China's railroad macroeconomic model

China’s railway infrastructure investment may double in the second half of this year from the first six months, aiding efforts to reverse a slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Full-year spending will be 448.3 billion yuan ($70.3 billion), according to a statement dated July 6 on the website of the National Development and Reform Commission’s Anhui branch. The document indicates a 9 percent increase from a previous plan of 411.3 billion yuan. Spending was 148.7 billion yuan in the first half.

Bloomberg

Train travel in China at 217 miles per hour

China unveils 'world's fastest train link'

BEIJING (AFP) – China on Saturday unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world -- a train connecting the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 350 kilometres (217 miles) an hour.

The super-high-speed train reduces the 1,069 kilometre journey to a three hour ride and cuts the previous journey time by more than seven and a half hours, the official Xinhua news agency said.


article

FT: Shanghai to Beijing by train in a day

Shanghai to Beijing by train in a day

By Rahul Jacob

Published: December 27 2008 01:11

The English poet Philip Larkin once said that he would visit China – if he could return in a day. I recently took a 10-hour train journey from Shanghai to Beijing on one of the country’s fast trains intending a variation on that absurd idea.

It was a chance to see, albeit only from a train window, more than just the epic skyscrapers of those two metropolises. Both cities have played the role of giant portals that have turned the heads of the world’s chief executives and led to the greatest emerging market gold rush ever. Coincidentally, the book I was reading on my journey, Yasheng Huang’s Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, argued that the government’s huge investments in all those skyscrapers and show-off airports had come at the cost of China’s rural areas.

FT article