Subscribe to RSSLondon To Beijing By Rail In 2 Days!
It sounds like fantasy but it’s a nice dream, if it never actually happens. And you never know.
China has come up with a plan to run its 320kph high speed trains connecting all over the world, meaning you would board in London today and be in Beijing in two days.
Faster than a plane trip.
Here’s the good part.
China is talking of paying to build the rail line through Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia.
In return. it gets a way to get its goods around the world and transport raw materials.The main line would link London with Beijing via Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev, St Petersburg, Moscow, Astana in Kazakhstan and Khabarovsk in Russia’s far east.
The train would go on from Beijing to Singapore, and connect to India and Pakistan. Complementary lines would go to Turkmenistan, Iran and India or Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Now how do we get a connection between Australia and NZ as well?
Actually, if China is in an extra generous mood, a few of those fast trains for Auckland would be appreciated.
ALSO:
Video of China’s new high-speed train
Undersea transport tunnel between South Korea and Japan and possibly between Korea and China
12 Comments
Yeah right.
Sorry, but this will quickly move into the history like Swissmetro and other interesting rail projects that are doomed by their own megalomania. If they are serious about stuff, they should start funding something that is big, but not ridiculous.
They are funding something huge Max, they’re own HSR project, the largest in history…
“China has come up with a plan to run its 320kph high speed trains connecting all over the world, meaning you would board in London today and be in Beijing in two days.
Faster than a plane trip.”
Faster than a plane trip? Not by a long shot. Just looking at a departure on the 1st of April, and a return on the 8th, British Airways has LHR-PEK as 9h55, and PEK-LHR as 10h55. Air China has LHR-PEK as 10h15, and PEK-LHR as 11h15. If you feel like going via Dubai with Emirates , then LHR-DXB-PEK is 14h10 of combined flight time, plus an 11 hour stop over. PEK-DXB-LHR is 16h combined flight time, plus a 2h15 stop over.
I’m intrigued to know how much this proposal is targeted at passenger traffic, and how much at “goods” and “raw materials” - not traditional HSR markets. I’m also intrigued to know how the economics stack up against air transport, which I had always understood to be more economically viable over the distances involved here.
Jet-lag now. Rail-lag in the future?
It will probably take more time to go through customs than travel! @Nick M, motive has to be about trade . The old colonial sailing ship idea that if you rule transportation to get your goods around the world, you win the war and rule the world economically.
Yes I was wondering how a 320km/h train could be faster than a 1000km/h aircraft!
A plane from China to the UK is a few hours, not two days.
@Geoff I must have been thinking of Auckland train delays, not planes!
the thing about the plane vs train speed was in some other reports on this I read the top speed of the new high speed trains is approaching the same speed as some (slow) aeroplanes. Not to say that its getting anywhere near a wide-bodied jet.
Also I’ve been on cross-border trains overseas and the customs experience is much the same as with air travel. The difference would be that the train itself would be kept in a “sterile” area at through stations so you wouldn’t need to arrive in a country until your destination.
China already has trains like this between Hong Kong and a few mainland cities like Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai. Though not as fast as being proposed.
@joust have you been on those fast Tokyo trains and been to China recently?
The one I took from Hong Kong to Guangzhou wasn’t very fast, though they claimed 160kph I’m pretty sure it never reached that speed.
I wonder how they are going to sort out the gauge problem..
(long time reader, first time poster)
@millsy Welcome! That’s a very good point.