China's Grandiose Plans

China approves rail links to Myanmar and Laos | International Railway Journal

In the southern province of Yunnan, the NDRC has given the go-ahead to a 504km electrified line which will link Yuxi near Kunming with Pu'er, Xishuangbanna, and Mohan on the border with Laos. ...

In western Yunnan, a 330km line will be built linking Dali on the southern shore of Erhai Lake with the Myanmar border at Ruili. The line will be electrified and designed for operation at up to 140km/h.

The first line will go into where a bit of China sticks into northern Laos.

The second line will go into where a bit of China sticks into northern Burma. It will end near Muse, Burma, about 120 km north of Lashio.

In some ways, one wonders why the Chinese haven't built these lines earlier.Obviously, they wouldn't have been able to build them during the cold war, but its been over 20 years since that ended.

"It is on the other side of the Mekong River from Nong Khai, Thailand, and a railroad line was recently built in a bridge across that river to connect the two cities."
A photo of where the railway line comes onto the bridge.Other google maps photos indicate that road traffic will not be a big problem for the railway , at least when the photos were taken.
https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@17.87371 ... w!2e0!3e11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I went to that Google Maps link, and I found that I could place the "Street View" marker in the middle of the bridge. It has two road lanes, a single track between them, and sidewalks on the sides separated with low road dividers. In the middle of it, marking the border, are flags of Thailand and Laos. It seems to me that this is the cheapest design of bridge that is reasonably functional. I think that its builders did not expect a lot of traffic in it.

China to Press Ahead With Financing of Lao Railway Project (2014-08-19) -- the article shows a map with a line going
Kunming, China -- Luang Namtha, Laos -- Vientiane

The Chinese part of the line follows the route that I'd posted on earlier. So it seems like the Chinese part will be going ahead even if the Laotian part continues to have trouble getting financing. The Laotian part will be about 420 km / 260 mi long, and the Chinese part about 500 km / 300 mi long. Both parts go through very mountainous terrain.

But another Laotian railroad line is set to start construction by December of this year, one in southern Laos between Thailand and Vietnam. It will be 220 km / 140 mi long, and between Savannakhet on the Thailand end and Lao Bao on the Vietnam end.

Interesting. Xie xie ni!

Here's a video of a Chinese high speed train. I like the way it makes station stops where ever someone is waiting to get on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F27YgEt0n7I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

philipmartin wrote:Here's a video of a Chinese high speed train. I like the way it makes station stops where ever someone is waiting to get on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F27YgEt0n7I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That's a railbus, and it's rather far from a bullet train. But there's a lot of stuff on YouTube about China's real high-speed trains, like this: China High Speed Bullet Train Trip - Beijing Hangzhou Shanghai - YouTube Real ones look like segmented airliner fuselages.

lpetrich wrote:

philipmartin wrote:Here's a video of a Chinese high speed train. I like the way it makes station stops where ever someone is waiting to get on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F27YgEt0n7I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That's a railbus, and it's rather far from a bullet train. But there's a lot of stuff on YouTube about China's real high-speed trains, like this: China High Speed Bullet Train Trip - Beijing Hangzhou Shanghai - YouTube Real ones look like segmented airliner fuselages.

Yes, it's a narrow gauge rural diesel rail car - I would guess a holdover from several decades back. There were a number of similar designs in Europe, from the 1950s but almost all phased out now. Certainly not high speed, but useful in rural areas.

lpetrich wrote: there's a lot of stuff on YouTube about China's real high-speed trains, like this

Interesting look at a bit of China today.

2003 videos of Chinese steam working an open pit coal mine. For some reason they paint the drivers red. And at least some of the engines have air horns. All gone today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN08V6bA2LY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

philipmartin wrote:2003 videos of Chinese steam working an open pit coal mine. For some reason they paint the drivers red. At least some of the engines have air horns. All gone today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN08V6bA2LY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China is probably the second most responsible for the rise in carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere. I hope that like the European Union they will realise how serious this is and take steps to reduce their emissions as quickly as possible.

INFOGRAPHIC: China's high-speed rail vision | South China Morning Post

China is proposing five high-speed international railway networks that would ultimately connect the UK at one end, America at another and Singapore in the south, with China in the centre.

That center is the high-speed network in eastern China.

The lines:

• The Trans-Siberian Railway between Moscow and Khabarovsk. That line would continue westward: Kiev, Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, London. Seems that Minsk would be a better choice than Kiev: shorter, and without the political complications of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
• Urumqi, Xinjiang, west China - Astana, Kazakhstan - Yekaterinburg, Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway
• Urumqi - Tehran - Istanbul - Bucharest - Budapest - Vienna - Munich - Berlin
• Kunming, south China - New Delhi - Lahore, Pakistan - Karachi, Pakistan - Tehran
• Bangkok - Phnom Penh - Ho Chi Minh City - Hanoi - Nanning, south China
• Bangkok - Chiang Mai, northwest Thailand
• Bangkok - Vientiane, Laos
• Bangkok - Mandalay, Burma - Kunming - Nanning
• Bangkok - Kuala Lumpur - Singapore
• Skovorodino, Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway - Tynda - Yakutsk - Uelen - the Bering Strait - Fairbanks, Alaska - Canada - Contiguous US. The page presented an inland-Siberia route rather than one that goes to Magadan on the coast.

That page also shows the elevations encountered in some of the routes. Some of the terrain along the way is very mountainous.

This Times article may be paywalled, as I've used my allowance of ten articles a month to circulate.

It looks as if the Chinese financed Mombassa-Uganda line simply ends in a field some 200 miles short of its destination:

Fair Use:

.MOMBASA, Kenya — Fireworks popped and confetti rained down in the seaside city of Mombasa when Kenya’s president inaugurated the country’s new railway — designed, funded and built by China.

President Uhuru Kenyatta proclaimed that the new train would connect the port in Mombasa to the neighboring country of Uganda, create jobs and help transform Kenya into an industrialized, middle-income nation.

“This is a very historic moment,” President Kenyatta, waving a giant Kenyan flag, told the gathering of Kenyan and Chinese officials. “We should be proud.”.

The Chinese are not passing out "Land Grants" as was the case here in the USA. Given their own economic problems, they may be "reassessing" their continued expansion of their African economic interests.

But at least this line is not a "nowhere to nowhere" like the California HSR project. It is providing freight and passenger service between the maritime port of Mombasa and the capital city of Nairobi.

Informative; and with the difficulties China presently has with their "domestic" lending practices, look out Third World, they'll own you:

Wall Street Journal