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California consults with China about high-speed rail

Chinese government offers high-speed rail expertise for U.S. projects.

By Katy Rank LevSun, Apr 11 2010 at 10:33 AM EST
 5

TRAIN TECH: China boasts commuter trains capable of traveling over 200 mph. (Photo: kanegen/Flickr)
As the United States attempts to improve and expand commuter rail services, our nation once again looks to China for assistance in building these railways. According to an article in the New York Times, the state of California might enter an agreement with China to supply the technology, equipment and engineers to help build high-speed rail lines.
 
The Times reports that China is eager to "become a big exporter and licensor of bullet trains traveling 215 miles an hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced past the United States in the last few years." The nation has already sold their technology to countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Additionally, China is willing to help pay for the upgrades. The U.S. has entered discussions with other nations (including Japan, Germany, South Korea, Spain, France and Italy) to purchase rail equipment, but the Times reports that the Chinese offer shows "no apparent weaknesses" and seems attractive to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 
If California were to enter an agreement with the Chinese rail ministry, the state would still face many obstacles to the project, including immigration laws and labor unions. Zheng Jian, China's railway ministry chief planner and director, has built a reputation for fast completion at low cost, according to the article. Skeptics of the plan, however, feel the pressure to "buy-American" will pose a serious challenge to the project.
 
General Electric, which builds diesel locomotives but not generally electric, high-speed trains, told the Times that 80 percent of the components of the new trains would come from American suppliers and the final assembly would take place in the U.S. The deal would primarily involve licensing the technology and "supply engineers as well as up to 20 percent of the components" of the trains.
 
According to the Times, the plan proposes to use a closed Toyota assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., for the assembly project for the rail parts that would arrive in the port at Oakland.
 
California plans to spend $2.25 billion in federal economic stimulus dollars for a rail route connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles, according to the article, and proposes to open the line in 2020. The total project would cost nearly $43 billion, and China is in a position to lend money for the rail project.
 
Its successful completion could lead to future lines extending to Sacramento and San Diego, with hopes of a line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Zheng told the Times he felt confident that China's technology could be effective in other routes, like the current Amtrak routes to between New York and Chicago (which take about 19 hours). Similar routes in China take about 10 hours currently and will take only four with the completion of China's own high-speed rail projects.
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Related Topics: Green Commute, Research & Innovation, Train & Rail

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anonymous
frank 04/20/2010 21:46 PM

If China is automatically disqualified, why is arnold sending people over there to evaluate the possibility?
And if China has no technology , how is it the trains they produce run faster than the french or japanese ones?
And how is it that they are able to now have over more than half the world's high-speed rail network?
And if they are stealing technology from the germans, why are the Germans teaming up with them on the Saudi high-speed rail
project?Looks like the.... More

anonymous
InvisibleMan 04/12/2010 17:06 PM

China has no chance of winning the bid, because they don't have high speed train technology themselves; they are running imported high speed train models from Japan, Germany, and France themselves.

What Chinese are offering in California is their high speed train model currently under development with technology obtained from licensed production of said foreign train models, which only exist as a computer model. All the other bidders from Japan, Germany, France, Canada, and Korea are.... More

anonymous
Sean 04/12/2010 15:16 PM

The US no longer has the knowledge on how to build electric high speed rail. All the engines in the US are diesel powered. To get electric powered and fast engines, China is the one we will have to buy it from. Every other country's engine is slower.

anonymous
bob 04/12/2010 15:15 PM

Its not workers the US is importing, its the engineers. YOu can't get Americans employed on the project if there's very few American who know how to do the engineering.

anonymous
k. Nelson 04/12/2010 14:20 PM

Why with the great unemployment in the USA and particularly in CA would we look to China to build our high speed rail? Let's get Americans employed on such projects. Look what Eisenhower did with our Interstate highway project.

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