No one killed but I am certain there will a few people wanting China's High Speed Rail CEO's shot, hung , drawn, quartered and then shot again. LINK
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For the past eight years, Liu Zhijun was one of the most influential people in China. As minister of railways, Liu ran China’s $300 billion high-speed rail project. U.S., European and Japanese contractors jostled for a piece of the business while foreign journalists gushed over China’s latest high-tech marvel.
Today, Liu Zhijun is ruined, and his high-speed rail project is in trouble. On Feb. 25, he was fired for “severe violations of discipline” — code for embezzling tens of millions of dollars. Seems his ministry has run up $271 billion in debt — roughly five times the level that bankrupted General Motors. But ticket sales can’t cover debt service that will total $27.7 billion in 2011 alone
Not too surprising. Big massive government projects like these, any where, tend to be White Elephants. As much as China's economy has been booming, the people who would tend to use this are still far too scarce and with competition from low rate air travel.....ouch.
As much as some people would want high speed rail in Alberta. There is no way it would work.
No one killed but I am certain there will a few people wanting China's High Speed Rail CEO's shot, hung , drawn, quartered and then shot again. LINK
Not too surprising. Big massive government projects like these, any where, tend to be White Elephants. As much as China's economy has been booming, the people who would tend to use this are still far too scarce and with competition from low rate air travel.....ouch.
As much as some people would want high speed rail in Alberta. There is no way it would work.
while i can't comment on the situation in china, i don't agree with the statement that high speed rail wouldn't work in alberta.
in the company that i work for alone, we spend so much time and money going between calgary and edmonton that a downtown station in each city would change travel for us. i have to believe it is the same for many other companies as well.
if there was any way that i could cut down on the 3 hour commute between each city, that is 6 to 7 hours to do a day trip, i would seriously look at it.
now, whether or not the infrastructure could ever be put in place...that is a different conversation altogether. just because some guy in another country managed to swindle money shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not a high speed rail link would work in Alberta.
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just because some guy in another country managed to swindle money shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not a high speed rail link would work in Alberta.
Hardly. There are just not enough people in Alberta to make it profitable. If you take...
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Beijing-Tianjin line, built at a cost of $46 million per mile
that would make it 13,800,000,000 dollars just to lay track from Calgary to Edmonton. Place tickets at 30 dollars. You need 460,000,000 trips to break even just on the start up cost.
while i can't comment on the situation in china, i don't agree with the statement that high speed rail wouldn't work in alberta.
in the company that i work for alone, we spend so much time and money going between calgary and edmonton that a downtown station in each city would change travel for us. i have to believe it is the same for many other companies as well.
if there was any way that i could cut down on the 3 hour commute between each city, that is 6 to 7 hours to do a day trip, i would seriously look at it.
now, whether or not the infrastructure could ever be put in place...that is a different conversation altogether. just because some guy in another country managed to swindle money shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not a high speed rail link would work in Alberta.
Highspeed rail might work in Alberta, at least once Edmonton and Calgary are pushing 2.5-3 million people each. Until then it's a multi billion dollar pipe dream destined to lose money hand over fist.
Look at Amtrak down in the states. It loses over a billion dollars per year and of the 44 routes it operates, only 3 turn a profit.
Further more they're working in corridors with significantly higher populations, where traffic congestion is a significant disadvantage to car travel compared to Alberta.
If you think you're gonna save much time over driving, you're not. Although the trains are rated to go 240 km/h, in real world applications, the average for the proposed trains in North America is only 129 km/h, also known as cruise speed on the QE2.
Overall, high speed rail just isn't something that should be in the near future for Alberta as much as it would be cool.
No schit. HOZ, if you're going to tell us why high speed rail wont work in Alberta, quoting that inflated cost is not going to convince anyone. I will admit, however, that I really don't know how much it should cost. But $46 million per mile is clearly ridiculous.
I would think you could run into the problem that the BC ferries had...they were high speed but you could barely get them into a place to open up to full throttle.
Why couldn't you use the existing freight rail system and run them at medium speed?
Over the DT Calgary to DT Edmonton corridor I doubt it would make that big a difference in time..but in price it would be huge
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No schit. HOZ, if you're going to tell us why high speed rail wont work in Alberta, quoting that inflated cost is not going to convince anyone. I will admit, however, that I really don't know how much it should cost. But $46 million per mile is clearly ridiculous.
No, it actually isn't. I used the figure from the amount used in China. Granted there was a lot of graft in China but the labour and other costs is infinitely cheaper.
The laying of track per mile is not just the metal they are putting down. It is the construction costs of terminals, labour, materials, manufacturing of trains and whatever else. I am sure and Engineer can come up with more than me.
I think the trans-Canada highway costs 2 million per km.
I don't understand why it has to be high speed?
that the BC ferries had...they were high speed but you could barely get them into a place to open up to full throttle.
Why couldn't you use the existing freight rail system and run them at medium speed?
I would think you could run into the problem
Over the DT Calgary to DT Edmonton corridor I doubt it would make that big a difference in time..but in price it would be huge
Would you take a train that took longer to get from Calgary to Edmonton then driving? With tickets more expensive then driving(maybe on par if you were driving solo)? Without the convenience of having your vehicle on the other end?
Ultimately in the Calgary/Edmonton corridor, driving between the cities is too easy/fast and to cheap. If we lived in a area where traffic congestion slowed down traffic and gas was twice as expensive as in other areas of the world, high speed rail might be feasible, but as it stands now it's not.
No, it actually isn't. I used the figure from the amount used in China. Granted there was a lot of graft in China but the labour and other costs is infinitely cheaper.
The laying of track per mile is not just the metal they are putting down. It is the construction costs of terminals, labour, materials, manufacturing of trains and whatever else. I am sure and Engineer can come up with more than me.
I think the trans-Canada highway costs 2 million per km.
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Originally Posted by Dan02
true, but the costs of laying just the track itself is still >10 million per mile. Then add your trains, your stations, and other infrastructure.
So what is affordable? How much debt servicing could a Calgary/Red Deer /Edmonton line afford? If it cost half as much as the Chinese line, it would be $23 Mil * 200 miles, for a total of $4.6 Billion.
First off, what a weird way to frame and title a debate thread for Alberta High Speed Rail, if that was the intent.
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Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear
I don't understand why it has to be high speed?
I would think you could run into the problem that the BC ferries had...they were high speed but you could barely get them into a place to open up to full throttle.
Why couldn't you use the existing freight rail system and run them at medium speed?
Over the DT Calgary to DT Edmonton corridor I doubt it would make that big a difference in time..but in price it would be huge
The Dayliner service ended in 1985, and no one has really missed it. Any passenger rail transportation in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor has to be time-competitive with the automobile and, to a degree, air travel.
The critical mass for high speed rail in Alberta isn't even close to being there. Maybe in 20 years, but probably closer to 50. There are 2 corridors in Canada where high speed rail will ever make sense. These are the Calgary-Edmonton corridor and the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. The central part of the latter (Toronto-Montreal) is the closest to being viable, but isn't there yet either.
Alberta would gain much much more in the next couple decades by investing in the intracity rail transit infrastructure in the 2 major cities, and smaller-scale initiatives in the smaller municipalities. That isn't to say that no thought should go into high speed rail, and indeed the current approach is probably best. Continue to strategically acquire land and reserve right of way. Land for stations in both downtown Calgary and downtown Edmonton has been purchased by the Province.
Last edited by frinkprof; 04-23-2011 at 10:18 PM.
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So what is affordable? How much debt servicing could a Calgary/Red Deer /Edmonton line afford? If it cost half as much as the Chinese line, it would be $23 Mil * 200 miles, for a total of $4.6 Billion.
Half as much? I think the motto of a gov't is...
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Why buy something for half the price when you can buy it twice for 3 times the cost.
300 billion dollar train wreck in China
