China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains • Hacker News Board

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#251

Post by lmm » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #207

MrFlynn wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you wanted to build an HSR line through a long coastal mountain range most of way from SF to LA further driving up the cost, having it go the majority of the distance through a relatively flat valley definitely has its benefits. I do think that the line should have paralleled i-5 instead of going through Bakersfield and Fresno, but that's not the choice that was made.

Mountain ranges didn't seem to be a problem for Japan's high speed rail network.

Huh? They absolutely were. Cities that look close on a map can easily take 3x long as you would think to get to by train because the high speed line goes a long way around (or, in the case of e.g. Nagasaki, because there's no high speed line there at all).

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#252

Post by trhway » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

saberience wrote: post #28

So, as someone that lived in New York for 6 years and California for 6 years, stories like this are incredibly depressing. The US is the world's largest economy and should be the shining example of amazing infrastructure, high-tech, green cities, and forward thinking policies. California is an especially egregious example in terms of infrastructure investment: If California was a country it would be the world's fifth…

>Can you imagine the impact of being able to train from San Diego to LA in 30mins? LA to San Fran in an hour and a half?

well, that train railway and its stops and other infrastructure would have to be build over somebody's lands/homes - the somebody's lives would have to be significantly impacted against their will. "The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few"? Especially that in practice those "Many" are frequently just some other, more influential, "Few".

>an autocratic and repulsive Government

that is a one [brutally] efficient way to outweigh the needs of the few ...

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#253

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #245

polemic wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high speed rail is romanticism from bygone days when rail was the only alternative to long distance travel. air travel pretty much superseded it and is doing so all over the world. This isn't true. High speed rail is alive and well in Europe. Geography, politics and history are all significant factors that you can't explain so easily. > the advent of self driving and electric cars will doom them regardless Highly s…

But there are plenty of chinese infrastructure projects that have languished for lack of use. Look at the olympic venues. Once the novelty of ribbon cutting is over, once the recuring costs start piling up, this project too may slow down.

Chinese airspace is already incredibly congested and unreliable. They just had to build a new 100-million capacity airport for Beijing because of a lack of capacity at the existing airport.

The alternative to not continuing to build up rail is that people start not making trips within China due to the difficulty. (Obvious grandstanding projects like HSR to Urumqi and Lhasa not included.)

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#254

Post by mntmoss » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

xz0r wrote: post #239

Shivetya wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple truth is, transportation projects are not created to solve problems but instead of pay off political affiliates, be they donors, family members, political parties, or the unions. Democrats have no more interest in high speed rail or energy independence than Republicans and for the same reason. Oh they will pay lip service saying otherwise but you can see the results of all those years they have made their…

> the advent of self driving and electric cars will doom them regardless. Fully autonomous self driving cars are decades away[0] - assuming 15-20 years that about 20% of one's lifetime, developing rail is only a few years effort. I do not understand how electric cars would doom rail. [0] https://www.businessinsider.in/transportation/cars/experts-s...

Electric improves the flexibility of BRT, for one - you can run buses underground with lower ventilation requirements and without running overhead cables. Extrapolate "better BRT" to whole highways and dedicated streets running articulated self-driving buses(a far easier task than open-road self-driving) - and you can achieve a lot of the things that rails do, for cheaper. The things that can't be done with that model, the biggest capacities and the highest speeds, are the things that are most in need of a huge subsidy anyway.

Electric is also giving ferryboat transit a new lease on life in terms of energy cost/emissions impact. The SF area fleets have ordered a few electrics already - and they've been expanding service, adding new terminals. It's a return to an older model for regional transit and it has plenty of upsides, with the big caveat of needing a viable coastline.

Between those two, I think you have the model for a lot of future transit infrastructure. Regardless I would also not claim rail is "doomed".

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#255

Post by sandworm101 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #253

sandworm101 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are plenty of chinese infrastructure projects that have languished for lack of use. Look at the olympic venues. Once the novelty of ribbon cutting is over, once the recuring costs start piling up, this project too may slow down.

Chinese airspace is already incredibly congested and unreliable. They just had to build a new 100-million capacity airport for Beijing because of a lack of capacity at the existing airport. The alternative to not continuing to build up rail is that people start not making trips within China due to the difficulty. (Obvious grandstanding projects like HSR to Urumqi and Lhasa not included.)

Rail yes, highspeed rail maybe not. Whether china has the market and will to sustain widespread 1000kph rail is untested.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#256

Post by usaar333 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:41 PM UTC

kurtisc wrote: post #238

usaar333 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative to being stuck in traffic for hours is flying. A major problem with train systems in the United States (and this is both short and long haul) is that almost the entire country is sprawl - built around the automobile. In dense environments (China and the north-east coast of the US (which has Acela), it's great to take a train into the core -- you beat traffic and are near your destination. In sprawling…

China is dense? This is a study working towards connecting cities >900 km apart. edit: article says 2200, maps says 900ish

Cities are dense, unlike American ones

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#257

Post by mgolawala » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

moju wrote: post #170

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two factors at play here. 1) We have the curse of being first. Our cities are old so our infrastructure is old. 2) We can't just say, "Your land is ours, get the fuck out, construction begins in one week" They can also cut corners on safety and pollution. The ends always justify the means.

Your country is not even 250 years old. There are older cities with better infrastructure.

Exactly. You see the high speed rail in Italy, Japan or China and think about just how old those countries are. All have excellent high speed rail.

It isn't limited just to the outskirts either. For example, Rome itself has an amazing metro train system.

The problem isn't the age of the country. The problem is bureaucratic dysfunction.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#258

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #209

saberience wrote: post #28

So, as someone that lived in New York for 6 years and California for 6 years, stories like this are incredibly depressing. The US is the world's largest economy and should be the shining example of amazing infrastructure, high-tech, green cities, and forward thinking policies. California is an especially egregious example in terms of infrastructure investment: If California was a country it would be the world's fifth…

> I hate the fact that an autocratic and repulsive Government The Chinese government is much more autocratic yet it obviously does a much better job in building infrastructure The problem with the US government is lobbyism. It does not work for itself, it does not work for the people, it works for big corporations and lawyers.

The problem is that during the last major American infrastructure buildout, the Interstates, experts basically rammed through projects without considering local impacts or local objections, and highways ended up gutting a lot of the neighborhoods (often poor or minority ones) that they went through.

Eventually the pendulum swung in the other direction and people gained the ability to stop urban freeways, but now the pendulum has swung too far and people will sue projects out of existence.

China's land rights (or lack thereof) are not uncontroversial, and I would be surprised if they don't become a flashpoint in the future.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#259

Post by kurtisc » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

usaar333 wrote: post #256

kurtisc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is dense? This is a study working towards connecting cities >900 km apart. edit: article says 2200, maps says 900ish

Cities are dense, unlike American ones

I'm not aware of any city-local maglev trains. American cities are still spread out from one-another.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#260

Post by MrFlynn » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

jbay808 wrote: post #207

MrFlynn wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you wanted to build an HSR line through a long coastal mountain range most of way from SF to LA further driving up the cost, having it go the majority of the distance through a relatively flat valley definitely has its benefits. I do think that the line should have paralleled i-5 instead of going through Bakersfield and Fresno, but that's not the choice that was made.

Mountain ranges didn't seem to be a problem for Japan's high speed rail network.

That's because they mostly avoided mountains on their high speed routes. The Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen mostly follow the coastline and the Tohoku Shinkansen mostly goes through a valley. There are lines that do bore through mountain ranges, but nothing to the extent of several hundred miles as would be required for a line through the California coastal range.