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Their high speed rail is a propaganda instrument. It is meant to be a high profile asset that makes their whole country look good, but it is a failure-prone mon

Their high speed rail is a propaganda instrument. It is meant to be a high profile asset that makes their whole country look good, but it is a failure-prone money pit.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago
Still works better than UK rail: source: use both. Well, I won't use HS2 because they just killed it after getting halfway through and sold the land so no one else could finish it.
- Ycombigatorz 3y ago
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woooooo 3y ago
This kind of thinking is why we can't build high speed rail in the US. Nobody values the externalities.
neither_color 3y ago
It effectively moves hundreds of millions of people every year between every major city at faster than car, slower than plane speeds. It may not be immediately profitable to the rail line operator but the factories that employ the workers that use the lines certainly benefit, no?
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  It's more than hundreds of millions: over 2 billion journeys are made on the network per year. It's roughly 10 times what Japanese HSR does per year (195 million journeys), and 1000 times what the one American HSR route does (2 million, and only 50 miles of track at that speed). In 2013, it moved twice as many people as domestic air travel. Today, it's more like 5 times. It's not exactly an unused ghost railway system.
  - maxglute 3y ago
    >moved twice as many people as domestic air travel Which is key point, PRC does not have enough air space corridors to scale air travel. 90% of PRC population on west of country, imagine 1.2B people concentrated in western US.
    - Arnt 3y ago
      Is this something you know or something you assume? «In 2022, Seoul Gimpo-Jeju continued its streak as the busiest route, with over 15.6 million passengers making the trip at an average of 226 daily flight movements.» If PRC is as congested as you say, wouldn't one of its city pairs be the record holder? I currently live in Germany, where the population is about 50% denser than PRC, and haven't heard anything about air space corridors here being congested.
      - Arnt 3y ago
        Following up to myself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes#By_aircraft_movements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_... has the most congested Chinese route at number 7, just behind Riyadh-Jeddah, and its traffic is only 31% of Seoul-Jeju.
        maxglute 3y ago
        Sorry for late reply. The wiki data is covid timeframe, and not indicative. Jeju's Gimhae airport lists 60k aircraft movements and served 10m passports in 2022. Shanghai's Pudong lists 350K aircraft movements and 30m passengers in 2021. Frankfurt Airport lists 380k aircraft movement and 50m passengers. Most major PRC airports have >300k aircraft movements and move 30-40m people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_China#2021_final_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_i... Look at 2020 stats, that's what's saturating limited air corridors. There's 11 airports that moves over 20m people with over 200k aircraft movements. Which is fraction of HSR's near 2B trips. As more chinese get richer and want to travel internally, HSR is only choice. That's without mentioning New years which is impossible to accommodate with air. HSR moves huge number bodies and saves 100s of millions hours vs slow trains trip. PRC domestic flight delays is well known for anyone that regularly flies in PRC and can compare to west, like EU/NA. The unspoken reason is US military bases in region means coastal flight corridors that are shared with military aviation which gets higher priority. There's a joke that PRC commercial flight would be smoother once they take over Taiwan, because then military aviation can push out away from coastal regions.
- Ycombigatorz 3y ago
  [dead]
tuna74 3y ago
I rode it this summer. As a system it is worse than the Shinkansen, but it was pretty good.
shortsunblack 3y ago
China's high speed rail costs less than opportunity cost of transport projects. They're making money building it, especially when debt is cheap. And debt was cheap for quite a while until recently. Not to mention, the economies of scale have decreased the costs exponentially over time. This is true for metro lines, as well. China builds metro for the cost of some countries building high speed rail.
- maxglute 3y ago
  >They're making money building it That's without mentioning PRC _HAS_ to rely on HSR. 90% people on east half of country = not enough flight corridors, which is already highly congested. Only mass transit solution left is HSR, build off domestic tech stack = 100s of billions not going to Boeing or Airbus. Also helps with energy security since it's electrified = 100s of billions saved on oil imports. Indepth analysis of HSR shows roughly 8% return. Win-win-win all around. Same with all the infra building, especially transportation networks in mountainous regions. Bridges that saves a millions of kms of travel = less fossil fuel short term and less energy storage medium long term. Convert steel and concrete into short/medium/long term energy savings.

Their high speed rail is a propaganda instrument. It is meant to be a high profile asset that makes their whole country look good, but it is a failure-prone money pit.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

Still works better than UK rail: source: use both. Well, I won't use HS2 because they just killed it after getting halfway through and sold the land so no one else could finish it.

Ycombigatorz 3y ago
[dead]

woooooo 3y ago

This kind of thinking is why we can't build high speed rail in the US. Nobody values the externalities.

neither_color 3y ago

It effectively moves hundreds of millions of people every year between every major city at faster than car, slower than plane speeds. It may not be immediately profitable to the rail line operator but the factories that employ the workers that use the lines certainly benefit, no?

adhesive_wombat 3y ago
It's more than hundreds of millions: over 2 billion journeys are made on the network per year. It's roughly 10 times what Japanese HSR does per year (195 million journeys), and 1000 times what the one American HSR route does (2 million, and only 50 miles of track at that speed). In 2013, it moved twice as many people as domestic air travel. Today, it's more like 5 times. It's not exactly an unused ghost railway system.
- maxglute 3y ago
  >moved twice as many people as domestic air travel Which is key point, PRC does not have enough air space corridors to scale air travel. 90% of PRC population on west of country, imagine 1.2B people concentrated in western US.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    Is this something you know or something you assume? «In 2022, Seoul Gimpo-Jeju continued its streak as the busiest route, with over 15.6 million passengers making the trip at an average of 226 daily flight movements.» If PRC is as congested as you say, wouldn't one of its city pairs be the record holder? I currently live in Germany, where the population is about 50% denser than PRC, and haven't heard anything about air space corridors here being congested.
    - Arnt 3y ago
      Following up to myself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes#By_aircraft_movements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_... has the most congested Chinese route at number 7, just behind Riyadh-Jeddah, and its traffic is only 31% of Seoul-Jeju.
      - maxglute 3y ago
        Sorry for late reply. The wiki data is covid timeframe, and not indicative. Jeju's Gimhae airport lists 60k aircraft movements and served 10m passports in 2022. Shanghai's Pudong lists 350K aircraft movements and 30m passengers in 2021. Frankfurt Airport lists 380k aircraft movement and 50m passengers. Most major PRC airports have >300k aircraft movements and move 30-40m people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_China#2021_final_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_i... Look at 2020 stats, that's what's saturating limited air corridors. There's 11 airports that moves over 20m people with over 200k aircraft movements. Which is fraction of HSR's near 2B trips. As more chinese get richer and want to travel internally, HSR is only choice. That's without mentioning New years which is impossible to accommodate with air. HSR moves huge number bodies and saves 100s of millions hours vs slow trains trip. PRC domestic flight delays is well known for anyone that regularly flies in PRC and can compare to west, like EU/NA. The unspoken reason is US military bases in region means coastal flight corridors that are shared with military aviation which gets higher priority. There's a joke that PRC commercial flight would be smoother once they take over Taiwan, because then military aviation can push out away from coastal regions.
Ycombigatorz 3y ago
[dead]

tuna74 3y ago

I rode it this summer. As a system it is worse than the Shinkansen, but it was pretty good.

shortsunblack 3y ago

China's high speed rail costs less than opportunity cost of transport projects. They're making money building it, especially when debt is cheap. And debt was cheap for quite a while until recently. Not to mention, the economies of scale have decreased the costs exponentially over time. This is true for metro lines, as well. China builds metro for the cost of some countries building high speed rail.

maxglute 3y ago
>They're making money building it That's without mentioning PRC _HAS_ to rely on HSR. 90% people on east half of country = not enough flight corridors, which is already highly congested. Only mass transit solution left is HSR, build off domestic tech stack = 100s of billions not going to Boeing or Airbus. Also helps with energy security since it's electrified = 100s of billions saved on oil imports. Indepth analysis of HSR shows roughly 8% return. Win-win-win all around. Same with all the infra building, especially transportation networks in mountainous regions. Bridges that saves a millions of kms of travel = less fossil fuel short term and less energy storage medium long term. Convert steel and concrete into short/medium/long term energy savings.