China Sets Sights On Rail Record 360
An anonymous reader writes "China is aiming to produce the world's fastest operating conventional train for its new high speed rail link between Shanghai and Beijing, achieving speeds up to 380 km/h and cutting the travel time between the two cities from the current ten hours to under five. The new rail link is scheduled to be completed within four years. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Railways' Deputy Chief Engineer has announced that China will be able to manufacture the new trains within two years."
Where's the fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why troll? (Score:4, Insightful)
Jane told the truth. Why mod her -1 Troll? Are you American moderators really that stupid?
Are you foreign posters really that limited in scope? Do you really feel the need to justify everything in military terms? Get a grip. Truth is, if we were on a quest to build an empire and needed lots of guns and tanks and bombs and things, our economy would be booming. Unemployment would be nil. As it happens, we dramatically reduced our force levels since the ending of the Cold War (too far, I'd say.)
America has some serious issues, but economic progress (or otherwise) is dependent upon a myriad of factors having nothing to do with Iraq. I assume that is what Jane Q. is referring, since I'm unaware of any other nations currently being bombed for profit (of course, a good carpet-bombing or two might improve the quality of posts here on Slashdot.)
If we want to start improving our economic outlook there are, at a minimum, going to have to be some serious changes to the patent system and our schools. Proper incentives will have to be made to encourage investment. We'll need real broadband and major telecommunications upgrades. Lots of stuff.
None of which has anything to do with bombing anyone.
Untrue (Score:5, Informative)
Heck, that measly 9 Billion in cash that was mysteriously "misplaced" in Iraq last year would sure as hell do this part of my state a lot of good. And that is only a veritable drop in the bucket.
Saying that the Iraq military action is not negatively affecting our economy is simply false. I agree with you about the patent and school systems... but if you want to fix those, right now you would have to talk to the same people who are responsible for Iraq... and the patent situation, and the schools.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
The project would grind to a standstill under the weight of lawsuits be environmentalists, the not in my back yard crowd, and gad flys. If it progressed it would grind to a standstill under the weight of poor project management. If it progressed it would grind to a standstill under the weight of poor engineering decisions. If it progressed it would be plagued with cost over runs. If it was finished it would cost $2,430 dollars a ticket one way and no one would use it.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm betting the Chinese aren't doing an environmental impact study. And if your current residence is where the tracks are going to be, then you just got displaced and good luck finding someone to complain to, much less someone to sue. i.e. We cant build stuff like this at all because of civil rights and they can build stuff like this all too easily because of a lack of civil rights.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Where's the fire? (Score:5, Informative)
One of the big shocks of going to China is just how fast the population drops off at the edge of a city. Regardless of the occasional news bite about China's elite, there aren't any exoburbs or suburbs in practice. Even with the world's largest population, China has the kind of empty space the United States hasn't seen in ages.
Besides, China needs this kind of rail a hell of a lot more than the United States. Between the New Year and having to go to your hometown for official business (it's damn hard to change your official municipality of residence), trains in the PRC are up to their gills.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:4, Insightful)
Building it in the median of a freeway puts it away from access by people who might walk or throw things on the tracks. It also lets people sit in their gas guzzlers and watch others pass them at 380 KPH.
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What happens when you want to upgrade to four tracks, or add a station, or a branch? Far better to put it at the side of the freeway, with a decent gap in case there's an accident (you don't want an accident on the freeway to force the railway to close). People will still see the train whizz past.
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Chicago has rail in the highway medians. The stations are in the air over a narrow platform. They connect to overpasses. Branches could be in the same place as highway interchanges, and either the highway would need to be elevated briefly. If you put the tracks on the side of the road, leaving a large gap, you have to widen your overpasses a lot. Lots of concrete also prevents accidents.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:4, Informative)
What is the average cargo rate on rail? I've found mention of a rate around $1300 to $1500 per standard shipping container, but I can't find anything more than that. There are certainly cases where I'd like to be able to take my car across the country, and even a shipping cost of $400 or so might be worth it, but I'm thinking that the cost would have to be more than that.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, search "EuroTunnel". It's not a normal car-train though, the carriages are very wide and don't travel further than the special stations at either end of the tunnel (Folkstone and Calais). Also, you stay with your vehicle, either sitting inside or you can get out and stand in the carriage. It's about 35 minutes in total, IIRC, which is much less than the car ferry. There are spaces for coaches, but lorries (trucks) have their own train.
Normal car-trains are essentially the same equipment as used to move brand new cars around, but with a passenger coach on the end. There aren't any in the UK (small country), but they are much more popular in the rest of Europe.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:4, Informative)
There aren't any in the UK (small country), but they are much more popular in the rest of Europe.
They are very common in Switzerland, which is a much smaller country, but for different reasons.
A lot of mountain passes are open for cars maybe 4 to 5 month a year and closed due to snow and weather conditions for the rest of the year.
Loading your car on a train may be the only way to get from one place to another by car.
In other cases [wikipedia.org] it may significantly reduce the time required to get to your destination by car.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"And if your current residence is where the tracks are going to be, then you just got displaced"
No,
I take a towel. And I wait for the next lift.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm betting the Chinese aren't doing an environmental impact study.
And that's why the Chinese are progressing so much faster than us: they don't worry about idiocy like that.
It's not that environmentalism is a bad thing; it isn't. However, only a complete moron would ever question the environmental impact of a train versus highways or airlines. Trains are more efficient than any other form of transportation for moving goods and people between two points. Of course, arguments can be made about transporting things between lots of different points (the argument for trucking vs. railroads), but we're talking about transport between two very large cities here. While planes are certainly faster, trains are cheaper (except in the USA) and far more fuel-efficient, which obviously means it's better for the environment.
There: in 5 minutes, I've done what American government would have spent 6 months and millions of dollars doing a study on. That's part of why we're failing.
As for displacing peoples' homes, we do that here all the time too. Except here, instead of just doing it for government projects (highways, etc.), we do it for private businesses who want some land but don't want to pay market rate for it. This even went to the Supreme Court, and they said it was OK. Tell me again how China is worse for civil rights (or more accurately, property rights).
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are missing the point. It's not that anyone isn't sure that as far as energy use and carbon emissions goes the train will be better, the point of the environmental impact study is to determine if their are any especially environmentally sensitive areas that should be routed around.
mod parent up (Score:5, Interesting)
You are missing the point. It's not that anyone isn't sure that as far as energy use and carbon emissions goes the train will be better, the point of the environmental impact study is to determine if their are any especially environmentally sensitive areas that should be routed around.
Exactly. Trains in the long run may be more environmentally sensitive than other transit modes, but rail lines to have real environmental effects that need to be considered: noise & vibration, drainage, impervious surfaces (at the stations), wildlife disruption, fire danger from sparks off the rail or electrical components, defoliants used to kill weeds along the ROW, construction disruptions, exhaust soot (for diesel-powered locos), lubricant leakage from the vehicles, grade crossings, toxic soils that may be unearthed for ROW cuts and/or tunnels, and etc.
All of these things can be overcome, but it has to be done right, otherwise you'll wind up getting sued and have to rip up your project and rebuild it again to meet the appropriate standards.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the drive to do great things in the USA has been undermined by the mindless cynicism of people like "FooGoo" who see only problems.
Guess what folks, we can (and we should) overcome every engineering, environmental and NIMBY objection if put our minds to it.
I don't care if it is a cliche, but we put a fucking man on the moon almost half a CENTURY ago and have been content to rest on our laurels ever since.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's because nobody lives there. And because NASA somehow managed to put most of it's facilities in places where no one in their right minds would have ever put human habitation (I'm looking at YOU - Lyndon Baines Johnson Manned Spaceflight Facility - located in some godawful pestilant swamp south of Houston).
Just try to put a launch facility somewhere
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Moose?
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Go watch the Mythbusters on it, then build your own damn rocket out of the tinfoil. I like conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but this one is very thoroughly debunked.
I disagree about some things. (Score:3, Insightful)
The rails lines could be run along current easements.
The only thing holding up rail is the public's attachment to the automobile: sta
Re:I disagree about some things. (Score:5, Informative)
People make the mistake of thinking of the environmental crowd as just the hot earthers but there are many subgroups with different motives and methods. They run the gamut from Sierra Club and other conservation groups, to the odd preservation groups who want to create some natural snow globe with nothing ever changes, to groups like Greenpeace, ELF, and ALF. Any one of these groups can file a lawsuit.
Also, it's not just building the tracks, it's also building the power substations if its an electric train (although a super fast steam engine might be cool), the train stations, and all the other supporting infrastructure. A lawsuit for environmental reasons can be brought against any piece of the infrastructure.
Re:I disagree about some things. (Score:5, Interesting)
I would also like to point out that many NIMBYs use the environmental laws as grounds for their lawsuits (I don't think not wanting it near you is grounds to sue), financing (lawsuits are expensive, after all and these groups are a great source of funds, and as a cover because, let's face it, no one has any sympathy for someone who just doesn't want a highway, rail road, cement plant, park, etc... in their backyard - it's selfish! Think of the greater good and all that.
Of course, the pundits love to point fingers at the environmentalists! My favourite is blaming them for the lack of refineries in the US (It's not. If an oil co wanted another refinery, they would get it. The truth is that they're operating below capacity as it is and they just don't need more and if they built more, capacity would increase, depress prices, and their margins would further decline. But, it's PC to blame the environmentalists. ).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Common misconception, I'm afraid.
Look, there's capacity and there's capacity. Refineries used to be shut down periodically for scheduled maintenance on the cracker and other critical equipment. There's a reason for that.
Problem is, we are short on capacity (we still haven't recovered all that was lost in Katrina) and the existing plants are being run hard, 24/7/365 in many cases, with little or no time for maintenance downturns. Canadian ref
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So technically you're correct, but in practice we're pushing it. Really pushing it.
Who's "we"? "We" don't own any refineries. Oil companies do. They're private companies, and running them "hard", 24/7/365, is most profitable for them. If they built more refineries, then it would cost them a huge amount of capital to build them, which takes away from their bottom line. Why would they want to do this? Instead, they can keep using their crappy old refineries to the limit, save money by not investing in n
Re:I disagree about some things. (Score:5, Insightful)
Real environmentalists work behind the scenes with government and especially industry, helping them find ways to make industrial processes more efficient, less environmentally harmful, and in a surprising number of cases more profitable. Such people may be outsiders who devote their lives to making all of our lives better, they may be in-house scientists and engineers who tirelessly promote a better way to their bosses, they may be enlightened bureaucrats who work to find some balance between environmental concerns, and the needs of We the People.
Those are the people I respect, unfortunately you never see their faces on the tube, so they don't really get credit for their work. I couldn't care less about the media hounds.
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I am not a cynic I am optimist. I know that in spite of how fucked up society is in general the world will be a better place tomorrow than it is today. I believe people in general are good and want the best for each other. Their motivations may be skewed by this group or that group but they want to make things better...and there is nothing wrong with that.
You can say I am a simple minded cynic but I always say exactly what I think and I put thought into what I have to write. Sometimes it's sarcastic, someti
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No they are the back up if the lawsuit fails. It's an asymmetric threat to progress. You make the mistake of thinking those groups are separate from the environmental movement as a whole but they are not. PETA has provided funding and support to ALF and ELF.
Explains spokeswoman Lisa Lange, one of PeTA's messages is that "you can't be an environmentalist and eat meat, and the ELF was going to be doing some publicity on that very thing. We saw it as an opportunity to get our message out."
"None of our money go
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I know most environmental groups are theoretically for building railroads for mass transit. The problem is that most of them are agai
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That, of course, won't last forever either. They're heading for one Biblical-sized crash. Now that's to be expected, after a thirty-year boom
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Word.
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:5, Funny)
And the Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In one year, I am going to make it rain and cover the whole earth with water until all flesh is destroyed. But I want you to save the righteous people and two of every kind of living thing on earth. Therefore, I am commanding you to build an Ark." In a flash of lightning, God delivered the specifications for an Ark. In fear and trembling, Noah took the plans and agreed to build the ark. "Remember," said the Lord, "you must complete the Ark and bring everything aboard in one year."
Exactly one year later, fierce storm clouds covered the earth and all the seas of the earth went into a tumult. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard weeping. "Noah!" He shouted. "Where is the Ark?"
"Lord, please forgive me," cried Noah. "I did my best, but there were big problems.
First, I had to get a permit for construction, and your plans did not meet the building codes. I had to hire an engineering firm and redraw the plans. Then I got into a fight with OSHA over whether or not the Ark needed a sprinkler system and approved floatation devices. Then, my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning ordinances by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission.
Then, I had problems getting enough wood for the Ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to protect the Spotted Owl. I finally convinced the U.S. Forest Service that I really needed the wood to save the owls. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service won't let me take the 2 owls.
The carpenters formed a union and went on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. Now, I have 16 carpenters on the Ark, but still no owls.
When I started rounding up the other animals, an animal rights group sued me. They objected to me taking only two of each kind aboard. This suit is pending.
Meanwhile, the EPA notified me that I could not complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. They didn't take very kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of the Creator of the Universe.
Then, the Army Corps of Engineers demanded a map of the proposed flood plain. I sent them a globe.
Right now, I am trying to resolve a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that I am practicing discrimination by not taking atheists aboard.
The IRS has seized my assets, claiming that I'm building the Ark in preparation to flee the country to avoid paying taxes. I just got a notice from the state that I owe them some kind of user tax and failed to register the Ark as a 'recreational water craft'.
And finally, the ACLU got the courts to issue an injunction against further construction of the Ark, saying that since God is flooding the earth, it's a religious event, and, therefore unconstitutional. I really don't think I can finish the Ark for another five or six years."
Noah waited. The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine, and the seas began to calm. A rainbow arched across the sky.
Noah looked up hopefully. "You mean you're not going to destroy the earth, Lord?"
"No," He said sadly. "I don't have to. The government already has."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There are 21 stops along the Beijing - Shanghai line, over 10 of the stops running through a city with population over 1,000,000. By 2012 it is expected to carry 1000-1200 passengers on each train. There should be over 100 trains departing daily. During peak hour, as often as 3 minutes per train will leave the station. Annual capacity one way will likely reach 80mil each year. Estimated ticket price is under US$100. Whole trip will take more than 5 hours.
The current environmental issue is the chronic suf
Re:Where's the fire? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow. Why aren't we in the US trying to do this?
The US would be too afraid of terrorists attacking it to risk building it.
We used to be so worried about the Communists beating us. But now it's like we don't even care. Where's the fire?
Too busy watching American Idol while the economy tanks. ;)
Seriously though, I think the biggest reason is that there isn't anyone to build it. Its too much money and too much risk of not being profitable enough or at all, and would require too much cooperation from the state and federal government (in terms of permits, granting rights of way to lay track etc) for private enterprise to attempt it.
Meanwhile the current political environment would make it impossible for the government to do a major project like this on its own. Critics on every side would dominate the debate shouting their political position that it should be privatized (republican), that its fiscally irresponsible, that the money should go towards schools, or health care (democrat) or that if the government has this kind of scratch lying around they should be reducing taxes (libertarian) instead of building world class projects like this.
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Wow. Why aren't we in the US trying to do this? We used to be so worried about the Communists beating us. But now it's like we don't even care. Where's the fire?
I'd say because neither Beijing nor Shanghai are in the US, so there is really not much point to the US spending money on such a line...
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A: Because in the US alone there's about 3200 train accidents a year... no matter how fast they're moving.
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Germany on the other hand had one nasty accident when they took a shortcut to passenger comfort without properly testing the solution first. (They put some extra rubber and steel on the wheels to reduce vibrations, but it came off derailing half the train)
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US has plans to do something similar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Between Las Vegas and Disneyland. [slashdot.org]
It is kinda scary to think that while "Oh_so_EVIL_communist_China" builds an express line between its capitol and its financial center, US is building what is essentially a carnival ride between the Pleasure Island [wikipedia.org] and Sin City.
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It sure sounds scary when you treat it like a sound bite. It's even scarier that you couldn't be bothered to look at reality and realize that US capitol and financial center are already linked by a heavily used train with a travel time around three hours.
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Not exactly high-speed though. It may technically be a high-speed train since the max-speed is at some 250 kph, but the average speed of the Acela is less than our so called "high-speed" trains in Sweden (X2000) that can do 200 kph max.
For real high-speed trains, see TGV and Shinkansen.
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It is kinda scary to think that while "Oh_so_EVIL_communist_China" builds an express line between its capitol and its financial center, US is building what is essentially a carnival ride between the Pleasure Island [wikipedia.org] and Sin City.
Firstly, China hasn't been communist for a while. It's closest now to Italian Fascism out of anything, only with a bit more competition.
Secondly, Acela Express. [wikipedia.org] It might not be as shiny as a 380kmph white elephant, but it was cheaper to build and it functions well enough (in that it beats flying).
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Public transportation is percieved as being rather left-wing in the US (as it infringes on our freedoms in a way that I'm not remotely smart enough to adequately explain or understand)
For Christ sake, we don't even have buses, let alone trains in most cities. There are a few decent commuter rail systems (NJTransit, MBTA, DC Metro, Metro-North), but not much else, and they don't use the same ticketing system as Amtrak, limiting their usefulness on long-distance journeys. Amtrak is also too slow, expensive,
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Because everybody has tried doing this and it has failed for everybody.
I for one am waiting for a Detroit-Quebec City-New York city maglev with stops at big cities in between, or more realistically, a SF/LA one. But it's not likely to happen, for all the reasons the other posters have said.
We find difficulty in seeing that the shuttle was definately worth it. How are people going to react to a "hundred-billion-dollar-train"?...
Not to mention, how are you going to power this, and make sure it stays powered?
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It's clearly unreasonable for Taggert Transcontinental to try to compete with the Chinese, who have such an advantage in human labor costs. The only way this could be possible is if a large government subsidy was given, especially given these trying national times. Besides we couldn't possibly compete with them; they're getting all their steel from Chinese factories, who clearly are too competitive*. We should get the UN involved and stop this outrageous, unfair progress. It's making us look bad and we can'
Amtrak (Score:4, Insightful)
...achieving speeds up to 380 km/h and cutting the travel time between the two cities from the current ten hours to under five...
I wonder whether officials at United States' AMTRAK are reading this. I saddens me that plans for high speed commuting on AMTRAK's rails was shelved a few years ago. REsult? Top speed on AMTRAK's rails is 180 KM/hr and only on some routes.
These officials (at AMTRAK) are more interested in their allowances and benefits instead of doing what is for the common good. In the meantime, AMTRAK's technology is still stuck in the seventies as the Asians led by the Chinese "overtake" us.
No wonder that we in these United States will cease to be of any consequence on world matters as internet traffic heads to Europe and more relevant innovation comes from Asia. I am really afraid for the generation that will come after ours.
Re:Amtrak (Score:4, Insightful)
...or there's no profit to be made in something thats more expensive and longer than driving?
From Indianapolis to Chicago, it'd cost me anywhere from $10-20 to take the train. I'd also have to be on the train at 5:30 in the morning. The train takes _at least_ 4 hours.
Or I can drive to Chicago, which takes at least an hour less, for only $10 more (185 miles at 25 miles per gallon, at roughly $4/gallon) and I can leave at my leisure.
Amtrak simply does not have the infrastructure for such an endeavor. A good chunk of Amtrak's routes are owned by freight companies; Amtrak simply pays to use them. So unless you're willing to assume that cost as the passenger to lay thousands of miles of private track, that's not going to happen since that cost would probably make ticket prices compete with airline prices, but to what benefit? Flying would still be faster. The only thing you would save is the hassle of airline security (which is a good enough reason for me, to be honest).
Re:Amtrak (Score:5, Informative)
But rail is far more cost-effective to build than roads - one pair of tracks can carry the same traffic as a 6-8 lane highway, which is far more costly to construct and maintain, and requires much more land. (Not to mention all the parking lots and feeder roads.)
Trains can also run much faster (nobody is talking about people driving 100-200mph, and trains can run full speed even during commute hours when highways are slowed to a standstill). Trains use much less energy (less rolling resistance and aerodynamic resistance, for starters), emit far less pollution (using less energy, and often electrically powered), cost less to operate and maintain, and are far safer.
The only thing they lack is door-to-door convenience and arbitrary schedules. (But is there really much benefit if you're stuck in traffic and have to pay $20 for parking? On the other hand, how about letting you read or do work or sleep while on the train?) How much are we willing to pay, in dollars, pollution, wasted time, and reliance on foreign oil, for that (sometimes) convenience?
Trains also have similar benefits over airplanes for relatively short trips (anything less than about 2-4 hours, depending on the situation).
Of course, these are all THEORETICAL benefits, which are only realized if we actually make the proper investments. Since we in the USA have spent the last 75 years trying to kill trains rather than investing in them, we only rarely get to experience these benefits.
The trains we have these days are generally slow, go to only a few places, run on very limited schedules, are not particularly clean or comfortable, and have few on-board ameneties. And since they don't benefit from the same level of taxpayer support as roads do, more of their costs are passed on to the passenger, so they don't seem to have as much cost advantage to the end user.
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That's the whole problem: if rail were done properly in this country, it wouldn't take you 4 hours to travel between Indianapolis and Chicago by rail, it'd take 1-2 hours. Remember, we're talking about "high speed" rails here; the one in China is supposed to go 236 mph. That's about half the speed of a typical jet, and it doesn't have to deal with all the security hassles, taxiing, flying in circles waiting for runways to clear, etc. If we had trains that fast crisscrossing the USA, there'd be a lot less
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Travel times (including stops) -
Boston-NY: 3.5 hours
NY-DC: 2.75 hours
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http://www.sehsr.org/ [sehsr.org]
http://www.midwesthsr.org/ [midwesthsr.org]
http://www.thsrtc.com/ [thsrtc.com]
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ [ca.gov]
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AMTRAK's technology is still stuck in the seventies as the Asians led by the Chinese "overtake" us.
Wow. What an ignorant comment. I mean, truly ignorant. The Japanese (you know, those Asians) have had the truly excellent bullet train for years. They have long since overtaken the US in terms of quality train service. Then again, so have the Europeans. Even the legendary train delay^Wservice of the UK is better. Actually, it's not that bad in England at the moment.
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Not that it matters. Top speed when you run out of gas [latimes.com] is zero anyway.
Highway subsidies (Score:3, Interesting)
I would love to know the subsidy (federal, state, local) for the highways.
C'mon, California (Score:3, Interesting)
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It isn't stuck, it will be on your november CA ballot as Prop 1/1A
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but it seems to be a stuck project!
So you're saying that it's possibly been...... terminated?
the fire is in war (Score:4, Interesting)
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I disagree....war is an investment. The technology developed though war throughout human history has benefited all of us. From improved communications, water filtration, and solar power in the third world to the improved medical, manufacturing, production, and design processes of the first world.
For good or bad war has always been the great motivator of the human race. Wars costs billions of dollars but so do disease epidemics, natural disasters, and other challenges that fast large groups of people. We lea
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Ah, I see. So our invasion of Iraq...was to improve our living conditions. That makes me feel much better.
You make a good point - historically, war has been the great motivator; the 'fire', if you will.
But I don't agree that the people who start wars view it as an 'investment.' Those people don't sit back and think, "Well, we need some new technology. Let's start a war!" (at least, I hope not). Spurring technology development has been a side effect of it, done because war creates the urgency, the necessity,
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Somehow I don't think it's cost effective (leaving out the whole humanitarian costs like thousands of dead people):
Iraq War: $550 billion [wikipedia.org]
NSF Budget for same period: $28.6 Billion [nsf.gov]
Which do you think is the better investment?
Re:the fire is in war (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree....war is an investment. The technology developed though war throughout human history has benefited all of us.
Not quite sure I agree with you there. There's only a technological race when you're at war with an enemy who is at or near your technological level. Somehow I don't see UAV's and IED-proof light armored vehicles benefiting mankind as a whole. The "advances" and "research" in the current war(s) seem to be very directed at surveillance, self defense and killing people remotely.
There's also the idea of diminishing returns. Before the world wars science was just about ready to explode all on its own anyway. Huge fields of potential knowledge were on the brink of being discovered - from biology and antibiotics, which allowed surgeons (together with their new-found anesthetics) to become bolder and bolder in experimental techniques to advance the field of medicine, to the whole plastics industry, to the need for sophisticated computing devices to crack enemy codes or do the tedious math required to predict the results of nuclear fission reactions.
Nowadays we are full of plastics, we have supercomputers, and our rate of advance has slowed somewhat as we explore entirely new fields - molecular biology, nanotechnology, etc. Yes we will probably make another "quantum leap" in terms of knowledge in these fields, and our current fields of knowledge will advance incrementally, but it's not necessarily war that will trigger it this time. There's no pressing need to build a "more efficient transistor before the enemy gets one".
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Somehow I don't see UAV's and IED-proof light armored vehicles benefiting mankind as a whole.
UAVs are being used to track bushfires in California [slashdot.org]
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The problem isn't just the war, it's the whole American philosophy that values the rights of the "spotted owl", the individual, the crackpot-theory-of-the month over the potential gains to be reaped for the population as a whole.
If you're going to start ANY major project in the US get ready for months of red tape, environmental impact studies, lawsuits from various activist groups ranging from those who are fighting to "save" a rare breed of earthworm to those who don't like the aes
Re:the fire is in war (Score:5, Funny)
Can we get a Godwin 2.0 rule, please? Anybody that mentions the Iraq war breaks the rule.
That would be nice, but after all the money we've blown on the war in Iraq, there's unfortunately no funding left to implement any new rules.
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Yes, let's make up rules about Internet discussions while Team America is raping Iraqi children and sacrificing their organs to Satan just to get oil and free pentagrams.
But yeah, it's really irritating how seemingly every discussion here manages to invoke the Iraq war or US foreign policy even if the subject is World of Warcraft or something.
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It is irritating how often it's brought up - but I think there's a big difference: Iraq is current and relevant. Nazi Germany is not.
This isn't a vague, poof!-out-of-the-air, absurd reference attempting to compare some situation today to something Hitler related.
China is looking ahead, but not the US (Score:2)
It is quite pathetic that the United States is behind nearly every other advanced country in developing advanced public transportation systems. The state of public transportation in many parts of the country is simply awful. While we know we need to conserve and every time we turn the ignition on the car we lurch closer to total economic peak oil disaster and climate chaos, the US is unable to change its wasteful, gas guzzling drive 20 miles to work ways. Instead of doing the environmentally responsible thi
See. This is the perfect use for rail. (Score:3, Insightful)
Non stop between cities.
If you start adding stops in between the two end points, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference what the top speed is, the average speed will suck badly.
There is already one of these in operation (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing-Tianjin_high-speed_rail [wikipedia.org]
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The train from Shanghai to the airport... (Score:2)
The train from Shanghai to the airport (Pudong?) is already faster. It does over 400 KpH.
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Airlines (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose this train actually achieves the stated 236 miles per hour. Without making any stops at all, you're still looking at about 13 hours to get from New York to San Francisco. With five or six stops (that's not even one per state), it would approach 20 hours. This is a 6-hour flight. Anywhere farther than 600 miles is going to be faster by air.
For trips less than 250 miles, it's just not worth the hassle of getting to a major rail hub, parking your car (or taking transit and transfering), waiting to board the train, arriving at your destination with no ground transport and having to rent a car, etc.. It's easier to just jump in your car and drive there. Cheaper, too.
Those are best-case scenarios. In reality, the Acela takes 8 hours to get from Boston to Washington, DC -- a flight I've made in about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Cost: Anyone with $50 or $100 million can start their own airline, leasing a few planes and plying low-volume routes to make money for expansion.
Good luck getting a high-speed rail built for less than $50 billion. With that kind of money, you could outright buy 40 or 50 brand-new airliners and hire people to fly them. That lets you provide service to a lot more than just two cities.
Capacity: It would take over a decade and untold billions of dollars to build a track. That's ignoring all the right-of-way and environmental headaches. Once built, the track can't exactly be picked up and moved if peoples' travel habits change. Air routes change all the time, based on passenger demand.
Airspace is already there, and it's free. The only real limit on capacity is landing slots, and big airports like LAX can land over a thousand flights a day.
Security: In flight, the only external threat to an airliner would be from ground-to-air missiles. Those aren't exactly easy to come by. You can't make one in your tool shed. Airliners are very delicate, but they're also very hard to reach, six miles above ground and moving along at mach 0.8..
High-speed rails travel a fixed route at predictable times. You could destroy one pretty easily using an IED. Even a small fuel-fertilizer bomb would be sufficient -- moving at hundreds of miles per hour, anything which gets the train slightly off-kilter is going to cause massive casualties. Patrolling thousands and thousands of miles of rail, 24 hours a day, is impractical and expensive.
Re:Airlines (Score:4, Insightful)
Speed: There is a very narrow range of trip lengths for which high-speed rail makes sense.
Depends on where you live:
For trips less than 250 miles, it's just not worth the hassle of getting to a major rail hub, parking your car (or taking transit and transfering), waiting to board the train, arriving at your destination with no ground transport and having to rent a car, etc.. It's easier to just jump in your car and drive there.
If you already have local rail infrastructure, or parking in the city is difficult, then rail is a big win. To pick an extreme example, you suggest that it's easier to go by car for journeys less than 250 miles. It's 211 miles from London to Paris. In Europe, where towns are smaller, more crowded, parking is difficult, and public transport infrastructure exists, it's worth going by train.
As for cheaper, well, that's a problem. The problem is that the roads receive massive subsidies, so they're free to use. Not much way around that, except to give comparable subsidies to rail too. ...cost...
Yeah, it's expensive. Sufficiently so that only a government is large enough to finiance something the size of a rail or road network.
Security: In flight, the only external threat to an airliner would be from ground-to-air missiles. Those aren't exactly easy to come by. You can't make one in your tool shed. Airliners are very delicate, but they're also very hard to reach, six miles above ground and moving along at mach 0.8.. High-speed rails travel a fixed route at predictable times. You could destroy one pretty easily using an IED. Even a small fuel-fertilizer bomb would be sufficient -- moving at hundreds of miles per hour, anything which gets the train slightly off-kilter is going to cause massive casualties. Patrolling thousands and thousands of miles of rail, 24 hours a day, is impractical and expensive.
Well, no. Firstly, airliners are suprising resilliant, they've survided anti-aircraft missile hits. Secondly, there have been accidents involving high speed trains. They look like a real mess, but the number of deaths is usually very low. Besides, if they were such an easy target, then why have they not been targeted already?
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Oh, but they weren't high speed trains, so that's irrelevant I guess.
Yes, if you bothered to read the thread, you would have figured out that your comment is completely irrelevant.
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I did read the thread. I was being sarcastic. Here's the non-sarcastic version:
Trains are trains. They've already bombed trains. You're a fucking douchebag for making a meaningless distinction.
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You talk about threats from bombs and the l
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Yes, the Acela is crap compared to European high-speed rail. But that flight time is completely misleading. I do a comparable flight sometimes. I live near downtown Melbourne, Australia, and fly up for work in downtown Sydney, Australia. The flight is one hour, 30 minutes. Even without checked baggage, it takes four hours door-to-door.
Depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
-Grey [silverclipboard.com]
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Ponitless war still fought for domestic political reasons -> lots of resources wasted or tied up -> not much interesting going on.
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I'm very glad for China, but at the same time depressed. When I was younger, I used to think of the US as being a place that made THE FUTURE happen. I wanted the Internet come into being and if that wasn't THE FUTURE I didn't know what was. Now it seems feels like the US it focused on stasis. I can only hope now that the Chinese let us have some table scraps from their engineering marvels.
-Grey [silverclipboard.com]
Engineering marvels?
You mean this engineering marvel [autoblog.com]?
Or how about this one [pocket-lint.co.uk]?
Though, I'll give them credit where it's due, the Olympic venues of the birds nest and water cube were pretty awesome.
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Current absolute record on rail: 574 km/h (Score:4, Informative)
The record on rail, 574 km/h, belongs to the [slashdot.org]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record#Record_of_2007 [wikipedia.org] . Maglevs go faster but compete in a different category :)
However, the fastest the TGV can go in commercial operation is around 320 km/h, so the Chinese train will top it by some 40 km/h. Kudos to the engineers!
Does it runs on Ruby? (Score:3, Funny)
Great, but maintenance will be EXPENSIVE. (Score:3, Insightful)
While this sounds like a great idea in practice, the cost of maintaining the overhead wiring, steel rails and rolling stock for such a high-speed train will border on exorbitant.
Remember, above 300 km/h, there are serious engineering issues of physical wear from the contacts of the overhead wiring with the pantographs on the train and the steel wheels and steel rail. Unless the Chinese government spends the type of money needed to properly maintain these equipment, it could end up being a serious maintenance nightmare (I can imagine how much SNCF is spending to maintain the TGV system).
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No no no, you got it all wrong ! (Score:3, Insightful)
I use this example from time to time as most people who live in the US have no idea how backward the US can be in certain areas.
You've got that all wrong! You need to listen to more prop^H^H^H^Hcommercials. Repeat after me:
Cars good! (Nevermind the traffic jams and all the other problems LALALALALA!!)
Planes good! (Only if you're not on THE LIST, citizen!)
Trains bad! Only communists and poor people use trains! You don't want to be a communist or a poor person, do you?!
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You mean like this one http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3193/2586364904_c767baeb40.jpg?v=0 [flickr.com]?
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Re:And best of all.. (Score:5, Informative)
> The trains will be powered by the bodies of dead slave laborers ....
USAtoday says:
North America's four major rail networks -- Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific and Canadian National -- all own lines that were built and operated with slave labor.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2002/02/21/slave-railroads.htm [usatoday.com]
Re:And best of all.. (Score:5, Funny)
However, the trains were fueled by coal/diesel.
Re:The French TGV is Faster (Score:5, Interesting)
The first TGVs were running at 260/270 km/h on regular service in 1981. Current TGVs on regular service run at 220 km/h on classic lines, at 300 km/h on fast lines (called LGV) and at 320 km/h on the Paris-Strasbourg line (LGV EST).
Next generation TGV (called AGV and scheduled for 2010) will probably run faster on regular service, around 360 km/h.
The great speed of the TGV is interesting, but what is more remarkable is the density of its high-speed network: check it over here [wikipedia.org]