Fast tracks
China
June 2010
By DAN LEVIN
As the foggy of China’s Hubei province whizz by, a digital sign above the train-car door clocks our speed: 280, 300, 320, 340 km/h.
Smokestacks and bridges whip past. Blink and you’ll miss the blur of brick houses perched near the tracks. Yet most passengers on the Wuguang Harmony Express from Wuhan to Guangzhou, more than 1,000km away, seem blasé about the fact that they will arrive in just three hours, going at the fastest average rail speed in the world. Until this service opened in 2009, the ride took 11 hours.
For a country where 10 years ago trains chugged along behind those of the West, Chian now boasts the largest high-speed passenger rail network on earth, at 6,552km. That number will double by 2012 as part of a government plan to add 16,000km by 2020. Beijing envisions bullet trains not only connecting the prosperous east coast to China’s struggling hinterland but possibly reaching out across Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Last year alone, it injected around $80bn (€66bn) into rail construction, which created six million jobs. Construction has moved with breakneck speed. Gleaming stations have arisen in cities such as Beijing and on the outskirts of Wuhan, for example, where property is cheaper and lines more easily laid. And while the government has said high-speed rail may not become profitable for years, the technology has many fans. Sun Shiqi, 23, is a magazine editor in Beijing but originally from Tianjin, which is not just half an hour away by bullet train. “It’s so comfortable and fast. Saving time is a big advantage,” says Sun.
Should airlines be worried about the growing competition from high-speed rail? “Absolutely,” says John Scales, lead transportation policy specialist in the Beijing office of the World Bank, which has financed 13 railway projects in China since the 1980s. “It’s becoming a viable alternative, much like in Europe.”
Indeed, in March all flights between Zhengzhou and Xian ceased little more than a month after the 350km/h rail linking the two cities began operating, cutting transit time from six hours to two. Some domestic airlines have responded to the country’s new bullet-train options by slashing fares as much as 80 per cent. And the People’s Republic’s high-speed rail expertise is now spreading around the globe as countries turn to Chinese engineering and competitively priced know-how.
“Chinese culture is very disciplined so it lends itself to a labour-intensive approach,” says Scales, who cites the track record of, well, laying tracks. “China Railways builds almost to the day, it’s remarkable,” he says.
Last year Saudi Arabia awarded a Chinese railway company a contract to build a 350km/h train from Mecca to Medina. China is already building high-speed rail links in Venezuela and Turkey and is set to begin construction in Myanmar. Chinese workers – who built the transcontinental railroad in America over a century ago – may once again be building US railways. Chinese companies are competing for contracts in Florida and California, and China has expressed an interest in building the bullet-train line from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro (possible rivals for the contract include Japan, South Korea and Germany).
China’s breakneck pace in the global race for high-speed rail has even led to reports that the Chinese could eventually build a direct route that would carry people from Beijing to London in two days. But there may be limits to how far China’s rail ambitions can stretch. Japan, France and other nations have experience with building under robust environmental and labour regulations and it’s doubtful Chinese companies will ever do more than supply equipment and technology for bullet lines abroad. “Developed countries are a whole new challenge for Chinese companies,” says Scales.