Here, too, though, it is more than just a railway. The officials I talked to while travelling around China on its stunning network were clear about this. Many of the early lines were built between the largest cities but now the system, which they hope to increase by at least 10,000 miles by 2040, is being expanded to smaller towns and cities to create a genuinely national network. This remarkable project is seen as a way of uniting the country in the same way the railways in Germany and Italy created nations out of these fragmented countries in the 19th century.
That was the original concept in the UK when HS2 was first conceived and its progenitor, Andrew Adonis, registered HS3, HS4 and HS5 as companies. We can but dream that this will ever be realised. For the story of high-speed rail I found was of go-ahead nations embracing the future, while others, including alas Britain, are being left behind.
High Speed rail makes no economic sense in Britain at all. So, appeal to summat else instead.
And so, appeal to uniting the coiuntry. Just as central government is working to divide the place up into local satrapies.
Well done that man, vry well done.
German and Italy were already great nations.
Great nation states, not so much. But look how better train timetables helped that work out.
I’m with WB on this. These nidgy anoraks with their endless post-Beeching twattery should fuck off to the train sets in their lofts and leave us alone.
“This victory of the railways over its rivals guarantees that trains will be operating across the world in the 22nd century.”
I thought we were all going to burn to death in the Great Climate Collapse by then? Who will be taking these trains, cockroaches?
Amtrak is the leading case study for “victory of the railways over its rivals.” By definition you can’t dig any deeper in a bottomless pit, but somehow Amtrak manages to.
China is pretty big. The fastest way from one side of Beijing to the other is to fly. High speed rail is ultimately a vanity project, like China’s huge ghost cities. The bang per buck is too low.
My history ain’t great, but I thought it was Napoleon who knocked Italy back into one country?
As for linking all the small cities & towns by rail, this was a massive loss for the initial investors in the UK (just as the channel tunnel was 150 years later).
I’m thinking this is a populist move by the Chinese goverment – lots of jobs and shiny new stations to open and trains to name.
Nappy III lost French conrol of parts of N Italy in the creation of Italy, yes, but not Nap I, no.
1860s was creation of Italy, see?
Thanks for the correction.
When our history teacher gave us “The Wars of Italian Nationalism” as summer reading (I was 13) he told us not to become obsessed with Garibaldi but to “keep an eye on Count Cavour”. In those days the business of schools was viewed as education.
TBF high speed rail doesn’t make much economic sense in China either, even though it has many huge population centres which are quite, but not very, far apart. Trains between Shanghai and Beijing take 4.5 hours and I imagine that route is profitable. Connecting Shanghai with Chengdu (11 hours) not so much….
Yep, it’s starting to look like over investment and politicians not daring to stop because the Chinese economy is slowing down and they’re finding it hard to reach GDP targets.
What’s this nonsense about railways creating Germany? I’ve never seen anything about in any of the German history I’ve come across and I’m interested in the subject. I reckon Bismark would have given it his equivalent of a WTF emoji.
BTW this is an interesting piece on how a Brit helped introduce railways to Germany.
https://www.katjahoyer.uk/p/the-tall-englander-germanys-legendary
I was taught that Bismarck said the ‘great questions of the day will be decided by blood and iron’.
I’d always assumed the ‘iron’ bit referred to big guns, but perhaps he meant choo-choos.
The German General Staff thought railways wonderful: they would allow Germany to win a two-front war if she were adroit and competent enough. 1914 showed she wasn’t.
Railways played a big part in the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 because the Prussians could move troops faster, by some accounts.
As for WW1, the definitive WW1 podcast by Dan Carlin describes how German it took just one German column a whole day to march through a Belgian village.
High speed rail is pride – some people find it embarrassing that Laos has more than the UK.
BTW train from London to Birmingham is comparable in time to the car. I can’t believe making it faster will make more people take the train. Cheaper or more reliable might
In your time comparison do you include getting from where you are to the station, and getting from the other station to where you want to be?
I live south of London, and I can get to Birmingham far faster by car than by train. Manchester is about the same time. Also, I could take 3 passengers for the same cost. If it’s just me I can carry far more stuff than I could lug across London on the Tube.
Ooops. I forgot to add … and why the hell would I want to go there?
In the UK, rail goes from somewhere you aren’t to somewhere you don’t want to be.
But is there a Chinese route equivalent to near London to near Birmingham?
No, but California has one between Bakersfield and Merced. Or, will have one Real Soon Now. Um, as soon as track is laid. Er, rolling stock is bought. Ah, all that is needed is a few tens of billions of government money.
The Shanghai maglev travels from Pudong Airport to a station which is around five miles from anywhere useful in central Pudong. When it travelled at nearly 300mph it was worth a trip for tourists, but now they have limited the speed to 186mph there is no point and I imagine it is running empty.
Frequently see someone on I-Still-Call-It-Twitter praising some shiny train or bridge in China – “look how beautiful things are without Capitalism”.
So, you’re OK with the slave labor thing, are you?
China used to be without capitalism, I hardly think that you could claim that now though. I rather think that China is doing a whole lot better with capitalism than it was without it.
Recently I’ve had quite a lot with our large Chinese community. It is surprising how Westernised they are. Although I do get the feeling that a table a chair & bed satisfies most of their ambitions. What gets me is their appetite for work. Slave labour by who’s definition?
High speed trains need straight lines and very gentle curves to achieve the speeds. The Chinese don’t bother about trivialities like villages getting in the way, let alone disturbing bats and newts.
let alone disturbing bats and newts.
Thats what they feed the navvies.
Er, coolies, please.
In Chinese cuisine these will choice luxuries.
Otherwise, cabbage and more cabbage. And perhaps toffee potatoes.
The officials I talked to while travelling around China on its stunning network were clear about this.
Chinese officials praising the works of the state.
Christian “Choo-choo” Walmar has a new book to plug. I remember him being very sound on HS2 from the beginning, recognising that it was pointless in Central England – a region nearly twice as densely populated* as any of equivalent size in Europe (and most of the rest of the world for that matter). But he seems to have lost the plot lately (or been got at).
Spain (as BiS can confirm) is essentially a couple of dozen cities/large towns mostly separated by a few 100km of bugger all. Ideal territory for high-speed rail. There’s a demographer at Bristol likes to claim Spain as the most densely populated country in Europe – if you don’t count square km where nobody lives. Central England has essentially zero such empty square km (maybe you can find one around Kinder Scout).
* 50 million people living in 25,000 square miles.
The British Empire was created by sailing ships. The downfall of our Empire was the uptake of more modern means of transport. Therefore ….
Britain has been handicapped by being the first to build railways in an awkward geography. Rolling stock based on carts and stage coaches running through cramped bridges and tunnels. Having waist high platforms did not help the use of fatter trains.
Living in countries consisting of plains mainly, and with infrastructure flattened by wars helps when it comes to building a modern railway.
Knocking 20 minutes of the journey between one horrible city centre and another is not what I consider important.
If some, unsurprisingly, totally depressed British citizen wants to go out with a bang, then H2S will be alluring. Will The train even stop?