China to lower speeds for HSR trains.

David Benton wrote:i have also said that hsr in the USA needs high speed freight to be viable . unfirtunately people cant see anything other than double stack containers doing 150 - 186mph . It would be single level aerodynamic passenger like freight cars . the nec would be the ideal launching pad for such a service .

I think China is just admitting they overstepped the practical limits of HSR . they have shown they can do it , now theyre scaling back to the same speeds other hsr's are doing , because it is the practical limit energy wise . I think the chinese higher speeds were more of a marketing exercise for thier ability to make hsr trains .

China inherited the kind of rail system suitable for a third world country. But it is no longer a third world country and needs something suitable to the society and economy they now have. They couldn't possibly carry all the people that want to travel by air, or on the older slower system they had.

Britain will probably build at least one more High Speed line. Its main purpose will be to relieve the congestion on the existing medium speed lines, which are reaching the limits of capacity. This will open up slots for freight on the older lines. It will also bring the north closer to the European mainland and prevent some of the disparity of economic development between North and South. I think it is entirely justified.

I like the worldwide coverage - reportage - of the Economist magazine, but I don't trust its economic judgement at all.
I have never heard of the "Epoch times". It reads like a propaganda journal. (I have now checked: it is connected to or an organ of Falun Gong.)

Are the China High Speed trains running empty? I think we need a reliable western reporter, such as from the BBC, to travel on one.

What about the US? Alas, it is a very sad situation, full of negativity and resistance to doing anything. In the past one had the impression that when Americans faced a problem they got to work to find a solution. Now all too many of them cite problems as reasons for not doing anything. Their rail system is now unsuited to a modern industrial country. Perhaps their real intention is to stop being a modern industrial country, as their industry migrates to China. In that case I suppose they may think they don't need a modern rail system. But a country of 300 million people cannot go back to being peasant farmers. And they certainly cannot go on living by borrowing from China. S&P have taken the first tentative steps towards declaring the US bankrupt - unable to service their ballooning debts.

One good reason for developing a genuine high speed system is exactly the difference with Europe. American cities are farther apart, on average. So travelling between them needs higher speeds if people are to use trains at all.

I have my doubts about high speed freight. France is the only country, as far as I know, that has tried high speed parcels on the TGV system. I am not sure it has been a success.

Most freight doesn't need to be any faster than truck traffic. Perishables might I suppose but refrigeration allows slower speeds. In France high speed passenger relieved congestion on the classic routes, much as HS2 is intended to do in Britain.

China has now developed a train equipment building industry (often by plagiarising what other countries have done). They are selling in Europe, much as the Japanese did before.

And the climate and energy problems have to be faced too. They won't go away. Road travel relying on oil products is going to get more expensive. (The horrible fracking process for natural gas is not going to affect that).

Suggesting for wrapping both mixed high speed passenger and freight along with funding from private sources: Let's say we have the new Acela III running a good 180 or 200 MPH from Boston to Washington. How do UPS, FedEx, etc currently ship their packages from Boston to NYC/Washington or NYC to DC? I'm guessing they use air for just overnight and other than that they just truck it. (I doubt UPS uses rail for such a short distance, but I may be wrong). Amtrak could give them a good deal for using their HSR trains. For the price they truck their packages (with a little premium due to more capacity in a rail car verse a truck) they can go from A to B in a few (hopefully a couple?) hours (perhaps a little more premium, but not too much to keep them trucking still). Boom, there's some funding. Also, seeing as snail mail is pretty much all USPS, they should use Amtrak, too. I believe there was a mail train that was eliminated, no? If it were bundled in with HS trains, it would be an incredible boost.

Why are we so deadset on passengers? Not just the US, but everywhere really? Imagine a region where packages and mail are moving between cities in a couple hours. Same day delivery without gas swallowing jets or fume spilling trucks congesting roads! And dwell times could be reduced if the designated freight cars used systems similar to UPS Air or Fed Ex Air, they put packages in one container and each container has its own unique designated destination so it's easily rolled off, keeping those dwell times to the same they would be with just passengers.

It just seems to make incredible sense to me. I can't imagine there being much use with shipping iPods from China or steel from Pennsylvania or something, but packages and mail should definitely be on these trains. There's probably more of both than ever! (Not sure on mail though, but my house gets plenty of spam to make up for the loss in real mail...)

I have to wonder how much the operating cost would be covered if this happened. Or perhaps it could be used to keep fares down if fares already cover operations (Acela already today does this).

Re: whether the high-speed trains are empty- I was in China over Christmas this year and rode the trains pretty much everywhere. Regardless of what kind of train it was (high-speed or low), they were always full. Granted, I only rode the high-speed train from Nanjing to Shanghai (which I assume is probably equivalent to riding on the NEC) but it at least proves that there are parts of the system that are being utilized.

The Mag-lev train out to the airport, though, was pretty empty, I think because it currently starts way on the outskirts of town.

Froggie wrote:Re: whether the high-speed trains are empty- I was in China over Christmas this year and rode the trains pretty much everywhere. Regardless of what kind of train it was (high-speed or low), they were always full. Granted, I only rode the high-speed train from Nanjing to Shanghai (which I assume is probably equivalent to riding on the NEC) but it at least proves that there are parts of the system that are being utilized.

The Mag-lev train out to the airport, though, was pretty empty, I think because it currently starts way on the outskirts of town.

Thanks for a report of actual experience. One should not quote the Falun Gong paper "epochtimes" as they are bound to badmouth anything they think is connected with the government, which is persecuting them.

(Is the Chinese economy sound? I share the scepticism in the Economist. I suspect their financial structure is even dodgier than the western structure which caused the current catastrophe. But the question of what speed to run the High Speed Trains is a technical one unconnected with the political and economic situation in China. Whatever collapse occurs in the economy the trains are there and will continue to be there.)

My own feeling about Falun Gong is that it is the kind of irrational religious movement that arises under a dictatorship.

Why are we so deadset on passengers?

Because, outside the US, that is what rail does best.

For comparison, premium train in my country - Pendolino from Prague to Ostrava - does 351 km for 2h 56min with average speed 119,6 km/h. Max speed is "only" 160 km/h (100 mph), but for most of the line and some lower speed sections are not much bellow.

Precisely, it is the average speed that's relevant, not the top speed. On HSR systems where the authorities actually worry about costs and safety, few trains actually run for long periods at their top speed. The mainstream media and the general public, as well as fanbois, never seem to get this.

The Wall Street Journal reports today on this development. It appears that within China's autocratic society, there too is environmental and NIMBY lobbies - and they appear to have clout in the right places:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 08782.html

Brief passage:

• BEIJING—China will begin forcing its growing fleet of high-speed trains to operate at slower speeds, the country's railways chief said in an interview with state-run media, in the latest sign of trouble for the country's most vaunted transportation project.
  
  Sheng Guangzu, head of China's Ministry of Railways, said in an interview with the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper published Wednesday that the decision will make tickets more affordable and improve energy efficiency on the country's high-speed railways.
  
  Mr. Sheng, who took over the Ministry of Railways in February after his predecessor resigned amid a corruption investigation, said trains in China needed to serve all parts of society.
  
  ."China is vast and there are regional differences in economic and social development, so railway construction norms can't be uniform," Mr. Sheng said in the interview. He didn't specify how much ticket prices might be reduced.
  
  China's vast and expensive railway project has been mired in corruption in recent months and has faced growing concerns about its debt. An anticorruption crackdown at the Railways Ministry forced the resignation of its former chief earlier in February

David Benton wrote:i have also said that hsr in the USA needs high speed freight to be viable . unfirtunately people cant see anything other than double stack containers doing 150 - 186mph . It would be single level aerodynamic passenger like freight cars . the nec would be the ideal launching pad for such a service .

Yes, and that could replace a lot of next day air service if done right. Run the freights starting at maybe 9 PM when passenger traffic is starting to die down. That gives them about 9 hours of mostly clear track until passenger service starts picking up again. Running at 150 mph average gets you better than halfway across the country in that amount of time. Truth is we're going to have to think of ways of providing existing services such as next day delivery in ways which don't require fossil fuels. I can't think of a better way than leveraging the excess capacity of HSR networks at night. Moreover, this may get HSR built in places it otherwise wouldn't be economically feasible.

Heavy freight though is still best shipped mostly on conventional rail unless it has an expiration date.

jtr1962 wrote:Yes, and that could replace a lot of next day air service if done right. Run the freights starting at maybe 9 PM when passenger traffic is starting to die down. That gives them about 9 hours of mostly clear track until passenger service starts picking up again. Running at 150 mph average gets you better than halfway across the country in that amount of time. Truth is we're going to have to think of ways of providing existing services such as next day delivery in ways which don't require fossil fuels. I can't think of a better way than leveraging the excess capacity of HSR networks at night. Moreover, this may get HSR built in places it otherwise wouldn't be economically feasible.

Heavy freight though is still best shipped mostly on conventional rail unless it has an expiration date.

For HSR freight to become successful, it's going to have to be available on a national network. Shippers aren't going to spend hours unloading and reloading cars switching from high speed rail to traditional freight railcars. They're going to want to load them and unload them once. That's why so many visualize containers - load and unload the containers once - but allowing double stacking or single stacking quickly on different railcars as needed. Even that means loading and unloading railcars along the way.
There's no way a limited high speed network can support freight like it can passengers. How much of the freight traffic in the northeast is generated and consumed specifically along the mainlines of the northeast corridor, which high speed freight railcars most likely will be restricted to? Another reason so many only visualize containers for high speed freight. Freight in containers coming from or going to Dover can be shipped by any means to Wilmington before being sent at high speed to New York City - if you get my drift. And I still don't think that model will work better than the existing model.

To add to the discussion above- we will never see a North American nationwide network of HSR in our lifetimes. At best, it will exist in certain corridors (CA, Texas T Bone, Midwest out of Chicago, and NEC). So a comprehensive express package service using HSR will not exist- this is not France where everything radiates out of Paris like the spokes on a hub. However, niche HSR package service may be useful for time sensitive mail/packages (same day or overnight) on designated corridors, utilizing space on regular HSR passenger coaches (for example a several sq meter baggage space). Here in Japan, high value perishible/fresh food is shipped from Northern Japan in AM hours by shinkansen to department stores in Tokyo, to be sold in the mid afternoon/evening to customers.

george matthews wrote: What about the US? Alas, it is a very sad situation, full of negativity and resistance to doing anything. In the past one had the impression that when Americans faced a problem they got to work to find a solution. Now all too many of them cite problems as reasons for not doing anything. Their rail system is now unsuited to a modern industrial country. Perhaps their real intention is to stop being a modern industrial country, as their industry migrates to China. In that case I suppose they may think they don't need a modern rail system. But a country of 300 million people cannot go back to being peasant farmers. And they certainly cannot go on living by borrowing from China. S&P have taken the first tentative steps towards declaring the US bankrupt - unable to service their ballooning debts.

The sad reality of the US political situation is both parties commit political suicide whenever they get in power. We had a good chance to have major, continued funding for HSR under Obama. The problem is his political party saw health care, not HSR/infrastructure, as the top priority. So Obama expended a huge amount of political capital getting his health care legislation passed. Had he started with less controversial HSR, he would certainly have had fewer issues. After health care, many Republicans are reflexively opposed to everything he proposes just out of spite, even if it might make sense. And the Dems are still perceived as having a lot of baggage in the area of bloated public assistance programs.

Now take the Republicans. Basically, it seems the only thing on their agenda for the last two decades is an ever decreasing tax rate for the rich, military ventures in oil-rich countries, and finally support of "quasi-capitalism" (nonsense like commodities trading, CDOs, all the other "good" stuff which nearly bought the whole economy down) where the rich get richer while doing nothing of greater societal benefit to earn that wealth. Gone from both parties is the idea of growing real capitalism (the kind where you make and sell real products, not do financial trickery, to make money) in the USA. And whatever support exists for new infrastructure is almost invariably bogged down in politics which drive up the costs, and increase the construction time. When the US talks about having a real East Coast HSR system by 2040, when China built tens of thousands of kilometers of new lines in under a decade, then something is seriously wrong. Sure, there isn't broad support for something like this because many constituents won't live to see it built.

It can be fixed, but both parties need to come to some agreement about exactly what kind of infrastructure is needed based on real trends, not their fantasies that we'll have cheap oil forever, and Americans only love travel by car. Give Americans reasonable alternatives to driving and they'll use them. Make housing is places where cars aren't needed more affordable and they'll live there. This isn't rocket science. Just agree to build HSR in the most populated corridors for a start, upgrade the electrical grid, stop subsidizing an autocentric lifestyle (or subsidize other modes like renting to an equivalant amount), etc. Most of all, once you reach a consensus, get the thing built in under a decade so the people who voted for it will be able to use it, not their children or grandchildren. I don't see why that can't be done. If we have to, bring in Chinese workers to build new HSR, commuter rail, and subways if American workers can't do it. I'm just really sick of all the negativity about how everything is going to cost too much and take too long. It costs more at this point not doing anything. Americans waste untold potentially productive hours driving their cars and sitting in traffic. That easily takes billions annually out of the economy. The bill for those expensive foreign wars will eventually come due. There is a huge pent-up demand for alternative ways to get around, but much of Congress is still stuck in the 1950s "See the USA. In your Chevrolet" mentality.

One good reason for developing a genuine high speed system is exactly the difference with Europe. American cities are farther apart, on average. So travelling between them needs higher speeds if people are to use trains at all.

Yes, and while the talk is usually of HSR replacing air travel, in the USA it can replace quite a bit of long distance car travel as well. With no viable alternatives, it's not uncommon for people in the US to make trips of hundreds of miles by car. This is tedious, uncomfortable, wasteful of time. With fuel prices rising, it also means that optional trips like vacations may not be taken at all. We need a better system of medium/long distance travel. HSR can fill much of that niche except in very low density states.

And the climate and energy problems have to be faced too. They won't go away. Road travel relying on oil products is going to get more expensive. (The horrible fracking process for natural gas is not going to affect that).

Yes, but so far the American way is to pretend we're magically going to find some way to get cheap oil again. With 2 price shocks in a relatively short time, I think the reality is finally settling in that high fossil fuel prices are going to be a permanent thing. The only question is will Congress finally listen to the multitudes screaming for an alternative to car/plane travel. Sad to say, I'm not very hopeful. I think we'll have to wait for the problem to become so bad that Congress will have little choice to act. I'd love to be proven wrong on that.

"According to the Ministry of Railways, during the initial stages, trains with a top design speed of 350 kilometers per hour [217 mph] will be lowered to 300 km/h [186 mph], and the trains designed to run up to 250 km/h [155 mph] will operate at 200 km/h [124 mph].
The rails whose speed was previously raised to 200 km/h [124 mph] will be scaled down to 160 km/h [99 mph]. Ticket prices will also be reduced."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011 ... 089256.htm