Everyone knows how utterly useless those security checks at subway stations are, but did you ever think you'd live to see it scrapped? Good news from Shanghai Daily today:
Shanghai is considering ending the security checks at Metro stations and replacing the X-ray scanners with manual random checks and police dogs, the top official of the city's politics and law committee said yesterday.more ›
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The State Administration of Work Safety has informed the press that the probe report will be released soon on the website of the official Xinhua News Agency. However, the safety watchdog did not tell the exact date of the report's release, only saying that it won't be "long".
Seen on Line 10 of the Beijing Metro on Halloween night -- a creepy female phantom in red dress.
Last month's horrifying rear-end collision on the Shanghai Metro saw 284 people hospitalised and while thankfully nobody died from the incident, many questions remain unanswered.
On the K256 Shenzhen-Hefei train, an off-duty rail worker was beaten to death by three train attendants for trying to mediate an argument involving the attendants and a fellow off-duty rail worker.
This morning, a man attempted to commit suicide by laying himself on the subway track at the Songhong Road station. Quickthinking passengers informed metro staff who then activated the emergency brake. Everyone was on tenterhooks as they watched the train coming in, but heaved a sigh of relief as it came to a complete halt just before the man. Crisis averted.
Subway trains in Nanjing were delayed along line 2 yesterday, and reports coming out today state that recent heavy rains had a role, by flooding water channels and elevating the underground bed lining which subway track lays on. In a video from one of the stranded trains, passengers mill about annoyed and anxious at the delay, only to then run away in screaming terror when things start going wrong for the train car.
Last week, train producer CNR announced a recall of 54 of the trains on the Shanghai-Beijing high-speed rail line. Shanghai also announced that all high-speed traffic (G and D trains) would be frozen after August 15 in order to revamp time tables. It seems, however, that train service remains unfrozen, and they have simply replaced the recalled trains. From Xinhua: "China has moved 21 high-speed CRH 380A (L) trains from other railway lines to ensure the operation of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway after 54 trains used on the route were recalled over safety concerns, a train manufacturer said Sunday." At this point, it seems just about everybody involved is scrambling to ensure the trains are running, and that they are running safely. New safety checkpoints have also been installed along the Shanghai-Beijing line.
Wow, that was fast. Under the auspices of a restructuring of the national train timetable, the Shanghai Railway Ministry has announced that all D and G trains departing from Shanghai Station and Hongqiao Station will halt services for an undisclosed amount of time beginning on August 15. This comes right after the State Council already suspended further train project approvals around China and slowed down most of China's bullet trains. We're happy to see sings of caution in the ministries, but can only imagine the transportation nightmare that will result. The Shanghai Railway Ministry promises to have tickets and trains back up and running "as soon as possible." Let's hope they're actually doing this to fix all the glitches.
Passengers travelling on Line 10 of the Shanghai Metro were spared a heart attack on Thursday evening when they got off the train in one piece after it went on the wrong track at the Longxi Road station line split.
As the grand game of push-the-blame taichi continues, the ball has now fallen in the court of the Beijing National Railway Research & Design Institute of Signal & Communication Co Ltd, whose railway signals equipment is now being blamed for the Wenzhou train collision.
There's been some confusion among several foreign correspondents about Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's comments in Wenzhou arising from a slightly faulty translation in Xinhua's English-language newswire, so we thought we'd jump into the discussion.
A rare and titillating show of confrontation between a local government and central government forces played out soon after the high-profile Wenzhou train collision. And if sentiment on Sina Weibo is anything to go by, it's Wenzhou Government 1: Ministry of Railways 0.
In a move approved by a committee set up by the State Council to investigate the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash, train compartments have been hastily transported away from the crash site to the Wenzhou West train station "for further research".
Many of the journalists working on the Wenzhou train crash story are finding it hard to believe the railway ministry's denials that it's burying train bodies and parts to hide the truth.
This purported video of the Wenzhou train collision has been burning up the internets since it was first uploaded onto the video-sharing site, Youku. A large part of the video shows us what weather conditions were like that day -- it was raining heavily and cars were travelling slowly on the flooded streets. In the last few seconds, we see a train moving (presumably the D301 that rear-ended the D3115), a few bright sparks, and then shouts of disbelief. No lightning was visible in the video, so If this video is indeed what it claims to be, then it is clear proof that the Ministry of Railways was lying about the collision having been caused by a lightning. We'll be waiting to hear from the video forensic experts on this one.
Not unexpected: "China Eastern Airlines led share rallies of China's three air giants in the Hong Kong market by gaining 4.76 percent to close at HK$3.96 (51 US cents) yesterday. Air China rose 3.59 percent to HK$8.08 and China Southern Airlines rose 3.4 percent to HK$5.17. The increase bucked the downward trend of the Hang Seng Index, which closed down 0.7 percent at 22,293.3 points." [Shanghai Daily]
The Ministry of Railways has finally apologised for the catastrophic high-speed rail collision in Wenzhou.
WARNING: The following video contains images that you may find disturbing. Proceed at your own risk.
"FOUR bullet trains from Shanghai to Nanjing were canceled yesterday due to a sudden rainstorm in Nanjing, said the railway operator. The Shanghai-Beijing high-speed line was not affected, authorities said. The Shanghai-Nanjing operator said 430 passengers were impacted as the operations on trains G7026, G7078, G7158 and G7164 were stopped by late in the afternoon. The heavy rainfall in Nanjing hit the track area by 4pm, leaving water and crimping the operation, said officials. Passengers were transferred to other trains, said Shanghai railway station officials. Emergency workers were making fixes to the affected track before the full operation resumed, said the operator." [Shanghai Daily]
If you're still looking for those 400RMB Shanghai-Beijing air tickets and can't find them, look no further. They do not exist anymore.
Yet another systems design flaw with our multi-billion dollar high-speed rail?: "People have found that the bar code on the train tickets can be decoded by software downloaded from the Internet. Information such as passport or other ID numbers, which are partly concealed on the tickets, will then be revealed. In a recent test, a passenger surnamed Zhou downloaded software to a cell phone and scanned the bar code with the cell phone camera. Information including the departure time and the passenger ID number began to show on the cell phone 'within seconds,' Zhou said. Industry insiders said there's no way to prevent the decoding." [Shanghai Daily]
Just two weeks since its grand opening, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train has disappointed passengers for the third time. Beijing railway bureau officials attributed the third glitch in as many days to "a sudden malfunction," leaving out any further explanations as to what caused the malfunction. According to a passenger who was on board, "the lights and air conditioning were off" and passengers were told by the attendants that "the train might be delayed for 30 minutes because of a problem with the signal system." Those 30 minutes of delay quickly turned into an hour, and passengers were then told to board the back-up train, arriving at the destination two and a half hours behind schedule. The Ministry of Railways attempted to lift the spirits of each passenger with a complementary box of cookies and bottle of water, the obvious cure-all. The first two incidents with the high-speed rail were due to power failure.
The Beijing-Shanghai high speed rail link experienced two malfunctions yesterday that resulted in over an hour delay. At times, the cabins were even plunged into complete darkness! Massive bummer for these rigorously trained rail girls - can't really blame them for the glitch, can you? Like the laowai girl says, just relax!
Chinese and foreign journalists were treated by the railway ministry two days ago to a test drive of the brand new Beijing-Shanghai line, now the world's longest high speed railway. CNN managed to snag the following cockpit view which the rest of us hoi polloi will probably never be able to see:
Take that you headline-hogging speedy rail thing! After ticket prices were finally released for the Shanghai-Bejing high speed train, opening this Friday, it looks like multiple Chinese airlines have slashed fares in anticipation of the competition! The screen grab above is from a Ctrip search for one-way tickets from Shanghai to Beijing. All told, the total for the cheapest ticket comes out to 590RMB - a mere 35RMB more than the cheapest ticket for the five-hour train!
Everyone going from Beijing to Shanghai or the other way around in the new high speed trains is in for a treat. There will be 403 pretty attendants, or high-speed sisters (高姐), as called by netizens, attending to passengers needs (don't get too excited though, they are not going to attend to EVERY need). They are all an average of 22 years old and have an average height of 165 centimeters. They are also edumacated - each girl has at least graduated from junior college and can speak standard Mandarin Chinese as well as fluent English.
For those getting on any high-speed train after June 1st, here's a list of the new rules for buying tickets from Shanghai Daily:
