Chinese High-Speed Rail Project Will See Travel From London To Beijing In Just Two Days Possible

Sounds like a nifty way to move an invading army.

You don't need an army to fight a war, you can do it with economics. Though an army is nice to have.

Very Barometric of you two for we are in a political era similar to that prior to WWI.

Of course one must control Fronts for trains to work as a military transport, and planes right quick now can destroy rail lines.

Please describe how economics are used successfully to fight a war.

I am under the impression economic manipulations are not the way to fight wars, but the way to start them.

Of course my definition of a war is "armed conflict", and not "capitalism", or "free enterprice".

You may make a case for the Cold War, as an economic war, so go to it and see what you proffer.

Please describe how economics are used successfully to fight a war.

War is fought in lot of different ways and levels.

And like any good commander of an army, you set up your logistics first.....sure tracks can be vulnerable, but so is any logistic operation. Its just one step of many.

First I'll give you parallels

After WW1 and the Treaty ofVersailles which was the seed that started WWII, it put Germany in dire straits where it had to become very creative to pull itself out of.

Than you had Chamberland Declare Peace in our time........with his appeasement policy and dealing with the likes of Hitler, we were at war with Germany even then.......and he didn't know it.

This High speed train rail reminds me alot of the Autobahn The only difference is, China first wanted respect, but they are smarter and realize they can actually own a country alot easier and cheaper that taking it over militarily.

Of course my definition of a war is "armed conflict", and not "capitalism", or "free enterprice".

History has the ability of repeating itself over and over again, because people refuse to see all the preludes to war, only because the bombs are not exploding or the troops aren't crossing the border. Its the ability to reconize it, that separates the leaders (Reagan) from the Chamberlands. (Goerge W. is a complicated piece of work, that IMO was incompetant on certain foreign and economic policies)

p911

Chamberlain

Call me stupid, but don't you have to go through a little bit of ocean and a whole lot of Russia to get from London to China? Are they going to dig another chunnel?

bhankiii,

the article says the first one is a more southern route through india and pakistan. For the second/third it says "they're also hoping to build railways from Beijing to Russia and Germany, connected with the European railway system."

As for getting to britain, who knows? in ten years time, with all the maglev experience they will have... they might just levitate over the water.

cheers,

Chris

took them what 10 years to dig the last Chunnel

They can rent time and space in the chunnel, or pay it off. 10 years from now there will still be some outstanding balance. Or make a stop and hop on the "slow" train. For these few miles and for England it will be fast enough.

Not really, as there are plenty of spare paths in the existing pair of tunnels were Standard Gauge to be used.

The interesting thing will be the selected track gauge, as Russia uses a wider one than Europe. Something, somewhere, will need to be re-engineered on a grand scale....

Oooh errr, I never knew about the gauge changer thingy...excellent.
Del

Track gauge could be solved very easy. Merely lay another rail inside the two existing rails. One track would serve both rail gauges. There would not be any need to actually alter the wheel distance. Actually this is already done here in the U.S. on some old narrow gauge lines and of course on minature live steam lines.

IMO,

I do not think gauge is the only problem.

Its the added stress that occur on curves due to the high speeds. And with the higher speed, I do not think conventional rail could support this?

Does that mean that visa requirements are to be relaxed? Hmmmmmmm..........

It might even be possible to reach the U.S. via Alaska and the Bering Straits, which would place China as the center of the world, being able to reach all corners of the globe.

Clearly the Chinese see Europe as a priority....

At loco2travel we're interested in what this means for the future of green travel. Can this be a real alternative to carbon intensive flights? http://tinyurl.com/ydmwvd3