International Railroad Discussion > Newest China High-Speed Train

I’ve just returned from a trip to China and the train buzz there is the new high-speed train that debuted this week. These new trains are operating on the busy Beijing-Shanghai line which hosts over 50,000 passenger trips daily.

The “Fuxing” CR400AF train has a top speed of 400 kph (248 mph) and a cruising speed of 350 kph (217 mph).

The older “standard” trains used to take 12 hours to make the run between China’s two major cities. The high-speed trains introduced a few years back cut the run to 5.5 to 6 hours. The Fuxing train can do the run in 4 hours 49 minutes.

The train also sports Wi-Fi and other refinements.

Photo from LonelyPlanet.

Larry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/17 18:16 by VintageMac.

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Wow.

To compare, here's the train I took Shanghai to Beijing in 2012.

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symph1 Wrote:
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> Wow.
>
> To compare, here's the train I took Shanghai to
> Beijing in 2012.

Based on a little research, the Chinese have incorporated home-grown designs for the CR400AF. What's vague is if the 350 km/h revenue runs have resumed after they were suspended (speed dropped to 300 km/h) about 6 years ago. I guess time will tell when that will happen, but until majority of the train sets are CR400AF, it remains to be seen how the Chinese will mix 350 km/h running with the older 300 km/h train sets.

In the meantime, the French and the Japanese have been running their trains at 320 km/h for a few years already. No immediate plans for more speed up - in Japan, anyway, the airlines are crying uncle, so there's no immediate economic need to go faster.

The CRH3 in your pic is basically a Siemens ICE3, designed for 300-320 km/h revenue runs. CRH2s were of course East Japan Railway's E2s, 275 km/h design speed. 6-7 years ago, the Chinese were running these sets way faster than the design speeds for propaganda purposes, with both Siemens and Kawasaki engineers protesting. They are both capable of running at those faster speeds in testing but I don't expect political deciders to know the difference between testing and revenue service.

This sounds like good news for the long term success of China's high speed network.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/17 15:07 by cchan006.

Trains could pass at stations, where there are many more tracks. Even among the high speed trains, there are expresses and super expresses. Train G16 at 11:00 only made a couple stops, while G124, only five minutes later, made more stops.

Beijing Nan is South Station in Beijing, which serves the high speed trains.

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Simply amazing! Can't believe this is the same country I went to see steam a few years ago!!! Thanks for posting. Chris uk.

Great photo. CaHSR should just contract out to the Chinese. The right route and right trains in less time.

CPRR Wrote:
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> Great photo. CaHSR should just contract out to the
> Chinese. The right route and right trains in less
> time.

Someone could have wanted that to be the foregone conclusion back in 2010:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/global/08rail.html

Then about a year later, the Wenzhou Train Collision happened:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision

7 years after that article and the political overtures full of pipe dreams, look where California is today. So I'll have to respectfully disagree with your statement. Regardless of the Chinese, CA HSR Authority will prevent it from happening.

VintageMac Wrote:
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> These new trains are operating
> on the busy Beijing-Shanghai line


How much CNY for this trip? Different classes?