China won't be building a high-speed railway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas after all

[yuiyoshida]

On the eve of Xi Jinping's official visit to the United States last September, an announcement was made out of the blue that China would be helping a private US company to build a high-speed railway connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Nine months later, that is no longer the case.

Earlier this week, XpressWest announced that it was terminating its relationship with China Railway International (CRI), a decision that was based “primarily upon difficulties associated with timely performance and CRI’s challenges in obtaining required authority to proceed with required development activities," the Los Angeles Times reports.

Basically, it turns out that Washington requires that high-speed trains must be manufactured inside the United States. The only problem with that is that there are no high-speed trains made in America. The company questioned the logic behind the requirement in a statement:

As everyone knows, there are no high-speed trains manufactured in the United States. This inflexible requirement has been a fundamental barrier to financing high-speed rail in our country. For the past 10 years, we have patiently waited for policymakers to recognize high-speed rail in the United States is a new enterprise and that allowing trains from countries with decades of safe high-speed rail experience is needed to connect the Southwest region and start this new industry.

And there's no country that loves high-speed rail quite as much as China. Currently, it leads the world with over 19,000 kilometers of track. Its safety record certainly isn't spotless -- in one of the defining events of this decade in China, two trains collided near Wenzhou in 2011, killing 40 people -- but it's good enough to try and export around the world. China has made bids to build high-speed rail lines through the UK, Australia, Southeast Asia, Iran and Mexico.

http://shanghaiist.com/2016/06/10/china_wont_build_la_las_vegas_rail.php

[tonyt53]

1. Sounds to me like complaining about American jobs going to China and still shopping at Walmart

[msongs]

2. Las Vegas will benefit from this so let Nevada pay for if and when it gets going nt

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Like to know who are the

movers and shakers that are really preventing this project going forward. Is it Union Pacific Rail? Is it some Charter company? How about a Regional Airline that just announced more flights to Vegas? And the real sticker is,the Nevada Republican Party and their Tea Bagger friends.

This seems to be push back towards Harry Reid and Jerry Brown. And these Rail Cars can be made here in the USA as well as Canada. There are Shops that build Inter Urban Cars in Idaho and other states.