[sustran] China Abandons High-Speed Train Plans

[Craig Townsend]

China Abandons High-Speed Train Plans
 
Jan 16, 3:23 PM (ET)

By TED ANTHONY 
 
 BEIJING (AP) - China has abandoned plans to build a high-speed magnetic-
levitation railway between Beijing and Shanghai in favor of less expensive 
conventional trains, the government said Friday through its official media.

The China Daily, citing unidentified sources, said Premier Wen Jiabao was 
involved in the decision to use the conventional rail system. The Communist 
Party newspaper People's Daily also reported the decision.

Officials made the decision at a Jan. 7 meeting of the State Council, the 
country's Cabinet, according to the China Daily.

Besides cost, "the maglev technique was excluded because it does not match the 
wheel-track technique used by railways in China," the report said, citing Wang 
Derong, vice-chairman of the China Transport Association.

The Railways Ministry had no immediate public comment and did not answer its 
telephone Friday morning. At least one newspaper, the Beijing Morning Post, 
said the decision to abandon the maglev plan had not been finalized.

The scrapping of the 9-year-old maglev project - two weeks after the country's 
first maglev, a short stretch in Shanghai, began regular operation - 
represents a setback for the development of the technology in China, which 
many had seen as one of its key markets.

It also appears to open the market for other alternatives on the proposed 
Beijing-Shanghai line.

Other options for the railway, according to state media, include styling it 
after the Shinkansen, Japan's high-speed bullet train, or two methods used in 
France - TGV and Inter-City Express. The Shanghai maglev is German-built.

The Shanghai maglev reached speeds of 260 mph during trial runs before it went 
into regular operation on Jan. 1. A three-car maglev in Japan sped to 360 mph 
last month, surpassing its own Guinness World Record of 342 mph with 
passengers aboard, set in 1999. In comparison, Amtrak's high-speed Acela 
Express train, servicing the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, can reach 
speeds of 150 mph.

The online edition of People's Daily said China's decision was part of a 
larger plan for the nation's railways passed by the Cabinet.

"There have been many versions of the rail and maglev dispute, but an end has 
been put on them by the passage of the medium-and-long term plan," People's 
Daily said. "This is indeed the end of decade-long feasibility studies."

Leaders envision a high-speed railway network for China that includes four 
north-south lines and four east-west lines, the government says.

Such a network would help move hundreds of millions of Chinese who 
increasingly are traveling around their own country - and, more important, 
help transport goods and raw materials.

China began daily runs of the world's first commercially operated maglev in 
Shanghai on Jan. 1, but the $1.2 billion German-built system spans only 18 
miles. It connects Shanghai to its 3-year-old airport, the city's second.

The Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Project was first proposed in 1997. 
The cost of the 750-mile railway has been estimated at $14 billion.

The maglev cost can be as high as $36 million to $48 million per half mile, 
twice that of wheel-track lines, the China Daily said.

German companies spent decades and billions of dollars developing maglev 
technology, but had searched in vain for a customer until Shanghai leaders 
picked the system as a way to highlight the city's high-tech ambitions.