The price of progress

China’s high-speed train disaster is leading to a painful re-examination of its much-vaunted but rushed “glory projects” in 300kph-plus rail transport. The collision between two trains on July 23 in East China left 35 dead, at least according to disputed official figures. But it’s also left serious doubts about the ability of the powerful ministry of railways. With unfortunate timing, too – just hours before the crash its chief engineer He Huawu had boasted about the superiority of China’s high-speed rail industry over that of Japan and Europe.

To a large extent China has developed high-speed rail its own way. From a standing start, the country built a 10,000km network within a decade and now boasts the world’s longest network. It’s also constructed its own 350kph-plus (220mph) trains, a feat that took rival European and Japanese manufacturers four or five times as long. And it’s the first and only country to run high-speed trains on conventional track.

Europe’s train manufacturers have warned that the ministry of railways has pushed its fledgling high-speed technology to the limit.The crash may force the government to heed those warnings. It happened when a D-class bullet train hit another one that had lost power and stalled after a lightning strike.

Foreign experts, who had already noted repeated power cuts along the newly opened flagship line between Beijing and Shanghai, were quick to cite the absence and/or failure of basic emergency technology such as signalling or traditional back-up communications.

Developed under a series of “Speed Up” campaigns starting in 1993, the high-speed network was designed to improve average rail speeds at the time of just 30mph (48kph). By 2007, it was up to 70kph through improved signalling, straighter tracks and higher-quality steel. By then Swedish-made, sub-HSR trains were sharing the network with slow-moving freight trains, with as little as five minutes’ separation between the two despite speed differences of up to 150kph.

China was already building faster trains in partnership with Alstom, Siemens, Bombardier and Kawasaki. And three years ago it started rolling out its first home-built high-speed, CHR-series “Harmony” trains. Chinese manufacturers have also filed no less than 1,000 patents of their own, many based on making the trains go faster than original specifications allowed. Late last year, an emboldened ministry of railways announced it would do even better than the foreign competition, most of which have since departed China, by building “super speed” trains capable of averaging 500kph.

Then it all began to turn sour. In February this year, railway minister Liu Zhijun was sacked on charges of accepting bribes amid a spate of other corruption concerns within a government department deploying a $300bn budget for high-speed rail alone. The new minister promptly ordered a lower maximum speed of 300kph, which is in fact roughly what European engineers had long advised. And pending the results of the two-month safety check, maximum speeds may fall further.
In the meantime it’s fairly certain the 500kph project will be off the agenda for a while.