Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "How China built the world’s longest high-speed railway" video.

  1. As soon as they have sold 10-25 billion tickets, they will have paid back the cost of the system. Unfortunately, the system appears to operate at a $9 billion annual loss.
    3
  2. It should be mentioned that of the railways built abroad mentioned in the video, the ones in Laos and Kenya are not high-speed railways. Vietnam has recently announced that they will build their own high-speed railway, rather than buying it from abroad, though who knows, they might change their mind. Almost all the technology for China's high-speed rail system was supplied by foreign companies: Siemens for the sleeper-less tracks and the signal systems, trains came from Japan, France, Italy, and Germany. Since then, China has continued to develop on these systems to a degree where they can now export the technology as their own. One prime example of this is the Fuxing train set, with a design speed up to 380 km/h.
    3
  3.  @robocop581  Do you have better numbers? Let's see you provide some data.
    2
  4. @qinghejushi-pb2ru  Trade has certainly increased since the first line opened in 2007, but is it because of the high-speed rail network? That is hard to prove. After all, the high-speed railway almost exclusively serve passenger trains, not freight, so the relationship to trade is difficult to show.
    2
  5. @zacksmith5644  The US military is not in debt. It gets money allocated as part of the Federal Budget. However, the US is in debt, is that what you mean?
    2
  6.  @zacksmith5644  I answered you elsewhere, but just to clarify, the US military is not in debt.
    2
  7. @zacksmith5644  The US military gets all its funding from the federal government. They cannot spend more than they get.
    2
  8. Well, at least you acknowledge that China is comparable to 'authoritarian' and 'totalitarian' countries. That's a kind of progress, I suppose.
    2
  9. @klopkerna3562  And Luxembourg, a country with no oil, has a higher gdp ppp per capita than any other country. What's your point?
    2
  10.  @canto_v12  I'm not American, so I don't care too much about the US interstate system, but as far as I know the US railway system is profitable and has been profitable since it was built.
    1
  11.  @rizkyadiyanto7922  "singapore is better." I agree with that. It was just to show that the other commenter's argument was irrelevant. To be fair, though, I have only driven through Luxembourg, didn't stop. Who knows, it might be nice.
    1