纽约时报也来凑热闹——高铁将改变中国

原文首发ourail http://bbs.ourail.com/thread-118445-1-1.html


文章链接 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/2 ... rail.html?_r=1&

文章提到虽然存在票价、投资额巨大、安全等争议，高铁必将向五十年代美国高速公路建设一样改变整个国家，促进东西部的融合，增强产业竞争力。
其它主要内容：京沪线一年后加速至三百五、周某言论、武广线供不应求要等几列车才买得到座票、客专释放即有线货运能力，去年货运增幅是英法德及波兰四国运能之和、奥黑的高铁计划受阻等等。

读后感：

1. 记者Keith Bradsher几年来在NYT发表的所有写中国高铁的文章中心思想可以概括为：“一个TG国家都能做到的事，先进的美国人当然能做得更好，而且我们没有理由不做。" 文章内容其实并不重要。

2. 他的文章，只要是表面上写中国做得好的（高铁，新能源等）都会刊登在显著位置，明显是代表了NYT的政治观点。这篇文章是所谓美国最主流liberal媒体的诤谏。
3. Comments最有意思，真实地反映了美国JY人群思想转变：从一个自信的人民和国家开始过渡到鄙视蛮夷奇淫巧计的体制党和文化党。感觉不管是夸还是毁中国的commentator中，几乎没人了解现在中国，能看得懂中文更是罕见。对于这样一个已经洗脑很彻底的民族，真相即使吃进去，也会被习惯性的吐出来。相比之下，我们的大多数JY和FF还是能读懂洋文的。



CHANGSHA, CHINA — Even as China prepares to open bullet train service between Beijing and Shanghai by July 1, its steadily expanding high-speed rail network is being pilloried on a scale rare among Chinese citizens and the news media..  
中国长沙— —正当中国准备在七一前开通京沪高铁时，国内民众和新闻媒体对稳步扩张的高铁网展开了规模空前的批判。

Complaints include the system’s high costs and fares, the quality of construction and an allegation of self-dealing by a rail minister who was fired this year on grounds of corruption.
各种报怨包括高铁的造价、票价、工程质量、下台部长的腐化云云。
But often overlooked amid all the controversy are the very real economic benefits that the world’s most advanced fast-rail system is bringing to China, and the competitive challenges it poses for the United States and Europe.
但在争议中时常被忽视的是：世界上最先进的的高铁系统给中国带来的实际经济利益和对美欧竞争力的挑战。

Just as building the interstate highway system in the United States a half-century ago made modern commerce more feasible on a national scale, China’s ambitious rail rollout is helping to integrate the economy of this sprawling, populous nation. In China’s case, it is doing so on a much faster construction timetable and at significantly higher travel speeds than anything envisioned by the United States in the 1950s.
正如同美国在半个世纪前修建州际高速公路网在全国范围内促进现代商业一样，中国雄心勃勃的高铁将有助于整合这个广阔的人口大国的经济。而中国的建设周期更快、运营速度也远超美国在五十年代的设想。
Work crews of as many as 100,000 people per line have built about half of the 16,000-kilometer, or 10,000-mile, network in just six years, in many cases ahead of schedule, including the Beijing-to-Shanghai line, which was originally planned to open next year. The entire system is still on course to be completed by 2020.
每条线路多达十万之众的建设大军在过去短短六年里完成了一万六千公里高铁网规划的一半，包括京沪在内相当多的路线提前完工。整个网络预计于2020年前建成。
For the United States and Europe, the implications go beyond marveling at the pace of Communist-style civil engineering. As trains traveling 320 kilometers per hour link cities and provinces that were previously as much as 24 hours by road or rail from the entrepreneurial seacoast, China’s manufacturing might and global-export machine are likely to grow more powerful.
对美欧而言，中国高铁的影响不仅仅限于惊叹中式建设速度。当时速320公里的列车将内陆省市与沿海发达地区联接起来，中国的工业和出口力量将很有可能变得更强大。

Zhen Qinan, a founder of the stock exchange in the coastal city of Shenzhen and the recently retired chief executive of ZK Energy, a wind turbine producer in Changsha, said that high-speed trains were making it more convenient to base businesses here in Hunan Province — a populous region that has long provided labor to the factories of the east, but whose mountain ranges have tended to isolate it from the economic mainstream.
Mr. Zhen ticked off Hunan’s economic attributes: “Land is much cheaper. Electricity is cheaper. Labor is cheaper.
文章举了湖南经济得益于高铁的例子，略。

Throughout China, real estate prices and investments have risen sharply in the more than 200 inland cities that have already been connected by high-speed lines in the past three years. Businesses are flocking to these cities, now just a few hours by bullet train from China’s busiest and most international metropolises.
过去三年里，超过两百个有高铁经过的内陆市镇的地价和投资大幅上涨。企业蜂拥至这些离中国沿海国际大都市只有几个钟头车程的地区。

Meanwhile, a shift in passenger traffic to the  high-speed rail routes has freed up congested older rail lines for freight. That has allowed coal mines and shippers to switch to cheaper rail transport from costly trucks for heavy cargos.
同时，向高速线转移客流也释放了拥堵的既有线的货运能力。煤矿和其他货主可以用火车货运取代昂贵的公路运输。

Because of this shift, plus the further construction of freight rail lines, the tonnage hauled by China’s rail system increased in 2010 by an amount equaling the entire freight carried last year by the combined rail systems of Britain, France, Germany and Poland, according to the World Bank.   
因客运分流，加之新建货运线，中国2010年的铁路货运增长额是英、法、德、波兰四国铁路货运量之和。
The bullet train bonanza, and the competitive challenge it poses for the West, is only likely to increase with the opening of the 1,320-kilometer Beijing-to-Shanghai line, which will create a business corridor between China’s two most dynamic cities. The Ministry of Railways plans 90 bullet trains a day in each direction.
高铁热以及对西方竞争力的挑战只会随着全长1320公里的京沪线的开通加剧，该线将在中国两大最具活力的都市之间形成商业走廊。TDB计划每日开行九十对子弹头列车。
The trains will barrel along at speeds of more than 300 kilometers per hour initially, with plans to accelerate to about 350 kilometers per hour by the summer of 2012 if the first year of operation goes smoothly.
列车在开通之初将以300+的时速飞奔，如何运营顺利，将于2012夏天之前加速至350。
Even at the initial speeds, the trains will take less than five hours to travel between Beijing and Shanghai. That is roughly comparable to the distance between New York and Atlanta, which takes nearly 18 hours on an Amtrak train.
即使以最初速度运行，京沪间5小时内即可到达。该距离与纽约到亚特兰大相当，Amtrak列车耗时近18个小时。
China’s huge investment in high-speed rail may be instructive for the United States, whether for proponents of U.S. rail investments or critics who consider bullet trains a boondoggle.
中国在高铁项目上进行巨额投资对美国有借鉴意义，无论是美国铁托或铁黑。

President Barack Obama, who has proposed spending $53 billion on high-speed rail over the next six years, faced a setback in his budget deal in April with Republicans in Congress, which eliminated money for that plan this year.
奥观海提出在未来六年投资530亿美元建设高铁，该计划在国会预算案受阻，今年的投资被砍。
Last autumn, newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin turned down U.S. money that their Democratic predecessors had won for new rail routes, worrying that their states could end up covering most of the costs for trains that would draw few riders.
去年秋，佛罗里达、俄亥俄、威斯康星州新任共和党州长们拒绝了其民主党前任讨来的联邦投资，他们担心他们所在的州将承担运椅子的高铁的大部分费用。

But then, high-speed rail is not universally acclaimed in China, either.
高铁在中国也不是人人夸。

Financial regulators in Beijing have cautioned banks to monitor their rising exposure from hefty loans to the rail ministry. To pay for rapid deployment of the high-speed system, the ministry has borrowed more than 2 trillion renminbi, or more than $300 billion. It plans to invest an additional 750 billion renminbi this year, despite running losses on existing operations that it attributes mainly to rising diesel fuel costs for older lines, as well as rising interest payments.
财政官员已经提醒银行监控它们对高铁的贷款。TDB为建高铁举债超过二万亿淫民币，或三千多亿美刀。尽管因老线所耗柴油成本上升和高涨的利息导致出现亏损，TDB今年还设计另借七千五百亿人民币。
Among the biggest beneficiaries of the high-speed rail system are companies that contribute nothing to defray its costs. Those would be freight shippers, which now have more exclusive use of the older rail lines, with fewer delays.
高铁网的最大受益者之一是众多无需承担建设成本的公司。如货运公司等，它们对既有线用得更多，延迟更少。

On the older tracks, the rail ministry has long been able to dictate that freight rates would subsidize passenger trains because the ministry owns those older tracks outright. The new, high-speed lines — passenger trains only — are owned by joint ventures between the ministry and provincial governments. That has prevented the ministry from forcing freight shippers to cross-subsidize the new high-speed services. As a result, passengers must pay much higher fares on the new trains than on the older ones.
因为拥有既有线的所有权，TDB长期以来用货运补贴客运。新客专系与地方共同投资建设，TDB无法用货运补贴高铁，乘客因此要承担比老线高得多的票价。
The lack of freight subsidies is also causing concern in the rail and banking industries that the debt agreements of some joint ventures might need to be revised to extend the repayment of investment costs over more years.
因为没有货运补贴，铁路部门和银行担心一些联建项目的负债要更多年才能还清。

The joint ventures were set up to give provincial governments an incentive to cooperate in acquiring land for the new routes. But those partnerships typically own only train stations and tracks. The land surrounding the stations often is owned by companies belonging to provincial and municipal government agencies, which have reaped windfall profits by selling such property to developers.
联合建设为的是给省级地方ZF有征地的动力。但联建各方拥有的是站房和线路，车站周边的土地（使用权）大多为各级地方ZF部门开设的公司所有，这些公司将土地卖给开发商，赚得锅满盆满。

During a 20-minute taxi ride from a hotel in central Changsha to the high-speed rail station, a visitor counted 195 tower cranes erecting high-rise buildings.
从长沙市中心到高铁站大约二十分钟的车程中，有人数到195个建设高楼的吊塔。
According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, residential real estate prices rose faster in the first five months of this year in Changsha than in all but three other Chinese cities — all of which are also high-speed rail centers.
从捅鸡局的数据看，长沙房价在今年头五个月的涨幅仅次于其它三个城市——它们也都是高铁中心城。
For ordinary citizens, meanwhile, the steep prices for high-speed train tickets have touched China’s raw nerve of rising income inequality.
对普通民众而言，高票价触及贫富差异的神经。
“The government is just abusing the money of the common people,” said one posting on an Internet discussion forum, defying the network’s heavy censorship.
＂ZF乱花LBX的钱＂某网民讲。-
From Changsha to Guangzhou, a two-hour journey at speeds of up to 340 kilometers per hour, the one-way fare in economy class is 333 renminbi. That is comparable to a deeply discounted airfare, but expensive for a migrant worker from Hunan who might earn 1,000 renminbi to 2,500 renminbi a month in wages in the city of Guangzhou. The same trip takes nine hours on an older diesel train and costs 99 renminbi.# [. y1 M' J  A0 t
这段举例长沙到广州，二等单程票，2小时最高时速340公里，票价333块。和低折扣的机票接近，但对在广州打工每月一千到二千五的民工来讲还是贵了。老线火车9小时99块。

Chinese and foreign engineers have questioned the long-term strength of the concrete used in bridges and viaducts under contracts awarded during the term of the disgraced former rail minister, Liu Zhijun.
中外工程师们对前部长在位期间高铁桥隧使用的水泥长期强度提出质疑。
The rail ministry’s new leaders, brought in after the corruption investigation, contend that safety concerns are misplaced. But they have acknowledged them, along with the public anger over fares, by announcing plans to lower the top speed on many routes to 300 kilometers per hour from 350 kilometers per hour on July 1. The change will sharply reduce the amount of electricity consumed and allow officials to pass on the savings through reduced ticket prices. The speed reduction would also at least partially address safety concerns.
新上台的官员称安全没问题，但是他们在宣布七一降速时提到过高票价和安全等因素。（返祖真是授人口实）降速将大幅降低能耗，乘客因此受益，并且可以部分解决安全顾虑。
On Tuesday and Wednesday, several Chinese news media outlets quoted Zhou Yimin, a former deputy chief engineer at the rail ministry, as saying that China’s high-speed trains essentially used European and Japanese technology designed for safe use up to 300 kilometers per hour. The trains can be driven considerably faster, as China has been doing until now and plans to resume doing a year from now on the route from Beijing to Shanghai, but this reduces the safety margin, he said. The rail ministry had no immediate comment on Wednesday.
周二周三两日，中国数家媒体援引周某发言指出中国高铁列车基本上使用欧日300公里技术，这些列车可以开得更快——中国到目前为止的速度，一年后计划在京沪线恢复——但减少了安全余量。TDB周三时还没有回应。（文章发早了点）

China has not disclosed any fatal crashes since its high-speed rail network began operations three years ago, while nearly 100,000 people a year die on Chinese roads, according to official statistics. International health experts say that the true total for road deaths is even higher.
运行三年来，中国高铁未有致命事故报告，而官方统计显示公路死亡数近十万，国际专家估计实际数目更高。

When the Beijing-to-Shanghai line opens, it will create a north-to-south artery with links to east-to-west rail lines at two dozen stations along the way.
京沪线开通后，将形成南北大动脉，并在沿线20多个站点联起东西走向的线路。
“It’s the network together that makes it work,” said John Scales, a rail expert in the Beijing office of the World Bank who has advised China, “knowing you can go from Shijiazhuang to Beijing and then transfer to Tianjin, so the coal guys can go to the port and conduct business with their shippers, for example.
世界银行一铁路专家讲：形成网络才能发挥作用，并举例石家庄转北京再转天津。
Already, the longer routes elsewhere appear to draw much heavier ridership. The trains, which typically carry 600 passengers, sometimes sell out despite departures every 10 or 15 minutes, particularly on Fridays but sometimes even at lunchtime in the middle of the week.
确实，长干线路已经吸引了众多的乘客。定员六百、发车间隔十到十五分钟的列车也会卖光所有的车票，尤其在周五甚至有时在非周末的午饭时段。
Of course, high speed is relative. First, a passenger must actually get a seat.
当然，高速是相对的，乘客得首先有个座。
Zhou Junde, a migrant construction worker with a large red and green tattoo of a hawk on the right side of his neck, stood in line at the Changsha station on a recent Friday afternoon to buy a high-speed ticket to Guangzhou. But the next high-speed train was entirely sold out, and so was the next one 10 minutes after that. He would have to wait 30 minutes to board a train with a seat.
最近一个周五中午某位建筑民工在长沙站排队买票，但下趟车票已售罄，甚至是再等十分钟的再下一趟。他得等半小时以后的才有座。
“Sometimes,” he said, “I come several hours early to get the departure I want.”
他讲：有时我得提前几个小时来买我想要的车次。原文首发ourail http://bbs.ourail.com/thread-118445-1-1.html


文章链接 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/2 ... rail.html?_r=1&

文章提到虽然存在票价、投资额巨大、安全等争议，高铁必将向五十年代美国高速公路建设一样改变整个国家，促进东西部的融合，增强产业竞争力。
其它主要内容：京沪线一年后加速至三百五、周某言论、武广线供不应求要等几列车才买得到座票、客专释放即有线货运能力，去年货运增幅是英法德及波兰四国运能之和、奥黑的高铁计划受阻等等。

读后感：

1. 记者Keith Bradsher几年来在NYT发表的所有写中国高铁的文章中心思想可以概括为：“一个TG国家都能做到的事，先进的美国人当然能做得更好，而且我们没有理由不做。" 文章内容其实并不重要。

2. 他的文章，只要是表面上写中国做得好的（高铁，新能源等）都会刊登在显著位置，明显是代表了NYT的政治观点。这篇文章是所谓美国最主流liberal媒体的诤谏。
3. Comments最有意思，真实地反映了美国JY人群思想转变：从一个自信的人民和国家开始过渡到鄙视蛮夷奇淫巧计的体制党和文化党。感觉不管是夸还是毁中国的commentator中，几乎没人了解现在中国，能看得懂中文更是罕见。对于这样一个已经洗脑很彻底的民族，真相即使吃进去，也会被习惯性的吐出来。相比之下，我们的大多数JY和FF还是能读懂洋文的。



CHANGSHA, CHINA — Even as China prepares to open bullet train service between Beijing and Shanghai by July 1, its steadily expanding high-speed rail network is being pilloried on a scale rare among Chinese citizens and the news media..  
中国长沙— —正当中国准备在七一前开通京沪高铁时，国内民众和新闻媒体对稳步扩张的高铁网展开了规模空前的批判。

Complaints include the system’s high costs and fares, the quality of construction and an allegation of self-dealing by a rail minister who was fired this year on grounds of corruption.
各种报怨包括高铁的造价、票价、工程质量、下台部长的腐化云云。
But often overlooked amid all the controversy are the very real economic benefits that the world’s most advanced fast-rail system is bringing to China, and the competitive challenges it poses for the United States and Europe.
但在争议中时常被忽视的是：世界上最先进的的高铁系统给中国带来的实际经济利益和对美欧竞争力的挑战。

Just as building the interstate highway system in the United States a half-century ago made modern commerce more feasible on a national scale, China’s ambitious rail rollout is helping to integrate the economy of this sprawling, populous nation. In China’s case, it is doing so on a much faster construction timetable and at significantly higher travel speeds than anything envisioned by the United States in the 1950s.
正如同美国在半个世纪前修建州际高速公路网在全国范围内促进现代商业一样，中国雄心勃勃的高铁将有助于整合这个广阔的人口大国的经济。而中国的建设周期更快、运营速度也远超美国在五十年代的设想。
Work crews of as many as 100,000 people per line have built about half of the 16,000-kilometer, or 10,000-mile, network in just six years, in many cases ahead of schedule, including the Beijing-to-Shanghai line, which was originally planned to open next year. The entire system is still on course to be completed by 2020.
每条线路多达十万之众的建设大军在过去短短六年里完成了一万六千公里高铁网规划的一半，包括京沪在内相当多的路线提前完工。整个网络预计于2020年前建成。
For the United States and Europe, the implications go beyond marveling at the pace of Communist-style civil engineering. As trains traveling 320 kilometers per hour link cities and provinces that were previously as much as 24 hours by road or rail from the entrepreneurial seacoast, China’s manufacturing might and global-export machine are likely to grow more powerful.
对美欧而言，中国高铁的影响不仅仅限于惊叹中式建设速度。当时速320公里的列车将内陆省市与沿海发达地区联接起来，中国的工业和出口力量将很有可能变得更强大。

Zhen Qinan, a founder of the stock exchange in the coastal city of Shenzhen and the recently retired chief executive of ZK Energy, a wind turbine producer in Changsha, said that high-speed trains were making it more convenient to base businesses here in Hunan Province — a populous region that has long provided labor to the factories of the east, but whose mountain ranges have tended to isolate it from the economic mainstream.
Mr. Zhen ticked off Hunan’s economic attributes: “Land is much cheaper. Electricity is cheaper. Labor is cheaper.
文章举了湖南经济得益于高铁的例子，略。

Throughout China, real estate prices and investments have risen sharply in the more than 200 inland cities that have already been connected by high-speed lines in the past three years. Businesses are flocking to these cities, now just a few hours by bullet train from China’s busiest and most international metropolises.
过去三年里，超过两百个有高铁经过的内陆市镇的地价和投资大幅上涨。企业蜂拥至这些离中国沿海国际大都市只有几个钟头车程的地区。

Meanwhile, a shift in passenger traffic to the  high-speed rail routes has freed up congested older rail lines for freight. That has allowed coal mines and shippers to switch to cheaper rail transport from costly trucks for heavy cargos.
同时，向高速线转移客流也释放了拥堵的既有线的货运能力。煤矿和其他货主可以用火车货运取代昂贵的公路运输。

Because of this shift, plus the further construction of freight rail lines, the tonnage hauled by China’s rail system increased in 2010 by an amount equaling the entire freight carried last year by the combined rail systems of Britain, France, Germany and Poland, according to the World Bank.   
因客运分流，加之新建货运线，中国2010年的铁路货运增长额是英、法、德、波兰四国铁路货运量之和。
The bullet train bonanza, and the competitive challenge it poses for the West, is only likely to increase with the opening of the 1,320-kilometer Beijing-to-Shanghai line, which will create a business corridor between China’s two most dynamic cities. The Ministry of Railways plans 90 bullet trains a day in each direction.
高铁热以及对西方竞争力的挑战只会随着全长1320公里的京沪线的开通加剧，该线将在中国两大最具活力的都市之间形成商业走廊。TDB计划每日开行九十对子弹头列车。
The trains will barrel along at speeds of more than 300 kilometers per hour initially, with plans to accelerate to about 350 kilometers per hour by the summer of 2012 if the first year of operation goes smoothly.
列车在开通之初将以300+的时速飞奔，如何运营顺利，将于2012夏天之前加速至350。
Even at the initial speeds, the trains will take less than five hours to travel between Beijing and Shanghai. That is roughly comparable to the distance between New York and Atlanta, which takes nearly 18 hours on an Amtrak train.
即使以最初速度运行，京沪间5小时内即可到达。该距离与纽约到亚特兰大相当，Amtrak列车耗时近18个小时。
China’s huge investment in high-speed rail may be instructive for the United States, whether for proponents of U.S. rail investments or critics who consider bullet trains a boondoggle.
中国在高铁项目上进行巨额投资对美国有借鉴意义，无论是美国铁托或铁黑。

President Barack Obama, who has proposed spending $53 billion on high-speed rail over the next six years, faced a setback in his budget deal in April with Republicans in Congress, which eliminated money for that plan this year.
奥观海提出在未来六年投资530亿美元建设高铁，该计划在国会预算案受阻，今年的投资被砍。
Last autumn, newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin turned down U.S. money that their Democratic predecessors had won for new rail routes, worrying that their states could end up covering most of the costs for trains that would draw few riders.
去年秋，佛罗里达、俄亥俄、威斯康星州新任共和党州长们拒绝了其民主党前任讨来的联邦投资，他们担心他们所在的州将承担运椅子的高铁的大部分费用。

But then, high-speed rail is not universally acclaimed in China, either.
高铁在中国也不是人人夸。

Financial regulators in Beijing have cautioned banks to monitor their rising exposure from hefty loans to the rail ministry. To pay for rapid deployment of the high-speed system, the ministry has borrowed more than 2 trillion renminbi, or more than $300 billion. It plans to invest an additional 750 billion renminbi this year, despite running losses on existing operations that it attributes mainly to rising diesel fuel costs for older lines, as well as rising interest payments.
财政官员已经提醒银行监控它们对高铁的贷款。TDB为建高铁举债超过二万亿淫民币，或三千多亿美刀。尽管因老线所耗柴油成本上升和高涨的利息导致出现亏损，TDB今年还设计另借七千五百亿人民币。
Among the biggest beneficiaries of the high-speed rail system are companies that contribute nothing to defray its costs. Those would be freight shippers, which now have more exclusive use of the older rail lines, with fewer delays.
高铁网的最大受益者之一是众多无需承担建设成本的公司。如货运公司等，它们对既有线用得更多，延迟更少。

On the older tracks, the rail ministry has long been able to dictate that freight rates would subsidize passenger trains because the ministry owns those older tracks outright. The new, high-speed lines — passenger trains only — are owned by joint ventures between the ministry and provincial governments. That has prevented the ministry from forcing freight shippers to cross-subsidize the new high-speed services. As a result, passengers must pay much higher fares on the new trains than on the older ones.
因为拥有既有线的所有权，TDB长期以来用货运补贴客运。新客专系与地方共同投资建设，TDB无法用货运补贴高铁，乘客因此要承担比老线高得多的票价。
The lack of freight subsidies is also causing concern in the rail and banking industries that the debt agreements of some joint ventures might need to be revised to extend the repayment of investment costs over more years.
因为没有货运补贴，铁路部门和银行担心一些联建项目的负债要更多年才能还清。

The joint ventures were set up to give provincial governments an incentive to cooperate in acquiring land for the new routes. But those partnerships typically own only train stations and tracks. The land surrounding the stations often is owned by companies belonging to provincial and municipal government agencies, which have reaped windfall profits by selling such property to developers.
联合建设为的是给省级地方ZF有征地的动力。但联建各方拥有的是站房和线路，车站周边的土地（使用权）大多为各级地方ZF部门开设的公司所有，这些公司将土地卖给开发商，赚得锅满盆满。

During a 20-minute taxi ride from a hotel in central Changsha to the high-speed rail station, a visitor counted 195 tower cranes erecting high-rise buildings.
从长沙市中心到高铁站大约二十分钟的车程中，有人数到195个建设高楼的吊塔。
According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, residential real estate prices rose faster in the first five months of this year in Changsha than in all but three other Chinese cities — all of which are also high-speed rail centers.
从捅鸡局的数据看，长沙房价在今年头五个月的涨幅仅次于其它三个城市——它们也都是高铁中心城。
For ordinary citizens, meanwhile, the steep prices for high-speed train tickets have touched China’s raw nerve of rising income inequality.
对普通民众而言，高票价触及贫富差异的神经。
“The government is just abusing the money of the common people,” said one posting on an Internet discussion forum, defying the network’s heavy censorship.
＂ZF乱花LBX的钱＂某网民讲。-
From Changsha to Guangzhou, a two-hour journey at speeds of up to 340 kilometers per hour, the one-way fare in economy class is 333 renminbi. That is comparable to a deeply discounted airfare, but expensive for a migrant worker from Hunan who might earn 1,000 renminbi to 2,500 renminbi a month in wages in the city of Guangzhou. The same trip takes nine hours on an older diesel train and costs 99 renminbi.# [. y1 M' J  A0 t
这段举例长沙到广州，二等单程票，2小时最高时速340公里，票价333块。和低折扣的机票接近，但对在广州打工每月一千到二千五的民工来讲还是贵了。老线火车9小时99块。

Chinese and foreign engineers have questioned the long-term strength of the concrete used in bridges and viaducts under contracts awarded during the term of the disgraced former rail minister, Liu Zhijun.
中外工程师们对前部长在位期间高铁桥隧使用的水泥长期强度提出质疑。
The rail ministry’s new leaders, brought in after the corruption investigation, contend that safety concerns are misplaced. But they have acknowledged them, along with the public anger over fares, by announcing plans to lower the top speed on many routes to 300 kilometers per hour from 350 kilometers per hour on July 1. The change will sharply reduce the amount of electricity consumed and allow officials to pass on the savings through reduced ticket prices. The speed reduction would also at least partially address safety concerns.
新上台的官员称安全没问题，但是他们在宣布七一降速时提到过高票价和安全等因素。（返祖真是授人口实）降速将大幅降低能耗，乘客因此受益，并且可以部分解决安全顾虑。
On Tuesday and Wednesday, several Chinese news media outlets quoted Zhou Yimin, a former deputy chief engineer at the rail ministry, as saying that China’s high-speed trains essentially used European and Japanese technology designed for safe use up to 300 kilometers per hour. The trains can be driven considerably faster, as China has been doing until now and plans to resume doing a year from now on the route from Beijing to Shanghai, but this reduces the safety margin, he said. The rail ministry had no immediate comment on Wednesday.
周二周三两日，中国数家媒体援引周某发言指出中国高铁列车基本上使用欧日300公里技术，这些列车可以开得更快——中国到目前为止的速度，一年后计划在京沪线恢复——但减少了安全余量。TDB周三时还没有回应。（文章发早了点）

China has not disclosed any fatal crashes since its high-speed rail network began operations three years ago, while nearly 100,000 people a year die on Chinese roads, according to official statistics. International health experts say that the true total for road deaths is even higher.
运行三年来，中国高铁未有致命事故报告，而官方统计显示公路死亡数近十万，国际专家估计实际数目更高。

When the Beijing-to-Shanghai line opens, it will create a north-to-south artery with links to east-to-west rail lines at two dozen stations along the way.
京沪线开通后，将形成南北大动脉，并在沿线20多个站点联起东西走向的线路。
“It’s the network together that makes it work,” said John Scales, a rail expert in the Beijing office of the World Bank who has advised China, “knowing you can go from Shijiazhuang to Beijing and then transfer to Tianjin, so the coal guys can go to the port and conduct business with their shippers, for example.
世界银行一铁路专家讲：形成网络才能发挥作用，并举例石家庄转北京再转天津。
Already, the longer routes elsewhere appear to draw much heavier ridership. The trains, which typically carry 600 passengers, sometimes sell out despite departures every 10 or 15 minutes, particularly on Fridays but sometimes even at lunchtime in the middle of the week.
确实，长干线路已经吸引了众多的乘客。定员六百、发车间隔十到十五分钟的列车也会卖光所有的车票，尤其在周五甚至有时在非周末的午饭时段。
Of course, high speed is relative. First, a passenger must actually get a seat.
当然，高速是相对的，乘客得首先有个座。
Zhou Junde, a migrant construction worker with a large red and green tattoo of a hawk on the right side of his neck, stood in line at the Changsha station on a recent Friday afternoon to buy a high-speed ticket to Guangzhou. But the next high-speed train was entirely sold out, and so was the next one 10 minutes after that. He would have to wait 30 minutes to board a train with a seat.
最近一个周五中午某位建筑民工在长沙站排队买票，但下趟车票已售罄，甚至是再等十分钟的再下一趟。他得等半小时以后的才有座。
“Sometimes,” he said, “I come several hours early to get the departure I want.”
他讲：有时我得提前几个小时来买我想要的车次。