China Is Planning To Build The World's Fastest Bullet Train

China's bullet trains will be able to travel at 236 miles or 380 km an hour by 2012.

China is planning to build the world's fastest bullet train, to link Beijing with the financial capital Shanghai.

In a sign the country's ambitions to go faster, higher and bigger have not been dimmed by the end of the Olympics, the Ministry of Railways says it is raising the speed it intends the new line connecting the cities to reach when it opens in 2012.

New technology will enable trains to travel at 380 km or 236 miles an hour, 30 km per hour (18mph) more than the current generation of bullet trains, according to the ministry's deputy chief engineer, Zhang Shuguang.

"It is possible that we can start to manufacture 380 km/h trains in two years' time, and put them into service on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway," he said, according to state media.

The high-speed line from Beijing to Shanghai has been an on-off project for several years, but work finally began in April.

Officials have been torn between improving the extensive and reliable but slow services linking cities across the country and building high-tech lines between major cities. But they have also been encouraged by the initial success of the bullet train that since July has reduced journey times from Beijing to the nearest port at Tianjin to just half an hour.

With China's two most important cities separated by 1,318 kilometres or 819 miles, the new line will be the longest high-speed railway to be built in one go in the world.

The Tianjin route uses 350 km/h trains relying on technology imported from the German engineering giant Siemens. A local company is building up production to 50 trains a year by next year to service both the Tianjin and Shanghai lines.

But Mr Zhang said China's own engineers had "mastered" the technology sufficiently to upgrade the trains' speed further.

The extra would be sufficient to cut the journey time from five hours as currently planned to four hours, compared with current 10-12 hours. The difference would make the rail route competitive with the current two-hour flight time once check-in times were taken into account.

While France’s famous high-speed train, the TGV, broke its 17-year-old world speed record in 2007 when it hit a top speed of 357.2 mph or 574.86 kph , it only maintained that speed for a short period. The Chinese trains would be designed to travel at top speeds for much of the journey in order to cut its duration.

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China has always been ambitious when it comes to grand projects. It has just staged the most expensive Olympics ever and unveiled the tallest TV tower in the world. Now, it's working on building the world's fastest train.

Presenter: Lily Yan
Speakers: Author and former researcher on China's transportation Gu Jianqing

YAN: China's economy has been accelerating, so have its trains. China's first super fast train was launched only a month ago to transport Olympic players and spectators between Beijing and the co-host port city of Tianjing. The 350km-per-hour bullet train travelling over 400 kilometres each way has made the nation proud.

RESIDENT: It's an honour we have been looking forward to. It has drawn attention all over the world.

YAN: But it's not stopped there. The construction for an even faster train and a new rail link is already underway. Once it's completed in four years time, it will carry passengers between Beijing and Shanghai in a staggering 380 kilometres per hour through its 1300 km journey, cutting the travel time between these two megacities from 12 to 4 hours. Lee from China's Ministry of Railway has no doubt it will be a big boost for the local economy.

LEE: We are investing in this mainly for developing the economy. This is the most important reason for building these super fast train lines.

YAN: But critics say what China really needs are more railway connections to and within remote and undeveloped regions where train lines are still scarce. Super fast trains connecting affluent cities can only increase the wealth gap between the regions. But Gu Jianqing, a former researcher on China's transportation and an author of various books on China's railway development has applauded the building of fast trains in China.

GU: Time means money. It is correct to develop fast trains between wealthy cities first. Furthermore, it would not contradict with the railway development in remote areas where they only need traditional raillines. China is a big country and situations are different in different areas. They require different types of transportation.

YAN: Gu Jianqing is impressed by the progress made by the Ministry of Railway. He says the fast train development in China has come a long way.

GU: Back 10, 15 years ago, nobody would have believed China would be able to build the fastest train in the world by 2012. Most of the trains in China can only travel 60 to 80 km per hour, and that's the speed limit they had to travel within due to safety concerns. Sure, Japan, Germany and France have had the technology for a while, but for China to absorb, learn and master this technology, all of us thought it would take much longer time.

YAN: But it is not all rosy for China's ordinary people. A purposely built super fast train terminal in Beijing--Beijing South train station has caused much controversy since its opening a month ago. Locals complain the roads leading to the station are blocked and buses are re-routed without much public notice. And there are also ticketing problems and poor customer service for passengers riding on the fast trains between Tianjing and Beijing. But nothing will stop China's ambitious plans of building and expanding its super fast train networks, and Guo Jianqing says it's not just for the economy.

GU: These long term investment will suffer a loss at first, or for a long time. Sometimes it's difficult to judge a project purely based on its profit and loss, more importantly we need to look at its social benefits, not just economic ones.