My relatives in Florida are decidedly "anti-train", and I expect them to use this tragedy to bolster their argument. But, they've never set foot in China, and therefore fail to comprehend the importance of the rail network to the country.

I'm currently planning on taking a train to Shanghai on Tuesday; hopefully, lightening doesn't strike twice.

My point is, there hasn't been a single death during 47 years of operation of Japan high speed rail. ^

Meanwhile, in such short period of time, already 34 pax died on China CRH.

This speaks for volumes about the reliability, safety of China high speed rail.

Dismissal of Shanghai Railway Division Head and Party Secretary won't solve the issue. It's system failure.

There are some serious flaws especially regarding safety. We haven't seen the worst, yet.

Personally, I like the trains -- and, for Americans, they're somewhat of a novelty given our own avoidance of a modern train network.

That said, they're also a pain in the neck for foreigners to book (especially overnight sleepers), and you sometimes have to rely on others to get them booked (and these reservations sometimes get messed up). Airline tickets are easy these days for foreigners to book, so I often fly instead.

Sorry, I definitely meant "I hope the trains DON'T rely on humans to stop them". It was late last night.

My grandma was struck by lightening and yours wasn't... proves nothing.

Depends on the type of cab signaling system in use.

As the news report indicated, the train driver manually triggered the emergency brake.

Could have been the automatic stop system failed or the system
relies on the driver to stop the train. Didn't appear from the photos
that the train impacted at full speed, the drivers cab was somewhat intact.

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/to...rsrtr2p7lz.jpg

There probably would have been a lot less fatalities if the accident didn't occur
on a 50 ft tall bridge.

From some of videos I viewed on youku.com and photos from news.163.com,
it appeared as though backhoes were burying parts of the train very soon
after the accident happened. Not going to speculate what that could mean.

Most of us here are not anti-trains and not anti-China. And most of us travel to China frequently and understand pretty well how this society works. From what we see, we feel that the Chinese society AT THIS MOMENT may be capable of building lots of stuff in a hurry; but to run the largest high speed and semi-highspeed rail network in the world safely requires more than just money and engineers. It requires a system and a culture.

Seeing how Chinese look at safety - from food production to coal mine to drivers on its brand new expressways - we simply have great doubts, and I think this accident proves, or will prove, us right.

It is way way way way too late if it requires a driver to manually trigger a brake manually on a high speed or semi-highspeed train.

As for the bridge, a lot of the tracks on the high speed rail system are on viaducts or tunnels, so if an accident were to occur, chances of happening on a bridge is not insignificant.

completely agree....it's the people running it that worries me most

These people might have som explaining to do.

http://www.hollysys.com.sg/home/inde...lway-signaling

Hollysys will continue to play a leading role in China�s 300-350km/h high-speed rail market, following our great success in 200-250km/h segment. Hollysys will leverage on this leading position to capture its fair share in China�s unprecedented high-speed rail build-out going forward.

HollySys' Rail Control System solution includes the Automatic Train Protection (ATP), Train Control Center (TCC), Lineside Electronic Unit (LEU), computer interlocking systems, and multi-mode track circuit, etc.

ATP also functions as the last line of defense in safety, as it can trigger emergency break if it detects a danger ahead or potential collision. ATP in combination with TCC provides the crucial control elements in the high-speed railway signaling systems to ensure the safety and reliability of the high-speed railway traffic and operation.

I agree with all this. The prevailing mindset in China at all levels of society and government does not engender confidence in systems that MUST have failsafes and near-perfection of execution to avoid disaster. And too many times, engineers that are on the right track (pun intended) have their concerns over-ridden by bureaucrats and CCP types with differing agendas and financial incentives. My experience with Chinese engineers is that they are overwhelmingly quite conservative and risk-averse. But the people really calling the shots aren't.

As to companies providing goods (even foreign and JV) for private and public projects, I cannot tell you the number of times I've seen perfectly good products go awry in the hands of the Chinese owner/purchaser. Either the wrong product for the job is installed, or installation is flawed or of poor quality, or inadequate testing is done. Don't even get me started on the lack of preventive maintenance and upkeep.

One huge problem in China on physical infrastructure and construction is the very poor quality of the labor pool putting these things together. Even if engineering is decent, the execution during the construction stage is almost always going to be substandard. What passes for Chinese project management is riddled with corruption and incompetency, and the labor pool is primarily unskilled. Even when you see obviously incorrect methodologies, Chinese are notoriously difficult to retrain or upgrade their skills...both for managers and worker bees.

"This is the way we've done it for 5000 years, and we're going to keep doing it this way..."
"Ah, but those laws of physics in China have different characteristics from other countries." (gravity, Bernoulli's principle, etc....hmm, well OK)

Upgrading Chinese companies and their employers technical and especially production management and maintenance capabilities is one of our main business fields in China. And I don't think to be the only FT'er active in this field in the Middle Kingdom.

Often our customers are deep in the provinces, what better way to reach them than by a combination of HS and "ordinary" trains?

There's something about this accident that bothers me that I've not seen addressed: unlike the glitches (fortunately nonfatal so far) on the BJ-SH route, both of these D trains and train routes were not new to the HSR system, but were established services at least for the last couple of years or since D trains have been around. So...what caused this particular accident to happen now?

--Was this track section including signal systems and power supply new, or refurbished as preparation for the rollout of the G's?
--Was either or both of the trains themselves the newer D's?
--Did the schedule just get crammed too full of trains on the route?

My first thought was that the answers to these questions was: No, no, and no. But I'm not knowledgeable on system developments in this part of China over the last few years...maybe another FT'er who frequents those routes is. Could this accident be unconnected but just coincident with the problems on the new HSR line?

It appears that a lot of people on the Chinese internet aren't buying the "lightening strike" theory.

My take is that it doesn't matter why train #1 stopped. The key question is why train #2 didn't stop.

For those that aren't familiar with trains in China, they stack the tracks very heavily (as few as 3 minutes between trains). This is a stark contrast to the Chinese approach to ATC.