Military use of HSR? The claim that an intercontinental HSR link is somehow going to make China more of a military threat is absurd. First and foremost, China already has a massive traditional railroad network which is more than sufficient in ferrying troops around the country in preparation for a land war. However, this point is moot because the existance of railroads will not *help* a country invade another country more effectively. Let’s look at this logically. Who in their right mind will build a railroad through the territory of a country they intend to invade? I’ve never heard of a division of troops hopping off trains in enemy territory launch an invasion. The whole idea is comical and a disaster waiting to happen. One artillary shell or missile will derail the train and annihilate all the troops within it. For the sake of argument, even if China did manage to capture a large swath of territory in their target country, what’s going to stop that country’s military from destroying the tracks before they retreat? How will the Chinese army make use of the railroad then? That’s textbook military strategy that even a JROTC student would understand.

What railroads actually do is to provide logistical support once a country is already at war. However, that point is also irrelevent to this discussion because HSR is not the network needed for that purpose. Instead, a traditional and slower speed network is required which as I’ve already mentioned, China already has one. In anycase, all of the previous points are strictly academic because China isn’t going to start a massive war with their neighbors and jeopardize all the progress they’ve made during the past 30 years.

HSR versus air travel? The advantages of HSR over airplane over short distances is already well documented and proven. It’s no competition. With that said, I’ll restrict my points to travel distances of 1000 miles or more.

Basically, there are two competing schools of thoughts at work here. On one side we have speed and other other side we have comfort. Personally, I’m more concerned with comfort. For starters, the economic class on your typical HSR train is far more tolerable than their airline equivalent. This is not to mention airline security and check-in across the world is reaching the level of lunacy these days. Now don’t get me wrong, there are and always will be a lot of people that will continue to choose air travel because they want to get to their destination as quickly as possible. However for a lot of casual travelers (such as tourists), HSR is a very viable alternative and it will be utilized extensively.

I for one hope this HSR project will get completed soon. I would love to be able to take the HSR to destinations such as Vietnam, Thailand or Singapore when I’m in China.

And, some of you people have no understanding of the role that the USA has played in keeping your collective behinds safe. Do you think Scandanavia would not have succumbed to a Nazi invasion if it had not been rebuffed elsewhere when it was? Do you understand who is largely or primarily responsible for that salvation? And do you actually not recall the imperialism or otherwise land-grabbing military actions of Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Russia/USSR x 3 or more, Iraq – and I don’t know the details in Africa to elucidate them, but they exist, brutally. People, it’s OK to be liberal, but it’s not OK to be stupid OR ignorant. Even worse, you are intelligent and educated enough to make your beliefs/comments inexcusable.

None of this means that this rail system might not be a great thing – just don’t pretend that it’s wrong to bring up the military possibilities, and do NOT pretend that the US is the evil monster of the planet and all other countries are blameless. You really deserve more respect than that from yourself.

whomever believes this is badly mis-informed. Numerous Eropean and Japanese companies have been participating in conventional and HSR projects for years exporting to China and building rolling stock in joint-venture factories. These consortiums make much profits for these companies, which include (rolling sock and infrastructure):

AD trans
Alstom
Bombasier
Hitachi
Kawasaki
Siemens

Chinese partners have improved upon their technology and particularly, developed fast-track infrastructure constructiion methods that are world class, and one means by which such large scale trains systems can be realized.

Ben

I think you’d better wake up. The high-speed Channel Tunnel Rail Link between St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel has been up and running for years already.

Where have you been?

Concerning HSR I’m with you: Let the project start! It’s a bit like with the limited editions from Ferrari, Porsche or Mercedes AMG. The so called “early adopters” always has to spend more money on it. After it went main street and the technologies find access to mass production the prices come down dramatically. We have seen this with the ICE. In the early stage the tickets were as expensive than a Lufthansa tickets. Nowadays they are still a bit more expensive then regular train tickets, but therefore you are double or triple as fast from A to B. Within Germany only the flights from the North to the South end can compete, for all the other routes the ICE is much faster with a top speed of around 300 km/h (it’s around 180 mph) and because they go from city centre to city centre, while the airports are located outside the cities. The Transrapid (it’s a monorail system) is even faster. It’s cost effective, environmental friendly and over the time the prices will be the same then for the regular trains. The good point on top is that our complete rail system got an overhaul step by step so that also the regular trains got an upgrade. I’m still concerned how it should work at the UK, because only the link (EuroTunnel) between London and Paris is a high speed link. The rest of the rail system is still 1900. Well, over all a very ambitioned project. I like the idea to jump on a train to St. Petersburg and to visit an exhibition at the Eremitage after a 6 to 8 hours train ride or to spend some time on a train with friends to Beijing to have a noodle soup and directly go back. There is a song which says “Let’s go with a Taxi to Paris just for one day”. The remake should be named “Let’s go with the ICE to Beijing just for one day!”