contract

250km/h, 8 cars per set (first generation CRH)
CRH1A : 19.3 million/set
CRH2A : 25.3 million/set
CRH5A : 23.8 million/set

250km/h, 16 cars per set (second generation CRH)
CRH1B+E : 32.6 million/set avg
CRH2B : 17.8 million/set
CRH2E : 22.3 million/set

300km/h, 8 cars per set (third generation CRH)
CRH2C : 20.2 million/set

350km/h, 8 cars per set (third generation CRH)
CRH3C : 32.2 million/set

380km/h, 8 cars per set (fourth generation CRH)
CRH380A: 27.98 million/set
CRH380B: 29.1 million/set
CRH380C:29.2 million/set

380 km/h, 16 cars per train (fourth generation CRH)
CRH380AL: 55.96 million/set
CRH380BL: 58.2 million/set
CRH380CL: 58.4 million/set

 

[Carnivore]

Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway train starts trial operation Tuesday

BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- A high-speed train running on the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway set a new speed record of 413.7 kilometers an hour Tuesday.

The train, running between the metropolis of Shanghai and Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang province, started trial operation Tuesday morning.

 

[somebozo]

China is also building the holy cities highway in Saudi Arabia..but I seriously doubt anything such