China’s High-Speed Trains
By Larry Romanoff, December 05, 2019
One of the great advantages of train travel compared
to flying is the saving in wasted time. A flight in most any country normally
involves a one-hour trip to the airport with a requirement to arrive at least
1.5 hours prior to departure. At the arrival end, there is always the seemingly
long wait to deplane, the long walk to the baggage carousels or the exits, then
the one hour or more trip downtown.
When we take into account the commute and the
necessary pre-departure allowance for check-in and security clearance and the
2-Km walk to the departure gate, then the post-arrival delays and the commute
downtown at our destination, trains are equal to flying in trips up to 1,200 or
even 1,500 Kms, and much faster than flying for shorter trips. Not only much quicker,
but less expensive than air travel. The frequency of departures, at least
between major centers in China is astonishing, the Shanghai-Beijing route
having some 75 or 80 HSR trains each way each day, often leaving only 10
minutes apart.
In China, the railway stations are downtown so the commute is minimal, one arriving at the station with luggage in hand only 20 or 30 minutes before departure. There is no ‘check-in’ process as with the airlines, only the usual security check and luggage scanners when entering the station where you can spend time in comfortable waiting rooms or simply find the correct platform and board your train. Even though many stations are huge, walking distances are normally much shorter than in most airports.
Another advantage of train travel is the considerable convenience and
comfort, trains being much superior in both categories with an absence of
pressure and time apprehension. Trains eliminate most unpleasant elements of
air travel, with the attraction of being able to see the countryside; from a
plane, we see nothing. On a plane, we are forced to adhere to a rigid schedule:
the time for coffee or a meal, the time to close the window curtains and darken
the cabin so the staff can rest. If the food cart is out, you cannot get up to
walk around or go to the bathroom. Everything seems regulated and under
pressure. Leaving your seat is often a major inconvenience. By contrast, on a
train you are free to do as you please. Your luggage is accessible at any time,
the food carts come by regularly, the dining car is always there, seats have
twice the leg room, the aisles wide enough to accommodate passengers,
everything much more relaxed, pleasant, and enjoyable.
China’s high-speed trains are very quiet, without wind
noise and mercifully free of the incessant hum of aircraft engines. On the
latest generation of HSR with its flawlessly-welded rails, even the soft
clacking of the rails is gone. The seats are as wide or wider than airline
business class, they recline partially (recline fully in business class) and,
with the comfort and silence, it is very easy to work or sleep on a train. At
the destination, since that station is also downtown, taxis and subways are
conveniently at hand.
Trains not dedicated to short runs have sleeper cars which are perfectly
comfortable even in older trains, the later generations offering lovely duvets,
a separate TV for each bunk, electrical outlets, lights, Wi-Fi. The sleeper
cars offer a pleasant alternative to air travel for the typically rushed and
pressurised one-day business trips, for example from Shanghai to Guangzhou, Shenzhen
or Hong Kong. We board our train in the evening after dinner, do a bit of work
or watch TV, and awake at 7:00 AM downtown at our destination, with enough time
for breakfast before our first meeting. On the return trip, after a full
unpressurised day, we have a leisurely dinner with friends, board the train and
awake at 7:00 AM back in Shanghai. With two full nights’ sleep, there is no jet
lag and no residual fatigue.
China’s HSR system is built to an intense high quality. The 300 Kph and
400 Kph trains run on special dedicated, elevated tracks laid on deep and heavily-reinforced
beds of high-density concrete with vertical and horizontal deviations measured
in millimeters, these tracks supported by massive columns of high strength
concrete spaced very closely. HSR tracks are, insofar as is humanly and
technologically possible, a straight and level line. China has the highest
standards for stabilising high-speed trains in their longitudinal, lateral and
vertical dimensions, a rail expert stating, “It is no exaggeration to say the
Beijing-Shanghai rail lines were built with the highest standards in the modern
world”, and that China leads the world in rail stability. When traveling by
train I sometimes place a coin on its edge on the windowsill, and I have video
of the coin remaining stable for four or five minutes before it finally falls
over – and this is at 300 Kms per hour. I have lost the link, but there is a
video on YouTube of a coin remaining on edge for 8 minutes.
China has not succumbed to the privatisation pressure from the neocon
bankers and has retained control of its infrastructure, an enormous blessing
for rapid and efficient development. The country is able to plan and amend its
entire travel infrastructure as a whole, considering air, rail and road, taking
into account only the benefits to the entire country rather than having to
appease a multitude of private interests. HSR trains have cut travel time so
dramatically that airline services on many routes have been suspended. In the
absence of competing interests, a nationwide plan can be conceived, examined,
discussed and approved in a much shorter time than in countries with a
different system, and implementation times much reduced as well.
China’s new HSR line from Shanghai to Beijing, a distance of about 1,200
Kms was a masterpiece of unobstructed planning and execution. For construction,
the government hired almost 140,000 workers to build multiple sections
simultaneously, the entire project completed in two years at a cost of less
than $20 billion. By contrast, in the US, the cost of an HSR line along the
Eastern seaboard, a distance only half as long, has been estimated at $120
billion and might require 20 years to completion.
As another example, the province of Alberta in Canada is considering
construction of an HSR line connecting the two major cities – a route of only
300 Kms, yet the planning stage is expected to take 5 years and cost $50
million; if approved, the subsequent construction process is projected to
require another 5 years at least. The interim negotiations for right of way,
the bidding processes, the dealing with all the various private interests as
well as the cities involved, is expected to add 5 years to the process.
It is critical to note that economic development follows transportation.
Countries like Canada and the US would never have developed without the
cross-country transportation systems being in place. But it is almost certainly
too late for both Canada and the US with high-speed rail, too many decades of
auto-dependent development condemning both countries to irreversible transport
deficiencies.
China’s high-speed rail ambitions are already global. China Railway
Group is participating in a high-speed rail project in Venezuela.
China Railway Construction Corp. is helping build a high-speed line in
Turkey linking Ankara and Istanbul.
Chinese companies are bidding for contracts in Brazil, and Russia, Saudi
Arabia and Poland have expressed interest.
China is already expanding its domestic rail network to mesh with new
routes in Vietnam and plans to extend a route all the way to Singapore.
Chinese rail officials are also in the planning stages of a high-speed
rail route through Western China and Xinjiang Province, through Kyrgyzstan and
other ‘stans’, connecting with the lines in Turkey and proceeding Westward into
Europe. It may one day soon be possible to travel by HSR all the way from
Shanghai to London – at a fraction of the cost of flying, and with far more
comfort and the ability to see many countries on route.
Technology Transfer is not Free
Whenever the subject of technology transfer arises, there seems to
always arise a flurry of accusations about copying or stealing. Readers should
carefully note that China did not “steal” anyone’s rail technology; instead, it
was all purchased. China paid billions of dollars for that transfer of
technology. It is the same in all important industries today. China has the
money, and is willing to pay handsomely for technology it needs to further its
development.
High-speed rail was pioneered in post-war Japan in the 1950s and early
1960s with the construction of the Shinkansen ‘bullet train’. France, Germany
and other European countries followed suit in the 1980s. Serious thinking about
building faster rail in China began in the 1990s and, to make up for a late
start, the Chinese government looked abroad. In 2004, China signed agreements
with Alstom and Kawasaki to cooperate with local firms in building HSR train
sets for China. Kawasaki, who designed the original Hayate bullet train, signed
a deal with the Chinese ministry of Railways for the transfer of a full
spectrum of HSR technology to a manufacturer in Qingdao.
China’s arrangement to obtain European and Japanese high-speed train
technologies carried a stiff price. Kawasaki’s 2004 deal with the Railways Ministry
alone, which included the transfer of the whole spectrum of technology and
know-how for the bullet train, cost China nearly $800 million at the time.
Kawasaki originally manufactured train sets and exported them to China fully
assembled, then helped Chinese manufacturers produce another 50 sets locally.
Kawasaki also supplied China with training in both Japan and China, and various
technology updates, each new provision costing many millions of dollars in
fees.
Siemens, Bombardier and Alsthom signed similar deals with China to
transfer the technology necessary to produce their train sets. Chinese firms
also paid many millions of dollars in fees to purchase upgrades of the
technology and further training; in many cases, Chinese engineers were sent to
Europe and Japan for extended periods for study. Later, the companies helped
set up production facilities within China. They trained Chinese engineers while
helping the country develop its own supply chain for train components.
And Some Sellers’ Remorse
Major foreign industries had long sought to tap China’s vast market for
the imagined enormous rewards, and high-speed rail was in the forefront. The
Japanese and European companies that pioneered high-speed rail agreed to sell
trains to China on the expectation of access to the most ambitious rapid rail
system in history and contracts worth billions per year indefinitely into the
future. Their eagerness in agreeing to the sale of technology was based on
expectations that the Chinese would need perhaps 30 years to absorb and
implement the technology before being ready to proceed on their own. The
reality was somewhat different: they found themselves having to compete with
Chinese firms who adapted and improved their technology and produced superior
products only three years later.
Many decades have passed since the Japanese built the first HSR, and
relatively little development was achieved before China entered the picture.
Certainly part of the reason was that the Japanese hoarded their technology for
the sake of national pride, rather than marketing it to the world. By the time
they changed their attitude, the world had passed them by and their technology
is now old. Japan agreed to a technology sale rather late in the process, and
held back the latest generation of developments. When China proved its ability
to combine technologies from all firms and create a new, superior product, the
Japanese appeared quite bitter, Kawasaki going so far as to claim that China’s
trains were just ‘tweaked versions’ of its original bullet train with minor
variations to the exterior paint scheme and interior trim. Of course the real
problem is that it is now impossible for Japan to compete with China on
international markets since they hoarded their technology for too long and have
been surpassed. Marketing is difficult when your only selling point is that the
other guy’s faster and cheaper trains are copies of your slow and expensive
ones.
Something similar occurred with Shanghai’s 430 Kph Maglev train (the
world’s only operating Maglev) which was built by Siemens. Maglev technology is
simple in principle at low speeds, but smoothness and stability at high speed
are exceptionally complicated. Due to pride of authorship as with the Japanese,
Siemens also refused to consider a sale of technology, preferring to hold out
for astonishingly high prices of the finished product. The result was that
Chinese engineers turned their full R&D attention to Maglevs and Siemens
may find itself permanently out of the market. Chinese engineers first produced
very successful low-speed Maglevs (200 Kph) entirely on their own IP, for use
throughout China as city trains, but are now beginning commercial production of
a fabulous 600 Kph Maglev which may become a substitute for traditional
high-speed rail. The cost to Shanghai for Siemens’ Maglev was very high, but Chinese
engineers have managed, again on their own IP, to bring down the cost for this
very fast train to only two-thirds that of regular high-speed trains.
The Western firms confused their head start with their R&D capacity,
attributing both to natural superiority, confidently assuming they were more
innovative rather than simply having begun earlier. Kawasaki and Siemens in
particular knew the Chinese engineers wanted to produce trains based entirely
on domestic technology, so they refused to part with their more advanced
products and sold China rail technology that was already two or even three
generations old. The assumption was that Japanese and German R&D capability
coupled with their huge lead would maintain an impassable gap and permit them
to capture the entire Chinese market.
To say that they underestimated the power of Chinese innovation and the
speed and quality of R&D in China, is an understatement of some magnitude,
with both Kawasaki and Siemens finding themselves left at the starting gate
only a few years later. The Chinese rail companies paid billions of dollars for
older technology from four established firms. As a first step they
disassembled, evaluated, and combined all those technologies into one train
with the best features of each. The second step was to utilise their formidable
R&D abilities to then create entirely new trains built entirely on
Chinese-owned IP, producing trains that were faster, smoother, quieter, and
less expensive than the newest generation of their former suppliers.
High speed rail was pioneered in Europe and Japan, but there was no
market outside those areas until China entered the picture, this entrance
validating the feasibility of widespread adoption and greater affordability. It
appears now that China will dominate the HSR market for the foreseeable future,
but foreign companies will still share in a much larger worldwide market. This
was not an accident. The Chinese government planned the largest scale HSR
network in the world 30 years ago and committed large sums to fund the program.
Chinese engineers have exhibited enormous ingenuity and creativity and are
still aggressively pushing the rail technology envelope. Developing countries
are particularly grateful that China has brought the cost of HSR to affordable
levels.
I will make here one observation on safety. When China’s HSR had an
accident at Wenzhou about ten years ago, the Western media were so delirious
with schadenfreude that no one bothered to report the cause. It happens that
every opportunity to criticise China will be transformed into a proven failure
of China’s one-party government. In reporting on this train accident in 2011,
the entire Western media eagerly pinned the blame not on a signals failure but
on China’s one-party system. But Wikipedia lists 69 pages of rail accidents for
the US alone, having several major and a bunch of minor ones every year. Since
theology must be universal to be credible, it seems clear where the fault lies
for all these terrible disasters – democracy causes train crashes.
But I digress. That rail accident was eerily reminiscent of Boeing’s 737
Max, where a major programming problem was not covered in the operating
manuals. China’s railway system has dozens of installations across the country
where every train is constantly monitored for many metrics like speed, axle
temperatures, weather conditions. There developed a problem with a
Japanese-made signaling system where the Japanese didn’t want Chinese engineers
to fully understand the workings of the equipment and so provided faulty documentation.
When the fault occurred, Chinese engineers immediately knew something was wrong
and followed the operating manual, but to no avail because the manual was
incomplete. I would note further that this was by no means the first time
Chinese engineers had been deliberately misled on either the function or
operation of IP they had bought and paid for.
Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not’
This essay wouldn’t be complete without some reference to the US.
In 2012 and 2013 the US wallowed in an anguish created by envy of
China’s high-speed rail network, America’s rickety and accident-prone rail
system suffering badly in comparison. When it became apparent that the
Americans could never duplicate China’s success, and confronted with the
imminent failure of their ambition to join the world of high-speed rail, the
Americans reduced the definition of “high-speed trains” from 400 Kph to 250 and
then 150, before abandoning their quest altogether. Then, rationalisation
through the uniquely American moral lens of politics and religion. “Our slow
rail network is the price we pay for the great things about America like our
democratic political system and our freedom of religion.”
An internet reader commented:
“The American failure to realise an HSR system is not because China has
better leadership, vision, planning and execution and the wisdom to sacrifice
short-term benefits and minority interests for the long term gain and the
greater good; it’s because Americans have democracy and love freedom. The
bickering and indecision, the squabbling, the vacillation and eventual
paralysis of all levels of US government on this issue, an impossibility in any
sane country, are actually a badge of merit in America, evidence of their
virtuous freedom. So, let China build its high-speed trains. The more trains
they have, the less free they become. The Americans would never be so foolish
as to sacrifice freedom for good transportation or democracy for roads and
bridges.”
I don’t know the author of this brief passage below, but I want to share
the quote with you because he captured perfectly the American spirit.
“At the end of 2013, California was still hoping to build the nation’s
first high-speed rail line, a 830 Kms track from Los Angeles to San Francisco,
that would be scheduled for completion in 2029 (more than 16 years) and would
cost about $70 billion not including the inevitable cost over-runs. By
contrast, China built its 1,320 Kms Shanghai-Beijing HSR line in only three
years at a cost of 200 billion Yuan – about $32 billion. So the US high-speed
train – if it’s ever actually built – will be 60% slower than China’s, will
take five times as long to build and cost almost five times as much for an
equivalent distance. Of course, the Americans could just ask China to build
their HSR in only 18 months at a cost of only $20 billion, but that would mean
admitting Chinese superiority, and that means the US will never have high-speed
rail.”
However, unknown to the world at large, America does indeed have a “high-speed train”, Richard Branson’s new ‘Brightline’, that runs 100 Kms from Miami to West Palm Beach in Florida. According to the promotions, these are “sleek, neon-yellow trains, which travel at speeds of up to 127 Kms/hr (!!!)”. To be fair to the Americans, they initially promoted this train as a “higher-speed train”, a small but worthy concession to reality that quickly disappeared. To be fair to the sleek, neon-yellow train, it is unable to reach its advertised top speed and in fact seldom reaches even 100 Kph, faster than a freight train, but not by much.
Also unknown to the world, this American version of HSR has already (in
two or three years since inauguration) had numerous derailments, scores of
accidents, and around 100 deaths – several of which occurred during the test
run, after which the train was cleared for service. Brightline, nevertheless,
said “safety remains the company’s top priority”. Interestingly, the US Federal
Railroad Administration data show significantly fewer deaths because (if you
can believe this) they classify many of the deaths as “possible suicides”, and
then impose “reporting restrictions intended to safeguard privacy”. (1)
According to one news report, Brightline trains had been performing test
runs between Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach since January 2017, a
period during which several fatalities occurred. (2) Another news report stated that according to the
Federal Railroad Administration this train has had “the most fatalities along
the corridor in that time period”. (3) The situation is so bad that there are at least two
Florida law firms now specialising in Brightline accident victim litigation. (4)
Also, according to the Federal Railroad Administration, “a Brightline
locomotive derailed … at four miles per hour …”. The report continued that this
was the second derailment within two months, the main cause being that this US
high-speed train is using tracks and rail bed that were built more than 60
years ago and intended only for slow-moving freight trains. The company refused
to confirm the accident for nearly six months, even in testimony to a Senate
Committee, then called the derailment “minor”, and dismissed the critics’
concern as a “baseless fear tactic”. (5) Another article carried this smidgen of news: “fault
of the tracks, new, still very rough, as if they would become better with use.
Ten days later the stretch of track was straightened.” (sic)
These issues are noteworthy in several ways. First, on safety: Running
“higher-speed” trains through level crossings (at ground level), is begging for
fatalities. Running passenger trains on dilapidated trackage and rail beds that
haven’t been maintained for 60 years, is the same. A second item is so
illustrative of a pathological quirk that appears to exist only in the US. From
Brightline’s home webpage:
“Hand-stitched leather seats. Sit 2 or 4 together at a table. Relax
pre-departure in our first-class SELECT lounge with an ever-changing lineup of
enticing bites and beverages. Lounge business services including iPads, a
scanner & printer. Access to conference rooms in our stations (a $50/hr
value). Complimentary onboard Wi-Fi.”
Hand-stitched leather seats and an ever-changing lineup of enticing
bites on a train that derails at 4 miles per hour and has had scores of
accidents and already killed about 100 people. This is the way Americans design
their cars. Appearance is everything and substance is nothing. American auto
designers hold frequent market tests where they introduce citizens to new
automobiles, the purpose being to see if the new degradations in quality and
safety can pass these public tests undetected. A so-called high-speed train
running on dangerous tracks is glossed over for leather seats and Wi-Fi. Only
in America. One internet commenter wrote, “This proves that Americans are too
stupid for high-speed rail.”
This last item may contain research worthy of a Master’s thesis, this
being a newspaper headline on one of the derailments: “Brightline accidents
tragic, but is railway really to blame?” The article stated that this
“innovative high-speed passenger rail service has been in operation for only
about a week and a half, and already people have died”, then went on to say
that most readers put the blame not on the railway but on “the decision-making
of people”. There was an almost irresistible poignancy about this claim. In
reading the reports, I could not shake the feeling of listening to a small
child, disappointed at some failure but lacking the maturity to see reality as
it was, and making an excuse typical of an 8 year-old mind. I believe we could
argue this to be the consciousness level of the typical adult American.
*
Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more
than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries,
as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a
retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive
positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international
import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan
University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA
classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of
ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the
contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
His full archive can be seen at
https://www.moonofshanghai.com/ and http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com
*
Notes
(1) https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/wireStory/higher-speed-florida-train-highest-us-death-rate-67434427
(2) https://www.injuryattorneyfla.com/brightline-train-accident.html
(3) https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/267542.aspx?page=2
Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Moon of Shanghai, Blue Moon of Shanghai, 2021
