Talk:Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway

A news item involving Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 27 December 2009.

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China Railways appears to be a Chinese Government enterprise. How is this a "commercial" railway? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.37.93.250 (talk) 12:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- It is a commercial railway because use of the railway by passengers is defined by a commercial transaction between them and the train operator: to be a passenger on the train you pay the operator money and they let you go on the train. It is a commercial railway because it is run for the purposes of commerce. Whether the train operator is a state owned company or private company is irrelevant in this context. There are many countries where commercial train services are provided by state owned or run companies. --mgaved (talk) 16:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the following section as it needs clarification:

" ... the highest speed in world railway history.(reference: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/10/content_9156189.htm)"

According to wikipedia:

It should be “The fastest unmodified commerical 2-train group”, since the test was carried by two CRH trains connected together, each has 8 cars. The air drag is about 7% higher than a single train. But I don't think it sounds any significant. However, the average commercial speed (332 km/h in test, 309 km/h between terminals in operation) of this line is far higher than any other lines in the world (250 km/h between terminals according to the article you mentioned), perhaps due to its length. Python eggs (talk) 23:24, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To have the highest average speed for a commercial train - by far - shouldn't it have also the highest top speed for a commercial train ? Hektor (talk) 09:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A picture of train is very important. Please upload a picture of the actual train, not just the train route from Wuhan to Guangzhou.

Efun35 (talk) 16:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why it takes much longer to travel between Wuhan and Changsha, than between Changsha and Guangzhou? 09:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.118.130.101 (talk)

No, the travel time between Wuhan and Changsha is shorter. Python eggs (talk) 19:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the reference to double headed, which (in British English at least) means two locomotives at the front of the train. I'm not sure what is the correct term for two EMU sets in tandem - which is what I assume was meant here - or perhaps it meant two locomotives one at each end of a train set like a TGV or HST? Not sure and none of the refs seemed to mention it. Hallucegenia (talk) 07:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If "double-headed" only for locomotives, how to say two-EMU train connected together? Python eggs (talk) 07:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article on multiple unit says coupled sets. I will change the text to that, but if anyone knows a more correct term, please feel free to change it. Nice work on the article, by the way, Python eggs. Hallucegenia (talk) 08:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Someone in the area take a picture of this? Colipon+(Talk) 10:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The old image that was used previously, a route layout is at File:Map of Wuhan-Guangzhou Passenger Line.png

76.66.202.95 (talk) 12:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any definitive refs for the length of line and the current timetable? Many of the referenced news articles say this line is 1068km long, but these are all quoting the same original source. This ref [1] says 990km (in the text, not the picture caption), and article itself says 968km, with the previous slow route being 1069km, and the currently open section at 922km. I personally believe these last figures, but I don't want to get into an edit wayr over it. Hallucegenia (talk) 15:39, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The current terminus is Guangzhou North, but in January it'll be the (not-yet completed) Guangzhou South. Which explains one of the things. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, I have no idea where "almost 990" came from. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The main line (line the train actually run on) from Wuhan to Guangzhou South is 968 km long. The main line length from Wuhan to Guangzhou North is 922 km. Measure it on the openstreetmap yourself if you don't believe me. Python eggs (talk) 00:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you but the problem is that the Engligh-Languages references are all talking about a line length of 1068km or 1100km, which makes average speed calculations impossible. Measuring it on openstreetmap is not good enough, without evidence that the line shown is the actual route. We need an authoritative reference for the line length or we'll have all this trouble again tomorrow. Hallucegenia (talk) 00:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any definitive references which describe the train sets? Our article now states "It appears that the Wuhan-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway trains are not based on the older generation of China Railways CRH2 or China Railways CRH3." This is absurd. I belive the trains are either

From what was announced, Siemens co-operated with CRH to research and construct the central signal control unit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Efun35 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Efun35 (talk) 19:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken the liberty of fixing the formatting of the above paragraphs. And I agree with you about your understanding of high-speed train technology.

I also agree that the train service seems to be called "Harmony". But I'm sure that describing 350km/h as an average speed is just spin from the China News Agency. The trainsets themselves seem to be the latest variants of CRH2 and CRH3, as described in the Wikipedia articles about them, and here and here. It would be helpful if you could give precise references of where you think it was announced that the "electrical system, engine system, and exterior materials are very different." Thanks, Hallucegenia (talk) 19:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CRH2 had been modified seriously by the Chinese, but CRH3 is mostly unchanged as is. Python eggs (talk) 00:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know the maximum in-service speed of the CRH2 sets, as used on this line? Hallucegenia (talk) 00:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The information that "The trains used on the line are manufactured completely in China.[3][5]" quotes two sources, including the Financial Times, that do not mention this information. Does anyone know more about the information in this edit, and can you provide better sources?Japan Hanno (talk) 14:43, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Im hugely impressed. It seems China is developing the best infrastructure in the world these days. If only we could get something even half that speed here in Canada. Anyone got any nice pictures of the train in action?

See Photo gallery with English captions Hallucegenia (talk) 19:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice. Any "free" pictures so far? 76.69.62.132 (talk) 19:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sentences "The non-stop service from Guangzhou North to Wuhan runs at an average speed of 350 kilometres per hour (220 mph) between stations." and "The trains have a maximum in-service speed of 350 km/h." contradict each other. The train has to accelerate and break, so the average in-service speed cannot equal the maximum in-service speed. --JensMueller (talk) 20:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately the headline writers at the Xinhua news agency couldn't tell the difference here, and now every newsroom hack in the English-speaking world is repeating the error. The maximum speed is 350km/h as it says here, and here; and in all the articles about the trainsets at

China Railways CRH2 (variant CRH2C). Trainsets with designed service speed more than 350km/h are not due to be delivered to China before 2012 it says here. I've tried twice to correct the article, but in the face of so many so-called reliable sources, I'm going to give up for now and wait for articles from the more informed trade press. Hallucegenia (talk) 21:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

I've sent a message in to the FT asking for them to correct the speed to match the "non Fare" distance (assuming that is given correctly). Eraserhead1 (talk) 21:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, now it reads "the non-stop test" instead of "the non-stop service", which is correct. But must the test run be so prominently featured in the introduction? There should be a sentence about revenue operation travel time. --JensMueller (talk) 21:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tried my best to fix this article and make it more accurate. But since this page now linked from the main page, this makes it even worse. If you know little about railways, please think again before making any changes to this article, as those news reporters usually know little about railways, you have to carefully choose which piece of information is correct among confusing news reports. Thanks! Python eggs (talk) 00:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And this railway is impressive, but not as impressive and many people thought. The trains are capable for 330 km/h daily running only. 350 km/h is over-speed use. There's already rumor out there that they will slow down the trains to 330 km/h in a few days after as it no longer at the spotlight of news media. They did the same thing on the Beijing-Tianjin line. It was slowed down to 340 km/h maximum on August 12, after only 11 days into service, and then 330 km/h after a couple of months. I use Beijing-Tianjin line extensively and record its running using my GPS receiver every time. You can find my GPS records here. No news media reports this slow down. Chinese news media mostly not trustworthy, as they just report what the ministry of railways asked them to. Please use your own brain while reading them. This line is much longer than the Beijing-Tianjin, as you know, the first trains all arrive at terminal stations 10 minutes early, that's because the timetable is for 330 km/h running, not 350 km/h. Python eggs (talk) 01:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, would you know if the Shanghai Maglev was similarly slowed-down or not? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the people who have been editing this article today have been using English-Language sources which are wrong, according to your figures, but you have not supplied any evidence to refute these. There are no references for your claims of line length, or maximum in-service speed, or average speeds, or intermediate station distances or first-day timings etc. I happen to believe you, because your data seems consistent and precise, and based on local knowledge, but this is not good enough to justify me reverting edits made in good faith by others who have followed generally reliable sources like the Financial Times, and articles like this which say that the line stretches more than 1000km. Hallucegenia (talk) 01:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just think about it, the first train arrived at its terminal 10 minutes early (total time = 02h49m), if the total distance was 1068 km, given Guangzhou North-Guangzhou South=46 km, how could be the average speed at 361 km/h while the maximum at 351–353 km/h?

Perhaps I could ask you to think about it too. The maths works both ways. It is difficult to refute claims in the article that the average speed is 350km/h as stated in the News Agency announcement (second line of text here), when there is no evidence that your claim of 922km line length is accurate. Hallucegenia (talk) 01:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Given the time between Wuhan and Guangzhou North at 02h57m (in any timetable), the distance between Wuhan and Guangzhou North at 922 km, one can work out use simple math: 922 km ÷ 02h57m = 312.54 km/h. It is easy to figure out the distance between Guangzhou North to Guangzhou South at 46 km. For non-professional people here at Wikipedia, the easiest way is to measure it on Google Earth, high-resolution satellite images all along the line. The important question is the total length, 1068/1069 km or 968 km, let me list some references: (soon)

1. http://www.zhaobiao.gov.cn/noticedetail/23742121.html

武广客运专线968正线公里，位于湖北、湖南、广东三省境内，线路自武汉枢纽引出，沿线经过咸宁、岳阳、长沙、株洲、衡阳、郴州、韶关、清远，终至花都与广州枢纽新广州客站工程相衔接。

— from zhaobiao.gov.cn (construction invite bid, more technical than news report)

2. http://www.hubei.gov.cn/hbgk/tzhb/200911/t20091125_108413.shtml

武广客运专线正线全长968公里，运营里程1068公里。

— from hubei government, note the difference between main line length and rate-making distance, the latter is used to calculate ticket price

3. http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/14562/10548281.html

线路全长1068.6公里，其中路基 323公里、桥梁684座468公里、隧道226座177公里，桥隧比66.7%。

— from people.com.cn (People Daily's web site), the line is 1068.6 km long, of which, 323 km on railway bed, 468 km on bridges, 177 km in tunnel..., 177+468+323=?, this is funny

furthermore, the old Beijing-Guangzhou line, Wuchang-Guangzhou section is 1069 km long. A high-speed railway with curve radius like this can't equal the distance. The distance 1069 is only used to charge. it's all about money. Python eggs (talk) 02:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article refers to Deluxe, First and Second Classes. I've never heard these terms used in mainland China. Do we have a Mandarin source for them? Matt's talk 12:35, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Deluxe: 特等座

First: 一等座

Second: 二等座

Python eggs (talk) 06:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please notice the use of the word "trainsets" in the opening ¶ of this article and "train sets" in the first ¶ of the section Trains. Working for a state Department of Transportation in the USA, I observe that "trainset" is jargon of the rail transportation industry. Dick Kimball (talk) 14:56, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

fixed both Hallucegenia (talk) 06:57, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, this is just a question out of personal interest but it may also help with the development of this article. In this article, it states this line is will form part of the longer Beijing-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway - I have seen this mentioned in the press. However another scheme I've heared mentioned in the press is the Beijing-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway. Both schemes seem to be complete in 2012. Can anyone give any more clarification on this, on whether the complete line will be Beijing-Guangzhou, or Beijing-Hong Kong? Any good info would be very much appreciated. HamTin (talk) 13:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Depends what you mean by a "railway" or "a line". :-) There will be physical tracks capable of high speeds from Hong Kong to Beijing and beyond, but they won't be owned or operated by a single operator. The Beijing-Guangzhou project has been planned for several years by the

direct train services between Beijing and Hong Kong will become high speed. However, these services and the running of the HK-GZ line will be joint ventures between subsidiaries of the mainland Ministry of Railways and Hong Kong's MTR Corporation, administratively separate from the BJ-GZ bureaucracy. Matt's talk 15:29, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

Anyone have the maximum gradient of the track, and the minimum radius? I assume the max gradient is pretty low and the minimum radius pretty high to get such high speeds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.36.89 (talk) 08:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Minimum radius = 7000 m; Maximum gradient: 20‰ [4] Python eggs (talk) 09:34, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The schedule of trains on this line, as described in this article or on www.tielu.org, is indeed highly impressive: almost two dozens trains a day between Wuhan and Guangzhou, making the distance in under 4 hours. The article mentions that the high-speed service will eventually be continued all the way to Beijing.

The Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei-Wuhan high-speed line, completed a few months earlier, is similarly impressive, offering the travel service of 5-6 hours from Shanghai to Wuhan, or 3.5 hrs from Nanjing to Wuhan. Now, it seems that the most logical way to offer fast railway service from Shanghai (or Nanjing, or Hefei) to Guangzhou would be to route the trains on the Shanghai-Wuhan line and then on the Wuhan-Guangzhou line; a through train could make it from Shanghai to Guangzhou in around 9-10 hours, or from Nanjing to Guangzhou in 7.5 hrs.

However, I don't see any service like this listed on tielu.org, or mentioned in this article; it seems that the fastest service there are plain old T-series trains, making it from Shanghai to Guangzhou in about 16 hours; from Nanjing to Shanghai, there seems to be only slow trains. Theoretically, I guess, one can buy connecting tickets from Nanjing to Guangzhou via Wuhan, but obviously having to transfer will kill much of the speed advantage.

Would anybody familiar with the system have an idea why if that's indeed the case (maybe I am just not searching right)? Is there a technical reason of some sort why they don't have direct trains continuing from one high-speed line to another? (I am not surprised at the lack of through service in Europe: sure it would be nice to have a direct high-speed train e.g. from London to Berlin via the Eurostar and ICE system, but obviously European systems are just not coordinated well enough across the state lines... on the other hand, Chinese railways seem to be very good at running direct trains on [regular] railways between a huge set of pairs of endpoints). Or is there a marketing reason of some kind, e.g. the price/time ratio not being competitive with the airlines? Or is the new line already filled to capacity with the existing traffic originating in Wuhan? (If that is the case, how are they going to accommodate increased passenger volume when the high-speed line reaches Beijing?)

Similarly, the French TGV or Spanish AVE systems have arrangements for high-speed trains using as much of the existing high-speed line as possible, and then continuing on regular tracks for a few more hours to reach cities not yet reached by the high-speed line. So one could imagine a service running e.g. from Wuhan to Guangzhou on the new high-speed line, and then continuing to Guangzhou to Shenzhen (also a fairly fast line, under 1 hr trip time), thus offering Wuhan to Shenzhen service in under 5 hours. But again, tielu.org shows no service like that. Is that again due to technical reasons (a Wuguang fast train cannot be safely accommodated on a "regular" line, even at a "regular" line's normal speed?) or marketing?

I hope some Chinese railway magazine discusses such issues; it would be interesting material to cover here (or in the general article on China's high-speed rail). Vmenkov (talk) 15:03, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's just at the beginning. A few more train had been added since March 3. I think they will add more trains, include through train, in the coming months. Python eggs (talk) 15:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good to hear that. Hope that our China Rail experts will have the article updated as new developments happen! Vmenkov (talk) 03:09, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was good to see reports on the beginning of through Wuhan-GZ-Shenzhen North service a few days ago. Hope this is just the beginning... Vmenkov (talk) 17:42, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And now they finally write about the future introduction of through service between the Shanghai-Wuhan and Wuhan-Guangzhou lines: 京广高铁拟12月下旬开通届时广州直达北京最快约8小时，二等座票价估计近千元, Xinxi Shibao (信息时报), 2012-11-21. This of course is just a newspaper article, but presumably well informed one. The author does not mention why this is only going to be done now, and not earlier. -- Vmenkov (talk) 15:48, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have the speeds been verified by independent Western observers? I've seen the footage, but for all we know the Chinese have invented a spectacularly inaccurate speedometer. It looks like a propaganda exercise to me, and it should not be blindly repeated on wikipedia.89.168.182.228 (talk) 09:39, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]