While I would like to be snide and make a comment along the lines of, "So we are supposed to envy this?"I will simply let the story speak instead.
BEIJING (Reuters) - At least 32 people died when a high-speed train smashed into a stalled train in front of it in China's eastern Zhejiang province on Saturday, state media said, raising new questions about the safety of the fast-growing rail network.
The accident occurred on a bridge near the city of Wenzhou after the first train lost power -- possibly after being hit by lightning -- and a following bullet train crashed into it, the official Xinhua news agency said.
State television showed one or possibly two carriages on the ground under the bridge, with another hanging above it. Several other carriages derailed. More than 100 people have been taken to hospital, Xinhua said.
One train was heading from Beijing to the coastal city of Fuzhou, the other was running from Zhejiang provincial capital Hangzhou, also to Fuzhou.
"The train suddenly shook violently, casting luggage all around," Xinhua quoted survivor Liu Hongtao as saying.
"Passengers cried for help but no crew responded."
State television broadcast appeals for people not involved in the rescue effort to stay away, saying they were hampering efforts to get survivors out of the wrecked carriages and to hospital.
The Railway Ministry has ordered emergency safety checks on the country's trains, Xinhua added.
Users on China's popular Twitter-like microblogging service Weibo spread appeals for people to donate blood and help look for lost relatives and friends.
"I'm looking for Lu Haitian who was in carriage 3. Please send along any clues you have!" wrote "Noodle Kung-fu."
Others, though, criticized the safety record of China's much-hyped high-speed trains.
The flagship Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line has been plagued by power outages, leaving passengers stranded on stuffy trains for hours at least three times since opening a month ago.
"China's high-speed trains are rubbish! They have frequent accidents and they've only been in service a few years," wrote "I believe in snow."
"We should learn from Japan. They've been running them for years with no problems."
The government has spent billions of dollars improving the railway network of the world's most populous country and has said it plans to spend $120 billion a year for several years on railway construction.
The Beijing-Shanghai link is the latest and most feted segment of a network the government hopes will stretch over 45,000 km (28,000 miles) by the end of 2015.
But the vast network has been hit by a series of scandals in addition to the safety incidents of the past few months. Three railway officials have been investigated for corruption so far this year, according to local media reports.
In February, Liu Zhijun was sacked as railways minister for "serious disciplinary violations." He had led the rail sector's investment drive over the past decade.
China's last major train disaster was in 2008, when an express train traveling from Beijing to the eastern coastal city of Qingdao derailed and collided with another train, killing 72 and injuring 416 people.
China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp Ltd (CSR) and China North Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp Ltd are the dominant train makers in China.
(Additional reporting by Jacqueline Wong and Jason Subler in Shanghai, editing by Tim Pearce
23 17 46 11
....As fast as China is growing / modernizing, they are far from being without problems. Perhaps they will grow too fast until their bubble bursts....
Then who will make everything we purchase....Wonder if we could..?
It sounds like the murmur of difficuties is getting more noticable of China's reach into the 21th century.
Quentin
I don't know what you are pointing to saying the piece speaks for itself. One thing I wonder about is that we have been told that in Europe they build railsystem--high speed and otherwise--utilizing avoidence safety, i.e.postitive train control, etc. to prevent collisions. Do the Chinese and other Asian (Japan) nations have similar safety systems or are they more like ours?
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Sounds like they have some serious issues with their signaling or serious operator error as Conrial vs Amtrak at Gunpowder.
- Erik
While I would like to say the OP was being snide, I won't:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-as-china-train-crash,0,6683950.story
It is a terrible crash, and seems to be weather-related. Of course, some folks in these forums will use even a tragedy to further their own agendas.
Not sure about Japan, but since the newer Chinese HSR lines (not sure if this one is built at that level) were following Siemens designs for engineering and equipment, they would accident use avoidance, rather than heavy construction, as in Europe.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Or it could be even simpler than that, no power = no brakes. Simple logic states that you don't have to stop if you can't go....
Disclaimer: the above is idle speculation and may or may not be true.
We get hit by lightning all the time, keep right on moving.
Yes, the loss of life is horrible...note how it was very briefly mentioned in the article.
More type lines were given to the official misbehavior of the officers than the people killed.
Life in places like China, India and such is cheap...cheaper than we westerners can grasp.
In truth, I wonder how many workers bodies are mixed into the ROW there....
By the way, I have no agenda to follow, simply the realization that HS rail in the US, outside a few heavily populated corridors, is a waste of taxpayers' money and a political tool to get funding for other projects.
You can't mix freight and HS rail, not in America, not without totally redesigning and rebuilding the entire American railway system, the cost of which would make the dollar amount of the national debt look like a loan on a used car...the TVG fans can dream all they want, but I doubt you will ever see bullet trains crossing the great plains.
Yes, but you do not operate on an electrified line, do you. In the accounts I posted, it seems that lightning stopped the first train.
I do agree with you however. HSR only makes economic sense in fairly short corridors (probably under 500 miles), and as I've been saying, LD trains make no economic sense at all. So no fast trains in the Great Plains.
edblysard We get hit by lightning all the time, keep right on moving.
Well, of course, we all know lightening in China is different than lightenting here.
That was an oblique remark meant to draw note the fact that catenary can be the Achilles heel of electric only... when you take your power plant with you, the worst lightning strikes do is trip the PCS or ground relay.
One would expect the design of any passenger rail, electric or otherwise, the be built to survive a strike.
Aircraft get hit all the time, as do trains.
It is quite apparent that lightening strikes aren't the only things that are the problems in this instance.
Really, such as?
edblysard Really, such as?
Lack of or failure of a fail-safe?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
In all seriousness, I would like to know if the lightning strike was to the catenary, the locomotive or both and what kind of damage it could have caused to stop the train.
Too, it would be interesting to know if the trailing train was also an electric, or conventional powered.
If a catenary was knocked out, wouldn't that also drop power to the trailing train?
The report really skipped the details, although considering the country this happened in, factual reporting is not expected.
Last time I looked at designs for US catenary supports, all the towers had bonded grounding wires and serious ground rods, so a strike to the tower should be harmless, and I would guess, (and it's only a guess) that the power converter on the train would have some sort of safety system also.
I do have a name for a HS train across the plains...
We could call it the "High Plains Drifter".
Aw, come on, that was almost funny....
Basically all we know is that there was lightening according to the report, and that one trains apparently stopped and the other rammed it from the rear. Anything said after that is speculation. Until we know from the Chinese,,,,and that propbably means little...we know nothing.
henry6 Basically all we know is that there was lightening according to the report, and that one trains apparently stopped and the other rammed it from the rear. Anything said after that is speculation. Until we know from the Chinese,,,,and that propbably means little...we know nothing.
I think we will soon know from the Chinese and from all other world news sources what actually caused this wreck.
fog?
(Sorry mods.. I'll go hide now).
Agreed, and thinking they will place blame on human error instead of a system failure.
Zug....leaves, wet leaves on the rail?
edblysard Agreed, and thinking they will place blame on human error instead of a system failure. Zug....leaves, wet leaves on the rail?
Goats eating wet leaves on the rails?
In fog?
I'll get my coat....
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
An electromagnetic anomoly....definately an electromagnetic anomoly....
A lot of people put China on a pedestal as an example we should follow, and at the same time they demonize U.S. corporations and our lifestyle. Now we have China building our San Francisco-Oakland bridge. Officials crow about the proficiency of the Chinese ability to produce the bridge and suggest that the project would be beyond the capability of U.S. contractors. So it does seem like there is a bit of a disconnect between what China actually does and how some praise them. In this linked article, the author says that China has built a high-speed rail network that is the envy of the world.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8602786/New-San-Francisco-bridge-built-in-China-to-be-shipped-to-US.html
Another example of how China can do no wrong in the minds of many:
In the U.S., experts tell us we must outlaw the burning of coal to reduce global warming. And the same experts tell us that global warming has been slowed because of all the coal that China burns.
So, when the U.S. burns coal, it threatens the planet. When China burns coal, it protects the planet.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/38310
Let's Speculate! It's fun.
We know most all "Bullet trains" are electrically powered, you need 12 to 18 thousand HP.
The surge of a lightning strike COULD trip the "on board" breakers in the locomotive power unit without shutting down the catenary. It's the saging wires in the Non-Constant Tension Catenary sections of the line that plagues Amtrak.
1. Was the "headway dispactching" too close?
2. Why didn't the cab signals drop from Clear to Approach in the following "Block"?
3. Were the "Signal Blocks" long enough for High Speed Train stopping?
4. Why didn't an Automatic Train Control take over.
5. Who did China copy (and maybe improve on), U.S., Japan, Europe? We know the Amtrak "Acela Train Sets" (20 of them) had to meet American Safety and Crash Standards and this reinforcement added much weight as well as speed restrictions to them
6. It looks like it hit at a slower speed, being on a bridge make it worse. Was it breaking? --- was it a Stop & Proceed Restricted vision problem? --- did the stalled train overlap two blocks?
Don U. TCA 73-5735
New count 43 dead 200+ injured. No wait for cause determination fired 3 officials.
Passenger count 900 on first 500 on second train.
http://news.yahoo.com/toddler-found-alive-rubble-china-train-crash-121137102.html
5. Who did China copy (and maybe improve on), U.S., Japan, Europe?
As mentioned before, most of the engineering and equipment design originally came from Germany. Siemens and Germany (Kanzlerin Merkel) registered complaints about design copying by China earlier this year.
Bucyrus A lot of people put China on a pedestal as an example we should follow, and at the same time they demonize U.S. corporations and our lifestyle. Now we have China building our San Francisco-Oakland bridge. Officials crow about the proficiency of the Chinese ability to produce the bridge and suggest that the project would be beyond the capability of U.S. contractors. So it does seem like there is a bit of a disconnect between what China actually does and how some praise them. In this linked article, the author says that China has built a high-speed rail network that is the envy of the world. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8602786/New-San-Francisco-bridge-built-in-China-to-be-shipped-to-US.html
I don't think it's that we put China on a pedestal - but the fact that they are actually building infrastructure while we sit and watch ours crumble.
Many words....little information.
blue streak 1 New count 43 dead 200+ injured. No wait for cause determination fired 3 officials. Passenger count 900 on first 500 on second train. http://news.yahoo.com/toddler-found-alive-rubble-china-train-crash-121137102.html
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Guys- Can you help me out, and try to keep this civil and railroad oriented? Thanks
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Something to think about.
Japan's original Shinkansen route started operating 47 years ago. In that time there have been NO passenger fatalities due to derailments or collisions. One passenger received fatal injuries from a closing automatic door. Deliberate suicides have also occurred.
The only other unintentional fatality was the driver of a small vehicle who managed to get onto the right-of-way.
It doesn't surprise me that the Chinese are paying more public attention to finding somebody to blame than to casualties or rescue efforts. Don't forget that `Face' is all-important to that culture.
Chuck
As I mentioned earlier, Europe, and at least Japan, work with sophisticated avoidence systems that apparently work. We build bigger and faster and heavier stuff costing lots and lots of money but don't want to put a dime in things like positive train control. Evidently the Chinese have learned something from our rail system.
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