China's 'Hidden Debt'Accordingly, a 30,000-kilometer expansion will cost about 3.6 trillion yuan. China Railway sells bonds to state-owned banks and brokerages to pay the costs.
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China initially relied on high-speed technology imported from Europe and Japan to establish its network. Global rail engineering giants such as Bombardier, Alstom and Mitsubishi were understandably keen to co-operate, given the potential size of the new market and China's ambitious plans.
Kelly acknowledges that the $8-billion goal is “aggressive and rightly so” because California is paying for 84% of the cost so far. “If the national government wants to get a national cleaner, faster electrified rail system, it has to do better than 16%. And so we're going to make that case,” he said.
The interstate highway system cost $129 billion — roughly $290 billion in current dollars — and took 35 years to complete, running from 1957 to 1992. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill enacted in 2021 has $102 billion for rail, but none of the money is set aside for high-speed rail.
With one possible exception, no high-speed rail system in this country could pay for itself, and the claimed external benefits - cleaner air, energy saved, eased pressure on airports - are nonexistent.
Highways (as well as aviation) became the focus of infrastructure spending, at the expense of rail. This trend has continued, and not the least because highways require continuous maintenance, while the US's growing population demands more lanes and roads to relieve congestion.
According to the latest data, as of the first half of 2022, the total liabilities of China National Railway Group totaled 6 trillion yuan, and in the first half of 2022 alone, it has lost 80.4 billion yuan, with an average loss of 400 million yuan per day.
At these costs, Obama's original high-?speed rail plan would require well over $1 trillion, while the USHSR's plan would need well over $3 trillion. Building a system longer than China's would cost at least $4 trillion.
Rail currently provides low-cost long-distance transportation for heavy freight, which HSR is unlikely to do given its higher costs and the track damage caused by heavy trains. HSR may compete with the domestic air cargo industry, though its historically poor profitability suggests lackluster returns.
Inflation and higher construction costs have contributed to the high price tag. The project has spent $9.8 billion so far, according to Brian Kelly, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. We knew we've had a funding gap ever since the project started, Kelly said.
As of February 2021, the state of California has spent approximately $4.3 billion on the high-speed rail project that was planned to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. However, it is important to note that the project is not entirely dead but has faced significant delays, cost overruns, and scaled-down plans.
The Great Depression of the 1930s forced some railroad companies into bankruptcy, creating hundreds of miles of disowned and subsequently abandoned railway properties; other railroad companies found incentive to merge or reorganize, during which excess or redundant rights-of-way were abandoned.
China: Surpassing the Rest of the WorldDue to generous funding from the Chinese government, high-speed rail in China has developed rapidly over the past 15 years. China began planning for its current high-speed rail system in the early 1990s, modeling it after Japan's Shinkansen system.
Implementing high-speed rail (HSR) will provide Americans with more transportation choices. It will also make sure that America remains an economic engine, and meets the environmental and energy challenges of this century.
High-speed trains are European-standard high-speed inter-city trains, capable of typical ground speeds of 250 kph (or 155 mph). They currently run between Moscow, St.Petersburg, Helsinki, and Nizhny Novgorod. These trains are called Sapsan within Russia, or Alstom on the Helsinki – St.
American railways were also built on a wider gauge (the distance between the rails), which allows for larger and heavier trains. As a result, American freight railways are much more efficient than their European counterparts, carrying almost three times as much cargo per mile of track.
In 2008, California voted yes to build the nation's first high-speed railway. The plan is to build an electric train that will connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in two hours and forty minutes. But 15 years later, there is not a single mile of track laid, and there isn't enough money to finish the project.
California's plan is to build an electric train that will connect Los Angeles with the Central Valley and then San Francisco in two hours and 40 minutes.