What is High-Speed Rail?

High-speed railway technology, the full name of high-speed railway technology, refers to all scientific technologies related to high-speed railway systems, including railway construction technology, train manufacturing technology, information collection technology, dispatch control technology, operation management technology, and maintenance technology. High-speed rail technology, like aviation technology, is a very large and complex engineering system, and cannot be generalized unilaterally. ^[1]

High-speed rail technology

According to the "China Railway Medium and Long-Term Development Plan", by 2020, in order to meet the rapidly growing demand for passenger transport, establish fast passenger corridors between provincial capitals and large and medium cities, and plan "four vertical and four horizontal" railway rapid passenger corridors and three Intercity Express Passenger Transport System. The passenger dedicated line will be constructed over 12,000 kilometers, and the target value of passenger speed will reach 200 kilometers and above.

"Four Vertical" Passenger Dedicated Lines: Beijing-Shanghai (

Japan Shinkansen

Japan, Germany, and France are the countries with the most mature and advanced high-speed rail technology, which is mainly related to their early industrialization and natural and human geography suitable for railway transportation. The emerging high-speed rail technology powerhouses, without exception, are re-developed on their high-speed rail technology platforms.

Although China's high-speed rail technology started late but developed rapidly, China's high-speed rail technology has reached the world-class level under the influence of huge railway transportation market demand, high-speed comprehensive national strength, reform and opening up policies, and leap-forward development strategies. In fact, the post-war Japan's history of high-speed rail development is similar to that in Japan.

China, Japan, Germany, and France have their own unique high-speed rail technologies. China's high-speed rail runs smoothly, Japan's high-speed rail has excellent safety performance, Germany's high-speed rail has advanced electrical equipment, and France's high-speed rail has a leading speed limit. High-speed technology and industry are global. Just like civil airliners, different countries provide different technical research services. Even the so-called self-developed domestic trains, it is not possible to achieve 100% pure domestic production of all parts and technologies, which is not economical. The law of globalization. Apple's mobile phone also draws on materials and assembly technologies from various countries, not to mention the much more difficult high-speed rail system.

Japan Shinkansen

At present, there are two kinds of controversial voices that are both objective and irrational evaluations of China's high-speed rail technology, namely the plagiarism theory and the best theory. Science knows no borders, and in the era of economic globalization, it is an indisputable fact that high-speed rail technology has spread from developed countries to developing countries through diversified forms of cooperation. The high-speed rail technology in most countries in South Korea and the EU is the introduction of other high-speed rail technology powerhouses, as long as it meets the normal There is no plagiarism in the patent application and transfer process.

The most arrogant theories have always touted China's high-speed rail technology as being overwhelming, and even despised the high-speed rail technology of other powerful nations, and totally disrespecting the fact that high-speed technology is the crystallization of wisdom and labor of many generations throughout the world for many years. China's railway has a long and tragic history of development than any other country: When steam locomotives were phased out in the world, China became the largest producer and user of steam locomotives. Japan's high-speed rail technology is a full 45 years earlier than domestic. In any case, Japan has a longer history of high-speed rail technology than China, and the actual understanding of high-speed rail is much better than ours. In fact, China's EMU technology at a speed of 380 kilometers per hour is continuously developed on the Japanese high-speed EMU technology platform. Many people have also put China's high-speed rail technology into the sky in terms of speed and mileage. Japan, Germany, and France are small countries with a small land area. They also need to take care of the economic corridors along the line. It is not necessary or impossible to use 350km / h speed trains in large areas at this stage. However, their test speeds exceeded 400km in the last century. / h mark. If their land area and population are the size of China, I am afraid that their high-speed rail mileage and speed are not limited to today. In addition, operating speed is a complex issue, not as fast as possible. In addition to technology, it is more about finding a balance point in energy consumption, economy, efficiency, service, fares, risks and policies.

China's high-speed rail management technology and operating technology still need to be improved. The Wenzhou EMU accident is a wake-up call. Not only that, in an era that can repair more than 1,000 kilometers and 350km / h of Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed rail in 4 years, a Wanhui City Railway less than 100km and 200km / h has to be repaired for nearly 10 years. These problems reflect that there are still many problems and weaknesses in China's high-speed rail from planning and design to operation management, which need to be treated objectively and improved. ^[8]

China has successfully developed domestic chips for high-speed trains belonging to its own country and developed Chinese standard EMUs, which indicates that China's high-speed railway technology has truly entered its own era, and the two countries have achieved technical independence from Japan, Germany and France. That is, China has a truly independent high-speed rail technology. ^[9]