International Railroad Discussion > Chinese "Railroad Diplomacy" in Latin America

http://nyti.ms/1jGk2O9

Bizarre, to say the least.

KG

Would this Brazil Peru railroad be standard gauge as Peru is or meter or wide gauge that Brazil has.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/15 16:33 by usmc1401.

Not much mention of the 'finders fees' paid to government officials.  Or about Argentina's experience with all kinds of failures with new Chinese locomotives, lack of spare parts, etc. etc.  It's interesting that the projects mentioned were in corrupt Brazil, socialist Venezuela and two pretty much failed states of Honduras and Nicaragua. Ecuador is no walk in the park these days either.

I have no doubt that Chinese railroad civil engineers could bulid a good, functional railroad from a modest speed general service network to true high speed rail just about anywhere. All you have to do is look at Google Earth, follow the Chinese rail lines, and look at their amazing accomplishments. But that is where it stops, as the other responses point out. Virtually all railroads in South America and even Central America were built mostly over a hundred years ago to take inland exports to sea. The only country in South America that can be considered to be well covered by railways is Argentina, but yet it isn't. They are different gauges, some built for different purposes, and do not function as a national system and there is no effort to make them do so. Brazil, which is almost as large as either the USA or China (almost equal) only has a real functional rail system from the mineral areas around Belo Horizonte south to the coast, over two railroads, one meter gauge and the other broad gauge, but both are heavy haul freight railroads, moving commodities to the coast. The large Eastern and Amazon areas of Brazil are not rail linked, and again, there is little effort, or political need, to do so.


Engineers are very capable, and can accomplish a lot in their chosen profession. Politicans are different. 

There were probably close to a dozen, if not more, Chinese companies who exhibited at this year's Railway Interchange in Minneapolis.  This is traditionally almost a purely domestic affair, unlike Innotrans.