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CHINA ABANDONS
MAGLEV RA
CHINA ABANDONS
MAGLEV RAIL PROJECT
BEIJING - 01/18/04 - China has
abandoned plans to build a high-speed magnetic-levitation
railway between Beijing and Shanghai in favor of less expensive
conventional trains, reports the Associated Press.
 The
China Daily, citing unidentified sources, said Premier
Wen Jiabao was involved in the decision to use the conventional
rail system, and that the decision to terminate the rail project
was made at a recent meeting of the State Council, the country's
Cabinet.
Besides cost, "the maglev
technique was excluded because it does not match the wheel-track
technique used by railways in China," the paper said,
citing Wang Derong, vice-chairman of the China Transport
Association.
The Railways Ministry had no immediate
public comment and did not answer its telephone Friday morning.
At least one newspaper, the Beijing Morning Post, said
the decision to abandon the maglev plan had not been finalized.
The scrapping of the 9-year-old maglev
project - just two weeks after the country's first maglev, a
short stretch in Shanghai, began regular operation - represents
a setback for the development of the technology in China, which
many had seen as one of its key markets.
It also appears to open the market for
other alternatives on the proposed Beijing-Shanghai line.
Other options for the railway, according to state media, include
styling it after the Shinkansen, Japan's high-speed bullet
train, or two methods used in France - TGV and the Inter-City
Express. The Shanghai maglev is German-built.
The online edition of the People's
Daily said the decision was part of a larger plan for the
nation's railways passed by the Cabinet.
"There have been many versions of
the rail and maglev dispute, but an end has been put on them by
the passage of the medium-and-long term plan," the People's
Daily said. "This is indeed the end of decade-long
feasibility studies."
Leaders envision a high-speed railway
network for China that includes four north-south lines and four
east-west lines, the government said.
Such a network would help move hundreds
of millions of Chinese who increasingly are traveling around
their own country - and, more important, help transport goods
and raw materials.
China began daily runs of the world's
first commercially operated maglev in Shanghai on January 1, but
the $1.2 billion German-built system covers only 18 miles. It
connects Shanghai to its 3-year-old airport, the city's second.
The Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway
Project was first proposed in 1997. The cost of the 750-mile
railway has been estimated at $14 billion.
The maglev cost can be as high as $36
million to $48 million per half mile, twice that of wheel-track
lines, the China Daily said.
German companies spent decades and
billions of dollars developing maglev technology, but had
searched in vain for a customer until Shanghai leaders picked
the system as a way to highlight the city's high-tech ambitions.
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