High-speed rail to connect Beijing, Shanghai by 2013
Reuters - Sunday, December 9, 2007
BEIJING -- A high-speed rail line linking China's capital Beijing with financial center Shanghai is expected to be completed around 2013, the government said, cutting travel time by half.
The Ministry of Railways will finance 78.9 percent of the project, according to a bidding notice posted on the Web site of the ministry's engineering center seen on Saturday.
Trains on the 1,318-km (818-mile) line would run at speeds of up to 350 km per hour (220 mph), cutting travel time between Beijing and Shanghai to less than five hours from 10 currently.
The Cabinet's National Development and Reform Commission has approved the project, the notice read. Construction is due to be completed in five years.
The notice did not say how much the project would cost or identify the other investors.
The official China Daily quoted an unidentified source as saying the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Corp will have a registered capital of 115 billion yuan (US$15.54 billion) and that regional governments will most likely be the other investors.
The ministry's investment was raised to 78.9 percent from 35 percent because the country's banking regulator was against domestic commercial banks and an insurer taking stakes in the project, the newspaper said.
Domestic companies interested in civil engineering work or project supervision must submit submits to a preparatory office before Dec. 17, the China Daily said. Foreign engineering consultants must team up with two Chinese partners to submit bids.
CONSTRUCTION of the new Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is expected to start this Friday, railway planners announced, Beijing Times reported today.
Forty sites of the 220-billion-yuan (US$30.31 billion) project will begin construction on Friday, the report said.
The high-speed rail link, scheduled for completion in five years, will cut traveling time between Shanghai and the capital from 12 hours to less than five.
Trains will travel at up to 350 kilometers per hour on the 1,318-kilometer railway. Twenty-one stations will be established along the route, according to an earlier notice from the ministry. ...
The Shanghai terminal of the new railway will be built at the Hongqiao Transport Hub. The area which will serve as a transfer station for Hongqiao International Airport, a Maglev station, at least three Metro stations and several bus stations.
Posted: 04/02/2008 9:38 am Post subject: จุดอ่อนระบบรถไฟจีนแดง - หยุดชะงักเมื่อเจอพายุหิมะ
Storms expose fragility of China's rail networks By David Lague Thursday, International Herald Tribute
January 31, 2008
BEIJING: Acute electricity shortages across a swath of central and southern China after winter blizzards disrupted coal deliveries have exposed the fragility of transport networks in the world's fastest growing major economy.
The snow and ice that have led to chaos at transport hubs as up to 200 million migrant workers and other travelers attempt to return home for the Lunar New Year festival next week have also restricted coal shipments along critical rail arteries feeding power stations in the southeast, China's densely populated manufacturing heartland.
Food prices are increasing in major cities including Beijing as distribution bottlenecks and bad weather hamper deliveries of vegetables and meat, the official Xinhua news agency reported Thursday. These shortages are a reminder that China's huge, interconnected economy and its 1.3 billion people are increasingly vulnerable to even short-lived interruptions to the flow of goods and services.
In a sign of the governing Communist Party's nervousness about widespread resentment ahead of the country's most important holiday, senior leaders including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao have personally visited train stations to assure frustrated travelers that the authorities are working to solve the transport delays. The huge crowds waiting in freezing conditions at some railway stations in southern China began to clear Thursday, state media reported, as rail services to central and inland provinces became more frequent.
But electricity shortages were expected to continue after supplies were disrupted to 17 provinces, or about half the country, in recent weeks. Worst hit were the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Anhui and Jiangsu, where more than 30 million people were affected by blackouts or brownouts, according to government estimates. Steel and aluminum output is also expected to suffer, analysts said.
"I think the current weather-related problems have major ramifications for the manufacturing sector and therefore the economy, let alone the fact you have a lot of unhappy people," said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based analyst with the energy consultancy Purvin & Gertz. "The issue of transport and distribution of energy is China is very serious," he said. China mined about 2.3 billion metric tons of coal last year, according to government statistics, and burning that fuel supplies more than 80 percent of the country's electricity.
Despite the health risks posed by severe air pollution in urban and industrial centers and international pressure on the Chinese government to reduce greenhouse emissions, most analysts expect China's coal consumption to increase for decades if rapid economic growth continues.
The bulk of this coal is mined in the western provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi and the northwestern region of Inner Mongolia. But many of the customers are clustered in the industrialized southeastern and central coastal provinces. That means most coal must be hauled long distances on China's vast but overextended rail network. More than 40 percent of rail capacity is devoted to transporting coal, and the authorities have been investing heavily in new lines and cargo-handling facilities in an attempt to keep up with demand.
Despite these efforts, China has suffered persistent power shortages in industrial centers for more than five years as electricity output failed to meet demand from a booming economy. Demand for electricity increased 14 percent last year, according to official estimates.
This problem became much worse when heavy snow and ice over the past two weeks cut power supplies to the rail networks in central China that carry the bulk of coal to power stations and damaged electricity grids. Some power stations in southern China were operating with only a few days' supplies of fuel in reserve, according to government officials.
Fuel stocks at power plants operated by the State Grid Corporation of China, which account for more than 10 percent of the country's installed generation capacity, had fallen to the lowest level ever, the official media reported, with the company ranking reserves at 85 of these stations as unacceptably low. The Railway Ministry warned this week that coal supplies could be further hit when some mines close over the Lunar New Year holiday.
In response, the authorities have diverted extra rolling stock to moving coal and sharply increased the volume shipped south by sea from the major northern port of Qinhuangdao. In a bid to limit shortages, the government last week ordered port authorities to halt coal exports for two months. While the weather has undoubtedly hurt coal supplies, some analysts have pointed out that government policy had contributed to the power shortages.
In a bid to contain rising inflation and avoid antagonizing consumers, the authorities have capped the prices utilities can charge for power at a time when coal prices have been soaring. Without the incentive of adequate profits, power produces have been reluctant to increase output, analysts say. "If there had not been this mismatch, power producers, particularly in Guangdong, might have been more aggressive in importing coal," Shum said.
Posted: 02/03/2008 9:16 pm Post subject: คนเซี่ยงไฮ้ไม่รัก Maglev
Shanghai residents warn against train line protest
China Post Sunday, March 2, 2008
AP
SHANGHAI -- Residents warned potential demonstrators Saturday against mounting an illegal march to protest a proposed extension of a high-speed train line through their Shanghai neighborhood.
Residents in armbands used a megaphone to warn people not to "linger here too long," to avoid problems with the police, who had rejected their petition to hold a protest march against the magnetic levitation, or maglev, train.
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