China crash mars stellar HSR safety record

The collision of two high speed rail trains near Wenzhou, China, on July 23 has triggered doubt, both domestically and internationally, not of HSR’s viability but of China’s expertise to implement its HSR plans, in part because HSR for decades has operated nearly flawlessly in Europe and in Japan.

At least 43 were killed, and more than 200 seriously injured, when one HSR train reportedly lost power, attributed by Chinese railway officials to a lightning strike, which then disabled safety devices. The first train was then hit by a second HSR consist following the first train. The incident occurred roughly 860 miles south of Beijing.

Many rail industry observers have expressed outright skepticism about China’s explanation of the HSR incident. “I’ve never heard of lightning doing that, but if it did, everything else would stop, too,” Vukan R. Vuchic, professor of City and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania, told The New York Times. “And the signal system should keep trains at a safe distance.”

China’s aggressive push for HSR has been criticized on several levels, with its reliability and safety questioned from the onset when power problems plagued the debut of Beijing-Shanghai service in June. Corruption forced the government to fire at least three high-ranking railway officials, including Railways Minister Liu Zhijun in February.

Immediately following the crash, the Ministry of Railways called for a two-month nationwide safety check and announced that three senior officials in the Shanghai Railway Bureau had been dismissed pending an investigation.

Manufacturers of HSR equipment, particularly from Japan, have alleged both privately and publicly that HSR equipment in China, produced by China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp. Ltd. (CSR), have liberally “borrowed” from proprietary designs of other, more established HSR equipment producers.

More openly, CSR has formed a partnership with General Electric Co. to develop HSR technology for global export, and had been considered a likely, even favored, bidder for California’s 700-mile HSR project. The Wenzhou accident could seriously damage any marketing push of Chinese HSR technology in California or elsewhere, one source knowledgeable of California’s efforts tells Railway Age.

As for safety, “If China is going to take HSR from international to global, then we will need a global body devoted to rail safety like the Flight Safety Foundation does for aviation,” Anthony Perl, director, Urban Studies Program, at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, told Railway Age.

 “In part, that’s because China’s visions for HSR far exceed that of even existing HSR mileage now in operation. “A rail analog to the Flight Safety Foundation” might be required “if HSR is to remain a safe mode while meeting much higher volumes of global mobility, Perl said.