Railwatch: 500km/h test train

[Yappofloyd]

Tracklaying complete on Beijing - Shanghai high speed line , IRG 15 November 2010
CHINA: Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun attended a ceremony at Bengbu in Anhui Province on November 15 where a machine laid the final rails to complete tracklaying on the 1 318 km Beijing - Shanghai high speed line.

The People's Daily Online reports that the scheduled 2012 opening has been brought forward to October 2011, in time for the mass movement of people which occurs during Chinese New Year celebrations.

The route is designed for service speeds of 380 km/h, cutting the Beijing South - Shanghai Hongqiao travel time to 4 h from a current fastest trip of 10 h. There will be 21 stations serving cities including Tianjin, Jinan, Nanjing and Suzhou.

Main works on the 221bn yuan project had begun from 40 sites in April 2008, following a formal ceremony on January 18. China Railway Construction Corp and China Railway Group were each awarded two major construction contracts, with smaller lots allocated to Sinohydro Corp and China Communications Construction Co. Type II slab track is used on the route, with Vossloh rail fastenings.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/new...peed-line.html

[Yappofloyd]

No surprises on the corruption front. However, the potential safety and estimated financial implications for the ministry are an eye opener.

China Rail Chief’s Firing Hints at Trouble, NYTs, 17 Feb 2011, By MICHAEL WINES and KEITH BRADSHER

BEIJING — In his seven years as chief of the Chinese Railways Ministry, Liu Zhijun built a commercial and political colossus that spanned continents and elevated the lowly train to a national symbol of pride and technological prowess.

His abrupt sacking by the Communist Party is casting that empire in a decidedly different light, raising doubts not only about Mr. Liu’s stewardship and the corruption that dogs China’s vast public-works projects, but also, perhaps, the safety, financial soundness and long-term viability of a rail system that has captured the world’s attention.

Mr. Liu, 58, was fired Saturday and is being investigated by the party’s disciplinary committee for “severe violations of discipline,” a euphemism for corruption. His high government rank — minister-level officials are rarely fired under such a cloud — hints at far deeper dissatisfaction with one of China’s most publicized and sweeping domestic initiatives.

Until last week, Mr. Liu had led China’s program to lace the nation with nearly 8,100 miles of high-speed rail lines and to build more than 11,000 miles of traditional railroad lines. The sheer size and cost of the endeavor — the investment has been estimated at $750 billion, some $395 billion for high-speed rail alone — has led experts to compare it to the transcontinental railroad that opened the American West.

President Obama hailed China’s program in his State of the Union address and called for the United States to move quickly on high-speed rail plans that had been repeatedly delayed by budget concerns and political infighting. Whatever their problems with Mr. Liu, Chinese officials indicated this week that the high-speed rail project would proceed with the government’s full support. But they have not explained why they summarily fired the leader of one of their signature projects.

There are some clues in top officials’ public statements since the scandal broke. Speaking on Monday in Beijing, the official who is believed to be the country’s new railways chief, Sheng Guangzu, said the ministry would “place quality and safety at the center of construction projects.” For good measure, he added that safety was his highest priority. The statement underscored concerns in some quarters that Mr. Liu cut corners in his all-out push to extend the rail system and to keep the project on schedule and within its budget. No accidents have been reported on the high-speed rail network, but reports suggest that construction quality may at times have been shoddy.

A person with ties to the ministry said that the concrete bases for the system’s tracks were so cheaply made, with inadequate use of chemical hardening agents, that trains would be unable to maintain their current speeds of about 217 miles per hour for more than a few years. In as little as five years, lower speeds, possibly below about 186 miles per hour, could be required as the rails become less straight, the expert said. Strong concrete pillars require a large dose of high-quality fly ash, the byproduct of burning coal. But the speed of construction has far exceeded the available supply, according to a 2008 study by a Chinese railway design institute.

Such problems, the expert said, are caused by a combination of tight controls that have kept China’s costs far below Western levels and a strong aversion to buying higher-quality but more expensive equipment from foreign suppliers. As expensive as it is, China’s high-speed rail network has been built far more cheaply than similar projects in the West and in Japan. A mile of rail here costs roughly $15 million; in the United States, estimates peg the price at anywhere between $40 million to $80 million.

Japanese officials have already made an issue of the potential safety problems in the Chinese high-speed rail network. Yoshiyuki Kasai, the chairman of the Central Japan Railway Company, which runs Japan’s fastest bullet train, told The Financial Times last year that the Chinese were running trains based on Japan’s designs, but at speeds 25 percent faster. “I don’t think they are paying the same attention to safety that we are,” he said. “Pushing it that close to the limit is something we would absolutely never do.”

Some of the criticism may be signs of envy that China has achieved so much at a speed and cost that other countries cannot match. Many multinational companies also resent China for tweaking foreign designs and building the equipment itself rather than importing it.

China’s high-speed rail network is already the world’s largest and among its fastest, and more lines are being built. Passenger rail traffic leapt to 1.68 billion trips last year, up 9.9 percent from 2009. A new line from Beijing to Shanghai is scheduled to be finished by year’s end. It will whisk passengers across a distance equal to a trip between New York and Atlanta in less than five hours. Amtrak trains require 18 hours for the journey.

The effort’s success has earned admiration worldwide and had turned Mr. Liu into a global salesman for Chinese rail technology. In recent years he and others have sealed deals or opened talks for rail projects in Iran, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and elsewhere, including in California. But projects of this scale in China inevitably involve corruption, and Mr. Liu’s downfall suggests that the Railways Ministry is by no means an exception.

Reports in the Chinese press suggest that a broad inquiry into ministry corruption is under way. The business journal Caixin reported that Ding Shumiao, who leads a conglomerate in Shanxi Province, was being investigated in connection with a contract to supply noise barriers along high-speed rail lines. The Economic Observer reported last month that Communist Party disciplinary officials had detained Luo Jinbao, a former Railways Ministry official who also had led two state-controlled companies involved in rail logistics. The ministry is building 18 modern rail-shipping centers across China.

Neither case has been officially linked to Mr. Liu’s dismissal. But The Economic Observer, citing an unnamed Shanxi coal-mining executive, said that Mr. Luo had brought Ms. Ding and Mr. Liu together in 2000. Two people with ties to the ministry said this week that the inquiry into Mr. Liu involved the ministry’s purchase of noise-reduction barriers for high-speed rail, which could point to Ms. Ding’s company. Both people refused to be identified out of fear that they would damage their access to ministry officials.

Railroad finances are yet another worry. Analysts have warned that the construction schedule ordered by Mr. Liu threatens to push the ministry’s debt — already $170 billion last fall — to an unsustainable level. A 2010 analysis by China Minsheng Bank, reported this week by Caijing, found that the ministry’s debts equaled 56 percent of its assets and could reach $455 billion, or 70 percent of its assets, by 2020. In his last months on the job, Mr. Liu had begun an aggressive program to deal with the debt by selling stakes in the railway to investors like large state-controlled banks. The Minsheng report suggested that the high-speed network may remain a money-loser for the next 20 years, despite heavy use. Ticket prices — several times those for a conventional train — have led to a backlash among some Chinese.

The timing of Mr. Liu’s dismissal may be significant: He was fired at the end of China’s Lunar New Year holiday, when trains are jammed, tickets are scalped at exorbitant prices and passengers are angriest. The Communist Party has long worried that corruption may undermine its credibility with the public. But outside analysts agree that high-level officials are seldom sacked for corruption alone, in part because kickbacks, favoritism and other below-board activities are so common.

Russell Leigh Moses, a scholar of the Chinese leadership, said that Mr. Liu’s dismissal could signal disquiet over whether expansion of the rail system had gone too far, too fast. “You don’t take someone down at that level of status unless they’ve done something really egregious,” said Mr. Moses, who works in Beijing. “I don’t know whether it’s politics or policy. But I wouldn’t rule out the second.”

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Jonathan Kaiman contributed research from Beijing.

[Yappofloyd]

China’s train wreck, By CHARLES LANE, Washington Post, April 23, 2011
For the past eight years, Liu Zhijun was one of the most influential people in China. As minister of railways, Liu ran China’s $300 billion high-speed rail project. U.S., European and Japanese contractors jostled for a piece of the business while foreign journalists gushed over China’s latest high-tech marvel.

Today, Liu Zhijun is ruined, and his high-speed rail project is in trouble. On Feb. 25, he was fired for “severe violations of discipline” — code for embezzling tens of millions of dollars. Seems his ministry has run up $271 billion in debt — roughly five times the level that bankrupted General Motors. But ticket sales can’t cover debt service that will total $27.7 billion in 2011 alone. Safety concerns also are cropping up. Faced with a financial and public relations disaster, China put the brakes on Liu’s program. On April 13, the government cut bullet-train speeds 30 mph to improve safety, energy efficiency and affordability. The Railway Ministry’s tangled finances are being audited. Construction plans, too, are being reviewed. Liu’s legacy, in short, is a system that could drain China’s economic resources for years. So much for the grand project that Thomas Friedman of the New York Times likened to a “moon shot” and that President Obama held up as a model for the United States.

Rather than demonstrating the advantages of centrally planned long-term investment, as its foreign admirers sometimes suggested, China’s bullet-train experience shows what can go wrong when an unelected elite, influenced by corrupt opportunists, gives orders that all must follow — without the robust public discussion we would have in the states. The fact is that China’s train wreck was eminently foreseeable. High-speed rail is a capital-intensive undertaking that requires huge borrowing upfront to finance tracks, locomotives and cars, followed by years in which ticket revenue covers debt service — if all goes well. “Any . . . shortfall in ridership or yield, can quickly create financial stress,” warns a 2010 World Bank staff report. Such “shortfalls” are all too common. Japan’s bullet trains needed a bailout in 1987. Taiwan’s line opened in 2007 and needed a government rescue in 2009. In France, only the Paris-Lyon high-speed line is in the black.

This history counseled caution about introducing bullet trains in China, where the typical passenger was still a migrant worker, not a businessman rushing to a meeting. To be sure, there was an economic case to be made for upgrading China’s lumbering rail system: It would free up limited rail capacity for freight trains, thus reducing truck traffic on congested roads. Beijing’s initial feasibility studies envisioned the gradual introduction of trains that would move at a maximum 125 mph, according to Caixin, the Chinese economic magazine. But Liu Zhijun — part Cornelius Vanderbilt, part Sammy Glick — took over the rail ministry in March 2003 and urged officials to aim for speeds above 200 mph. “Seize the opportunity, build more railways, and build them fast,” he wrote. Liu exploited the communist leadership’s fascination with bigness and national prestige. Among the benefits he promised was a chance to squeeze foreign companies for bullet-train technology so that China could build and export its own. What happened next suggests that he — and others — also saw the potential for graft in such a vast undertaking.

In 2004, the State Council signed off on Liu’s plan to build the world’s largest high-speed-rail network by 2020. The first leg, a 72-mile stretch between Beijing and Tianjin, would open in time for the 2008 Olympics. Word went forth that state-owned banks and local governments were to give Liu all the money, land and labor he required. When Chinese journalists found that Liu’s ministry was using cheap, low-quality concrete, creating a safety hazard, the Communist Party’s propaganda department quashed the reports, according to a January piece in the South China Morning Post. Students and other humble citizens greeted the first fast trains with complaints about high ticket prices. They crowded aboard buses instead. According to a recent report in China Daily, the government was forced to deploy 70,000 extra buses during the Chinese New Year celebrations in February.

This month, I rode the bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin in half an hour — then returned by bus, which took two hours. Next to me on the decrepit, but packed, vehicle was a 17-year-old girl migrating to Beijing to search for work. She had never heard of the high-speed train, but when informed it cost $9, as opposed to $5.40 for the bus, expressed no regret at missing it. The bus driver assured me the girl was typical of his working-class clientele; to them, even a little money is more valuable than a lot of time. Small wonder that the Beijing-Tianjin line, built at a cost of $46 million per mile, is losing more than $100 million per year.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Obama’s high-speed rail plan, originally set at $53 billion over six years, has gotten a thorough democratic vetting. Three freshly elected Republican governors spurned federal dollars for high-speed rail, fearing a long-term burden on their budgets; homeowners in liberal Northern California are fighting construction through their neighborhoods; and the president agreed with Congress to trim current-year spending as part of a budget deal. On the whole, I’d say China should envy us.

Charles Lane is a member of the editorial page staff. Yale Law School supported his travel to China to participate in a conference on media law issues co-sponsored by Yale Law School’s China Center and two Chinese Schools of Journalism.

[Yappofloyd]

High-Speed Rail Poised to Alter China, NYTs, By KEITH BRADSHER, 22/06/11
CHANGSHA, China — Even as China prepares to open bullet train service from Beijing to Shanghai by July 1, this nation’s steadily expanding high-speed rail network is being pilloried on a scale rare among Chinese citizens and news media.

Complaints include the system’s high costs and pricey fares, the quality of construction and the allegation of self-dealing by a rail minister who was fired earlier this year on corruption grounds. But often overlooked, amid all the controversy, are the very 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 this sprawling, populous nation — though on a much faster construction timetable and at significantly higher travel speeds than anything envisioned by the Eisenhower administration.

Work crews of as many as 100,000 people per line have built about half of the 10,000-mile network in just six years, in many cases ahead of schedule — including the Beijing-to-Shanghai line that was not originally expected to open until next year. The entire system is on course to be completed by 2020. For the United States and Europe, 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-mile-an-hour trains link cities and provinces that were 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 that high-speed trains were making it more convenient to base businesses here in Hunan Province. Populous Hunan has long provided labor to the factories of the east, but its mountains have tended to isolate it from the economic mainstream. Mr. Zhen ticked off Hunan’s attributes: “Land is much cheaper. Electricity is cheaper. Labor is cheaper.” Around China, real estate prices and investment have surged in the more than 200 inland cities that have already been connected by high-speed rail in the last three years. Businesses are flocking to these cities, now just a few hours by bullet train from China’s busiest and most international metropolises.



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 the 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 only likely to increase with the opening of the 820-mile Beijing-to-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. The trains will barrel along at initial speeds of 190 miles per hour, with plans to accelerate to 220 miles per hour by the summer of 2012, if the first year of operation goes smoothly.

Even at the initial 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 the next six years, faced a setback in his budget deal in April with Congressional Republicans, who eliminated money for that plan this year.

Last fall, newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin turned down federal money their Democratic predecessors had won for new rail routes, worrying that their states could cover most of the costs for trains that would draw few riders. But then, 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 high-speed 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, as well as rising interest payments.

Among the biggest beneficiaries of the high-speed rail system are firms that contribute nothing to defray its costs. Those would be freight shippers, which now have more exclusive use of the older rail lines, with fewer delays. On the older tracks, the rail ministry has long been able to dictate 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 on the new trains than on the older ones.

The lack of freight subsidies is also causing concern in the rail and banking industries that the debt agreements of some joint ventures might need to be revised to extend the repayment of investment costs over more years. For ordinary citizens, meanwhile, the steep prices for high-speed train tickets have touched China’s raw nerve of rising income inequality. “The government is just abusing the money of the common people,” said one posting on an Internet discussion forum, defying the network’s censorship.

From Changsha to Guangzhou, the one-way fare in economy class for the two-hour journey, at speeds of up to 210 miles per hour, is 333 renminbi ($51). That is comparable to a deeply discounted airfare, but expensive for a migrant worker from Hunan who might earn only $160 to $400 a month in wages in Guangzhou. The same trip takes nine hours on an older, diesel train. But it costs only 99 renminbi ($15).

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, brought in after the corruption investigation, contend that safety concerns are misplaced. But they have responded to public anger over fares by announcing plans to lower the top speed on many routes on July 1 — which will not only address safety questions but will sharply reduce the amount of electricity consumed — and pass on the savings through reduced fares.

When the Beijing-to-Shanghai line opens, it will create a north-to-south artery with links to east-to-west rail lines at two dozen stations along the way. “It’s the network together that makes it work — knowing you can go from Shijiazhuang to Beijing and then transfer to Tianjin, so the coal guys can go to the port and conduct business with their shippers, for example,” said John Scales, a rail expert in the Beijing office of the World Bank 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 or 15 minutes, particularly on Fridays but sometimes even at lunchtime in the middle of the week.

Of course, high speed is relative. First, a passenger must actually get a seat. Zhou Junde, a migrant construction worker with a large red and green tattoo of a hawk on the right side of his neck, stood in line here at the Changsha station on a recent Friday afternoon to buy a high-speed ticket to Guangzhou. But the next high-speed train was sold out, and so was the next one 10 minutes after that. 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.”

[Wisarut]

^^^
Sadly, after the major accident of High Speed train in China, the grand plan have been suspended - even themporarily ... Whorse, the rollign stocks of CSR have been recalled for major modification after th series of glitches whcih evnetually led into the major accident

Worse still, China Railway has no choice but to reduce the max speed algo nwith reducign hte ticket price by at least 5% to boost mroe numebrs of passgners ... who have been scared due to the major accident that kill 40 passengers.

[jpatokal]

^^^
Sadly, after the major accident of High Speed train in China, the grand plan have been suspended - even themporarily

Only entirely new lines have been put on hold, construction of the ones already being built continues.

... Whorse, the rollign stocks of CSR have been recalled for major modification after th series of glitches whcih evnetually led into the major accident

Again, only some series are affected, although this has reduced capacity on eg. the PEK-SHA line by 25%.

All in all, my feeling is that this is a temporarily but not unwelcome setback, although it's a shame that it took a fatal accident to make it happen. Rail construction will continue and the Chinese will continue to use trains, but hopefully safety will be a higher priority and some of the less financially viable lines will be cancelled.

[Wisarut]

Now, Beijing - Shanghai High Speed train have to be suspended on 28 August 2011 due to the discovery of the 7-mm cracks on the axles
http://www.manager.co.th/Home/ViewNe...=9540000105466

[Yappofloyd]

Guangzhou - Shenzhen high speed line opens, 05 January 2012, IRG
CHINA: The 102 km Guangzhou to Shenzhen Passenger-Dedicated Line opened on December 26. It is the initial phase of the 146 km Guangzhou - Hong Kong high speed route which is scheduled for completion in 2015.

The 20·4bn yuan first phase links Guangzhou South and Shenzhen North stations via Qingsheng, Humen and Guangmingcheng. The route includes the 10·8 km Shiziyang Tunnel under the Pearl River estuary. Interchange with the Wuhan - Guangzhou PDL and Guangzhou metro Line 2 is provided at Guangzhou South. There is an initial service of 36 return trains a day, operated using CNR CRH3 trainsets running at up to 300 km/h. The fastest journey time is 35 min, about 34 min less than on the 139 km conventional route between Guangzhou East and Shenzhen Luohu stations.

Speaking a conference on December 23, Minister of Railways Sheng Guangzu said China is to spend a total of 500bn yuan on fixed railway assets during 2012, with 400bn yuan of this being allocated to infrastructure construction; work on 6 366 km of new railways is scheduled to begin this year.

Projects scheduled to get underway this year will include the 770 km Shangqiu - Fuyang - Hefei - Hangzhou line, which is being designed for 350km/h running. Construction is expected to take five years at a cost of 81·8bn yuan.

[Yappofloyd]

A sword to cut through corruption at 500km?!

China tests 500km/h super high-speed train, December 28, 2011, Reuters
China launched a super-rapid test train over the weekend which is capable of travelling 500 kilometres per hour, state media said on Monday, as the country moves ahead with its railway ambitions despite serious problems on its high-speed network.

The train, made by a subsidiary of CSR, China's largest train maker, is designed to resemble an ancient Chinese sword, the official Xinhua news agency reported. It "will provide useful reference for current high-speed railway operations", it quoted train expert Shen Zhiyun as saying. But future Chinese trains will not necessarily run at such high speeds, CSR chairman Zhao Xiaogang told the Beijing Morning News. "We aims to ensure the safety of trains operation," he said.



China's railway industry has had a tough year, highlighted by a collision between two high-speed trains in July which killed at least 40 people. Construction of new high-speed trains in China has since been a near halt. In February, the railways minister, Liu Zhijun, a key figure behind the boom in the sector, was dismissed over corruption charges that have not yet been tried in court. Last week the official Xinhua news agency reported that China's railway ministry would cut its annual railway investment by 15 per cent in 2012 to 400 billion yuan ($A62 billion).

Slower investment could reduce financial strains on the heavily-indebted Railway Ministry, China's largest bond issuer after the treasury and with outstanding debt of 2.23 trillion yuan ($A342 billion) as of the end of September. Railway infrastructure investment directly accounted for only about 3 per cent of China's overall capital spending in 2010. To support the cash-strapped sector, Beijing has cut taxes for buyers of the Railway Ministry's bonds between 2011 and 2013. Xinhua said the Railway Ministry would start construction of 6366 kilometres of new train lines in 2012.

http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/12...eoId=227485902

Chinese 500 km/h supertrain on test, IRG, 05 January 2012
CHINA: CSR Qingdao Sifang unveiled an ultra high-speed test train in December. As foreshadowed in the January 2011 edition of Railway Gazette International, the six-car trainset is intended to give engineers the opportunity to research train and track behaviour at speeds up to 500 km/h.

Researchers will explore fields including wheel-rail dynamics, structural reliability, new materials and technologies, comfort, vibration and noise. Other tests will examine safety parameters, current collection and aerodynamic performance; the train has a long, pointed nose said to resemble a traditional Chinese sword. All vehicles are powered to give a total rating of 22·8 MW. Local reports suggest that the train features very lightweight structures and materials including carbon-fibre composites and a number of nano-components.

The trainset was developed with the support of the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Science & Technology, with input from the China Academy of Railway Sciences, Beijing Jiaotong University, Southwest Jiaotong University and the Institute of Mechanics, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

[Yappofloyd]

Zhengzhou - Wuhan HSR becomes the latest HSR line to open.

China opens Zhengzhou-Wuhan high-speed rail line, 2 October 2012, Railway Technolgy
A 536km high-speed rail line has opened in central China, connecting Zhengzhou and Wuhan, the capital cities of the Henan and Hubei provinces respectively. The new line serves eight stations and reduces travel
times between Zhengzhou and Wuhan to 1 hour and 56 minutes from 4 hours and 28 minutes.

Construction of the CNY57bn ($9bn) Zhengzhou-Wuhan high-speed rail line, which has a design speed of 350km/h, started in 2008. Trains operate at up to 300km/h on the new line, which will initially carry 24 trains in each direction every day. The Zhengzhou-Wuhan line is a part of the 2,300km Beijing-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway, China's longest high-speed line, which is scheduled to open by the end of 2012.

The new line connects many existing high-speed rail lines, including Wuhan-Guangzhou, Hefei-Wuhan and Zhengzhou-Xi'an. The Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway is expected to improve communication between central and eastern China and increase passenger flows to stimulate local economic development. By the end of 2012, the new line will also connect Wuhan to the north region and to Beijing, making Wuhan the meeting point of the planned north-south Beijing-Guangzhou line and the east-west Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu line.

China is planning to build more than 16,000km of high-speed lines by 2020.

[Yappofloyd]

Yet another section of HSR line opens...

Bengbu - Hefei high speed line opens, 18 October 2012, IRG
CHINA: The 132 km Bengbu - Hefei high speed line entered service on October 16, with the departure at 08.10 of trains G263 from Beijing South and G262 from Hefei.

The north-south line links Bengbu on the Beijing - Shanghai Passenger-Dedicated Line with Hefei and the east-west high speed line to Wuhan and Yichang. Bengbu - Hefei journeys now take 38 min, over an hour less than by conventional train, and direct journeys from Beijing to Hefei have been cut from 9 h to 3 h 50 min.



At the opening ceremony, Ren Zhangshao, head of Anhui's Reform & Development Commission, noted that the line was an important component of China's medium and long-term railway development plans. It would enable the development of a 'half-hour economic ring' between Hefei, Huainan and Bengbu to promote regional integration and development, as well as improve links between Hefei, the Yangtze Delta and Beijing.

Construction started in January 2009, jointly funded by the Ministry of Railways and Anhui province. The alignment is designed for 350 km/h operation, although trains are currently limited to 300 km/h. New stations have been built at Huainan East and Hefei North City, while Bengbu, Shuijiahu and Hefei stations were refurbished to accommodate the high speed trains.

There are six Beijing - Hefei train pairs from Monday to Thursday, and seven from Friday to Sunday. Up to nine per day are planned for busy periods.

[Yappofloyd]

Another new HSR line opens - though this was an existing line that was converted - adding another 900km to the network.

Harbin – Dalian PDL opens, 03 December 2012, IRG
CHINA: The 921 km Passenger-Dedicated Line between Harbin and Dalian opened to traffic on December 1, connecting the capital of Heilongjiang province with Changchun, Shenyang and Dalian, the largest port in northeast China. Designed for a maximum speed of 350 km/h, the route serves a total of 22 stations, including existing stations at Changchun, Shenyang, Shenyang North and Liaoyang.

The new route is connected to the Changchun – Jilin PDL spur that opened in 2011, enabling through trains from both directions to serve Jilin. Four Harbin – Beijing services a day also use the PDL between Harbin West and Shenyang, before joining the conventional route to Beijing.

Services normally operate at up to 300 km/h, but during the coldest winter months from December 1 to March 31 the maximum speed is limited to 200 km/h. The special timetable includes a Harbin West – Dalian North journey time of 5 h 15 min, a saving of 4 h on the fastest conventional timing.

As well as delivering a significant reduction in journey times, the Harbin – Dalian PDL is expected to free up paths for freight on the conventional network, increasing capacity between Shenyang and Dalian by 11⋅5 million tonnes a year, and between Shenyang and Harbin by 10 million tonnes.


Need to double check on the current netork length but this map on wiki appears to be up to date:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...igh-Speed_.png

[Yappofloyd]

This map in a recent Railway Technology article probably gives a better view. The article says that as of June 2012 the HSR was just under 9700km long. Add the recent opening with the Harbin-Dalian and the Bengbu to Hefei and it is around 10 700km!

By the end of the year another section of the main north-south line will open.


http://www.railway-technology.com/fe...e124824-3.html

[Yappofloyd]

The figures quoted whether they be total length of the network, speed or cost are in another league compared to anywhere else. Hopefully, safety issues and design has significantly improved after last years crash.

I wonder if one day people will look upon this massive expansion of the rail network in China as an economic game changer much as they do at the expansion of the railways in the US in the 19th century? That of course leads to the juxtaposition of the lack of any real plan for a HSR railway network in the US compared with what is going on in China.

China's high-speed rail revolution, Railway Technology, 21 November 2012 Elisabeth Fischer
While other countries still debate high-speed rail, it is already reality in China. But have recent corruption allegations and growing concerns about the safety of the high-speed rail network cast a shadow that could prevent future progress of the projects? Elisabeth Fischer reports.

When China's Premier Wen Jiabao boarded the first bullet train to open the service of the new high-speed line between Beijing and Shanghai on 30 June 2011, he described the step as a 'new chapter' in China's railway history, with great significance for the improvement of the country's transportation system and social and economic development. While other countries argue about the pros and cons of high-speed rail, it is already reality in China.



More than 130,000 construction workers and engineers worked round the clock to complete yet another one of the country's high-speed lines. Only 38 months after breaking ground in April 2008, the first bullet train on the 1,318km-long high-speed line left Beijing on route to Shanghai.

Accelerating to 300km/hr about ten minutes after leaving the capital, the new line connects China's two major metropolitan hubs in only four hours and 48 minutes - compared to about ten hours on the old railway.
Originally designed for speeds up to 380km/hr, the Beijing-Shanghai train speed blows away not only France's TGV, which runs from Lorraine to Champagne and averages 272km/hr, but also China's first high-speed train on the Beijing-to-Tianjin route that averages 230km/hr.

After opening the world's fastest high-speed line in January this year, connecting Wuhan-Guanzhou with an average speed of 394km/hr, China seems to be on track to a high-speed rail revolution.

China's competitive high-speed programme
China's high-speed network has progressively increased over the past few years. As of June this year, 9,676km of tracks are in operation – and plenty more are to follow. By December, the Beijing-Wuhan line will complete the north-south route between the border to Hong Kong and China's capital. Also by December, the final links of the 2,078km east-west route between Shanghai and Chengdu will be operational, connecting China's economic capital with the country's fourth most liveable city.

In the months and years ahead, China will unveil many key links to form a bullet-train network stretching across the nation. The government is set to spend $113bn a year on railway infrastructure and rolling stock in the next four years, all funded under an ambitious build-out initiated by the 2004-2020 mid and long-term railway development plan by China's Ministry of Railways.

The $293bn plan envisions 16,000km of dedicated high-speed rail lines connecting all of China's major cities by 2020. By then, the total rail network would accumulate to 120,000km, but some observers consider it rather closer to 150,000km. World Bank Beijing senior transport specialist John Scales described China's efforts in The Times as the biggest rail expansion the world has ever seen. "Historically, this is the only country that has ever attempted such an increase."



On the wrong track?
But while China's growing high-speed network is highly acclaimed by some industry members, it is also riddled with safety problems and corruption concerns. The new year started off with a bang when then Railway Minister Liu Zhijn was sacked in February over alleged 'severe violation of discipline'. He had to face accusations that $121m was embezzled under his eight-year administration, casting a shadow over the powerful Railway Ministry.

Sheng Guangzu, who followed Zhijn in his role as Railway Minister, had to defend the high-speed programme from a barrage of criticism as calls for the government to reconsider its investment were raised. When investigators found evidence that nearly $30m of funds budgeted for the Beijing-Shanghai line was misappropriated in the course of 2010, they initiated an intense safety review of all projects. Financial regulators in Beijing cautioned banks to monitor their rising exposure from loans to the rail ministry, where the ministry had borrowed more than $300bn to pay for the rapid deployment of the network.

The corruption scandal, as well as the speed with which the tracks have been built, sparked not only an outcry in the industry but also fears over the poor quality of the lines, which were meant to carry trains travelling at up to 380km/hr. Chinese and foreign engineers alike started questioning the long-term strength of the tracks, especially of the concrete used in bridges and viaducts under contracts awarded during the term of Liu Zhijun.

As a result, several major changes were announced by the new minister, one of which was that trains on the Beijing-Shanghai line would be slowed down from 380km/hr to 300km/hr, increasing safety and also reducing operating costs.

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Driving force behind railway expansion
Despite the concerns about the safety of the tracks, industry experts name numerous benefits of China's massive expansion plans and as a clean way to boost the expansion of the country's transportation system. Building railway tracks is seen as preferable to expanding the dependence on imported oil for automobiles and airplanes.

Rail demand in China is progressively growing and expected to more than triple to five billion passengers a year by 2020. The high-speed network is not only expected to ease congestion on conventional lines but will also have a positive impact on freight transportation, and boost productivity throughout the economy. "In essence, China's big infrastructure networks are platforms upon which new industries are layered, greatly multiplying the economic value of the projects themselves," writes Boston Consulting Group's Beijing office senior vice president and director David C Michael in Bloomberg Businessweek,in February this year.

"They create new markets by making it easier to reach consumers and stimulating new customer needs and behaviour. And they redraw the economics of operating in China, reducing shipping costs and making new locations more attractive for business." Michael describes the impact of the high-speed network as "far-reaching and transformative", driving up productivity, reducing passenger travel times and opening up Chinese markets and people to new opportunities.

The high investment costs, which have been estimated to be $32bn for the Beijing-Shanghai line, are said to be partly paid back through lower operating costs. Instead of laying rail on wood or concrete sleepers set into crushed rock, the Chinese high-speed network is almost exclusively set into beds of concrete slabs designed by German rail engineering companies. This eliminates damage to the track and rolling stock caused by flying stones lifted by the trains and reduces wear on the wheels from shifting tracks.

Nevertheless, the prices of the fares are soaring, sparking more criticism. Economy class tickets for the high-speed lines are comparable to discounted plane tickets and simply not affordable for ordinary citizens who still will have to board the older and much slower diesel trains.

A new silk road?
China's officials have acknowledged the shortcomings of the current system. Premier Wen Jiabao said at the inauguration of the Beijing-Shanghai line at the end of June that railway officials and managers still face arduous tasks to ensure the operation is safe, orderly and efficient. "Railway departments must give top priority to the safety (of operation) while continuing to improve their service quality," he said.

In spite of all concerns, China's railway officials have not stopped promoting its revolutionary plans for the future and plans to link the country's high-speed rail network to cities as far as London, Berlin, Moscow, New Delhi and Singapore. China would provide technology, equipment, trains, and even construction costs for countries that are willing to supply natural resources.

Seventeen other countries in Asia and Eastern Europe should be connected to the infrastructure in China, setting the framework for what could be the largest infrastructure project in history. How the programme will progress, however, is determined by the success of the high-speed network in China itself. And a corruption scandal and safety concerns might not help in this case.
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