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China unveils world's fastest high-speed train
The Chinese government opened a new high-speed railway yesterday that is the fastest in the world. The Wuguang Passenger Railway links Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei, with the port of Guangzhou. The train runs an average of 350 kilometers per hour (217mph) and makes the journey in less than three hours. The old train took ten.In test runs the train has made 394 kph (245mph).
As you can see in this video, the train looks like other high-speed trains but improved engineering gives it a superior speed.
The government plans to expand the existing network with 40 more lines and 13,000km (8078 miles) more track. The capital Beijing will get many of the links as it strives to improve connections with regional production centers.
More evidence that this will be China's century? Yep. Perhaps instead of learning Globish we should all be taking Mandarin.
Filed under: Asia, China, Transportation, News
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Master Shake Dec 29th 2009 6:29AM
Yet ANOTHER advance in technology that is NOT happening in the US. The world is leaving you in the dust.
jvs Dec 29th 2009 11:33AM
you ride on it ----------made in china 245 mph train---good luck-----
Greg Dec 29th 2009 6:30AM
Any country in the world can accomplish this but the big requirement is an investment in track infrastructure and/or electrification. If you look back, the US was able to go 100 mph way back in the 1930's with the Zephyr using diesels. The cost to go fast is not in the locomotive but the track. In the US it would cost literally billions if we wanted to go cross country and then the track could not be shared with freight traffic, especially if the decision is to go electric. Remember that China is finally retiring the last of their steam locomotives and while this is a great accomplishment, all it took was money and the backing of the government, who owns the railway system. Good PR for China but wouldn't it be a great way to stimulate the US economy if the US wanted to enter this race.
Jearak Dec 29th 2009 6:33AM
Yea, that would be the fastest PUBLIC transportation in the world. I don't know about China, but the American government has a transit underground for their own personal use that goes the speed of sound, which is about 768 MPH or 1,236 KPH. They think we don't know about it, like they think we don't know about Dulce, New Mexico or what is really on the other side of the Moon.
nealbert1 Dec 29th 2009 10:09AM
what is in Dulce, New Mexico and on the other side of the moon?
millyoob Dec 29th 2009 11:31AM
Sounds like someone needs to take their meds...
Kathy Dec 29th 2009 12:00PM
Baloon Boys father.
FJW Dec 29th 2009 8:13AM
WHAT STOPS MOST PROGRESS IS MONEY AND INVENTION. CHINA IS A DEBT FREE COUNTRY. THEY DON'T TRY TO SOLVE THE WORLDS PROBLEMS AND DRIVE THEIR COUNTRY INTO DEBT. WE WILL SEE IF PRINTING MONEY IS THE REAL ANSWER TO FREEDOM.
uspatriot Dec 29th 2009 9:55AM
Simply well said!
terry Dec 29th 2009 10:28AM
I guess you'd be happy living at the standard of living the averagae Chinese lives at too. It's easy to make halfassed statements and ignore the real facts.
Kathy Dec 29th 2009 11:35AM
Are they manufactured from the plans that GE locomotives in Erie Pa. sold to the Chinese; which addded to the loss of over a thousand jobs?
Kathy Dec 29th 2009 11:37AM
Totally agree about printing money.
Jay Dec 29th 2009 9:03AM
Just what I want to do. Get on a rocket train, in a country with substandard safety and low level engeneering. Then travel across the land at half the speed of sound. We will next be reading about the ox on the track that derailed the train.
Willi Dec 29th 2009 9:43PM
Ha, you got that right, check out the new buildings in Shanghai that just toppled http://www.nikdaum.com/news/2009/06/building.html. Soon we will be reading "High speed train derails in China... Faulty construction blamed... developer had improper permit... rice bowls ruined etc..."
I live in China, and quite honestly it is scary to see the construction. I mean the poor standards, quality issues, lack of qualification of workers. Four year old buildings here cant compare to fifty year old buildings back home. But shh dont tell anyone, they would lose face if they knew.
Karl phllpd Dec 29th 2009 11:16AM
what keeps the US ln the dust ?"Deocrats?"
jstyle Dec 29th 2009 1:05PM
Thanks for the term "Deocrats." It's the perfectly encapsulates the desires of the conservatives to live in the logically impossible, free market, militarized theocracy of their wet dreams.
JD Dec 29th 2009 10:17AM
That jacka*s that wrote about infrastructure this and tracks and costs that has his head up his as* so far that he cannot see the real world - you know, the one we all have to actually live in. We had a high speed, welded rails line paid for and fully installed between Boston, NYC and Wash DC, back in the 70s and 80s and trains capable of nearly 200 miles an hour. We still do. Evere heard of the Acela Express? Remember the "supposedly" high speed, MetroLiner and TurboTrains? They were and are currently capable of MUCH FASTER SPEEDS than they ever go because of safety advocates and potential litigation. The neighborhoods the trains move thru and the passengers advocacy groups won't allow the trains to exceed about 100 or maybe 120 mph because of safety concerns should they crash. This country goes so friggin' slow all the time, everywhere, because of the safety fascists. Why do you think many countries around the world, and not just Germany as most have heard, have autobahn-like high speed driving lanes? While we're stuck with 55 mph. Because they don't have our lunatic litigious society, that's why. Who cares about safety. This country is NEVER going to get "up to speed" with the rest of the world until we limit litigation and shut the damned overly cautious safety advocates up once and for all.
Larry Dec 29th 2009 10:18AM
There is a better system from American engineering being built in Indonesia next year. Runs on hydrogen and makes electricity. http://www.acsa2000.net/hshrt/
JD Dec 29th 2009 10:24AM
And one more thing, many of you who are lamenting the advances of other countries beyond our "supposed" capabilities are uninformed about those same capabilities. We have long had the capabilities equally or surpassing the technologies of other countries available to us and the money to spend installing them, but cannot because of the safety nuts. It's you right wing nutjobs who want most of these "go slow" laws in place to protect your web-footed kids from danger. Other countries expect their residents to use simple common sense instead, but I guess you're all just too "simple" for that to work. So we'll all keep driving 55 and taking trains that don't exceed 100 because we're afraid of speed.
Will Dec 29th 2009 12:09PM
Remember when Americans did the firsts and bests? That is over as innovation and the stiving to be best is no longer in our culture. Instead government has year by year taken any incentive to innovate or achieve, to innovate and earn. This is the product of liberalism, far from being progressive in any real meaning, and favoring the status quo are even retern to the past. Imagine trying to build the Empire State Building or even getting the approval to consider it. Now the excitement, innovation, rewards and the future is China as they grasped onto capitalism and the excitement of building. They are having fun there folks, even as we try to block the next big American idea.