3 ms·
> a single line, over a relatively short distance, through terrain that isn't too challenging, going at moderate speeds, None of this is true, or remarkable.
by jlmorton 7y ago
> a single line, over a relatively short distance, through terrain that isn't too challenging, going at moderate speeds,
None of this is true, or remarkable.
Almost all high-speed rail lines are a single line.
This line would have been 520 miles, or about 800km. That's longer than almost every high speed rail line in the world. For point of reference, all high speed rail in the UK put together is 1,377km. All high speed rail in Japan is 2,760km. While this single line would not be close to the world's longest (China has a single high speed rail line of nearly 2300km), it's about 30% of the total length of all Japanese high-speed lines put together.
This line was planned to have a max speed of 220mph, which is faster than all but one system in the world.
- jostmey 7y agoCough, cough. And what makes you think the speed wasn't inflated.
- melling 7y agoChina has 19,000 miles of high speed rail. Shanghai to Beijing is 800 miles (1200km). Beijing to Hong Kong is 1500 miles. 10 billion people have used it and it’s now at 2 billion passengers a year. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1149608.shtml http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1149608.shtml
- Rebelgecko 7y agoI imagine that in China it's orders of magnitude easier to force people to leave their homes if the government wants to build over them
- grayed-down 7y agoI vote yours "best comment"!
- melling 7y agoIt’s also easier to get people to agree. In the US, people have been fighting the building of high-speed rail in California since the 1970’s, when Jerry Brown tried to build it the first time. 50 years later there are millions more people in California and infrastructure costs are astronomical. China will have 30,000 miles of high-speed rail before we have any. It’ll be interesting to see the benefits in China. Something to think about as your self-driving car navigates the congestion on US highways.
- masonic 7y agoJerry Brown tried to build it the first time Jerry Brown couldn't even get the Freeway to Nowhere" done.
- bradlys 7y ago> 10 billion people have used it Not to be too technical here but... 10 billion individuals surely have not used it. Maybe 10 billion fares have been sold or trips made.
- melling 7y agoYes, they’re only 7.5 billion people on the planet, and only 1.4 billion in China. That would be 10 billion fares. So, the 2 billion yearly passengers probably include some repeated people. You are being pedantic, not technical
- jlmorton 7y agoIndeed, which I alluded to in my comment. There are longer rail lines, mostly in China, and mostly built over the past decade. However, the commenter I replied to claimed that California High Speed Rail would be a short line, when in reality it would have been longer than all but a small handful of high-speed lines, almost all in China.
- melling 7y agoI guess it’s really a matter of how you add up the lines. This article is six years old but it makes it sound like a 500 mile HSR line is not that big of a deal: https://www.railway-technology.com/features/featurethe-worlds-longest-high-speed-railway-lines-4149752/ https://www.railway-technology.com/features/featurethe-world... China built most of its 19,000 miles in the last 15 years. Not sure why you discount that.