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

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

#361

Post by Rapzid »

chao- wrote: post #147
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 agree with your sentiments overall, so don't take my "it's not all gloom and doom" comment as a disagreement... But there are people out there trying! The project from Texas Central Railways is looking like a sooner bet than California's line, for a number of reasons. An example of a reason is lower price, stemming from geography. The route doesn't require building tunnels through mountains and the like. Although e…

Yeah, I've been hearing about that for 10 years.

-Me 8 years ago

Also the new route is a joke. The high speed rail was originally supposed to run from Dallas to San Antonio, and Austin to Houston.

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

#362

Post by Aperocky »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #352
Ididntdothis wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think that the people with influence, money and power have created a parallel world that almost has no overlap with the world most other people live in. They live in different areas, go to different schools, have different doctors or can afford the billing insanity in health care, have different career opportunities, don’t use the same air travel, have their incomes rise all the time. They probably really thin…

What makes you think wealthy Chinese don't live in a separate reality too?

Wealthy Chinese people can't control what the country does, wealthy Americans certainly have the option if they wanted.

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

#363

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

jfim wrote: post #347
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to see what prices would be in the U.S, look at Japan. Tokyo to Kyoto one way is 13,080 yen ($120) for the cheapest ticket, for a distance of 226 miles. About the same distance as DC to New York. A lot of people think high speed rail would be cheaper to flying, in reality it's often the same or more than flying today. And it then costs billions of dollars to build the rail. As for subways, that unfortunat…

> Tokyo to Kyoto one way is 13,080 yen ($120) for the cheapest ticket, for a distance of 226 miles. About the same distance as DC to New York. > A lot of people think high speed rail would be cheaper to flying, in reality it's often the same or more than flying today. It's a lot more comfortable, and you end up in a downtown location instead of an airport on the outskirts of the city.

That obviously varies drastically by city. In this case, DC and Tokyo have airports close to downtown and connected by subway. And these airports could connect you to the entire world of course, rather than within ~500 miles (reasonably).

And the only reason train stations are downtown is due to historical reasons. If you had to make a 35 track train station today in your average American city, it would very likely not be downtown. Even in China these train stations are often on the outside loop of the city.

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

#364

Post by xvilka »

NamTaf wrote: post #82

I’m not sure if it’s just lost in translation, but Wuhan to Guangzhou isn’t even 1000 km so I don’t know where they get the 2200 km they’re quoting. That’s likely a figure for GZ to Beijing. I have used the high speed line between Wuhan and GZ (and through to HK) several times. It’s currently a 4.5 hour direct journey (once per day) or a 5 hour journey if you change at GZ or Shenzhen. The HSR is 300ish km/h at the mo…

Shanghai-Beijing route is 350 kmph again, they think about the ways to increase it up to 400 kmph.

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

#365

Post by JaRail »

melling wrote: post #144
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…

Depressing?!? It’s incredibly exciting! The United States wasn’t going to build these. Americans have been making excuses since the 1970s. Jerry Brown tried to build the CA bullet train 4 decades ago. Electric cars, electric buses, bullet trains, low-speed maglevs, high speed maglevs... China is making it happen! In America, all we want is “drill, baby, drill”

> In America, all we want is “drill, baby, drill”

Actually, it is much easier to build a pipeline, now that I think about it..

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

#366

Post by Aperocky »

hunter-gatherer wrote: post #268
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.

China's olympic venue isn't the most fair example, though. A handful of countries have let theirs fall to waste not long after the fact.

That's strange, because the olympic stadiums are perfectly fine, holding concerts, sport events and the likely routinely. I wonder where people got the idea that Beijing Olympic Stadiums are dilapidated, it's more like the exact opposite.

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

#367

Post by chao- »

enraged_camel wrote: post #192
jhayward wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can gauge the insincerity of the project by the mendacity of the title. There is an area of Texas known universally as "Central Texas". The "Texas Central" project goes nowhere near it. It's a rail line from Houston to Dallas. It's not going to happen, unless the legislature goes full bore socialize-the-losses and subsidizes it.

>> You can gauge the insincerity of the project by the mendacity of the title. There is an area of Texas known universally as "Central Texas". The "Texas Central" project goes nowhere near it. This is an incredibly bizarre criticism. Perhaps you are bitter that the project will not benefit you immediately? I live in Austin, and I am a bit disappointed about that myself, so I sympathize.

One of the many state/public attempts to bring HSR to Texas was built on a "Texas T" route (or "Texas T-Bone", some branding like that) that would have lines from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas all meet at Austin, so that if you wanted to go from Houston to Dallas, or Houston to San Antonio, it would go through Austin. Unfortunately as I recall (memory fuzzy, very open to correction) this was most recently attempted in the era of Republican Governors saying "F U" to any Obama administration money, even if it would help their state...

It is understandably harder for a private group to start off with a three-line rail network than a one-line rail network, than it would be for a group working with the federal government. Hence when Texas Central Railways that took up the banner, they settled on Houston to Dallas as the most profitable pairing of cities. This is evidenced partly by, at least in the past, that city pairing being the most profitable airline route operated by Southwest.

I followed some of the original proposals for routes, and some of them went through College Station directly, versus the chosen route, which goes through Grimes County stop with a rapid bus to College Station. I would have loved to see those happen, but it turns out they would have had many multiples more eminent domain issues. The current route minimizes private land issues by hugging an existing utility corridor as much as it can, while also balancing land that is easy to build on, and having lower environmental impact.

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

#368

Post by foobarian »

aeternum wrote: post #279
qwerty456127 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

One of the problems may actually be rights. The US government generally has more respect for individual rights and property rights. This leads to increased safety regulations, work restrictions, and the property rights make it difficult to purchase the land and negotiate the permits necessary for large infrastructure projects. China is much more willing to force people out of their homes for the greater good. It will…

So things like this happen: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-20463192/road-built-a...

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

#369

Post by Mirioron »

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 Chinese government is much more autocratic yet it obviously does a much better job in building infrastructure

I think that a big reason for this is that the US already has a half-working solution in place. Some infrastructure already exists that fulfills this role. China, on the other hand, didn't have much of an alternative in place, thus it was easier to find the will to build it.

We saw the same thing with internet connectivity and government services in Eastern Europe. Governments built much more modern infrastructures and offered more modern services because they weren't burdened by the past.

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

#370

Post by saalweachter »

gwright wrote: post #308
usaar333 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been to China many times actually. I wouldn't call Shanghai sprawl in the American sense. Yes it is huge, but what matters is that driving isn't a quick way to get around the city (there are no quick ways to get around the city, just like NYC) so you don't end up needing a car to live or travel. Agreed though that the Acela cooridor is the most reasonable place for the US to invest in high speed rail

I commute by train to New Haven on the same tracks that Acela uses. The existing track corridor in New England is not appropriate for true high-speed train service. That really requires new right-of-ways, which would be extremely expensive in the Northeast. There are currently plans for the next version of Acela but it is more about replacing aging equipment than any true speed upgrade. The Acela trains are almost 20…

I would note that not only do you need to acquire a lot of property on straight lines, you need to do so while resolving to not benefit anywhere between your start and end points.

Non-stop is an important element of a truly fast train. Firstly because you don't want to be constantly stopping and starting, but also because you don't want to detour your route through a dozen cities which aren't conveniently on a straight-line route to your destination.

So if you want to make a train run as fast as possible between Boston, NYC and DC, you're telling Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and maybe Delaware, "Hey, we want to take a big chunk of your land for our project, and no, we don't want our super-fast trains to stop at any of your cities, and we can't even run a slower train because making the tracks actually go through the right parts of your cities would slow down our fast trains too much."

Have fun with your negotiations!

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