Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

[touchring]

In the photo below, excavators have dug a large pit and others are ripping apart the train carriage to bury inside the pit. And all this happening while rescue operations are still in progress.

[mooncliff]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

NHK is reporting that the Chinese version of Twitter is exploding with criticism with people saying the government cannot bury this problem. It seems many Chinese reporters and commentators are very angry.

Look for video footage... they are using the shovels to break the train cars apart into little pieces and then bury the pieces. The professors interviews on NHK said this is extremely strange since all of the materials should be preserved so that the causes of the accident can be determined. This is destruction of forensic evidence. Sigh...

[FondoFinder]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

I don't think the cranes could help in other ways at this point. Might as well get the debris out of the way to assist rescue/recovery efforts.

But look at this picture, and the cover of EJ's book, and what do they have in common? Steel.

Good reminder for people that the deals in steel won't last long.

[don]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Sounds familiar.

[GRG55]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

All this reminded me of this old iTulip thread...

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...ht=London+Rail

China will gradually learn to compete. Gradually. All the breathless reports of China's dominance "in everything" follow in the same tradition as the reports of Japan taking over the world in the late 1980s...vastly overblown.

A while back domeone started a thread devoted to a Chinese commercial airplane project, and I recall making a comment along the lines that "If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going". Nothing has happened to change my mind so far :-)

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

NHK is reporting that the Chinese version of Twitter is exploding with criticism with people saying the government cannot bury this problem. It seems many Chinese reporters and commentators are very angry.

Look for video footage... they are using the shovels to break the train cars apart into little pieces and then bury the pieces. The professors interviews on NHK said this is extremely strange since all of the materials should be preserved so that the causes of the accident can be determined. This is destruction of forensic evidence. Sigh...

It's not totally insane to destroy the train wreckage, just mildly so. The big facts are not in dispute. The lead train stopped due to a major failure (reports indicate a lightning strike) and the following train did not stop.

The mishap was not caused by the trains. It was caused by the track-side signalling and control systems, or by the operator of the following train.

It's been a long time since I dabbled in railway signalling, but back then railways worked on the century-old system of "track blocks". A section of track was isolated electrically into a track block. When a train entered a block, the track-side system turned the signal lamp red in the block immediately behind the train, and turned the signal lamp yellow in the block further behind. The operator of a following train would get a yellow signal two track blocks behind the lead train and a red signal one block behind the lead train, allowing plenty of time to slow and stop. The old system was further enhanced by automation to give the operators cab announcements, perhaps pull back throttles, or even automatically apply the brakes.

The signalling and control systems for passenger railways are among the most carefully engineered fail-safe equipment in the world. Extraordinary measures are taken in every aspect of the components and their interconnections so that any failure from any cause results in a train that stops rather than wrecks. Such an accident should simply not be possible. They are extremely rare events.

[mooncliff]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

On the other hand, for the last 2,000 years, except for the last few hundred, the wealthiest most technically advanced country in the world was China. Many things are being done too fast, but a Stanford professor was interviewed and said the Chinese engineering grad students used to be a decade behind, but now they are the same as US engineering grad students.

And China will have one singular advantage: they will have 21st century efficient infrastructure, which can easily produce the same service for 1/3 to 1/10 the energy.

When I was in Beijing in 2008, it was just unbelievable. Many places still had dirt floors, but the shopping malls were better than I had ever seen anywhere.

I don't think their advance will be gradual. They have already done what Japan took a century to do, and they did it in 20 years. And everything is accelerating rapidly. I was in New York a couple of months ago, and the differences in how things are constructed and operate is becoming shocking. It was big in 2000, bigger in 2005, and absolutely huge now. New Yorkers I have taken around Tokyo are in absolute shock. And these were US military officers. All my appliances use 1/3 to 1/5 the electricity of those in the US. And China is going to get that technology. China is 10 times the size of Japan and will not be a blip, though of course they will have crashes along the way, and soon.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Apparently, though, the Chinese are still a little behind in safety critical systems engineering.

[mooncliff]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Yes, NKH also explained about the Shinkansen trains always being in a block 1 km long, that if a train got in a block too near, the system would automatically issue warnings and would eventually automatically brake the following train.

[*T*]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

In contrast,

During the Shinkansen's 45-year, nearly 7 billion-passenger history, there have been no passenger fatalities due to derailments or collisions,[13] despite frequent earthquakes and typhoons.

The only derailment of a Shinkansen train in passenger service occurred during the Chūetsu Earthquake on 23 October 2004. Eight of ten cars of the Toki No. 325 train on the Jōetsu Shinkansen derailed near Nagaoka Station in Nagaoka, Niigata. There were no casualties among the 154 passengers.[14] In the event of an earthquake, an earthquake detection system can bring the train to a stop very quickly. A new anti-derailment device was installed after detailed analysis of the derailment.

source: wikipedia

[GRG55]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Apparently, though, the Chinese are still a little behind in safety critical systems engineering.

China is a little behind in a great many things. I agree with mooncliff that China will move along the learning curve faster than Korea, which is moving faster than Japan, which moved faster than...

But China's process of building a durable economy with the qualities required to truly compete on a level playing field with the west is going to take a lot longer than most of us can imagine. Too many are ga-ga at the glitzy shopping malls, square miles of new high-rise towers, incredible commodity consumption statistics, not to mention those shiny high speed trains.

But at this point the Chinese economy is rife with corruption, cannot compete without ripping off other's technology and copying it, cannot compete without ripping off customer after customer [one of my companies just had quite a bad experience securing a piece of mining equipment kit from one of the largest Chinese companies in the business], and cannot make anything as well as the best in the world [trains, planes and automobiles...take your pick]. The story that started this thread is classic behaviour for a nation severely lacking in confidence and maturity.

Some day China will grow up, but what is holding it back is a deeply ingrained historical and cultural predisposition towards corruption and continually trying to take advantage of the clients on the other side of the transaction. Of course, that's the exact same thing that has happened in the western financial sector, which has waylaid the economies of the USA and much of Europe for years to come. What goes around, comes around. And China is not immune from that...

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

... Some day China will grow up, but what is holding it back is a deeply ingrained historical and cultural predisposition towards corruption and continually trying to take advantage ...

Yes, the most likely root cause of this train wreck is managers cutting corners in flagrant disregard for safety. Perhaps at the railroad where they may have disabled a safety system because of false alarms. Perhaps in the supply chain where critical equipment wasn't as good as advertised, and it must all be perfect.

[seanm123]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

The Chinese economy will continue to adapt fast as long as the decision making process is based on technology exploitation. If it is allowed to completely switch over to a economic decision making process aka profits first it will be game over and time to move on. The only hope I see for them is they are actually arresting, prosecuting and sometimes executing the Communist Party members who abuse their positions of authority to enrich themselves, even a dozen Billionaries have faced the firing squads.

There are reports of billions in graft from the high speed railway projects and we all knows what happens when you start corner cutting. Hopefully their high speed railways will still be standing in a few short years after they are really broken in or broken down.

[grapejelly]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

I'm amazed at how many people including on this thread don't get the first thing about capitalism.

Profits first is the WAY that safe trains are built, not an impediment to safe trains.

There is not enough of a real private property capitalist system, and that is what leads to cutting corners. If a true private company builds trains, and the trains collide, that company is in huge trouble with its shareholders and customers and that concern, including the need to insure against it, creates very safe infrastructure.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

First of all, as I see it, the lightening strike turned off the power, so all the track side warning systems failed. Second, this is clear panic, but the locals will be very pleased when they all leave, as they will be out like a shot to dig up the remains and use their scrap value. Must be quite a bit of scrap value buried there.