What's new

Terminal velocity: China tests world's longest high-speed rail line

Precisely because the locomotive have a monopoly on the medium -- rails, and precisely because this medium have far less structural and construction requirements and less time to build than a road over the same distance, rail of whatever speed to transport volume of people and cargo is the best thing China could invest in in order to provide economic growth.

But just like the American countryside once towns and cities became established, businesses always diversifies and once they do, the locomotive's limited flexibility to deliver smaller volume of people and cargo will manifest. Once you delivered larger volumes of cargo to X destination, how else are you going to deliver smaller volumes of cargos? Smaller rails and smaller locomotives? No, you need other modes such as horse drawn carriages or even people pulling carts. Then eventually the car showed up.

China cannot escape this progression.



In California, we still operate metro link, thousand still ride the metro rail to work in Los Angeles, you don't have to stick in traffic during rush hours by riding the train. Many people take public transit for many personal reason also for economical reason. Travel by train is another option for the population to use as their chosen. Speed rail is just another way to move people around the country and it's way cheaper compare to travel by air. Travel time isn't much different when you compare a person stuck in the airport for check into their flight to the slower speed travel by train, both way to travel will allow a person to reach their destination 1 or 2 hrs apart. In a short distance or travel around city block or town, travel by car is more convenient and have more freedom to move around all part of the city.
 
. .
Those trains, land for tracks, and actual physical tracks are not free. Just because they charge "X" for a ticket does not mean they are covering their startup costs. It could either be financed over decades of ridership or more likely government subsidized.

With a plane you have similar costs except you cut out track land purchases and track maintenance. All you have is cost of plane, fuel, and airport costs.

As for spending 2 hours at the airport. Most extra time spent at airport is security. If a high speed rail became popular here security would be in effect with it too. So you aren't going to be getting around a security check time delay.
You are right!

The rail way system cost too much , gov use this project to stimulate economic growth.

The price of the HRS is much higher than regular train, the peasant-worker may prefer regular but cheap train than high speed but expensive train,the business man may prefer airplane top class rather than train, and also the environment cost is also too high

China now do now have as many airports and pilots as US, and now the world economy is not so nice, HSR project can provide a lot of jobs !
 
.
May be I am just good at languages :P Nvm I was just kidding dont ban me for false flags

Relax matey, your flags were right all along, maybe you were just saying it in a tongue and cheek manner, which I presumed.
 
. . .
Thank you!! :)

And how is this based on what a common Chinese earns?! I mean is it considered cheap? or reasonable in any ways? If not then why was this project undertaken? If yes, then how many actually use it?

A common Chinese? Well my cousin works for the government, a low level employee, for her, it's expensive in terms of a train ticket, but not unaffordable. It costs a little under half of her monthly income per ticket. Sometimes less depending on the seat and date.

A regular train ticket would cost a about 1/10th that, sometimes even less, and even a sleeper would not cost much more than 1/5 of the HSR.

That would be the average.

Of course a migrant worker would have no parents to help them like my cousin, so they would need to save as much as possible, so sometimes even bus is used.


But to the generation of well educated and paid Chinese, it's next to nothing. more like the price of a good meal at a good restaurant.


As to the last part, it's built for the future, so that when Chinese are richer more and more would use this method of transportation.

Look at california today, those guys are way too rich for the government to push out the way, that's why we are doing it now so we can still say we are taking your house and here's some money and you are just going to have to deal with it.
 
.
looks nice...is it expensive?
3 words -
Mind Boggling Amounts

The amount of capital required to set up high speed lines with all the attendant safety infra that is required for these lines, it costs a mind boggling amount of capital.

There is an active debate in India, whether HSR should be setup or instead with the same amount of money, the existing rail network of India can be updated substantially!

can we let a Chinese answer...I want to know in reference to their income and all, standard of living...if it has no benefits, why build it?
Its 2/3rd to 1/2 the cost of a same route air fare.

The benefits are substantial. That is why CPC is building it.
The biggest of these is that it pushes out population growth from major cities to smaller ones. The biggest problem for urbanizing countries like China and India.
The limiting factor however is cost.

Though as I said, not many nations can afford to put up such dense HSR lines as China.

In about a decade, you might see 1 HSR line in India - if India is lucky.
 
Last edited:
. .
From Beijing to Guangzhou, it's about 1891 km or 1175 miles, the price of second class seat is ¥862 yuan, about $141 dollars. It's about ¥0.46 yuan per km, $0.12 dollar per mile.

Basically, we don't always travel that far from Beijing to Guangzhou by HSR, most people would prefer planes.

I usually traveled from Wuhan to Changsha, both capital cities of two neighboring provinces, short distance about 293 km or 182 miles, the price of second class is $26 dollars.

Max capacity 1,114 passengers.

Personally, I won't travel from Beijing to Guanzhou type of distance. The problem with plane traveling is the wait time before boarding the plane at the airport. And the wait time is basically the same regardless of distance. Any flight longer than 2 hours should still be reserve for planes. HSR would be for shorter distance travel such as what you have mentioned above.

LOL. After watching that two Videos. I know The Different between Chinese Train and Indian Train :-)

I think most people in this forum already know the difference between the trains in these two countries.
 
.
I think most people in this forum already know the difference between the trains in these two countries.

Talk about efficiency. YOu ould be wondering how did that many people fit in that train :D
 
.
Talk about efficiency. YOu ould be wondering how did that many people fit in that train :D

lol..there is better way to optimize the efficiency of transportation (see below)...but for sure I'm looking for a little bit of comfort during my journey on train..certainly I don't want to be squeezed as shown on the picture.:D

ChickenTruck.jpg
 
.
lol..there is better way to optimize the efficiency of transportation (see below)...but for sure I'm looking for a little bit of comfort during my journey on train..certainly I don't want to be squeezed as shown on the picture.:D

ChickenTruck.jpg

I have had worse in Delhi before Metro network was huge. In the bus at 9 am rush hour I was travelling on one leg the other one some where in the crowd no space to put it down :D But due to Delhi government hard work in metro and new buses situation has improved a lot :)
 
.
I wish we could build these lines here. It was tried in the 1970s with a "high-speed" turbine-powered train. The train technology worked fine, but the train companies got permission to use cargo trains on the "high-speed" tracks. A loaded cargo car, of course, can weigh over five times what a passenger train does; it wasn't long before running the TurboTrain at high speed became uncomfortable, and later on impossible.

Obviously any high-speed rail in the U.S. will have to be run on a dedicated line. To make sure the ordinary railroad companies don't access and ruin it, it should be a different gauge or technology entirely. That's a whole new infrastructure: land to be purchased, bridges to be built, etc. all without disrupting existing rail service.

Nobody in the U.S. has the stomach for that kind of fight. The last such project - before the days of high-speed rail - was the "National Highway Defense System" - our nation-wide Interstate road network, and it took an ex-general with a personal interest in the matter to push it through. As for long-distance trains, we are still using the same right-of-ways that U.S. railroad companies purchased or were awarded up to 180 years ago!
 
.
A common Chinese? Well my cousin works for the government, a low level employee, for her, it's expensive in terms of a train ticket, but not unaffordable. It costs a little under half of her monthly income per ticket. Sometimes less depending on the seat and date.

A regular train ticket would cost a about 1/10th that, sometimes even less, and even a sleeper would not cost much more than 1/5 of the HSR.

That would be the average.

Of course a migrant worker would have no parents to help them like my cousin, so they would need to save as much as possible, so sometimes even bus is used.


But to the generation of well educated and paid Chinese, it's next to nothing. more like the price of a good meal at a good restaurant.


As to the last part, it's built for the future, so that when Chinese are richer more and more would use this method of transportation.

Look at california today, those guys are way too rich for the government to push out the way, that's why we are doing it now so we can still say we are taking your house and here's some money and you are just going to have to deal with it.

Governments should foresee traffic congestion and invest in public transportation and stuff...As far as Long term planning goes, it will yield in future...

I remember 1 of the prof from the uni I am at currently was all excited about taking a ride in the "fastest rail" :D

thanks for the detailed reply :tup:

3 words -
Mind Boggling Amounts

The amount of capital required to set up high speed lines with all the attendant safety infra that is required for these lines, it costs a mind boggling amount of capital.

There is an active debate in India, whether HSR should be setup or instead with the same amount of money, the existing rail network of India can be updated substantially!


Its 2/3rd to 1/2 the cost of a same route air fare.

The benefits are substantial. That is why CPC is building it.
The biggest of these is that it pushes out population growth from major cities to smaller ones. The biggest problem for urbanizing countries like China and India.
The limiting factor however is cost.

Though as I said, not many nations can afford to put up such dense HSR lines as China.

In about a decade, you might see 1 HSR line in India - if India is lucky.
thanks for this detailed reply...Living abroad all my life I am not sure of cost and all this for Asia :unsure: so that is why I asked as such...
 
.

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom