Originally Posted by
Panzon
During 2010 AIN ran a great article on high speed rail in China. The gist of the article: HSR is highly competitive (in terms of cost and time) on many legs in China, and is seen as a direct substitute.
In a command controlled economy, it is easy to make an assessment like that. In a capitalist economy, not so easy. In Shanghai, the maglev was built as a technology demonstrator/prover...because they can. If it had to make a profit, I'm not sure that the 30 or so people on the train were contributing to that. Capacity is about 300-400 people.
I thought we were going to beat the crew van to the hotel (30-40 minute drive), but when we went to check-in we (2 of us) were the last ones there. It was still worth doing at least once.