It essentially connects Vladivostok with Europe, going through countries like North Korea and China, making the railway even larger than the railway proposed in this article.
The Trans-Siberian railway goes across Siberia, north of China and Mongolia, and is entirely in Russia. A popular variation, though, is the route that branches through Mongolia and terminates in Beijing. This route also connects to Pyongyang, but that's not the TSRW.
The Trans-Siberian Railway is often associated with the main transcontinental Russian train that connects hundreds of large and small cities of the European and Asian parts of Russia. At 9,259 kilometres (5,753 miles),[1] spanning a record 7 time zones and taking eight days to complete the journey, it is the third-longest single continuous service in the world, after the Moscow–Pyongyang (10,267 km, 6,380 mi)[2] and the Kiev–Vladivostok (11,085 km, 6,888 mi)[3] services, both of which also follow the Trans-Siberian for much of their routes. The route was opened by Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovitch of Russia after his eastern journey ended.
Why on earth hasn't this project been started yet? We spend that in a few months in Iraq. We write checks for that and just give them to AIG, GS, and MS.
Seriously, what is going on? Why is our country like this?? When is it going to change? Is it going to change?
Should I just move to china? Seriously. I've considered it. Or India. Or even south america. I continue to ask myself, why do I choose to live in the U.S.? Because I was born here? Is that a good enough reason?
Considering that none of the key technologies exist yet, I find that the cost is very optimistic. The "øresund" bridge linking Denmark and Sweden opened in 2000 at a cost of ~5.5 bln USD. It's 15.9 km = 9.9 miles, or $555 mio/mile. This was a successful project, using very well understood technology by people who just finished building a similar project 150 miles away, finished roughly on time.
A transatlantic tunnel would be 3500 miles, that's 350 times longer. Its completely unknown technology - no-one has ever submerged a vacuum tunnel, and no-one has build a mag-lev that actually goes 4000mph. And they're telling us it can be done for $50 mio/mile, less than a tenth of a regular bridge? I know it doesn't scale linearly, but I'd expect such a tunnel to be more, not less, expensive pr. mile. At the same mile-cost as a bridge, it'd cost $1942 bln.
I did a back-of-an-envelope calculation when this came out a while ago, that if all plane passengers from London to New York (can't remember the number now) were to switch to such a train, tickets would have to cost an average $10.000, one way, to cover 5% maintenance, interest and ROI.
This is not a big deal as an engineering project. It's a lot of expensive track-laying, but the obstacles are not as bad as some already conquered elsewhere.
In the U.S. it'd be politically impossible, but not in other countries, especially not in China. All the other countries have to say is "yes" and they very likely will because it'll be cheaper to transport goods and people between their markets. The Eurail pass will take you nearly anywhere you want to go in Europe for 6 months and $2k. They love trains.
This project and this vision is another nail in the U.S. hegemony coffin.
And that is one of the most worrisome aspects of modern american political culture. What happened to the country that put a man on the moon, that built the interstate freeway system, that made universal telephone and electric service available from sea to sea?
None of those projects could be done today, they require planning horizons of ten years or longer and even if the vision were there would become mired in petty politics and shortsighted penny-wise pound-foolishness.
Done right infrastructure projects create far more economic value than they cost over their lifetime.
Those projects were all before the invasion of the Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower prophetically warned us about. Plus, stocks are traded by households now and are focused on quarterly earnings. Prior to the 50's that was only true just before the great depression and look where we are now...
On the one hand there is evidence of bridge failures, for example. But that's probably a result of poor initial design (i.e., many years ago) or incorrect monitoring and testing, rather than a failure to think long term.
On the other hand, I offer the insanely large (and continually growing) investment in education. That's a long-term view, although a poorly formed one.
Bridges are designed with a lifetime. The wear and tear of weatherization, vibrations, and entropy. The vast majority have no initial design problems. Bridges get old and need to be replaced. A lot were built in the 50s along with the interstate system. Many are coming up to or are past their expiration date.
And for a long time American corporations and people really didn't think in the longterm. Now that we've found out what the real cost of short term gains are there has been a resurgence in thinking local. For example, the locavore movement, popularity of hybrid and electric vehicles, and the healthcare debate can all be considered long term strategies.
I know this is the popular perception. I'm trying to challenge what appears to be an unsupported assumption.
Can you provide specific examples where we know that short-term goals prevailed over those of the long term? In particular, it should address the difference between making mistakes in expectations that resulted in poor long-term performance, as opposed to explicitly choosing to optimize for the short term, or explicitly choosing to ignore the long-term.
Within the US, it'd be easier than going through the Middle East. To get Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Turkey, Poland Germany etc., totaling 17 countries in agreement is a monumental task, exceeding getting Israel and the Palestinians to settle their differences. Then every time China does something that annoys any of the 17 nations, those trains will be held hostage. Yeah, it's a huge challenge, but not because of the engineering.
That said, if it gets built, I'll be rushing to ride it.
I'll preorder my ticket. If it was easier, why hasn't it been done yet? Our rail lines are ancient compared to the rest of the world. We spent too much money on outdated infrastructure for cars and we are about to be leapfrogged. The same thing happened with wireless. Imagine if we had spent that money and energy building something efficient instead of catering to the individual and hugely inefficient cars.
Regarding the politics, you know Russia, Iran, and China are friends right? Turkey needs to do more for their place in the EU. Germany wants a bigger market for its products. Poland can be bought and China will pay more to build the rail than the U.S. will pay to prevent it. Kazakhstan is still trying to shake the Borat image. They are poor and they want to increase their wealth. This is their ticket!
Besides, poland is in the north and they only need one way in so resistance is reduced through parallel resistors.
The U.S. can't even build a fence to keep out immigrants -- not that I think they should.
I wish there was something in the U.S. that was at all exciting. What are we doing?? We're blowing all our cash on guns and we are running out of butter!
I see the assertion that far-flung rail is superior to air or car travel. I've lived in Europe, and while I admittedly used the rail system quite a bit... it was more a matter of economics. With Southwest flying basically anywhere in the nation, why does far flung high speed rail make sense?
High speed commuter rail, sure. Connecting Portland to Seattle? Absolutely.
But we have the most sophisticated flight network in the world. Why is that such a bad thing?
It's not "bad," but trains are better. For example, it's very easy to work on a laptop on a train and very difficult on a plane. At best your bag is under the seat in front of you and cramping you and you get interrupted to take off and land. Outlets are difficult, so batteries die. Trains have plugs and wireless internet, sometimes. It's easier to pack more stuff. The process is easier, no lines to wait in, just get on the train.
17 countries don't have to agree with each other, they just have to agree with China, which doesn't seem so unlikely when China is volunteering to pay for all of it.
They said yes to airlines for the same reason they'll say yes to this project. China paying for it is a big incentive. Imagine if the U.S. told Romania they'd build them an international airport if Romania provided the concrete and iron.
Do you think Romania would say no? Of course not. Saying yes opens up Romania to the world.
Similarly, this rail line opens up europe and asia to a market that will dwarf the west. If they don't say yes, they will be excluded from perhaps the most powerful coalition of countries ever before assembled.
It is definitely not in any country's best interest to say no to this project. Why would they say no?
I kept thinking, "They only have to say yes once, not in perpetuity." But they could shut it down to exert power. There are disputes in eastern europe where gas lines get shut down.
But in this case, their own people are going to be hurt by saying no. The powerful, rich, and elite as well as the common person. Imagine a country shutting down its airports.
Are there risks? Yes. People could die. Trains can crash. Terrorists can kill. But I prefer to make decisions for the upside. There's a lot of upside here. Overall, I think there is more upside than downside. Rails can be repaired if they are blown up. People can't undie, but we can't stop terrorism. We can't stop violence.
And yes, I agree. The U.S. does things that aren't in its best interests all the time. I haven't found much rationality in U.S. politics for over a decade now. Really kind of sad about it.
We can't even get high speed wireless here. I think we are bumping up against the limits of capitalism. Capitalism doesn't think long term. Loans must be repaid. Revenue must be made. But governments don't have time limits. China gets that. China builds huge dams and rail lines and roads up Mt. Everest.
The U.S. funds wars. Something has to change. Something has to change fast or we are going to be displaced and our quality of life is going to continue to deteriorate.
I've personally been to Iran, Russia, and a handful of other ex-USSR countries, and I can't see any real obstacles here. Even those countries in this region that suck at stable government tend to be fairly good at reliable infrastructure; California-style rolling brownouts or Manhattan-type shitty metro cars would be more or less unthinkable here. I'm pretty certain people and politicians alike are ready to embrace this project. In the former Soviet block and in the Middle East alike, especially in Turkey, rail networks still symbolize progress and prosperity like nothing else.
One word: Visas. As it now, you need a transit-visa just to change planes in Moscow. Travelling through, what, 11 countries, each one insisting on confirming the identity of each person entering the country and making sure they exit again? The alternative is sealing people inside the cars, which is what they do on the Kaliningrad-Moscow train that passes through Lithuania and Belarus, but that's logistically problematic, when there are stops in more than two countries.
There are very real political problems to this, and while some of them can be resolved easily, I'd like to remind people that the TGV rail system in France is frequently brought to a halt by protesting farmers who park a tractor on the track. And that's just one country (two if you ask the angry farmers - Paris and the 'real people').
You do have a point there; trains are a lot easier to stop than planes or ships and the visa thing can be a pain here, even with a very good passport. Consider, however, that most countries in this region have a +lot+ of experience with commercial land passenger vehicles going across multiple borders.
I'm in Sofia, Bulgaria right now. There is a daily direct bus connection from here to Tehran. It does take 48 hours but it's safe, it's clean, and it gets me there.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, yes, there will be problems and setbacks, but more likely than not they will find a way eventually.
It's like saying there are roads everywhere around the globe, but not super highways, because it's a huge investment. Therefore you need to be confident it's gonna be used for a long time.
Wow, didn't expect such interest from HN. Seems everyone loves trains. :)
Tangentially, what is it about trains anyway? Seems to me they hit the natural sweet-spot of "comprehensible speed" or speed at a near-human scale: not so fast and distant as to be alien like jets, but fast enough to be interesting. Oh, and stress-free compared to driving.
Have you traveled on trains? It's so much nicer than planes. No security check, no long waits, no cattle herding.
Plus, they are more efficient. They are transportation of the future. The world is going to be going backwards in time as energy becomes more expensive. This means leaving planes and going to trains and wind powered ships. It's already happening.
Plus, it is a national recognition that long term thinking is beneficial. China in this case is a visionary example for the world. I hope the U.S. wakes up soon.
I want to qualify what I'm about to say with the fact that I love love love trains, and have spent significant (1000+) hours riding them.
I think trains, due mainly to speed, have a sweet spot to fill, and a future without air travel is not in the cards. Also, as trains become more popular, they will eventually become subject to the same security hassles as air travel.
So I'm not directly contradicting you. Trains will always be more spacious and allow more freedom to move about and dine in comfort than planes. I think they have a definite role to fill (any trip between 100 miles and 600 miles in length assuming decent speeds of 150mph+). I'm just saying the future is going to be a heterogeneous mix of transportation options.
Of course, if someone builds a train that moves at jet speeds, all bets are off.
yeah, and in china all trains have such checks - but no passport control.
However, the eurostar is nicer compared to many airports. Airports are shopping centers, where they want people to stay and buy things. The longer you stay at airports the more you spend. That is an incentive to have you at airports longer. Whereas many train stations do not have that set-up (although that is changing!). The eurostar used to be easier, because the station at the london end did not have a long way to walk past lots of shops. Now, at the new station there are lots of shops to walk past before you can leave. Still quite nice though in comparison to flying out of gatwick on easy jet ;)
I love trains. Been on them from 30 hour trips across Australia, to the bullet trains in Japan, ones across Germany, France, the Netherlands, China and ones across the UK. Always wanted to do some long trips across china, russia and india... guess I better hurry up before those trains are replaced!
It will be great when the fast networks of europe are joined to the fast networks of asia.
I'd much rather take Eurostar than a plane from Paris <-> London, sure there's security checkpoint but the whole process is far more painless than flying.
Many argue, including Hubert King, that oil is running out. He noticed a bell curve of output and predicted the peak of that output would be right around today. He extrapolated data from single wells, to fields to entire nations, correctly was pretty accurate with his predictions and many petrol geologists think we are at or very near the peak and energy will continue to get more expensive as output declines relative to consumption.
By my math, even at current consumption rates we have just about 30 years of oil left: oil reserves divided by daily consumption. That doesn't include the growth rate of consumption and China and India hardly use anything right now per capita compared to the west.
Thanks for the comment - my question/comment was about their seeming psychological appeal. Yes, they are usually more physically convenient and comfortable, but I believe there's something more to the experience than that. Just wondering aloud what that could be; I've felt more contemplative on trains than I ever recall being on a plane, or while being driven somewhere.
Trains are more roomy and comfortable. You can walk around whenever you want. You can read easily. The noise level is much more bearable. There's less fear of it crashing. It feels faster because the earth is moving by closer.
The smoothness is part of it for me. If planes had no takeoff/landing, no significant banks, and no turbulence, but just straight-ahead, smooth-air cruising, I could see them being decently relaxing.
Stability! No popping ears. Wow... flying is a pretty miserable experience.
If trains were the same price and I could actually use them to get between places, I would never fly. When I was in SF, I couldn't even get from SF to L.A. without having to transfer via bus.
Wow, why all the negativity? This is an awesome project and lots of rational reasons it should go through, but you and other commenters are being so irrationally negative. People in the old days said, "International plane flights will never work. People won't trust flying over the ocean."
This project will happen. It's inevitable. It's the only way people will be able to move between countries when planes are too expensive to fuel.
It's not negativity, it's a dream that I hope one day will be established; people living in peace and traveling to each others countries to learn and trade, enriching and improving each other's lives.
I am being a realist, there are terrorist attacks almost daily in some ME countries and Pakistan. A train packed with tourists and businesspeople is pretty much the same target value to a terrorist as a plane, except you can attack it from the outside much more easily. The prevalence of IEDs and people willing to use them, highly mobile suicide car bombs and the doctrine of certain radical Muslims which allows for moral permissibility of killing fellow Muslims who are "dealing with the enemy" (strains of Wahhabi and Qutbism thinking like Bin Laden's) would make such an attack inevitable.
This "negative" attitude of mine is part of the economic damage that is done to the moderate Muslims of these countries by the extremists. How many tourists have decided not to take a trip to many of these countries? How many businesses haven't been set up? How many skilled workers have fled? It's a massive economic damage these people are inflicting beyond the scope of their deplorable murders.
I think the terrorism threat is overblown. This is going to sound horrible but very few people are killed by terrorists compared to pretty much every other cause of death.
And a lot of the discourse in countries like Pakistan is not pure terrorism but actually the deeper struggles of any authoritarian regime.
Call me a dreamer but I really do hope and think this will happen.
Thank you for saying that. I say the same thing all the time on various websites -- I mean I wouldn't be surprised if you're more likely to be struck by lightning than killed in a terrorist accident. I'm more afraid of getting on the highway.
> I think the terrorism threat is overblown. This is going to sound horrible but very few people are killed by terrorists compared to pretty much every other cause of death.
Between the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the work of intelligence services, we've been successful in keeping jihadist terrorism out of the west for five years now. But the safety we have within our borders here doesn't extend to a 10.000 mile railroad passing through a dozen countries, several of which are anything but politically stable.
I mean, would you take a ride in the countryside of any ME country in a bus with "I'm a rich American/European infidel" painted on the side? Then why do the same in a train?
Not every country in the region is a disaster area like Iraq. Turkey and Egypt are destinations for mass market tourism from Western Europe and Russia - they are full of obvious non-locals in buses and hire cars. Jordan is a popular excursion as well, with even Syria becoming a fairly popular destination.
We've been to both countries loads of times from the UK and have always felt perfectly safe. I've felt safer walking round Cairo than some American cities.
My point isn't that you're not right in those points.
My point is that if trouble arises in either of those places (which isn't unlikely at all, considering a time-span of several decades), a travel advisory is sent out, and tourism to that area ceases temporarily. See Bangkok today, for an example. If that happens to any country on the route, the entire route shuts down.
Fear is an innate human emotion, deeply rooted in our fight-or-flight mechanism. It's a key survival characteristic.
To overcome fear by rational thought is going against nature, and difficult at best. When confronted with violence, it takes almost zen-like concentration to purge the associated fear.
Our susceptibility to fear closely parallels that of hunger, sex, or advertising. The mind is hard-wired to have specific reactions to certain stimuli, and power comes from the ability to impose those stimuli. Terrorism is just one example.
I agree that the solution is to place rational thought above implicit emotional responses. However, the past has taught us that the public's reaction is almost always hysteria rather than logical analysis.
a more salient consideration is the already existing tension between China and India over their border. You cannot currently get between India and China directly by train.
Nonetheless, China says that other countries approached it for help and that is how the idea got started. “It was not China that pushed the idea to start with,” said Wang. “It was the other countries that came to us, especially India. These countries cannot fully implement the construction of a high-speed rail network and they hoped to draw on our experience and technology.”
They're radical, not stupid. Offing a couple of fellow Muslims is one thing. Having both the US and China pissed at you would be an extraordinarily stupid position to deliberately get into. There wouldn't be a cave deep enough to hide in.
Why all the positivity? It's a great project, but it's also a project faced by immense obstacles. If China wants to do this, good on them, and I wish them all the best.
Most of the suggested route go through political volatile areas, such as Iran. Say, they develop the nuclear bomb and NATO decides to bomb and/or invade. Now it's a war-zone and every foreign service in the world advises against travelling there. The link is unusable for 5-10-15 years. Russia frequently has fall-outs with their neighbours to the extend where they shut off gas in the middle of the winter.
But the biggest issue isn't what we know now - it's what we don't know. Such a rail road has a lifespan of decades, if not more. The Train-Siberian railroad is 100 years on. The combined expected volatility over a 100 year period of all the areas the route extends through is extremely high.
Surely trains only make sense when they get you from A to B faster than driving to airport A, flying to airport B and then driving to B. You could be delayed at the airports for a full day and still fly from London to Beijing faster than this train.
Trains are probably better for moving freight, but they don't have to be high speed. Unless JET-A fuel becomes so scarce that aviation is completely uneconomic (highly unlikely with current progress in biofuels IMHO), trains just don't make sense for distances over about 1000kms.
Bring in the security issues, where a large rock is just as dangerous as an IED and it's a non-starter.
Trains (when they work) are a much more pleasurable experience than flying. I prefer trains whenever reasonable because airports are simply nasty and annoying. I spend much more time at airports than I do flying. The security theatre is frustrating and volume and type of stuff one may transport is very limited. The economical argument is volume. Once you have a train line running, it is extremely cheap to transport large volumes of people and goods. Having a train connection would make a lot of travel possible that currently just does not happen due to prices or volume/weight limits. Also, a two day train trip is much less stressing physically than a one day flight. On a train, you can reasonably walk around, interact with people. On a flight, you are mostly bound to your seat except for bathroom breaks.
Time is the major factor for me. The issues I have with air travel are nothing more than minor inconveniences. It's really not that bad. Sure, the comfort of a train is nice but in no way comes close to the convenience of an airplane.
The exceptions are for short distances and when I actually want to take in the sights that a train affords.
Hm, this doesn't really seems to be an attempt to divert passenger traffic from using the planes to some cross-continental HSR. On the other hand, it'd allow China to export much much more goods and much much faster than nowadays with ships [1]. And of course, it would also very much strengthen China's influence in the Middle east and around, as in this area, HSR travel times would be very interesting and provide (in comparison) wonderful connection with China.
You wouldn't travel from China to Europe by train even with this, of course. I wonder what would the Russian response be, as they are quite expected to maintain their strong influence in this region, and this isn't exactly going to support that.
[1] This is already being done, in a rather small scale.
Hard to make it happen politically. India tried something similar, to get gas from Iran in a pipeline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan%E2%80%93I...
The project has been gestating for the last 20 years with no real movement in the progress meter. And similar to what happened with the pipeline, I expect the US to spring roadblocks all over the place. Even if it cannot convince every country, it will convince enough to ensure gaps in the rail line undermining its usefulness.
In January 2010, the United States asked Pakistan to ... abandon its plan ... in order to isolate Iran.
What is an American to think of this? Am I suppose to like it because I'm an American or despise it because it is holding up a better life for humanity?
With China's minimum wage being around US 60c an hour (http://bit.ly/6mDBYz) they are in a much better position to undertake such a labour intensive job as the West.
It is a smart move to receive payment in the form of natural resources as some of the countries involved in the network are economically poor but resource rich. It is likely the countries participating will end up paying a lot more in resources than they would have in cash.
It's my opinion that people are mistaken when viewing the proposal in terms of personal transport. It's not. It's a system designed to fuel China's growing demand for resources, which cannot be transported via air. In the other direction will come a high speed flow of manufactured goods.
For that kind of project it would make sense to develop robotics and other technology that could lower the cost dramatically.
Also, you can't just take the minimum wage from China and multiply with the number of workers, there are many costs added to having that many people in different countries. Food and housing in Germany, for example, are expensive.
Except that sputnik was a proxy for a nuclear weapon. "Look what we can put up above your heads, and there's not a thing you can do about it." High-speed rail doesn't have the same overtones.
Also, connecting 1.5 billion to 700 million is a lot more lucrative than connecting, what, 150 million to 50 million? Nevermind the fact that there are existing high-speed networks to connect with in Europe and China. What a fucking bummer it would be to take a 6 hour train trip from NY to LA then a 6 hour bus from LA to SF.
To get from NY to LA in 6 hours would require a train that averages 410mph.
This is exactly the type of route that trains will not take from planes any time soon. The fastest train in the world is China's maglev that does almost 270mph.
But a trip from LA to SF, or St. Louis to Chicago, or NY to DC, or between any major city in Texas and any other one... that is the kind of route that rail would excel at, provided we had the motivation to build it.
All that said, I don't see the motivation to take a two day train trip from China to London when you could fly it in much less time. I understand the comfort factors and all, but when you are talking that length of time, I think the customer demand is going to be very limited (unless it's significantly cheaper than airfare).
With all the flack airlines and air transport is getting now because of climate change, maybe China can try and sell this is action on that front? Trains are more efficient than airplanes, are they not? (not a rhetorical question)
London to Beijing takes about 9-10 days as of right now. You could easily get that to 5-7 days if you cut out stops (especially between Moscow and Beijing) and if you tripled the average speed of the trains from ~30-40 mph to 90-120 mph... there you go, although the latter part is what requires so much money and engineering.
It's a perspective that no airplane ride will ever give you.