Coming Soon!
2011-08-11 07:59:31 China Daily
According to the Ministry of Railways, during the initial stages, trains with a top design speed of 350 kilometers per hour will be lowered to 300 km/h, and the trains designed to run up to 250 km/h will operate at 200 km/h.

The rails whose speed was previously raised to 200 km/h will be scaled down to 160 km/h. Ticket prices will also be reduced

Should do wonders for the railway ministry's finances. To require govt bailout is glorious?

Govt has always been subsidizing rail service, way before HSR came along. It will just subsidize it some more, at least for a good long while. Right now I think their customer service priority is restoring confidence in the HSR part of the system and increasing ridership of same. Even before the accident, the ticket prices were just too high for most Chinese after they looked at the value-time-convenience tradeoffs. Chinese gov't is committed and has no choice but to fix the system and figure out how to move forward with HSR, as there's no turning back and dismantling the whole thing.

I find the rail too slow to begin with... and now they want to make it slower. Hurry up and get richer chinese people.

• High-speed trains running on lines between Beijing and Tianjin, and between Shanghai and Hangzhou, will run at 300 km per hour instead of 350 km per hour

• Lines that run at 250 km per hour will be cut back to 200 km per hour, including high-speed rails between Hefei and Nanjing, Hefei and Wuhan, Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan and other lines.

• CRH (China Railway High-speed) trains that operate at 200 km per hour will be reduced to 160 km per hour

Ticket prices will be reduced by 5 percent on the affected lines,


That's really going to fill them up:D:td:

While the 5% price cuts are meaningless (perhaps, I'll use the y25 I save to buy a Big Mac Meal), the trains will fill up, simply because they exist. Company bosses won't tolerate, "the train is dangerous" rhetoric for more than three months... remember, China is operating on the "dog years" premise.

They should offer a huge discount, fill them up.
Claiming some kind of spin on 60th Anniversary PRC.

Then tout how they are
at full capacity. New riders would then become accustomed to the
high speed and convenience and not want to switch to alternatives when
they raise back up for the HSR ticket prices.

Early Friday morning (GMT) Reuters reported:
"China's second-biggest train maker will recall 54 bullet trains used on the new showcase Beijing-Shanghai line for safety reasons, the firm said on Friday, dealing a fresh blow to the nation's scandal-plagued rail system."

Anyone in China able to see the new schedules? Are there any G trains left on this line? What will be the new Beijing-Shanghai transit time?

Lower prices ^
Higher safety ^
Lower speeds :td:

Though I take safety over speed, I'm glad I got my few 350 km/hr rides in while it lasted (and didn't derail).

Keep in mind though, it was a D train that derailed. I've never been on one of those going faster than probably 160 km/hr.

Just saw this in the CD:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2...t_13097144.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2...t_13101354.htm

Ok…looks like down from 88 pairs to 66 pairs of trains, with fastest still being under five hours.

http://english.eastday.com/e/110812/u1a6048848.html

The trains have no problem to run at max speed, they aren't going to
fly off the tracks. They will derail when you plough into a stalled
train on the line.

http://www.bearcanada.com/graphics/s...les/hsr009.jpg

China Recalls Bullet Trains
A manufacturer has recalled 54 bullet trains in China due to faulty sensors that cause them to stall. The trains have reportedly stalled 40 times since July, sometimes because a door was left ajar or someone smoked in the bathroom. The recall comes just a month after a deadly bullet-train crash killed 40 people and sparked widespread accusations that the trains had been developed too quickly. Authorities say the July crash occurred when lightning caused one train to stall and faulty sensors allowed a second train to keep moving on the same track and collide with it.

Ok, I'm glad I rode at 351 and didn't hit any trains stopped on the tracks. ;)

The reason nobody has run high-speed rails at over 300 km/h commercially (despite the ability to test-drive the trains to 400-450 km/h) is not only the ability for the train to run fast, but the wear and tear it does on the train tracks, the wheels, the suspensions, the joints, etc. You get the idea, and I'm only talking about hardware here. On the software side (which is the primary reason that caused the Wenzhou accident), the sensors, the signals, the anti-collision systems, etc. it's complication exponentially grows here.

This is why the world was very surprised when China claims to breakthrough (that no one else, with decades of high-speed experience, was able to) and run trains at 350 km/h commercially.

I truly believed China is using Wenzhou accident as a wake-up call to really check not just their trains (although also one particular model so far), but more importantly their tracks and software. The primary reasons for speed reduction, again, is not that those trains can't run fast, but is it safe to run that fast.

Personally, as high-speed enthusiast, I am personally upset by this. I was really looking forward to the real super train, China's much hyped 380 km/h model that it plans to roll out by 2014. But now, I have to settle at 300 km/h and 200 km/h (D-car).... yuck!

I'd say the basic problem is the poor state of vocational training and education in China. Mao did a troughout job to destroy and root out any remaining artisanal and industrial culture and tradition during his reigning period.

At the moment, nobody respects manual/physical labour in China. The same in Russia, btw. But then this is precisely what has made countries like Germany, Japan and Switzerland prosper. One cannot be succesful by trading, investing and gambling alone.

Well said. There is little to no culture of Quality and pride of workmanship in today's China. However, I'm not sure that it was ever there, even pre-Mao. The Chinese are more of culturally attuned to "do the minimum required to slide by" rather than the exacting quest for precision a la the Japanese and the Germans. I'll add to the thought that the problem is not just the vocational training/labor, but also management attitude. The best labor in the world is going to be hobbled if the management is inept or willfully corrupted by other incentives/motivations. But with good management, specific labor-workforce issues can be addressed over time.

They should have factored in the maintenance costs, before boasting about their high speed capabilities.

Like a dragster, you have to rebuild the engine after each race.

God forbid they attempt to build commercial airliners.

[QUOTE=jiejie;16921833]Well said. There is little to no culture of Quality and pride of workmanship in today's China. QUOTE]

That's not what Wal-Mart buys.

Perhaps that speaks more to the culture/strategy of Wal-Mart, and the mentality of people who shop for goods there at outlets abroad.

But Wal-Mart is not the only purchaser of Chinese goods. And not all Chinese goods are consumer-oriented nor even destined for retail trade. In my profession, I deal strictly with commercial/industrial products which need to perform--as in safety of a lot of people can be on the line if something fails. When safety is not an issue, economic cost of replacing substandard products (and installation) is always a threat. And it is definitely a challenge in many categories, to find Chinese-made products of suitable quality. For many types of products, turning to specific foreign joint-venture factories and/or going imported is currently the only reliable strategy.

In keeping with issues of Flyertalk direct interest (and to another post above), China is producing a commercial aircraft--this is an industry they BADLY want to get into in a big way. So far, the aircraft is primarily destined for the domestic market, with some for export to developing countries. However, in the coming years it should be easy to avoid these in favor of Boeings and Buses on the flight schedules, if one is alert. I'm not so thrilled with the thoughts that certain parts are being produced in China for Airbus and Boeing, and airlines are outsourcing maintenance to China.

One of my clients is an Airbus supplier with factories in France and China. Having visited both, I can assure you that they are nearly impossible to tell apart. Becoming an authorized Airbus/Boeing supplier is no easy task (requires a year+ certification process).

Is?

They haven't delivered a single passenger jet.

When I step into an Apples store in China at first I can't tell the ones in China and USA apart either. Until I started to talk with the staff and do some maintenance with my gadgets, that's when the night and day differences started to kick in (attitude, knowledge, professionalism, etc.)

Again, the problem with China is never the hardware, but the software (including human resources and its "working culture")

China has been producing the MA60, a commercial turboprop regional aircraft, for a number of years. Interestingly, the few Chinese airlines that have them mostly just park them. Perhaps they know something we don't. :eek: Some are in use outside China. Admittedly, this is not a jet.

China would like to get into larger jet aircraft of its own, though production of Airbus 320 in China has already been done, from components sourced from various places. So I guess validity of the comment "they haven't delivered a single passenger jet" depends on how you want to interpret the situation. ;)

"Never" is a mighty big word, and in this usage inaccurate. Of course there are problems with hardware as well as software and operations. Sometimes both in the same product.

The new schedule for the Jinghu line is out and I like it. In particular, G3/4 do the run in 4:48 (single stop in Nanjing) and leave in the afternoon (much better than 8/9a).

"Final assembly" by a couple hundred Chinese managed by an equal amount
of Airbus foreign employees doesn't come close to "production" in China.

More like a token gesture to get more orders in the largest emerging
market.

This is similar to the point I was attempting to make in post 182. The airbus supplier I referenced carries a heavy expat staff that doesn't cut corners. In fact, from my perspective, the Chinese factory is more efficient than their facilities in France and Morocco. Meanwhile, my cousin is working on the new BMW plant in Shenyang. Based on his descriptions, that is an air tight ship; the fact that the worker bees are Chinese (as opposed to German) matters not in his opinion.

Yes, many Chinese managers have a heavy tendency to try to cut material and machinery etc. costs beyond safety levels. In effect, replace existing materials with cheaper but unreliable ones and/or neglect using latest production technology due to high operation costs.

Also, quite a few Chinese company owners view joint ventures and FDI only as means to channel money into their own and family accounts. The goal is often not to really set up a long or even medium term partnership but to use the age old strategems to relieve the foreign investors of their cash and then move on to the next victim.

On the other hand, you still get companies in Korea where the first thing the owner does after receiving an investment is to buy a plane ticket to an undisclosed location and disappear with the money.

Don't doubt the facilities are spotless, the workers are diligent, the end product exceeds expectations.

A classic example...The Penisula Hotel Hong Kong.

Coincidentally this is where I spend my work weeks. The air tight ship is probably the portions that are managed by westerners. Some of the areas managed locally, might be described at best as leaking.

Yes, this is a good point.

Previous posts have trotted out examples some of the big foreign names that are producing in China, but it's disingenuous to represent those examples as indicative of the current state of Chinese product manufacturing as a whole. We must remember that in the entire Chinese Production Universe, the overwhelming majority of products are cranked out by completely local enterprises without managerial involvement of the Fortune 500.

Furthermore, when decent products come out of factories, even WFOE or joint venture enterprises, it is usually because of training and quality control, and frankly, a good dose of continuous @ss-kicking by foreign managers. In other words, top-down. I have yet to see a major enterprise in China produce quality goods on the strength of bottom-up cultural tendencies of the average individual. And in China, the average individual worker or manager is not perfection-driven (a la the Japanese), but rather to do the minimum possible to "get by" or to solve a problem with a quick-fix short term solution that may have serious long-term consequences.

Haier
Lenovo

good quality..

Your definition of "good quality" is different than mine! I would use these products in China if I had to (i.e. provided to me by a landlord or company), but I would not choose these if putting out my own cash and particularly not for something outside China.

You might already be putting out your cash and not know it.

Haier makes freezers for GE, Kenmore, some units for Maytag and Amana.
Also small appliances, such as microwaves and wine coolers labeled with
other brand names.

Can't speak for USA purchases since I haven't bought this sort of stuff there in 15+ years. But in China I've had good luck with Siemens and LG fridges and washers, Ariston and Valenti for cooking, and Braun & Philips for small appliances. Whatever not imported from outside China directly, was produced inside in a JV factory. A landlord once stuck me with a TCL Chinese television and I suffered with that POS for 6 months until I switched apartments (and landlords) and stepped up to the Japanese-branded widescreen. ^

Haier is probably the best of the Chinese appliance bunch, and are rumored to give decent after-sales manufacturer servicing if needed (this is from secondhand reports only). But they certainly are no Liebherr.

Korean brand for me
 

The refrigerator in my house died on me two days ago. After reading what you all were saying about appliances manufactured in China, I purchased a Samsung refrigerator. I specifically avoided any brands that might have been made in China.

I'd bet my bottom dollar that at least 50% of your refrigerator's components were made in China. There's a reason that ALL of the major Korean companies are heavily investing in China.... actually, there are multiple reasons; increasingly, the "market is too big to ignore" argument trumps the "cheap labor" argument.

Don't doubt the entire product was made in Suzhou plant.:p

Established in 1995, Suzhou Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SSEC) is Samsung's largest overseas production base for white goods (air conditioners, refrigerators, microwaves and washing machines).

Samsung to recall 32,000 refrigerators in China
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90...0/6807603.html

Suzhou Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Number of Shipments (Jul 01, 2007 – Aug 17, 2011):
2,246 shipments to Samsung US - LA port

Commodity:
1400 Pce Refrigerator Rf217 Acbp/Xaa S/C 8276892 A11 To Dr 5 X40 Hq 1400 Pce Refrigerator Rf217 Acbp/Xaa S/C 8276892 A11 To Dr 5 X40 Hq 1400 Pce Refrigerator Rf217 Acbp/Xaa S/C 827...

Doh!
 

I bought the 25.8 cu foot French door model from Lowes, the highest rated French doors style on the market. There's probably no way to find out how much, if any, of the components came from China. I hope it was at least assembled in S. Korea. It's being delivered next Monday and I'll look at the paperwork that comes with it. I payed for it with AX which will double the 1 year warranty to 2 years, so if it turns out to be a POS I'll send it back to Lowes.

http://www.samsung.com/us/appliances/refrigerators

This thread has gotten way off topic, but is interesting though.