Apparently part of the Chinese president’s visit will be to sign a high-speed rail provision between LA and Las Vegas with China providing the technology and trains.No Mention was made in the article I read about how to finance this line
Huh? Is this a non sequitur or what?
Last I heard, the President of China isn’t Obama. Or is there more to the story?
The president of China is coming to the US next week. While he is visiting he and Obama will sign an agreement for China to provide the technology and trains for a high speed line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Is that clear enough for you?
It is not clear enough at all.
By what authority is the President of the United States signing this particular trade agreement with China?
Is there an appropriation to purchase trains for this line that grants executive authority to sign a no-bid contract?
Are these trains to be purchased by private investors, with the U S President authorizing a reciprocal transfer of technology according to statute to make this happen?
Why are these trains best to come from China instead of from Japan (Nippon Sharyo), France (Alstom), Canada (Bombardier), Germany (Siemens), or Spain (Patentes Talgo)?
I’m a little surprised the Chinese would participate in such a ceremony. Is it possible they don’t understand the difficulties in the acquisition of non-federal land that would be required as well as the extensive permitting process? Perhaps they are confusing their rather relaxed attitude toward of the limits of power with our circumstances.
It is sometimes said that they take a 1000 year view. They are going to need it.
Exactly! The XpressWest press release machine, basically, has barfed out some links to other agencies that clarify nothing. Other news articles quote the Chinese participants as estimating the project cost at around $12 billion USD.
I really, really hope that taxpayers don’t get roped into this scam. [banghead] Ending the route at Victorville is pointless - if they really want ridership, do the EIR for continuing over/through Cajon Pass to San Bernardino and some Metrolink saving connections.
A previous topic pointed out a ‘green’ approach - expand gambling in California, reduce travel to Nevada and then LV/Reno will dry up and blow away. Not likely, our gov’t can’t even manage the state lottery properly. [:(!]
Cue the classic music …
At the risk of being excoriated here:
My Rule of Thumb when reading headlines like this, or like the “imminent shutdown of all US railroads,” is to ask myself, “Did I read this in The New York Times, or some other place?” Because if it’s not in the NY Times it’s probably a blogger’s speculation.
Let’s see where this “project” is when the President of China returns home.
ndbprr:
I merely pointed out that there was a significant disconnect between the title and the text. It looks like there hasn’t been much subsequent clarification. I’ll wait for better info from a better source.
Tom
My assumption is that the Chinese would finance the project. They have helped finance mega infrastructure projects all over the world. If Xpress is a common carrier, they can use eminant domain to obtain ROW.
If it’s a Chinese financed project, they will likely bring in thier own workers and locals are not hired, similar to what they do in Africa and parts of British Columbia these days.
Just how well is that high-speed rail thing working out for the Chinese? I remember reading several years back about wrecks, fatalities, and general unreliability. Then zilch, zip, nada.
Remember this is a dictatorship we’re dealing with here. Not Stalin’s Russia or Hitler’s Germany but a dictatorship just the same. The know how to put blackouts on any bad news they don’t want to leak out.
An example: Heard any follow-up stories on that horrific factory explosion they had several weeks ago? They whys and the wherefores? Me neither.
Mind you. I’m not saying I don’t trust the Chinese. I do, but only to a certain point.
Excerpt from Bloomberg, Sept. 17
A China Railway Group-led consortium and XpressWest Enterprises LLC will form a joint venture to build a high-speed railway linking Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the first Chinese-made bullet-train project in the U.S.
Construction of the 370-kilometer (230-mile) Southwest Rail Network will begin as soon as next September, according to a statement from Shu Guozeng, an official with the Communist Party’s leading group on financial and economic affairs. The project comes after four years of negotiations and will be supported by $100 million in initial capital. The statement didn’t specify the project’s expected cost or completion date.
The agreement, signed days before President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the U.S., is a milestone in China’s efforts to market its high-speed rail technology in advanced economies. The country has been pushing the technology primarily in emerging markets – often with a sales pitch from Premier Li Keqiang-- as a means to project political influence. A $567 mi
An especially interesting question, given that the Chinese trains are either Bombardier or Siemens designs.
free market economics? probably cheaper.
Maybe, but sometimes you get the quality you pay for. Are they cutting some corners to get the same design produced cheaper?
Or is it just cheaper labor? And if so, do we want to support the way they reat there labor (and populace in general)? Sorry, enough political overtone.
This Clark County resident will only be convinced that Xpress West or anybody will actually build a high speed link to Southern California when I see the first revenue train roll into Las Vegas.
These people, and their predecessors, have been, “About to break ground,” as long as I’ve been living here (11+ years.) If anyone has moved a spadeful of dirt, I missed the picture. I heard (but can’t prove) that one bunch actually acquired some rolling stock - and then transformed itself into a proposed rail tour around southern California. (That bunch was planning to run all the way through Las Vegas to a station closer to the Las Vegas Speedway than to the Strip!)
Los Angeles - Las Vegas any speed rail has been like a desert mirage. People see it, but no one can actually touch it. If the casino and resort owners believed this could work they would be lined up, checkbooks in hand. If they are, it’s the best kept secret in Las Vegas.
Chuck (NORTH Las Vegas resident)
I would suggest that the Chinese can build high speed trains and overcome some difficult engineering problems. Poltical issues, maybe not. The example I am thinking about is the route to Tibet where the trains are pressurized and oxygen is added to the cars because the train is operating at a high elevation. I think GE was involved with the locomotive design. There was show about the line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNYLgmLN00s.
Now they have a design team looking for work.
Video of the line is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Gqolxmmu8.
Some of the design milestones are listed here:
http://www.tibettravel.org/qinghai-tibet-railway/construction.html
As to the financing, when China is motivated for control of their border, and the government wants it, it gets done. Just like when Kennedy said we would go to the moon and the US was in a race with Russia. How the LA Las Vegas will be financed and ROW aquired is not in my pay grade.
Another video on Chineese Rail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w04Nv3PY1I
This is a propaganda film but it is impressive. Like what the PRR built back in the 30’s when they electrified the NEC.
After reading Electroliner 1935’s comments on the Chinese coming to build this HSR, it reminds me of the saying that while History may not exactly repeat itself, nonetheless from time to time it rhymes.
This wouldn’t be the first time, would it, that numbers of Chinese come to California and the West to build a railroad over the mountains and across the desert and do something Americans needed to have done?
I wonder if this time, like the last, it will be said to have been built with tea?
The difference I see is this:
The Chinese who came a century and a half ago were individuals, trying to find economic improvement by hard work here, while escaping from a feudalistic totalitarian society.
The Chinese offering to come today, are industrial concerns, controlled by a totalitarian government which has shown itself to be antagonistic to US interests in several arenas.
An historical rhyme, perhaps. Not a repeat, it seems to me. Whether ultimately for better or worse, we shall see.
I sure would like to see somebody put some sort of LA - Vegas train together!
In the 1860s, America NEEDED a transcon, and Chinese labor helped build it (but it was built with American money, most from Virgina City’s Comstock Lode.)
In 2015 the need for a HSR route from LA to Las Vegas is a desert mirage. If it was needed, the Desert Wind would never have been discontinued.
As for the tea - it was made with boiled water. Thus the Chinese avoided the water-borne diseases that were endemic among Caucasian rail workers on the Transcon.
Chuck (Skeptic in Southern Nevada)