China To Connect Its High-Speed Rail To Europe 691
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kdawson
from the time-for-several-murders dept.
from the time-for-several-murders dept.
MikeChino sends in this excerpt from Inhabitat: "China already has the most advanced and extensive high-speed rail lines in the world, and soon that network will be connected all the way to Europe and the UK. With initial negotiations and surveys already complete, China is now making plans to connect its HSR line through 17 other countries in Asia and Eastern Europe in order to connect to the existing infrastructure in the EU. Additional rail lines will also be built into South East Asia as well as Russia, in what will likely become the largest infrastructure project in history." They hope to get it done within 10 years, with China providing the financing in exchange for raw materials, in some cases.
Re:That is just really cool. (Score:5, Informative)
Even if it's high speed, I don't think that anyone will want to take the train from China to Europe.
From my read of the article this rail will be primarily used for manufacturing materials. The main goal is to make it easier for import/export to/from China not to make traveling easier.
Re:Track width (Score:5, Informative)
An image illustrating the track widths across the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_gauge_world.png [wikipedia.org]
I assume that the whole planned track will be standard gauge, if they plan trains from London to Beijing? But the article doesn't say.
Re:Ominous (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This would be big (Score:2, Informative)
They'd have to build a rail line across Siberia, then cross the Bering Sea, then build a line across Alaska to Fairbanks, than another line across the Yukon and British Columbia to connect Chinese/Russian rail networks to the US and Canadian.
About 4,000 miles of wild country, 90 miles of sea, and then another 2,200 miles to get that rail net hooked up the Canada and the lower 48.
The Bering Straight is three times longer than the Channel is wide and lacks the infrastructure that France and the UK had in place. I'd ballpark 250 billion dollars to tunnel it.
Re:That is just really cool. (Score:5, Informative)
Even if it's high speed, I don't think that anyone will want to take the train from China to Europe.
You already can [wikipedia.org], though not high-speed. At the moment people take that train for the sake of the journey, not just to get from A to B.
Re:A high speed railway (Score:3, Informative)
You mean like ipods, and macbooks, and things like that?
Re:A high speed railway (Score:2, Informative)
Sure, during the worst economic crisis the world has known when nearly every country in the world had tariffs which stopped a lot of trade being viable. What exactly was Japan and Germany trading with the British Empire and the US at the time?
Re:A high speed railway (Score:2, Informative)
It's reasonably obvious why they'd want materials rather than our money. For years we've been taking all of this cool stuff from them, and sending them worthless bits of paper in return.
And recently every bank in the western world made the paper worth even less by printing more of it.
Re:US is in trouble (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm (Score:2, Informative)
"China already has the most advanced and extensive high-speed rail lines in the world."
No, it doesn't.
High Speed Rail and Freight are Mutually Exclusive (Score:3, Informative)
You can't run high-speed rail and freight on the same tracks. It's because of the weight of freight cars. They can physically bend the rail enough for you to see it happening. So, the track doesn't stay in sufficient calibration to use for high-speed rail. Indeed, the first thing you do, if you want high-speed rail, is build an exclusive track line.
To be used for freight a system like this would need four tracks at a minimum. Two for passenger and two for freight.
Where did you see hispeed rails in China? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ka-boom! (Score:4, Informative)
China has the largest standing army in the world, using only 0.53 percent of its population in all of its armed forces. Also, I suspect the Chinese would use their forces more ruthlessly than the US. Even if someone is stupid enough to screw with China, the Chinese response should prevent any repetition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_total_troops [wikipedia.org]
Re:High Speed Rail and Freight are Mutually Exclus (Score:3, Informative)
I really doubt that freight train cars would physically bend the tracks, and if they did, it would hardly be the reason why they don't run freight on high speed rail. Wikipedia states this:
Experience has shown however, that trains of significantly different speeds cause massive decreases of line capacity. As a result, mixed-traffic lines are usually reserved for high-speed passenger trains during the daytime, while freight trains go at night. In some cases, nighttime high-speed trains are even diverted to lower speed lines in favor of freight traffic.
In conclusion: it is the speed differences, not some kind of "track bending" that is the major reason they don't mix high speed train and freight trains.
As usual Slashdot is full of self proclaimed experts that exceeds at making up cool "facts" so they can me moderated +5 informative.
Re:A high speed railway (Score:5, Informative)
China has been doing a lot of this bartering lately - avoiding paying cash for things in exchange for construction, trade contracts, or goods.
Uh... where I come from, that is called trade. Trading doesn't only mean exchanging cash - goods for services is a perfectly valid form of trade, and one practised for many years before the advent of exchangeable currency markets.
Re:A high speed railway (Score:5, Informative)
No, he's right. I'm sorry your shitty American textbooks don't express the reality of your situation, but that's no excuse for you to be ignorant of history.
Before Pearl Harbor, Japan had invaded China, Mongolia and parts of the USSR. Japan, having no natural resources of their own yet requiring them for its military action, needed to acquire them from other nations. The Japanese ended up seizing French Indochina (Vietnam today), causing several major Western nations to freeze Japan's assets, and put an embargo on oil shipments to Japan.
The Japanese didn't respond well to this, seeing it as basically a declaration of war, and attacked Thailand and other southeast Asian nations, as well as Pearl Harbor. So he's right, the US was attacked because of the stopped providing the Japanese with oil.
Re:Where did you see hispeed rails in China? (Score:3, Informative)
it takes two (Score:4, Informative)
china makes shit that everyone else in the world buys by the ton, likely because the rest of the world is incapable of making the same shit themselves for similar cost, and china would like to see it shipped to end customers faster.
The rest of the world is "incapable of making the same shit for similar cost" because the rest of the world has gotten accustomed to cushy social and medical services, as well to a fairly clean environment. So, instead of living with less security and destroying their own environments, Europe and America have the work done in China. I have no idea whether this is good or bad in the long run (and neither does anybody else). But it's happening because both Western and Chinese politicians want it to happen. The US and Europe could stop this in an instant if they wanted to, no matter what China says or wants.
PS it does (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_by_country [wikipedia.org]
Country Total network length (km) and Average speed of fastest scheduled train
China 6552 km and 313 km/h ;)
Japan 2459 km and 256 km/h
Re:A high speed railway (Score:5, Informative)
Although, the US came to mind first when I saw "meddling, war and neocolonialism"... Looking just at Latin America for only the last 30 years, you get:
1980
U.S., seeking a stable base for its actions in El Salvador and Nicaragua, tells the Honduran military to clean up its act and hold elections. The U.S. starts pouring in $100 million of aid a year and basing the contras on Honduran territory.
Death squads are also active in Honduras, and the contras tend to act as a state within a state.
1981
The CIA steps in to organize the contras in Nicaragua, who started the previous year as a group of 60 ex-National Guardsmen; by 1985 there are about 12,000 of them. 46 of the 48 top military leaders are ex-Guardsmen. The U.S. also sets up an economic embargo of Nicaragua and pressures the IMF and the World Bank to limit or halt loans to Nicaragua.
1981
Gen. Torrijos of Panama is killed in a plane crash. There is a suspicion of CIA involvement, due to Torrijos' nationalism and friendly relations with Cuba.
1982
A coup brings Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt to power in Guatemala, and gives the Reagan administration the opportunity to increase military aid. Ríos Montt's evangelical beliefs do not prevent him from accelerating the counterinsurgency campaign.
1983
Another coup in Guatemala replaces Ríos Montt. The new President, Oscar Mejía Víctores, was trained by the U.S. and seems to have cleared his coup beforehand with U.S. authorities.
1983
U.S. troops take over tiny Granada. Rather oddly, it intervenes shortly after a coup has overthrown the previous, socialist leader. One of the justifications for the action is the building of a new airport with Cuban help, which Granada claimed was for tourism and Reagan argued was for Soviet use. Later the U.S. announces plans to finish the airport... to develop tourism.
1983
Boland Amendment prohibits CIA and Defense Dept. from spending money to overthrow the government of Nicaragua-- a law the Reagan administration cheerfully violates.
1984
CIA mines three Nicaraguan harbors. Nicaragua takes this action to the World Court, which brings an $18 billion judgment against the U.S. The U.S. refuses to recognize the Court's jurisdiction in the case.
1984
U.S. spends $10 million to orchestrate elections in El Salvador-- something of a farce, since left-wing parties are under heavy repression, and the military has already declared that it will not answer to the elected president.
1989
U.S. invades Panama to dislodge CIA boy gone wrong Manuel Noriega, an event which marks the evolution of the U.S.'s favorite excuse from Communism to drugs.
1996
The U.S. battles global Communism by extending most-favored-nation trading status for China, and tightening the trade embargo on Castro's Cuba.
Re:That is just really cool. (Score:2, Informative)
You are right. And freight won't be transported at 350 kph. Freights run at much slower speeds because the wagons are too heavy and at high speeds can destroy the track. On the other hand, passenger coaches are much lighter and can go much faster.
Re:A high speed railway (Score:4, Informative)
Europe's raw resources? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where did you see hispeed rails in China? (Score:1, Informative)
When I was in China last year, the train between Guangzhou and Hong Kong reached speeds a bit over 220km/h, and I think they've just recently completed Guangzhou to Wuhan which is a pretty long stretch :)
Re:Chinese age is a fiction (Score:4, Informative)
wait wait wait. lets analyse your facts here. while it can be said that china as a unified society might not be as old as some people think, we can look back at recorded history to see what we know.
Modern Chinese society is based on the Qin culture which dates back to at least 9th century BC. While this is not terribly old, the unification under the Qin emperor in 221BC wiped out all of the other cultures of the Chinese people which dated far further back. Unfortunately we can't know exactly how far back as the emperor destroyed all recorded knowledge from the other cultures.
As far as the language goes, there is a story that suggests written Chinese dates back as far as ~2500BC but we have no evidence of this. What we do have is actual written characters dating back to ~1200BC. The earliest Greek texts that we have date back to ~1400BC. So based on this evidence you could say Greek was earlier, but not by nearly as far as you suggest. You were correct in suggesting that other cultures developed writing around 2000 years earlier. The fact that current Chinese is not as old is a result of the cultural purge mentioned above.
As far as contemporary cultures are concerned, there are very few that can date back as far as 200BC.
Re:High Speed Rail and Freight are Mutually Exclus (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. Bruce Perens is right.
You can't mix really high-speed (i.e. 500km/h) and freight trains. In your article 'high-speed' means "sub 200km/h".
Russia got the same exact problem on Moscow-Saint-Petersburg line, for example.
Re:A high speed railway (Score:5, Informative)
The sad part is that very few cities in this country have any infrastructure to support you once you arrive via train. Everything around here is built with the car in mind. Add in a sad mentality that public transport is for 'poor people' and there is little chance of any options being successful financially.
Re:High Speed Rail and Freight are Mutually Exclus (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A high speed railway (Score:4, Informative)
Last year, me and my wife when to Brighton from London, on the Brighton express it took just 45 mins to get there on a 100mph line with 2 intermeadiate stops, a journey that would easily take about 1 hour 30 mins by car. the cost was £4.50 each one way, total £18
You didn't go "From Soho down to Brighton, did you?" 8-)
Compare a similar trip from Washington DC, to Fredericksburg, VA on the US's only train - amtrak.com. Google maps says it's 52.5 miles and 1:06.
Amtrak wants a minimum of $88 (58 GBP) for two adult round trip tickets. The outbound leg takes a minimum of 1:05, and the return trip takes a minimum of 1:15.
I can drive that same route (105 miles) for a tenth of that, and arrive at the same time as the train.
Additionally, this schedule [amtrak.com] shows a minimum of 4 stops each way.
And non-US citizens still wonder why we don't just take the train???
Re:A high speed railway (Score:4, Informative)
Wouldnt you take a train if it was competitive to car?
It depends on the destination, truthfully. If I were to go to Washington, DC or NYC, for instance, I would certainly take the train preferentially over driving, since parking is virtually unobtainable.
Going anywhere that's not set up for public transportation (my own city, Richmond, VA, for instance) would be foolish - you'd be able to stand around the station or maybe take a cab to a sightseeing spot or two, but without subways or other intra-city transportation, you'd be stranded.
In my particular case, Richmond's main train station is 8.4 miles/13 min [google.com] from 'downtown', and a cab ride would be $20-$25 [wikitravel.org].