The thunder and lightning show was incredible just when the accident happened. Our building rocked everytime thunder stuck nearby. Our lights were flickering on and off. My computer APC turned on a couple of times. Rain was also very intense. Most intense I have seen thus far in China.

We had friends over and we are in dicussion now if that huge bang was not thunder but maybe it was the crash.

A local friend who was with us exclaimed, "there is something huge happening. The cars that are going passing by are not the normal emergency cars but they are state internal security police cars."

Going to walk to the site of the accident today.

Supposedly, the high-speed trains are all networked together and broadcast their speed & location, so that trains behind the malfunction-train would be notified. Conductor not able to see the problem ahead and slow down is also troubling. Seems combination of human + systemic error.

Terrible news to hear. Wonder if China has a NTSB like entity that will do a public review of the accident. Safety is clearly a concern with HSR but even the slow stuff in the US has problems.

Yesterday afternoon, Amtrak suspended all traffic between Boston and NY. Apparently a truck ran off a road and knocked down power lines serving the NE corridor. No power or signals but fortunately no train accident. So things can happen that the train operators have no control over.

In 47 years of history of Japan High Speed Rail, 新干线， there has not been a single death. ^^

In such a short period time, China CRH sucks, big time.

BAD news. (shudder) Healing prayers for the affected.

Terrible tragedy for China for a system that had (and still does have) such promise. Perhaps this will make some question the wisdom of relentlessly pushing to go from nothing to " biggest, tallest, fastest" in the world in the shortest time possible.

It will be interesting to see if ridership drops long term as a result. Will also be interesting to see what official's number is up because of this.

Reports coming in foreigners also lost their lives in this tragedy.

While I find it impossible to defend the MOR at this particular juncture, I'm not sold on your logic (premises don't necessarily support conclusion).

[QUOTE=moondog;16785227] I'm not sold on your logicQUOTE]

Logic is based on published reports.
You have a big mouth...you eat crow!

MOR spokesman, Wang Yongping,

"The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway and Japan's Shinkansen line cannot be mentioned in the same breath, as many of the technological indicators used by China's high-speed railways are far better than those used in Japan's Shinkansen" "The intellectual property rights of China's high-speed railways are undoubtedly mastered by China itself".

Shinkansen with Chinese characteristics = out of power and off the rails?

I'm sure that whatever Intellectual Property the Chinese possess, that allows established and workable foreign high-speed rail technology to be converted into a system of power failures and derailments, will be eagerly copied by other nations....Not.

Its too much effort to copy.

How much that cost? I need good price.

If its cheap price, there will be buyers.

Chinese companies routinely underbid western/japanese competitors with ~50% prices and low-cost financing to get the export deal. Would not be surprised if China Rail companies do the same for foreign bids, and some countries bite.

Before this accident, all high-speed rail trains were already losing money on every operating schedule (except inaugural Beijing-Shanghai train) because of low ridership due to high prices vs. regular trains. This is a financial blackhole that media reports indicate exceed 2 trillion RMB debt by 2011 (and over 100 billion RMB interest payments annually). With this accident affecting ridership confidence on quality perception, wonder how the rail network will achieve break-even operations.

You are thinking like an American, with everything having to fit a certain financial profile. Wonder no more. China's rail network is not intended to achieve break-even operations--regardless of what might be trotted out for public consumption. Even before the introduction of high-speed rail, the system was always heavily subsidized. Similar to systems in other countries, passenger rail in China is considered an essential public service and subsidies are considered acceptable. If there is a country anywhere with a rail system that pays for itself 100%, I'd like to know about it.

I believe the perception fallout from this accident and recent spate of other troubles on the BJ-SH line will be relatively short-lived. A more long-lasting problem is the perception that the fares are just too high. Chinese won't and can't abandon the rails, as there are also issues (price, convenience, access, etc.) with other long-distance transportation modes. But there is a lot of legitimate griping that high-speed rail is shoving other slower but cost-effective options aside completely on many routes.

It seems to me that some American FTers have, way before this incident, decided that trains and especially highspeed ones are just not a viable transport system and should be bashed at every opportunity.

So would China be able to build up a transport system based only on domestic flights and private cars like in the US? How would that kind of decision affect the Chinrse society?