As this year winds down in the Western World, the Chinese have released their official report on the horrific high-speed train crash this past July 23rd.
Our calculations are that the more we know about the Chinese high-speed rail program, the more we will be armed to deal with ours in California.
At some point, even the least attentive Democrat in the state Legislature and in Congress will realize that the Chinese experience; their overweening ambitions, their political intentions, their economic failures, their inadequate oversight, all will lead to more of the disasters that they have endured, only worse.
There are some skeptics that believe that the number 40 for the fatalities of the July train wreck are significantly understated, as are the 200 claimed to be injured. It's possible that there are many more. Cover-up is the Chinese name of the game. The other aspect of Chinese strategy for handling this crisis is scape-goating. They have now hung 54 guys out to dry.
Corruption abounds. One guy bought a house in LA with his haul of ill-gotten gains from being deputy in charge of their HSR program. Another head guy had been keeping a very large number of mistresses in comfort on such funds. (What is that all about? Do they also go around in long fur-trimmed robes embroidered in gold thread, sit on thrones, have food tasters, and cut off heads?)
That doesn't happen in this country, does it? I mean the 'robes' part. One high-ranking guy in the rail bureaucracy died of a heart attack a month after the accident. We can only guess what or who attacked that heart.
No, we are not China. We have no business envying China's high-speed rail program which is a hugely misconceived public relations effort for world-wide prestige. They are a culture, Communist in name only, that has little concern for individuals and it's executive oligarchy runs the country for its own benefits, economic growth being at the top of the list.
Since we are nothing like China, we must not emulate what they do. We need to think for ourselves. We need to do our own analysis of what our transit needs are now and what they may be in the future. And we need to pursue this process unencumbered by the politically and financially driven biases that usually contaminate such studies to get the results that a number of vested rail interests seek.
Our high-speed rail program has been nothing like China's, but in California has been driven by enormous, willful incompetence and many mistakes have been made, are being made, and will be made.
The worst of all this is that there is an adamant refusal for the state government to assume serious responsibility in the form of oversight and accountability for the project. The CHSRA has been their own worst enemy and has brought derision and contempt upon themselves in the press and among a growing number of objecting Californians.
The fact that the Chinese are not learning any lessons from their high-speed rail mistakes does not obviate our obligation to learn to look at our own HSR path with a severely critical eye and make hard but determined decisions; in this case, to shut this project down.
Here are two New York Times articles. Consider these the text-book on Chinese High-Speed Rail.
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December 28, 2011
Design Flaws Cited in Deadly Train Crash in China
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
BEIJING — Chinese investigators delivered a long-awaited report on Wednesday on the deadly July 23 high-speed train crash in the eastern coastal city of Wenzhou, citing a string of blunders, including serious design flaws in crucial signaling equipment.
Two former top officials of the Railway Ministry — who had been removed from their posts months before the crash over alleged corruption — were singled out for blame.
The disaster killed 40 people and injured 191. It was a serious setback to China’s hopes to turn high-speed rail into a symbol of the nation’s technological and industrial progress, and led to an online wave of public outrage that died down only after government authorities muzzled the domestic media.
The crash investigators found sloppy development of the signaling equipment, bidding irregularities in the contract to provide it and lapses by safety inspectors who were supposed to ensure its quality. When lightning struck the Wenzhou line, the wrong signals appeared, sending one high-speed train smashing into the rear end of another on a viaduct.
Investigators put the bulk of the responsibility the former railway minister, Liu Zhijun, and the Railway Ministry’s deputy chief engineer, Zhang Shuguang. Before Mr. Liu’s arrest on corruption charges in February, he led the endeavor to build nearly 5,000 miles of high-speed rail in seven years, one of China’s most dramatically ambitious initiatives.
Mr. Zhang reportedly controlled the contracts for the high-speed system. He was also taken into custody early this year.
Also singled out was Ma Cheng, the former head of China Railway Signal and Communication Corporation, an enormous state-owned enterprise that specializes in rail-control technology and provided the signaling equipment for the Wenzhou line. Mr. Ma died of a heart attack a month after the accident.
The investigators’ findings were presented Wednesday afternoon to the State Council, China’s equivalent of a cabinet, which decided to punish 54 officials for failing to do their jobs. Some were involved in a badly bungled rescue effort.
The Railway Ministry called off the search for survivors after just eight hours and instead concentrated on clearing the wreckage so rail traffic could resume. Workers dug a pit and buried one carriage before investigators even showed up. They were forced to unearth it two days later. Officials “did not disclose information and did not respond to the concerns of the public in time,” the report said. “Both caused a negative impact in the society.”
The report, which was posted online, did not address the question of whether the same design flaw threatens the signaling equipment on other lines. Government sources quoted by a Shanghai newspaper last summer said that the same equipment had been installed at 58 stations and 18 signal-relay stations.
Any acknowledgement of systematic flaws could hurt China’s hopes of exporting its high-speed rail equipment and technology. But customers might also back away if the inquiry is seen as incomplete or a whitewash.
China Railway Signal and Communication, the signaling-system provider, sells its technology and services to more than 20 countries, including Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and Zambia. The company’s Web site says it devotes itself first of all to safety.
The much-anticipated report provided names of officials who would be held to account, but few new details about the cause of the accident. Officials pinpointed a design flaw in the signaling equipment months ago. They also blamed poorly trained station workers for failing to notice the equipment malfunction and halt trains on the line.
In August, the authorities ordered a safety review of all high-speed trains and suspended the construction of new lines pending safety checks. According to Xinhua, the official news agency, the State Council also reduced the top rail speed to 186 miles per hour from 217.
The disaster threw a spotlight on skulduggery in the Railway Ministry, a fief of two million workers that owns the railways it regulates, a stark conflict of interest that experts have repeatedly criticized. Caixin, a Chinese magazine known for aggressive reporting, disclosed last week that Mr. Zhang, the ministry’s former chief engineer, had purchased a luxurious home in a Los Angeles suburb in 2002, when his government salary amounted to about 2,200 renminbi, or $264, a month.
The magazine estimated the cost of the house, which Mr. Zhang bought with his wife, at roughly $860,000, or about 7.12 million renminbi. It said Mr. Zhang, the right-hand man and confidant of Mr. Liu, the disgraced minister, transferred his share of the house to his wife in January, just before he was taken into custody. “Where did he get the millions needed to by an upscale home in California?” the article asked.
Mia Li contributed research.
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High-Speed Rail
Updated: Dec. 28, 2011
While high-speed trains have been zooming commuters across the continents of Europe and Asia for decades, the United States has yet to embrace the idea of the bullet train.
President Obama, in his 2011 State of the Union speech, called for a high-speed rail system over the next 25 years. However, Mr. Obama’s proposal to spend $53 billion on high-speed rail over the next six years, part of his budget deal in April, hit a roadblock when Congressional Republicans eliminated money for that plan for the year.
The year before, newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin turned down federal money their Democratic predecessors had won for new rail routes, lest their states have to cover most of the costs for trains that would draw few riders.
The cuts will not halt the rail program since unspent money remains that can be used on new projects. But they leave the future of high-speed rail in the United States unclear. So far roughly $10 billion has been approved for high-speed rail, but it has been spread to dozens of projects around the country. If Congress does not approve more money, the net result of all that spending may possibly be better regular train service in many areas, and a small down payment on one bullet train, in California.
California plans to build a 520-mile high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. And they are doing it in the face of what might seem like insurmountable political and fiscal obstacles. A state report in November 2011 projected the cost of the bullet train tripling to $98 billion for a project that would not be finished until 2033. Republicans in Congress are close to eliminating federal high-speed rail financing this year. And there are questions about how much the state or private businesses will be able to contribute.
Gov. Jerry Brown has enthusiastically embraced the plan and the California High-Speed Rail Authority has projected that the bullet train would create 100,000 jobs. The authority has proposed that the project be built in phases, and that no phase be started until all the financing was in place. Yet there is widespread skepticism that the train would ever attract the promised ridership, in no small part because unlike, say, the Amtrak Northeast Corridor, the bullet train would go into cities that do not have particularly extensive public transit networks, forcing people to rent cars once they arrive.
Chinese Embrace High-Speed Rail Amid Safety Concerns
Elsewhere, an ambitious rail rollout in China is helping integrate the economy of a sprawling, populous nation. Work crews of as many as 100,000 people per line have built about half of the 12,000-mile network in just six years, in many cases ahead of schedule — including a Beijing-to-Shanghai line that was not originally expected to open until 2012. The entire system is on course to be completed by 2020.
But a collision on a high-speed rail line in eastern China in July 2011 that killed 39 people and injured 210 others has raised fresh doubts about the safety of one of the largest, most expensive public works projects ever undertaken.
In December 2011, Chinese investigators delivered a long-awaited report on the deadly crash in the coastal city of Wenzhou, citing a string of blunders, including serious design flaws in crucial signaling equipment.
Two former top officials of the Railway Ministry — who had been removed their posts months before the crash over alleged corruption — were singled out for blame.
The crash investigators found sloppy development of the signaling equipment, bidding irregularities in the contract to provide it and lapses by safety inspectors who were supposed to ensure its quality.
When lightning struck the Wenzhou line, the wrong signals appeared, sending one high-speed train smashing into the rear-end of another on a viaduct.
Investigators put the bulk of the responsibility on the former railway minister, Liu Zhijun, and the Railway Ministry’s deputy chief engineer, Zhang Shuguang. Before Mr. Liu’s arrest on corruption charges in February 2011, he led the endeavor to build nearly 5,000 miles of high-speed rail in seven years, one of China’s most dramatically ambitious initiatives.
Mr. Zhang reportedly controlled the contracts for the high speed system. He was also taken into custody early in 2011.
Also singled out was Ma Cheng, the former head of China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation, an enormous state-owned enterprise that specializes in rail-control technology and provided the signaling equipment for the Wenzhou line. Mr. Ma died of a heart attack a month after the accident.
The Railway Ministry called off the search for survivors after just eight hours and instead concentrated on clearing the wreckage so rail traffic could resume. Workers dug a pit and buried one carriage before investigators even showed up. They were forced to unearth it two days later.
The report, which was posted online, did not address the question of whether the same design flaw threatens the signaling equipment on other high-speed lines. Government sources quoted by a Shanghai newspaper soon after the crash said that the same equipment had been installed at 58 stations and 18 signal-relay stations.
Any acknowledgement of systematic flaws could hurt China’s hopes of exporting its high-speed rail equipment and technology. But customers might also back away if the inquiry is seen as incomplete or a whitewash.
The disaster threw a spotlight on skullduggery in the Railways Ministry, a fiefdom of two million workers that owns the railways it regulates, a stark conflict of interest that experts have repeatedly criticized.
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