A blog about China's bullet train.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Bullet trains enter the history books
Premier Wen Jiabao (right) shakes hands with Li Dongxiao, the driver of the first commercial bullet train from Beijing on the Shanghai- Beijing high-speed railway yesterday. Wen joined other passengers on board the train in Beijing, calling the service a new chapter in China's railway history. Wen said the 1,318-kilometer link was of great significance to the country's transport system and would promote economic and social development while satisfying people's need for swift movement. Wen urged the rail operator to ensure the service remained safe and continue to raise standards. The new service cuts travel between the two cities to under five hours.
On board were thousands of passengers, from railway construction workers to government officials and ordinary people keen to play their part in railway history.
China's largest rail project saw its first commercial trip along the 1,318-kilometer line set off to the sound of cheers after a short speech by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
"Railway departments must give top priority to safety while continuing to improve their service quality," Wen said at Beijing South Railway Station before he boarded Train G1.
"The rail line has significant meaning for completing a modern transport system and improving economic development," said Wen, extending his thanks to the railway builders.
On the train, Wen talked to passengers, including 25 workers who took part in the construction of the rail line.
"I have the same feeling as you all - it's fast and comfortable," Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying.
The premier told passengers that the pricing of high-speed railways must satisfy the demands of different kinds of consumers, saying the country would keep the current passenger rail lines that run at ordinary speeds while developing high-speed rails.
"Different transportation on the railways, the roads, in the air and the waterways should compete and coordinate with each other to facilitate the economic and social development to satisfy people's needs," he was quoted.
Wen got off the train 21 minutes later when it arrived at Langfang Station, one of the 24 stations along the route.
China has the world's longest bullet train rail track with 8,358 kilometers in service and another 17,000 kilometers under construction.
High-speed rail projects are seen as vital to the country's growing economy.
More than 50 years ago, trains needed almost two days to complete the journey from Shanghai to the capital. Yesterday, it took just 10 minutes for Train G2 leaving from Shanghai to reach a speed of 300 kilometers per hour. It arrived in Beijing shortly before 8pm.
In the 16-carriage train, in which almost half the seats were taken by railway builders and officials, many passengers said they had been keen to be the first to experience the trip.
"I'm very happy to begin my summer holiday boarding the train," said student Liu Zhiwen, who had bought the most expensive ticket available, at 1,750 yuan.
Farmers working in the fields dotted along the track stopped to stare at the speeding bullet train which would soon become a common sight. It's changing the landscape in other ways too. Buildings and other infrastructures are being erected around the rail stations in some inland cities.
"It's a totally different picture from years ago," said George Koons, a tourist from the United States who last visited China about 10 years ago. Koons, lining up at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, had a ticket on Train G152, the next train after the G2, Shanghai's first high-speed train to Beijing.
However, one passenger almost missed the experience.
A man surnamed Wang, who had booked his ticket online, said he had to queue up for a long time to claim his ticket at the Hongqiao station.
Wang said the operator should set up special windows for passengers like him.Onboard, there were complaints about the poor WiFi and mobile phone signals, two things the operator had promised to improve.
The trains are expected to handle more than 150,000 passengers a day, said Wang Yongping, a railway ministry spokesman.
Sun Zhang, a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University, said that the line would help to promote urban-rural integration and sustainable regional development.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/National/2011/07/01/Bullet%2Btrains%2Benter%2Bthe%2Bhistory%2Bbooks/
China's bullet trains carry a cost — and hopes for future prosperity
Even as China prepares to open bullet-train service from Beijing to Shanghai by July 1, the nation's steadily expanding high-speed-rail network is being pilloried on a scale rare among Chinese citizens and news media.
Complaints include the high costs and pricey fares, the quality of construction and the allegation of self-dealing by a rail minister fired this year on corruption grounds.
Often overlooked amid all the controversy are the real economic benefits that the world's most advanced fast-rail system is bringing to China — and the competitive challenges it poses for the United States and Europe.
Just as building the interstate-highway system a half-century ago made modern, national commerce more feasible in the United States, China's ambitious rail rollout is helping integrate the economy of the sprawling, populous nation — on a much faster construction timetable and at significantly higher speeds than anything envisioned by the Eisenhower administration.
Work crews of up to 100,000 people per line have built about half of the 10,000-mile network in six years, in many cases ahead of schedule, including the Beijing-Shanghai line that was not expected to open until next year. The entire system is on course to be completed by 2020.
For the West, the implications go beyond marveling at the pace of communist-style civil engineering. China's manufacturing might and global-export machine are likely to grow more powerful, as 200 mph trains link cities and provinces previously as much as 24 hours by road or rail from the entrepreneurial seacoast.
Zhen Qinan, a founder of the stock exchange in coastal Shenzhen and the recently retired chief executive of ZK Energy, a wind-turbine producer in Changsha, said high-speed trains were making it more convenient to base businesses in Hunan province. Populous Hunan long has provided labor to the factories of the east, but its mountains have isolated it from the economic mainstream.
Zhen ticked off Hunan's attributes: "Land is much cheaper. Electricity is cheaper. Labor is cheaper."
Across China, real-estate prices and investment have surged in the more than 200 inland cities already connected by high-speed rail in the past three years. Businesses are flocking to these cities, now only hours by bullet train
from China's busiest and most international metropolises.
from China's busiest and most international metropolises.
Boon for freight traffic
Meanwhile, a shift in passenger traffic to the new high-speed-rail routes has freed up congested older rail lines for freight. That has allowed coal mines and shippers to switch to cheaper rail transport from costly trucks for heavy cargos.
Because of this shift, plus construction of additional freight lines, the tonnage hauled by China's rail system increased in 2010 by an amount equaling the entire freight carried last year by the combined rail systems of Britain, France, Germany and Poland, according to the World Bank.
The bullet-train bonanza, and the competitive challenge it poses for the West, is likely to increase with the opening of the 820-mile Beijing-Shanghai line, which will create a business corridor between China's two most dynamic cities. The railway ministry plans 90 bullet trains a day in each direction.
Trains will barrel along at initial speeds of 190 mph, with plans to accelerate to 220 mph by summer 2012, if the first year of operation goes smoothly. Even at slower speeds, they will take less than five hours to cover a distance comparable to New York to Atlanta, which requires nearly 18 hours on Amtrak.
China's huge investment in high-speed rail may be instructive to the United States, whether for proponents of federal rail investments or critics who consider bullet trains a boondoggle.
President Obama, who has proposed spending $53 billion on high-speed rail over six years, faced a setback in his budget deal in April with congressional Republicans, who eliminated money for that plan this year. Newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin last fall turned down federal money their Democratic predecessors had won for new rail routes, worrying their states could cover most of the costs for trains that would draw few riders.
Financial costs
High-speed rail is not universally acclaimed in China, either.
Financial regulators in Beijing have cautioned banks to monitor their rising exposure from hefty loans to the rail ministry. To pay for rapid deployment of the system, the ministry has borrowed more than $300 billion. It plans to invest an additional $115 billion this year, despite running losses on existing operations that it attributes mainly to rising diesel fuel costs for older lines, and rising interest payments.
Among the biggest beneficiaries are companies that contribute nothing to defray the rail system's costs. Those would be freight shippers, which have more exclusive use of the older rail lines, with fewer delays.
On older tracks, the rail ministry long dictated that freight rates would subsidize passenger trains because the ministry owns those older tracks outright. The new, high-speed lines — passenger trains only — are owned by joint ventures between the rail ministry and provincial governments. That has prevented the ministry from forcing freight shippers to cross-subsidize the new high-speed services. As a result, passengers must pay much higher fares.
The lack of freight subsidies also is causing concern that the debt agreements of some joint ventures might need to be revised to extend repayment.
For ordinary citizens, the prices for high-speed train tickets have touched China's raw nerve regarding rising income inequality. "The government is just abusing the money of the common people," said one posting on an Internet discussion forum.
From Changsha to Guangzhou, the one-way fare in economy class for the two-hour journey, at speeds of up to 210 mph, is 333 renminbi ($51). That is comparable to a deeply discounted airfare, but expensive for a migrant worker.
The same trip takes nine hours on an older, diesel train. But it costs only 99 renminbi ($15).
Safety questions
Chinese and foreign engineers have questioned the long-term strength of the concrete used in bridges and viaducts under contracts awarded during the term of the disgraced former rail minister, Liu Zhijun.
The rail ministry's new leaders contend safety concerns are misplaced. But they have responded to public anger over fares by announcing plans to lower the top speed on many routes July 1 — which will address safety questions and sharply reduce the amount of electricity consumed — and pass on the savings through reduced fares.
When the Beijing-Shanghai line opens, a north-to-south artery will be created with links to east-to-west rail lines at two dozen stations. "It's the network together that makes it work ... ," said John Scales, a World Bank expert who has advised China.
Already, the longer routes elsewhere appear to draw much heavier ridership. The trains, which typically carry 600 passengers, sometimes sell out despite departures every 10-15 minutes, particularly on Fridays.
Speed is relative. First, a passenger must get a seat. Zhou Junde, a migrant construction worker, stood in line at the Changsha station on a recent Friday to buy a high-speed ticket to Guangzhou. But the next high-speed train was sold out, as was the next 10 minutes later. He would have to wait 30 minutes to board a train with a seat.
"Sometimes," he said, "I come several hours early to get the departure I want."
Friday, 22 July 2011
China's high speed rail investment overshadows U.S.
A CRH (China Railway High-speed) bullet train bound for Beijing waits at the renovated Tianjin Railway Station. (China Photos/Getty Images)
STEVE CHIOTAKIS: Today bullet trains begin running in China, from Beijing to Shanghai in what is now the world's longest high-speed rail network.
Marketplace China Bureau Chief Rob Schmitz compares the Chinese lines to what we have going here in the U.S.
ROB SCHMITZ: So let's say you live in Chicago and you want to take the Amtrak to New York. If the train's on time, it'll take you 18 hours. Beijing to Shanghai's around the same distance. On the new bullet train, that's a five-hour trip. Just like with everything else these days, China's faster.
ROBERT CRUICKSHANK: China understands correctly that you need to make the big investment in sustainable transportation if you're going to be competitive in the 21st century.
Robert Cruickshank writes the California High Speed Rail blog.
CRUICKSHANK: Here in the U.S., we're simply not willing to go ahead and make that investment, or at least our Congress isn't, without realizing that if you don't invest in the future, you're not going to have one.
The U.S. government has set aside $7 billion for high-speed rail. China's central government has invested 3$09 billion. It's taken China around five years to build that network. Cruickshank says funding problems and environmental regulations mean a 15 to 20 year wait in the U.S.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/06/30/am-chinas-high-speed-rail-investment-overshadows-us/
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