China plans to bid for contracts to build U.S. high-speed train lines and is stepping up exports of rail technology to Europe and Latin America, a government official said Saturday.
China has built 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) of high-speed rail for its own train system and President Barack Obama issued a pledge in November with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to cooperate in developing the technology.
“We are organizing relevant companies to participate in bidding for U.S. high-speed railways,” Wang Zhiguo, a deputy railways minister, told a news conference.
Wang gave no details of where China’s railway builders might seek contracts, but systems are planned in California, Florida and Illinois. He said state-owned Chinese companies already are building high-speed lines in Turkey and Venezuela.
Beijing plans to construct a 16,000-mile (25,000-kilometer) high-speed rail network by 2020 in a 2 trillion yuan ($300 billion) project it hopes will spur economic and technology development. A new line linking the central city of Wuhan with Guangzhou near Hong Kong on China’s southern coast is billed as the world’s fastest at 237 miles (380 kilometers) per hour.
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If only high speed rail was economically viable in Canada but alas!
Mac, there’s no way it’s not viable along the Toronto-Montreal corridor. Given the ridership levels and the fact that it could easily steal from the air traffic, a high-speed rail could probably co-exist with current rail.
Unfortunately, Canada has few people enterprising enough to bother and government would probably find some way to unionize the venture to the point of infeasibility.
There are a few other situations where high speed rail might work (eg: Calgary to Edmonton) but, like the St. Lawrence corridor, it would take a far-sighted government OR someone with big dreams and deep pockets to grapple with such projects… and we don’t have many of either variety.
The sad part is that if we did have someone like another Charles Hays, he would face an uphill battle, every step of the way… Greenpeace would throw tantrums as the paths were cleared… Various levels of government would throw up barricades at every turn… Natives would claim every inch of rail and then some…
Never heard of Hays? You’ve likely seen or at least heard of part of his grand dream. Hays commissioned the Chateau Laurier as part of the rail transportation system he was building before he went down on the Titanic…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Melville_Hays