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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 02 2017, @09:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the here-becomes-there dept.

According to a report at Bloomberg , China plans a major investment in high-speed rail over the next five years: $503 Billion:

China plans to spend 3.5 trillion yuan ($503 billion) to expand its railway system by 2020 as it turns to investments in infrastructure to bolster growth and improve connectivity across the country.

The high-speed rail network will span more than 30,000 kilometers (18,650 miles) under the proposal, according to details released at a State Council Information Office briefing in Beijing Thursday. The distance, about 6.5 times the length of a road trip between New York and Los Angeles, will cover 80 percent of major cities in China.

The plan will see high-speed rail lines across the country expand by more than half over a five-year period, a boon to Chinese suppliers of rolling stock such as CRRC Corp. and rail construction companies including China Railway Construction Corp. and China Railway Group Ltd. Earlier this year, China turned to a private company for first time to operate an inter-city rail service on the mainland, part of President Xi Jinping's push to modernize the nation's transport network amid slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy.

China will also add 3,000 kilometers to its urban rail transit system under the plan released Thursday.

At the end of 2015, China had 121,000 kilometers of railway lines, including 19,000 kilometers of high-speed tracks, according to a transportation white paper issued Thursday. The U.S. had 228,218 kilometers of rail lines as of 2014, according to latest available data from the World Bank.

The Chinese government will invite private investment to participate in funding intercity and regional rail lines, Yang Yudong, administrator of the National Railway Administration, said at the briefing.

Compare that to what it would cost, and how long it would take, to create the same high-speed rail links between 80% of major cities in the USA. I suspect it would be considered a miracle if half the cases would make it out of the courts in five years. Think of the advancements in manufacturing that can arise when "here" and "there" are "nearby" instead of "far away".


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 02 2017, @02:44PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 02 2017, @02:44PM (#448503)

    Whats in the donut?

    The problem with high speed rail is if you're closer than 1/2 hour by car its quicker to drive or bus or cab (or walk) so there's this minimum diameter where the train begins to make sense.

    Interestingly I live inside the donut WRT Chicago, I can take a train into downtown Chicago at 100 MPH (no kidding) which is immensely faster than rush hour traffic. I'm like 4 or 5 h-bomb radii away from downtown Chicago but close enough thats its a reasonable time to sit on a train. It would be like 4 to 6 hours of rush hour traffic to drive, or even at 2am at highway speed it would still take hours to get there.

    There exists an outer limit where the train is too slow (and expensive) compared to cheaper barely subsonic aircraft. Arguably burning an overnight+ to take a medium speed train to NYC doesn't make sense although I've done it. It would be silly to burn a day or more to get to FL or the left coast on a train, even a high speed train. Now cost and maximum range go up with exponential costs because that tech isn't cheap.

    The point is the "donut" in the USA has packed cities and rich suburbs and recreational areas that rich people like, and it STILL doesn't make economic sense here.

    In China its gonna be even worse. Now you'll have ghost cities that are empty linked by high speed trains that'll be empty that could take poor rice farmers into town, if they had the reason, and the money, but they don't have either...

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @05:05PM (#448567)

    in China, the decisions where to put stations are made, and thsts that. In the US, decisions where to put stations are made. then there are lawsuits because town X got left out. there will be lawsuits because the line goes by some roch area, and the rich folk would rather see it go through the poor areas. and then lawsuits because their station isnt as good as the poor area station. or that the train will just be a pipeline for the criminal elements into their town. there will be lawsuits because it goes through poor areas. there will be lawsuits because there arent enough stations in the poor areas, and that the stations suck. Or that the train stations will lead to gentrification.there will be lawsuits because a property owner doesnt think he's being paid enough. There'll be lawsuits because it goes by a farm and the animals might be disturbed or something. In the US, if you can imagine it you can probably lawsuit [sic] it...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:29AM (#448738)

    We really need to be treating passenger rail like flights, complete with flight numbers in the normal air travel ticketing systems. The stations need to be inside the secured area, and the baggage needs to be handled as normal for flights. Connect each airport to the near-by neighbors. This lets you route a "flight" right through.

    For example, the three airports in the Bay Area (San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland) could be connected. The three airports around New York City could be connected. The two airports near Dallas could be connected. The two airports near DC could be connected.

    So next time a 747 hits the sea wall at San Francisco and shuts down air traffic, people and planes just get routed through Oakland and San Jose.