China eager to bring bullet train expertise to Canada
Ontario has barely begun sketching out plans for a high-speed rail corridor, but China is already jumping at the chance to bring its technological prowess to Canada – even suggesting it would swap its rail know-how for natural resources.
China is eager to expand trade with Canada and improve its image, particularly following the backlash to the billions its state energy companies have invested in Canadian oil and gas. Now it has set its sights on Ontario, which is studying the viability of bullet trains as one of a raft of potential new transit projects.
High-speed rail in Canada would take many years to come to fruition – and may well never happen, given decades of failed attempts. China, however, is so eager to participate that its ambassador to Canada is already lobbying to be involved in building a 370-kilometre Toronto to Windsor corridor – potentially one of the largest infrastructure projects in Ontario’s history.
Luo Zhaohui, the ambassador, expressed China’s interest in discussions in December with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who is said to have been impressed after riding the fast trains in China last fall. Mr. Luo offered Ms. Wynne Chinese assistance with designing, building and operating such a line, said an Ontario government official who has knowledge of the meeting but is not authorized to speak publicly about it.
China’s pitch has piqued interest. Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said Ontario, which has never built high-speed rail before, is happy to discuss China’s proposal.
“I’m open to exploring and drawing on not just potentially Chinese experience, but any global experience in terms of best practices that are out there,” he said in an interview.
An environmental assessment process, which the province launched late last year, will take between four and six years to complete and there will be no construction until after that.
But Mr. Del Duca said that, even as the environmental assessment proceeds, he would like to start discussions on how to finance and build the line.
The goal, he said, is to be able to start construction shortly after the assessment is finished.
That suggests involvement by potential bidders, including Chinese state-owned rail companies, is a nearer-term possibility – although Mr. Del Duca emphasized that it remains early days, and decisions have yet to be made on how design and construction will be managed.
China began a high-speed rail building spree in the 1990s, and now has a network of more than 11,000 kilometres of fast track – as much as the combined length of high-speed track in the rest of the world – and work is under way to nearly double that. Its striking platypus-nosed locomotives thunder across fields still worked by hand, making the trains among the most visible symbols of China’s immense economic and technological advancement in recent decades.
China is using its expertise in railways to project hard and soft power. Chinese rail companies have been active, and often successful, bidders for rail projects in Kenya, Nigeria, Argentina, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, working hand in glove with the Chinese government to secure deals.
On average, China builds high-speed track at a cost of $30-million (U.S.) a kilometre, which is “$20-million cheaper” than many other countries, said Wang Mengshu, a railway construction engineer at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who advises the government on rail projects.
At such a price, the proposed Ontario line would cost $11.1-billion (Canadian), although that is a rough price tag for building track alone and does not include land acquisition or buying high-tech locomotives and cars.
“We offer an all-in-one service including geological surveying, planning, design, construction and operation,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Wang specifically touted China’s advantage over competitors like Bombardier, which he said “doesn’t have the whole set of services.”
Marc Laforge, a spokesman for Bombardier’s transportation division in Montreal, said it is impossible to put an accurate price tag on a high-speed rail project until all the costs are known.
“Until you get the project under your nose, we don’t put any credibility in that,” he said, referring to Mr. Wang’s $30-million-per-kilometre cost estimate. On China boasting its advantages over Bombardier, Mr. Laforge said: “We have been part of more than 90 per cent of all high-speed rail projects around the world and this is enough of a track record that it speaks for itself.”
He said Bombardier is watching what is happening in Ontario, but has not had any discussions with Ontario officials about getting involved.
A spokesman for Aecon Group Inc. said the construction and infrastructure company did not have enough information on the Ontario proposal to make a comment.
China’s exports of rail technology and construction have been largely aimed at developing and authoritarian countries, and its development model would fit in a place like Canada.
Mr. Wang, for example, said Beijing would be eager to secure Canadian natural resources in exchange for building track, pointing to gas-for-rails trade that China has with Uzbekistan as an example. He also said the use of Chinese construction workers would be helpful, but that would be “up for further discussion.” Chinese workers were instrumental in building the first pan-Canadian railway, but public opinion would be unlikely to accept the import of Chinese labourers to Canada today.
Mr. Del Duca chuckled when asked about the prospect of a resource-swap deal.
“I know I talked about open-mindedness and flexible thinking a second ago, but I don’t think we’re in a position to take a look at that kind of thing,” he said.
“I’m not even sure we have the jurisdiction to do so.”
Canada is the only G8 nation without fast trains, although it is a type of transportation that has been discussed for decades.
The most recently completed study suggested it would take 14 years to get a Windsor to Quebec City line in operation – a more extensive idea than the one now under consideration by Ontario.
Construction costs could never be recouped, meaning it would require a government rail grant of, at the time of the study, roughly $20-billion.
Even with a 300 km/h train, the study suggested 85 per cent of people would still drive that route in 2031, compared with 89.3 per cent in 2006.
"Bullet Train" or "High-speed train"
High-speed rail is a type of rail transport that operates significantly faster than traditional rail traffic, using an integrated system of specialized rolling stock and dedicated tracks. The first such system began operations in Japan in 1964 and was widely known as the bullet train. High-speed trains normally operate on standard gauge tracks of continuously welded rail on grade-separated right-of-way that incorporates a large turning radius in its design.
Many countries have developed high-speed rail to connect major cities, including Austria, Belgium, Britain, China(PRC), France, Germany, Italy, Japan,Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan (ROC), Turkey, the United States and Uzbekistan.
While high-speed rail is usually designed for passenger travel, some high-speed systems also offer freight service. For instance, the French mail serviceLa Poste owns a few special TGV trains for carrying postal freight.
First experiments[edit]
High-speed rail development began in Germany in 1899 when the Prussian state railway joined with ten electrical and engineering firms and electrified 72 kilometres (45 mi) of military owned railway between Marienfelde and Zossen. The line used three-phase current at 10 kilovolts and 45 Hz.
The Van der Zypen & Charlier company of Deutz, Cologne built two railcars, one fitted with electrical equipment from Siemens-Halske, the second with equipment from Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), that were tested on the Marienfelde–Zossen line during 1902 and 1903.
On 23 October 1903, the S&H-equipped railcar achieved a speed of 206.7 km/h (128.4 mph) and on 27 October the AEG-equipped railcar achieved 210.2 km/h (130.6 mph).[3] These trains demonstrated the feasibility of electric high-speed rail however regularly scheduled electric high-speed rail travel was still more than 30 years away.
Early German high-speed network[edit]
On May 15, 1933, the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft company introduced the diesel-powered "Fliegender Hamburger" in regular service between Hamburg and Berlin (286 km), thereby establishing the fastest regular service in the world, with a regular top speed of 160 km/h (99 mph). This train was a streamlined multi-powered unit, albeit diesel, and used Jakobs bogies some 47 years before the advent of the TGV.
Following the success of the Hamburg line, the steam-powered Henschel-Wegmann Train was developed and introduced in June 1936 for service from Berlin toDresden, with a regular top speed of 160 km/h (100 mph).
Further development allowed the usage of these "Fliegenden Züge" (flying trains) on a rail network across Germany.[4] The "Diesel-Schnelltriebwagen-Netz" had been in the planning since 1934 but it never reached its envisaged size.
All high-speed service stopped in August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of World War II.[5]
The American Streamliners[edit]
On 26 May 1934, one year after Fliegender Hamburger introduction, the Burlington Railroad's set an average speed record on long distance with their new streamlined train, the Zephyr, at 124 km/h (77 mph) with peaks at 185 km/h (115 mph). The Zephyr was made of stainless steel, and like the Fliegender Hamburger, was diesel powered, articulated with Jacobs bogies, and could reach 160 km/h (99 mph) as commercial speed.
The new service was inaugurated at the end of year, 11 November 1934, between Kansas City and Lincoln, but at lower speed than the record, with an average speed of 74 km/h (46 mph).[6]
In 1935, the Milwaukee Road introduced the Morning Hiawatha service, hauled at 160 km/h (99 mph) by steam locomotives. These were the last "high-speed" trains to use steam power. In 1936, the Twin Cities Zephyr entered service, from Chicago to Minneapolis, with an average speed of 101 km/h (63 mph).[7]
The Italian electric and the last steam record[edit]
The German high-speed service was followed in Italy in 1938 with an electric-multiple-unit ETR 200, designed for 200 km/h (124 mph), between Bologna and Naples. It too reached 160 km/h (99 mph) in commercial service, and achieved a world mean speed record of 203 km/h (126 mph) near Milan in 1938.
In Great Britain in the same year, the streamlined steam locomotive Mallard achieved the official world speed record for steam locomotives at 125.88 mph (202.58 km/h). The external combustion engines and boilers on steam locomotives were large, heavy and time consuming to maintain, and the days of steam for high speed were numbered.
The introduction of the Talgo system[edit]
In 1945, a Spanish engineer, Alejandro Goicoechea, developed a streamlined articulated train able to run on existing tracks at higher speeds than contemporary passenger trains. This was achieved by providing the locomotive and cars with a unique axle system that used one axle set per car end, connected by a Y-bar coupler. Amongst other advantages, the centre of mass was only half as high as usual.[8] This system became famous under the name of Talgo (Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol), and for half a century was the main Spanish provider of high-speed trains.
The first very-high-speed records[edit]
In the early 1950s, the French National Railway started to receive their new powerful CC 7100 electric locomotives, and began to study and evaluate running at very high speeds. In 1954, the CC 7121 hauling a full train achieved a record 243 km/h (151 mph) during a test on standard track. The next year, two specially tuned electric locomotives, the CC 7107 and the prototype BB 9001, broke previous speed records, reaching respectively 320 km/h (199 mph) and 331 km/h (206 mph), again on standard track.[9] For the first time, 300 km/h (186 mph) was surpassed, allowing the idea of regular very high-speed services to be developed.
New engineering studies began for this purpose. Especially, during the 1955 records, very dangerous hunting oscillation, the swaying of the bogies which at high speed leads to dynamic instability and potential derailment, was discovered, which led to the use of yaw dampers to solve this problem, enabling safe running speeds above 300 km/h (186 mph) today. Important research was also made about "current harnessing" at high-speed by the pantographs, that was solved 20 years later by the Zébulon TGV's prototype.
Breakthrough: The Shinkansen[edit]
Japanese research and development[edit]
With some 45 million people living in the densely populated Tokyo-to-Osaka corridor, congestion on road and rail became a serious problem after World War II,[10]and the Japanese government began thinking seriously about a new high-speed rail service.
Japan in the 1950s was a populous, resource-limited nation that for security reasons did not want to import petroleum, but needed a way to transport its millions of people in and between cities.
Japanese National Railways (JNR) engineers then began to study the development of a high-speed regular mass transit service. In 1955, they were present at theLille's Electrotechnology Congress in France, and during a 6-month visit, the head engineer of JNR accompanied the deputy director Marcel Tessier at the DETE (SNCF Electric traction study department).[9] JNR engineers returned to Japan with a number of ideas and technologies they would use on their future trains, including alternating current for rail traction, and international standard gauge.[citation needed]
The first narrow-gauge Japanese high-speed service[edit]
In 1957, the engineers at the private Odakyu Electric Railway in Greater Tokyo area launched the Odakyu 3000 series SE EMU. This EMU set a world record fornarrow gauge trains at 145 km/h (90 mph), giving the Odakyu engineers confidence they could safely and reliably build even faster trains at standard gauge.[10] The original Japanese railways generally used narrow gauge, but the increased stability offered by widening the rails to standard gauge would make very high-speed rail much simpler, and thus standard gauge was adopted for high-speed service.
A new train on a new line[edit]
The new service, named Shinkansen (meaning new trunk line) would provide a new alignment, 25% wider standard gauge, continuously welded rails between Tokyo and Osaka using new rolling stock, designed for 250 km/h (155 mph). However, the World Bank, whilst supporting the project, considered the design of the equipment as unproven for that speed, and set the maximum speed to 210 km/h (130 mph).[9]
After initial feasibility tests, the plan was fast-tracked and construction of the first section of the line started on 20 April 1959.[11] In 1963, on the new track, test runs hit a top speed of 256 km/h (159 mph). Five years after the beginning of the construction work, in October 1964, just in time for the Olympic Games, the first modern high-speed rail, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, was opened between the two cities.
The first Shinkansen trains, the 0 Series Shinkansen, built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries—in English often called "Bullet Trains", after the original Japanese nameDangan Ressha (弾丸列車?)—outclassed the earlier fast trains in commercial service. They traversed the 515 km (320 mi) distance in 3 hours 10 minutes, reaching a top speed of 210 km/h (130 mph) and sustaining an average speed of 162.8 km/h (101.2 mph) with stops at Nagoya and Kyoto.
A great success[edit]
But the speed was only a part of the Shinkansen revolution: the Shinkansen offered high-speed rail travel to the masses. The first Bullet trains had 12 cars and later versions had up to 16,[12] and double-deck trains further increased the capacity.[13][14]
After three years, more than 100 million passengers had used the trains, and the milestone of the first one billion passengers was reached in 1976. In 1972, the line was extended a further 161 km (100 mi), and further construction has resulted in the network expanding to 2,387 km (1,483 mi) as at March 2013, with a further 776 km (482 mi) of extensions currently under construction and due to open in stages between March 2015 and 2035. The cumulative patronage on the entire system since 1964 is over 10 billion, the equivalent of approximately 150% of the world's population, without a single train passenger fatality. (Suicides, passengers falling off the platforms, and industrial accidents have resulted in fatalities).[15]
Since their introduction, Japan's Shinkansen systems have been undergoing constant improvement, not only increasing line speeds. Over a dozen train models have been produced, addressing diverse issues such as tunnel boom noise, vibration, aerodynamic drag, lines with lower patronage ("Mini shinkansen"), earthquake and typhoon safety, braking distance, problems due to snow, and energy consumption (newer trains are twice as energy efficient as the initial ones despite greater speeds).[16]
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In the 1990s, China's domestic train production industry designed and produced a series of high-speed train prototypes but few were used in commercial operation and none were mass-produced. The Chinese Ministry of Railways (MOR) then arranged for the purchase of foreign high-speed trains from French, German, and Japanese manufacturers along with certain technology transfers and joint ventures with domestic trainmakers. In 2007, the MOR introduced the China Railways High-speed (CRH) service, also known as "Harmony Trains" (和谐号), using trains with foreign technology.
In 2008, high-speed trains began running at a top speed of 350 km/h (217 mph) on the passenger dedicated line between Beijing and Tianjin, which opened during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. The following year, trains on the newly opened Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway set a world record for average speed over an entire trip, at 312.5 km/h (194.2 mph) over 968 km (601 mi.). In July 2011, however, top train speeds were lowered to 300 km/h (186 mph).
A collision of high-speed trains on 23 July 2011 in eastern China, which killed 40 and injured 195, raised concerns about operational safety. A credit crunch later that year slowed the construction of new lines. But by 2012, the high-speed rail boom had renewed with new lines and new rolling stock by domestic producers that had indigenized [stolen] foreign technology. On 25 December 2012, China opened the world's longest high-speed rail line, which runs 2,208 km (1,372 mi) from the country's capital Beijing in the north to Shenzhen on the southern coast.[26][27][28] The network is still rapidly expanding to create the 4+4 National High Speed Rail Grid by 2015.[29]
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