China's 120mph railway arriving in Laos

[Mich the Tester]

China is a vast, mostly empty country which is undergoing a vast industrial/technological revolution.

...and will shortly own most of the minerals in the developing world, seeing as they're lending money all over the place with mineral deposits as collateral. They're doing it all over Africa too.

[d000hg]

What would happen to a Chinese MP who'd object to a high speed railway going through their constituency on the basis of some rich voters not liking change of view? I am pretty sure they'd get shot for treason.

China is a vast, mostly empty country which is undergoing a vast industrial/technological revolution.

[AtW]

It ain't ever getting close to 120mph then - Shirley?

If that happens then whoever is in charge is likely to get shot rather than get peerage in House of Lords.

Lots of stations is to give flexibility of stopping where appropriate (to load up cargo) - trains don't need to do all 31 stops in one journey.

[Dactylion]

<confused>
... a station every 10ish miles!!!!
... a bridge every 2 miles!!!
... and a tunnel every 3ish

It ain't ever getting close to 120mph then - Shirley?

[AtW]

" Starting from Kunming in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, the railway will travel south through neighbouring Laos and then into Thailand.

Ultimately, it will extend all the way to Singapore, via Malaysia. Other branches of the network will reach into Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Constructing it will be a mammoth engineering task. It will require 154 bridges and 76 tunnels, as well as 31 train stations, just to get the line the 260 miles from Boten on the Laos-China border to Laos’ capital Vientiane. An estimated 20,000 Chinese workers will be needed to build it, with the completion date set for 2019. " (AtW's comment: so that's double distance compared to HS2 which won't be ready in double the time)

Using untapped minerals as collateral, Laos plans to borrow £4.5 billion from Beijing to pay for its section of the railway (AtW's comment: so that's 10 times less for double the distance build twice as fast). Equivalent to almost 90 per cent of Laos’s annual GDP of £5.2 billion, the loan will instantly make Laos the world’s fourth most-indebted nation after Japan, Zimbabwe and Greece."

Source: China's 120mph railway arriving in Laos - Telegraph

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What would happen to a Chinese MP who'd object to a high speed railway going through their constituency on the basis of some rich voters not liking change of view? I am pretty sure they'd get shot for treason.