Sci-Tech Information: Chinese Will Soon Go Abroard by Taking a High-Speed Railway

Sci-tech information: Chinese will soon go abroard by taking a high-speed railway
China is considering plans to build a high-speed railway line to the US, the country’s official media reported on Thursday.
The proposed line would begin in north-east China and run up through Siberia, pass through a tunnel underneath the Pacific Ocean then cut through Alaska and Canada to reach the continental US, according to a report in the state-run Beijing Times newspaper.
Crossing the Bering Strait in between Russia and Alaska would require about 200km (125 miles) of undersea tunnel, the paper said, citing Wang Mengshu, a railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
“Right now we’re already in discussions. Russia has already been thinking about this for many years,” Wang said.
The project – nicknamed the “China-Russia plus America line” – would run for 13,000km, about 3,000km further than the Trans-Siberian Railway. The entire trip would take two days, with the train travelling at an average of 350km/h (220mph).
The reported plans leave ample room for skepticism. No other Chinese railway experts have come out in support of the proposed project. Whether the government has consulted Russia, the US or Canada is also unclear. The Bering Strait tunnel alone would require an unprecedented feat of engineering – it would be the world’s longest undersea tunnel – four times the length of the Channel Tunnel.
According to the state-run China Daily, the tunnel technology is “already in place” and will be used to build a high-speed railway between the south-east province of Fujian and Taiwan. “The project will be funded and constructed by China,” it said. “The details of this project are yet to be finalised.”
The Beijing Times listed the China-US line as one of four international high-speed rail projects currently in the works. The first is a line that would run from London via Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev and Moscow, where it would split into two routes, one of which would run to China through Kazakhstan and the other through eastern Siberia. The second line would begin in the far-western Chinese city of Urumqi and then run through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Turkey to Germany. The third would begin in the south-western city of Kunming and end in Singapore. The routes are under various stages of planning and development, the paper said.
China Railway Construction Corp has signed a US$13.1 billion (S$16.3 billion) deal to build a high-speed railway in Nigeria, as China’s pushes to develop fast rail and other infrastructure projects on the continent.
China Railway unit China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation signed the contract with the Nigerian government on Monday, according to a filing to the Hong Kong bourse on Tuesday evening.
Under the contract, the state-backed Chinese company will build a railway with a single track length of 1,385 kilometres (860 miles) and a speed of 120 kilometres per hour. The filing gave no details about where the line would be built.
The announcement came as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, during a visit to Ethiopia, unveiled extra aid for Africa totalling at least US$12 billion and offered to share advance technology with the continent to help with development of high-speed rail, state media reported.
China ‘in discussions’ about high-speed rail lines to London, Germany – and the US
Chinese officials have outlined a massive – no, that’s an understatement; make that mind-bogglingly Brobdingnagian – vision of a globe-girdling high-speed rail network that would have as one of its legs a line that would run from northern China up through Russia, under the North Pacific, through Alaska, then Canada, and finally into the contiguous United States.
“Right now we’re already in discussions. Russia has already been thinking about this for many years,” said railway expert Wang Mengshu, The Guardian reported on Thursday based on an article by Beijing Times reporter Han Xu.
The China-to-US link alone would entail laying about 13,000km (8,079mi) of track, with 200km (124mi) running through an underwater tunnel beneath the Bering Strait – that’s a hair under four times the length of the Channel Tunnel. If the train could manage to average 350km (220mph) per hour, the trip would take less than two days.
The China Daily reports that the technology for the tunnel is already been developed, and will be used to build a high-speed rail tunnel between the province of Fujian, on China’s southeast coast, to Taiwan.
While the China-to-US line is ambitious indeed, it’s only part of China’s high-speed musings. Also under discussion or planning is a line that reaches from London to China via Paris, Warsaw, Kiev, and Moscow, at which point it would split into two lines, one running through Kazakhstan and the second through eastern Siberia.
Then there’s the line that would reach to Germany, beginning in the western-China city of Urumqi and running through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Turkey. The final line seems quite modest by comparison, beginning in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming and ending up in Singapore.
No mention was made of the freight-carrying capacity of the high-speed system, just a glowing description of passengers enjoying “multi-country scenery”, but we would not at all be surprised if the four-line system were also used to rapidly shoot Chinese manufactured goods to the four corners of the earth.
One problem remains, however. As Wang explains, “It is difficult to raise huge amounts of money.”
China: High-Speed Rail Network To Be Doubled
China has announced it will spend 60bn this year in an effort to almost double the size of its high-speed rail network.
The investment forms part of a project which represents the largest and fastest rail expansion programme in the world.
Since 2008, and in the time Britain has taken only to debate the merits of one line – HS2 – which would be just over 100 miles long, China has built 6,000 miles of track, much of it elevated, and invested in 1,000 high-speed trains.
The network is currently almost double the combined length of Europe and Japan’s railway networks.
The programme, the government says, forms a key part of the country’s drive to modernise, urbanise and pull the Chinese people out of poverty.
Sky News took a ride on the 10am from Shanghai to Beijing. Bang on time, the shiny new bullet train pulled out of the city’s Hongqiao station.
The train, 16 carriages long, has three classes: standard, first and business, which resembles the interior of an aeroplane.
Sitting in a fully reclining airline-style seat is businessman Paul Zhou.
He said: “Our country is building an entire high-speed rail system and it has made our travel easier.
“It has shortened the journey between cities. It helps a lot on our work and life.
“On the airlines, there are always delays. They are very unreliable.
“I used to travel by plane, but now I almost always use our high-speed trains to go everywhere. They are comfortable, environmentally friendly, and always on time.”
Out of the window the Chinese countryside is a blur as the train reaches its cruising speed of 190mph.
China now boasts the world’s fastest conventional train. The CRH380A, manufactured by the Qingdao Sifang Company, has a top speed of 237mph, but in test runs it reached 302mph.
The trains run on a network of new lines, many of which are elevated. Together they knit together more than 100 cities across the country.
Each of the cities has a vast new station. Most look more like airport terminals and they are packed – proof that this railway revolution has got China moving.
Another passenger, Zhao Changhua, is an office worker from the city of Jinan. She has just started commuting to Shanghai for work – a distance of 535 miles, but a journey time of