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

asiatimes.com

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

#311

Post by gwright »

astrodust wrote: post #211
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…

It's not sprawl, it's that the United States, and by extension Canada, have extensive freight rail systems but almost zero exclusively passenger rail networks. In Europe and Asia these networks are generally separated. The American model means that passenger trains need to be built to freight-train safety standards, that a passenger car must be engineered to "survive" a potential collision with a freight train, since…

Interesting enough the new version of the Acela trains in the Northeast will not have to be built to those freight train standards. On of the reasons is that the tracks are not generally shared with freight trains in the Northeast corridor.

Some details in this article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-new-train-guidelines-impro...

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

#312

Post by gwright »

jbay808 wrote: post #285
intopieces wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why on earth isn't there a high speed rail between these cities? The cost of labor, the cost of environmental studies, the cost of materials, and the need for the project to show a profit. All of these factors are much different in China.

Yeah, that's why Japan and Europe don't have high speed rail either.

Those factors are very different in those places also.

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

#313

Post by umeshunni »

anovikov wrote: post #122
adambyrtek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that, as you say, decreasing cost of land is the main reason. A simple counterexample would be London which has great public transport and ridiculous prices of land. On the contrary, public transport projects like Crossrail actually increase prices of land and property in affected areas.

Now try to force Americans survive in the abysmal living conditions of the average Londoner. That city is absurdly overregulated, and expensive as hell.

> Now try to force Americans survive in the abysmal living conditions of the average Londoner. That city is absurdly overregulated, and expensive as hell.

I assume you don't live in San Francisco?

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

#314

Post by barry-cotter »

nikofeyn wrote: post #183
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…

> 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. this is an excuse i have repeated myself, but it is just that, an excuse. have you actually been to china? i have never seen such sprawl. shanghai is massive and sprawling. but yet, they (china) have extremely efficient and unbelievably cheap train…

> this is an excuse i have repeated myself, but it is just that, an excuse. have you actually been to china? i have never seen such sprawl. shanghai is massive and sprawling. but yet, they (china) have extremely efficient and unbelievably cheap trains and subways. also, i have never seen a cleaner subway than what i saw in shanghai.

Shanghai’s massive but I don’t think sprawling is really the right word. Where people live is very dense compared to almost anywhere in the US. Even if you go an hour on the metro from the centre most places will be four or more stories high. If you go two hours out there are suburbs resembling what you’d see in Europe but those are for the rich or upper middle class willing to go into a lot of debt.

US style sprawling suburbs do not exist. And it’s density that makes mass transport viable. Central Paris doesn’t really go above eight stories tall and they have their metro. Dublin barely has anything above five stories tall and precious little that high and their tram network is successful.

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

#316

Post by saagarjha »

weberc2 wrote: post #303
saagarjha wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t really hijack a train to hit a specific building, as you can with a plane.

> You can’t really hijack a train to hit a specific building, as you can with a train. *as you can with a _plane_

Oops, yes. I fixed it above; thanks!

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

#317

Post by qwerty456127 »

kurtisc wrote: post #244
qwerty456127 wrote: post #203

Why? Why would anybody build trains like that instead of adopting the hyperloop technology which is faster, much more cheap and more safe?

These are maglev trains in vacuum tubes. What's the difference?

Ok then, I've missed this point. Nevertheless, I thought maglev (as well as high-speed rail) hardware is rater complex and expensive.

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

#318

Post by dheera »

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…

I think 1000 km/h travel would bring HUGE benefits.

State-of-the-art high-speed trains at 350 km/h tend to waste less time than planes for distances shorter than about 1000 km if you include the time it takes to get to the airport, check-in, go through security, and all that nonsense. Beyond 1000 km journeys, planes tend to be more time-saving.

1000 km/h is about the cruising speed of an aircraft so if it were possible to achieve that with a train, it would no longer make sense to take planes for the same journey -- which would be HUGE plus for comfort for, say, trips between Europe and Asia. Imagine for a 10-hour journey that you could walk around freely, enjoy massive amounts of legroom, enjoy the views of Siberia, sleep in peace and quiet, dine at a dining table, and not have to be strapped into a seat all the time. For high-volume routes it is also likely to be lower-carbon in the long run than air travel, and at the very least, can be powered on something more sustainable and less polluting than jet fuel. The bulk of your environmental impact would come from laying the track itself, so it would have to be a route of extremely high tourism or business importance, e.g. Shenzhen-Shanghai-Beijing-Moscow-Warsaw-Frankfurt-Paris-London or some such. Or Los Angeles to New York.

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

#319

Post by gwright »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #165
beerandt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infrastructure is easy (and cheap) when you don't have to respect property rights or do environmental impact studies. Skipping phase 0 design also eliminates any potential political and nimby dissent (where all options are ruled out as "unfeasible").

Yes they can tell people to move in the name of public development. But it’s not like they just kick people out without compensation. My wife’s grandparents’ and parents’ had to move. The government provided them with new housing. The new houses are more modern, with toilets and running water, which they didn’t have before. The new houses are located in better places. Oh, and they have houseS now — previously they on…

That is a completely different scenario than what would be the case in many areas of the US.

In 2012, Amtrak estimated $151 billion to upgrade the Northeast Corridor (Washington DC to Boston). Adjusted for inflation that is about $168 billion now. I would assume that the actual price if we proceeded would be much more as I've never heard of a large project like that in the US coming in at the budgeted number.

It is a huge amount of money that can't realistically be recovered by train fares so you have to ask yourself is that the best way to allocate tax dollars? There are lots of other things I would choose to spend $168 billion on and one of them would be not collecting those tax dollars in the first place...

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

#320

Post by gwright »

beerandt wrote: post #135
simion314 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Infrastructure is easy (and cheap) when you don't have to respect property rights or do environmental impact studies. Is there no national/public interest exception in the constitution just for such cases? Where you take someone land buy you pay or give equivalent land back(I know some people would like to get rich quick in this situations)

In the US? There is, but it's not always politically popular, and fair market value is required, which gets expensive when tearing down buildings and moving highways in Urban areas. The bigger obstacle is the environmental impact study, which includes a social justice component. That keeps you from using the cheapest routes, as cheap land usually means it disproportionately affects minorities.

See my comment above re: estimates to upgrade the Northeast corridor lines, presumably some of that is $$ to acquire land via eminent domain.
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