China « The Transport Politic

New Wuhan-Guangzhou Rail Route Shatters Average Speed Records

December 17th, 2009 |

» A comparison of long-distance high-speed rail routes puts China’s accomplishment in perspective.

What makes high-speed rail so remarkable is its ability to move people so quickly from one place to another, and that, of course, requires high average running speeds. In the U.S., even the fastest train — the Acela Express that travels between Boston and Washington, capable of 150 mph — averages only about 80 mph on its 450-mile journey. As has been discussed previously on these pages, while the ability to reach higher and higher speeds is an important element of rail system success, the ability to maintain those

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Beijing-Shanghai HSR Link to Average Speeds of Over 200 mph

June 25th, 2009 |

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Railway Ministry announces trip will take less than four hours, versus previously announced five.

China’s Beijing-Shanghai high-speed connection, which is the most important link in the country’s ambitious rail plans, will be faster than previously announced when it fully opens in 2013. The project was designed from the start for trains capable of 217 mph top speeds, but the government estimated total trip time of five hours on the 819 mile corridor, which would have meant average speeds of 164 mph on the whole line, a bit above typical for a corridor of this type. The country has now announced that its

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China HSR Construction Speeds Up

February 10th, 2009 |

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Three more routes centering around Shanghai planned

China, as described before, has embarked on the world’s largest high-speed rail program, with more than 10,000 km of passenger rail lines under construction to connect the nation’s largest and most important cities. The result will be truly expanded mobility for the country’s citizens and vastly reduced travel times.

Most important, perhaps, is the Beijing-Shanghai link, which will connect the country’s two largest metro regions, and whose construction began in April of 2008. According to People’s Daily, all of the tunnels along the 1,200 km long line will be completed this year – after little more

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High-Speed Rail in China

January 12th, 2009 |

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» We can learn a lot when we compare.

In the United States, perhaps because of our geographical isolation from Europe and Asia, we have a tendency to ignore the successes of other nations, focusing instead on our own society as the be-all-end-all, even when we have been outmatched by our foreign peers. There is little doubt that the United States is frequently miserably slow at updating its infrastructure, but we do not bring up international competition in the interest of bashing those manifest failings; rather, the accomplishments of other countries demonstrate what we, too, can achieve as

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