The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
In parallel with the high-speed boom, China also continued with the rapid construction of conventional freight-and-passenger mainlines. This certainly won't stop for some time: Western China in particular has a still underdeveloped transport infrastructure.
Also in recent years, Chinese cities started subway construction on crack. While it is relatively well known that Shanghai now has the world's longest metro network and Beijing is not that far behind, three more cities plan networks rivalling those of New York and London and two dozen more are busy boring tunnels or building elevated lines for their networks. In a few years, most cities with multi-million populations will have heavy-rail rapid transit. This construction frenzy is poised to last at least until 2020.
If I could advise Chinese leaders, I would suggest another sector to extend rail construction well into the future: light rail. While light rail can serve as a(n especially orbital) distributor in cities with metros, it can even be the backbone of transit systems for cities with a population down to a hundred thousand – in China, that could mean a potential demand for hundreds of systems. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The domestic rail industry was mostly perfecting transferred technology. This included hybridisation: in particular, the Velaro nose support structure (which keeps the nose rigid against wind pressure) replaced the lighter Shinkansen structure in the CRH380A. Meanwhile, some key parts (like motors, power electronics, gears, pantographs) were still supplied from abroad. However, the new trains were presented with nationalistic propaganda, to the extent that sometimes the foreign suppliers weren't mentioned at all.
In particular, there was a row between China and Siemens when a contract for CRH380B trains was announced the the former as one for two Chinese companies exclusively, while Siemens revealed itself as third contractor, and the Chinese media got wind of it. Siemens also insisted that it never transferred the technology for some core components (hence the new version, the CRH380C, with Hitachi electronics).
Meanwhile, however, in a rail technology journal article describing the Velaro D (which I compared to its CRH380B step-sister in the diary), Siemens says that some of the aerodynamic improvements were "tested on Velaros in China". Now, the Velaro D's front design, windshield, support structure, roof extensions, and the spoiler below the nose ('cowcatcher') are new developments that can't just be applied to an existing train, and the underframe shroud cutouts for the bogies are necessarily different due to the narrower cross-section. The remaining possiblitires are: the diaphrams between the cars, the bottom of the train, and perhaps the pantograph wells (the 'holes' in the raised roofs into which the pantographs are lowered).
Then, the question is: who originated these designs (which are present in both the CRH380B and the Velaro D), Siemens or its Chinese partners? It may well be that Siemens practised some reverse technology transfer. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
CHINA: The world's longest high speed line was inaugurated with simultaneous departures from Beijing and Shanghai at 15.00 on June 30, as part of events marking the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party....According to the ministry, construction has used twice as much concrete as the Three Gorges dam, and 120 times the amount of steel in the Beijing National Stadium. There are 244 bridges and 22 tunnels built to standardised designs, and the route is monitored by 321 seismic, 167 windspeed and 50 rainfall sensors.
CHINA: The world's longest high speed line was inaugurated with simultaneous departures from Beijing and Shanghai at 15.00 on June 30, as part of events marking the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.
...According to the ministry, construction has used twice as much concrete as the Three Gorges dam, and 120 times the amount of steel in the Beijing National Stadium. There are 244 bridges and 22 tunnels built to standardised designs, and the route is monitored by 321 seismic, 167 windspeed and 50 rainfall sensors.
There is more about the speed reduction controversy, with an added argument:
Denying suggestions that this is due to safety concerns, He Huawu, Chief Engineer at MoR, stressed that 350 km/h operation has proved successful in China. However, 300 km/h running on the Beijing - Shanghai PDL will increase capacity and lower operating costs, allowing lower fares to be offered and a wider range of rolling stock to be used...
However, 300 km/h running on the Beijing - Shanghai PDL will increase capacity and lower operating costs, allowing lower fares to be offered and a wider range of rolling stock to be used...
...and they don't want the speed reduction to appear final:
Raising speeds in the future would depend on how traffic develops.
Chinese news lip of the 486.1 km/h record run:
Edited-together amateur videos by staff about the 487.3 km/h record run (both external and on-board shots):
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Index of Frank's Diaries
But in Ireland any form of public transport is exceptional and a thing to be marveled at, and installed for twice the price of anywhere else.
I'm not sure whether the big windows are a good idea, though - might feel like a greenhouse in the summer.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
And then there are lots of plans for rail links to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, etc, and a standard gauge freight corridor to Europe...
UrbanRail.Net > Asia > China > SHANGHAI Subway - Metro
Metro Line 9 (Shensong Line) was conceived as a regional express line (R4), to run from Xu Jia Hui on Line 1 towards the southwest to Song Jiang New City, but it has eventually been developed as a full metro line across the city centre. When it opened in Dec 2007, it was not yet connected to any other metro line.
:: :: :: :: ::
Another editor's note: I added a picture for the Shanghai-Hangzhou line (messed up draft), and a sentence about the E5 Series Shinkansen's roof. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But I'm not doubting that the measured speeds displayed on the monitor are sufficiently precise. Also, I should add a fourth possibility to tailwind, downward slope and motor overclocking: maybe the real outlier is the 8-car CRH380A record (i.e. it is 20 km/h less than it could be), and I am significantly underestimating the air resistance improvement for both types. It's a tall order, though: I estimate a 20% improvement for the CRH380A and a 13% one for the CRH380B would do the trick, but given that the improvement for the CRH380A front alone was just 10% and the pantograph wasn't replaced, underframe, sidewall and car joint improvements would have had to be very radical. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Jaray
A teenage boy has been killed and dozens of people were injured when they were thrown off an escalator that suddenly changed direction in a busy Beijing subway station.
Subway Station Escalators Speed Up, Disorderly Passengers Cause Frequent Accidents Inside sources revealed that certain stations on the new "Three Lines and Two Extensions" opened at the end of last year raised the speed of their escalators within the allowed limits to 0.65 meters per second, 0.15 meters per second faster than standard escalators. Subway passengers should be orderly in boarding the escalator to avoid accidents when riding the different speeds of escalators that now exist at different stations.
Inside sources revealed that certain stations on the new "Three Lines and Two Extensions" opened at the end of last year raised the speed of their escalators within the allowed limits to 0.65 meters per second, 0.15 meters per second faster than standard escalators. Subway passengers should be orderly in boarding the escalator to avoid accidents when riding the different speeds of escalators that now exist at different stations.
Looking for "which is the cheaper" sui generis is posing a question that is flawed from the outset. One size fits all solutions never fit all, and are always a poor fit for many. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
... and within the distance threshold for Rapid Rail and under the threshold passenger-km ridership ...
... what should have been copy and pastes were unintentionally cut and pastes. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
But you'd have to re-think both the train side and the business side of such an arrangement. And re-thinking is painful.
But I agree that very high speed service of say 350+ km/h is an artifact of a cheap energy environment. It will become more of an elite activity (e.g. if a serious electricity starts hitting China). Someone will have to decide what speed is fast enough. I guess 250-300 is the maximum we will see in the energy-austere future. Schengen is toast!
There are multiple transportation problems to solve, and airplanes are the best solution for some of them...
There is no 3; "the world fails to produce enough electricity to meet demand". It is simply not a plausible outcome.
Wind power is cheaper than nuclear with current technology. Even when, as at present, nuclear is allowed to externalise final storage and decommissioning costs.
-- Secondly, I would very much like it if you provided me a link documenting a current producer of nuclear electricity who does in fact externalize the costs you mention. Because I cannot at the moment think of any examples.
Thirdly: There is no such thing as "The cost of wind" and the "Cost of nuclear" at the present time. The per-kwh-produced cost of wind is massively dependant on location and climate, and same calculation for nuclear is extremely sensitive to the political context of the construction programme. For example, I very much doubt you are correct in, oh, South Korea. Or China.
TEPCO Economics is politics by other means
The context I am assuming is that of a completely low carbon grid. This changes the cost calculations drastically because it means wind no longer gets to externalize its load balancing costs
Neither does nuclear, and there is no reason to believe a priori that nuclear will have lower load-balancing costs than wind in a properly run grid.
Secondly, I would very much like it if you provided me a link documenting a current producer of nuclear electricity who does in fact externalize the costs you mention. Because I cannot at the moment think of any examples.
Right now spent fuel rods are being kept in on-site storage in much of the world. That was, as you surely recall, one of the things that blew up in TEPCO's face. Those fuel rods are going to need final storage at some point, and if that doesn't happen before the plant is decommissioned, you're essentially betting that the company in question will not use its limited liability status to pull a Bhopal.
But advanced reactor research is depressignly underfunded. It really would not take very much money by government research programme standards to build a prototype of either of the above.
Re balancing costs.. Are you joking?
No, I'm considering the actual economics of load-balancing, which depend on how much electricity you need to balance, not on how much capacity you need to build (combined-cycle gas turbines are cheap, converting pig shit to biogas is expensive).
So you need to make the case that wind requires more MWh per year than nuclear, not that it requires more MW (which is not necessarily the case either - nuclear being more concentrated, it requires more backup capacity to deal with unexpected plant closure).
and the political opposition to nuclear gets ground into a red paste
this sounds pathological... your rage at anyone who doesn't buy your belief system is justified in your mind because said non-believers and their airy fairy prejudices are going to cook us all with their ignorance.
either this is impulsive, extreme rhetoric, or something much more rabid. either way, i don't see your belligerent, haughty choice of words doing much to advance the justice of your convictions, no matter whether you are eventually proved right or wrong in coming to them.
'red paste' huh? you may want to walk that back, in the interests of all. your words may lead to someone's actions later on, and you may then regret them. the only people you 'inspire' with talk like that are rabid foamers already, who might take this as encouragement/incitement/permission to act out the homicidal scorn you seem to feel...
'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty
For 8hrs, "here Monday, there Tuesday, here Wednesday" only works for sleepers ~ other than that, you are dropping out of the same day trip markets and restricted to the multi-day trip markets. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
The only way I can make weekend trips from Madrid to Paris make sense from a cost point of view is to go by sleeper on Friday night. Economics is politics by other means
The baseline is a comfortable sleeper coach. I've been on the 3 seats across, 60 degree recline overnight bus in Latin America, not hard to have a dual purpose sleeper / day coach that has each third row rotate the the seat back and seat up to allow the other two to space out for a sleeping recline.
Other service are built up on top of that. Keeping the same roomette for a day trip (during the week) or a weekend is one of the possible options to think through along the way. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Indeed, I was thinking of the "drop off roomette cars" as the third of three classes ~ coach sleepers, cabins, and roomettes. Cabins are convertable seats / sleeping, with shared facilities. Roomettes are long haul style cabins with the miniature facilities built in.
One presumes that the hanky panky in the coach sleepers would happen at the very least in the shower stalls among travelers patriotically doing their bit to save water by sharing a shower. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
let me surface from the shadows a bit (I am a long time reader of the rail diaries).
I would like to read the members' opinions on the latest crash in the China line. Maybe this should be a separate diary entry?
Regards, N.F.
http://blog.theepochtimes.com/1/china/2011/07/29/railway-signal-company-holds-a-joke-of-a-press-conf erence/
N.F.
http://www.businessinsider.com/details-chinese-rail-crash-2011-8
In general, it seems that both technology and humans failed in a spectacular (and deadly) fashion.
http://www.rail.co/2011/08/12/china-recalls-bullet-trains-following-high-speed-crash/
This doesn't jibe with the official line that the signaling system was at fault, though...
China recalls bullet trains in new blow to technology - Yahoo! News
Train maker CNR's President Cui Dianguo said the CRH380B-trains had "experienced a number of quality failings," and the recall would lead to a cut in services on the 1,318 kilometer (820 mille) Beijing-Shanghai route, which takes about 5 hours. In an earlier statement, the state-owned company said it found faults in signaling systems, sensors and communications components on the trains, which it blamed for delays in service.
Train maker CNR's President Cui Dianguo said the CRH380B-trains had "experienced a number of quality failings," and the recall would lead to a cut in services on the 1,318 kilometer (820 mille) Beijing-Shanghai route, which takes about 5 hours.
In an earlier statement, the state-owned company said it found faults in signaling systems, sensors and communications components on the trains, which it blamed for delays in service.
This must be unrelated (unless they found the train control system error during post-accident safety checks). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Rapid Rail Horror on a Rainy Zhejiang Night_English_Caixin
D3115 had stopped several times because the engineer had received track warnings from a dispatcher at a control station in far away Shanghai. The dispatcher's messages were based on "red-light zone" messages flashing on his computer monitor....Only dispatchers are aware of these zones; locomotive engineers receive no such data.
...Only dispatchers are aware of these zones; locomotive engineers receive no such data.
Of course he receives data; what they might mean is that the dispatcher sees the red-light zone in advance, and sees the whole extent of the red-light zone.
At 8:15 p.m. on July 23, the D3115 had yet to clear a red-light zone. But the dispatcher decided to let it depart Yongjia slowly. A few minutes later, the train stopped again as it was approaching the red-light zone.
Passing a suspected malfunctioning signal at slow speed is standard procedure; you are practically progressing on sight until the next signal which is hoped to function correctly. (On conventional lines without central dispatching, locomotive drivers are authorised to do so on their own.) But here the next signal was red, too, so the signal disturbance appears to have been broader.
Red-light zones can be problematic for dispatchers, who are under pressure to keep trains running on time.
This can only get problematic if dispatchers can overrule the automatic safety system to the extent of ordering them to progress full speed ahead into a red light zone, which would indeed be a glaring safety error. However, this wasn't established in the article; they only spoke of the order for the first train to move ahead slowly.
The dispatcher told the D3115 engineer to proceed despite the red-light zone and ordered "visual driving," meaning the speed could not exceed 20 kilometers per hour. But a few minutes earlier, dispatchers from the same office had given the D301 permission to proceed from Yongjia, at a top speed of 200 kilometers per hour.
Again, the problematic part is the permission given to the second train (D301); and how it could have been given in the first place.
For example, a group of foreign experts told Caixin that locomotive engineers need at least three months of training before they can safely operate a high-speed train. The Chinese ministry, however, sponsors only 10-day courses for new engineers, said a source in the rail ministry.
Huh... though, hard to tell, the two figures might correspond to different types of courses: one as training of high-speed train driving from the ground up, the other as training for experienced drivers switching from one high-speed train type to another.
In addition to fast-paced track laying, the railways ministry pushed Chinese contractors to develop high-tech signaling and safety equipment for the bullet trains.
Now that's probably a key point. We could barely get ETCS L1 going in ten years, yet China created its own version in two years.
A rail traffic management consultant explained that due to the rapid development of high-speed trains in China, "as long as a company manufactures something, it can sell it. It doesn't matter if they produce 100 substandard products. As long as they can produce them, they'll make money. Time is paramount throughout the whole industry."
Indeed this might or might not apply to the problems that hit the CRH380B. If it applies to signalling system parts, it's even worse. But it's not simply quality; it's getting around technology transfer limitations:
A source who participated in past high-speed rail technology negotiations with foreign companies recalled that "the foreign side's technology transfer had a bottom line: They would only transfer design drawings for some parts and teach us how to manufacture them. But some core things, especially software code, they wouldn't transfer."
And then the own replacement was put in in haste (a recuring theme in the article).
An, the Shanghai bureau director, said flawed signaling equipment at the Wenzhou rail station failed after being struck by lightning. After that, he said, signals seen by engineers that should have been red were mistakenly green. "At the time of design" the signal makers "should have considered that if there were a breakdown at any time, the signals should display red lights," said Peng Qiyuan, a professor of transportation at Southwest Jiaotong University.
An, the Shanghai bureau director, said flawed signaling equipment at the Wenzhou rail station failed after being struck by lightning. After that, he said, signals seen by engineers that should have been red were mistakenly green.
"At the time of design" the signal makers "should have considered that if there were a breakdown at any time, the signals should display red lights," said Peng Qiyuan, a professor of transportation at Southwest Jiaotong University.
Just what I said: if true, this is a fundamental fail-safe deficiency.
Despite the flaws, the railway ministry and its closely linked state contractors have been unwilling to accept companies from outside their circle of business friends.
Eh. This is just my opinion, but methings suppliers from outside the rail sector (which they mean) would have made even more error-prone signalling system equipment, being inexperienced.
A backup layer of protection... rear-end collision prevention system... cannot work without properly functioning ground-based signaling equipment, which on July 23 failed.
Given the braking distances involved, some equipment for train location and communication is necessary, and indeed involving ground-based signaling equipment is the only option with current systems. But, if I read this right, the problem was signals giving bad signals, not signals out of order. Hence, it might be that the rear-end collision prevention system could have been designed to ignore the state of signals and derive only train location from the data stream, but wasn't.
Engineer Pan Yihang was driving the D301 through a tunnel and rain as these system failures occurred. As his train emerged from the tunnel, he spotted the other train on the viaduct ahead. He quickly hit the emergency brake, but it was too late. On impact, the brake handle pierced Pan's chest and killed him.
Engineer Pan Yihang was driving the D301 through a tunnel and rain as these system failures occurred. As his train emerged from the tunnel, he spotted the other train on the viaduct ahead. He quickly hit the emergency brake, but it was too late.
On impact, the brake handle pierced Pan's chest and killed him.
Poor guy...
Apparently there were technology-related mistakes after the accident, too:
"Why aren't you saving people?" Yang remembers shouting at the rescuers. "There are still people in there!" He was answered by a police officer: "They used a life detector, and there were no signs of life. There's nothing inside but dead bodies." Yet the rescue team's life detector, a special piece of equipment for finding disaster survivors, failed to find a 2-year-old girl who was found alive in the wreckage more than 20 hours after the crash.
"Why aren't you saving people?" Yang remembers shouting at the rescuers. "There are still people in there!"
He was answered by a police officer: "They used a life detector, and there were no signs of life. There's nothing inside but dead bodies."
Yet the rescue team's life detector, a special piece of equipment for finding disaster survivors, failed to find a 2-year-old girl who was found alive in the wreckage more than 20 hours after the crash.
We got a video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh7UWZZ75Yg&feature=player_detailpage#t=302s
(obviously, I do not know Chinese, if someone of the readers here can verify it, we would be grateful)
Here is the list of the events according to the video and a reader:
It's not known why they didn't wait for the preceding train to reach the next station before sending off the next one during the manual operation (N.F. this is supposedly the only safe way to run in 'dark territory')
It was written that the trains got directions from two different control centers, there was pressure to minimize delays due to bad publicity of previous days, and that they were getting a bonus when they reduce delays. Due to the language barrier, it is impossible to verify anything.
The dead toll could be MUCH worse, since 1600 people were in the two trains.
There was no understandable motive behind the decision to bury the damaged coaches without giving clear and consistent explanations, raising a major outcry:
Ah, that inconsistency is cleared up now, too.
Ah, it finally starts to make sense. So all this dispatching was radio dispatching after the automatic signalling system was ruled malfunctioning, and the key mistake seems to be the launch of two trains within station distance.
It was written that the trains got directions from two different control centers
I would think normally, each control centre at the two ends of a section with failed train protection would dispatch trains in one direction. If D3115 and D301 were dispatched by two different control centres, that explains the two trains within station distance, and constitutes another very fundamental mistake. But, even so, it remains unexplained how the dispatcher of D301 could have missed the train ahead on his screen.
there was pressure to minimize delays due to bad publicity of previous days, and that they were getting a bonus when they reduce delays.
This is discussed in the Caing article, but, without seeing how exactly it was technically possible in the system/within the rules to dispatch two trains into the same section, and how it was possible to miss the train ahead, I'm not sure if this is relevant. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by Frank Schnittger - Feb 6 5 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 28 15 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 24 11 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 31 3 comments
by gmoke - Jan 29
by Oui - Jan 21 7 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 18
by gmoke - Jan 18
by Oui - Feb 9
by Oui - Feb 7
by Frank Schnittger - Feb 65 comments
by Oui - Feb 59 comments
by Oui - Feb 4
by Oui - Feb 33 comments
by Oui - Feb 35 comments
by Oui - Feb 112 comments
by Oui - Feb 11 comment
by Oui - Feb 1
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 313 comments
by Oui - Jan 29
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 2815 comments
by Oui - Jan 281 comment
by Oui - Jan 27
by Oui - Jan 267 comments