Recalled bullet trains ready to get back on track

BULLET trains which were recalled following a series of breakdowns have now all been declared ready for use on China's high-speed routes, including the Shanghai-Beijing line, the Ministry of Railways said yesterday.

In August, 54 CRH380BL trains were recalled after frequent malfunctions. The problems resulted in massive delays and service cancellations and sparked a surge of complaints from passengers.

At the time, CNR, the country's leading train manufacturer, said thorough checks would be conducted on all the trains to see whether they needed to be overhauled. They wouldn't be returned until operational safety was guaranteed, it said.

The ministry said engineers and an independent panel had completed tests on the trains and certified they were mechanically sound.

Nearly a quarter of the daily train capacity on the Shanghai-Beijing express route was cut on August 16 when the trains were recalled.

At about the same time, the state railway authority lowered speed limits for all bullet train services due to safety concerns, reducing the maximum speed by 40 to 50 kilometers per hour, depending on routes. The top speed on the Shanghai-Hangzhou bullet train line, for example, was lowered from 350 to 300kph.

Railway officials said the reintroduction of the CRH380BL trains would boost transport capacity with more services and shorter intervals between trains.

They said the additional trains would allow them to streamline timetables and the express railway routes would start using renewed schedules from December 12.

An investigation found that about 70 percent of malfunctions on the trains could be blamed on sub-contractors supplying sub-standard parts. In the remaining cases, technicians failed to take proper action when small problems occurred, allowing them to escalate.

Lax quality control by the producer was also a major cause of the problems.

The safety of the country's bullet trains became a major concern following the Wenzhou two-tr! ain cras h in July which left 40 people dead and around 200 others injured.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

40,000 hairy crabs released in Yangtze

Image
THE city government yesterday freed 40,000 hairy crabs into the mouth of Yangtze River near the Qingcaosha Reservoir, the first step in a five-year campaign to repair the ecosystem to improve the water quality in the reservoir that provides tap water for millions of residents. The hairy crabs will help establish a complete food chain in the river to help more fish and other aquatic animals survive in the river, Zhuang Ping, deputy director of the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, told Shanghai Daily yesterday. The released crabs, about half female and half male, will eat plankton while some of their offspring will become food for meat-eating fish higher in the food chain, said Zhuang, who is leading the water-improvement program. "The better ecosystem the water has, the better its water quality will be," he said. With a capacity of 438 million cubic meters, the reservoir is providing tap water to about 10 million
Keep reading

Shanghai port consolidates its position as world's busiest

Image
SHANGHAI, the world's busiest container port, will consolidate its title this year and leverage its record throughput to become a multi-faceted provider of port services. The city, which overtook Singapore as the world's biggest container handler last year, saw its annual container traffic volume surpass 30 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) yesterday. The figure hits an unprecedented level in the world's port history and marks a new leg in Shanghai's voyage to become a global shipping center by 2020. China's remarkable trade boom is reflected in the Shanghai port numbers, which went from 7,951 TEUs in 1978 to 29.05 million TEUs in 2010. The city's customs oversaw a total of US$790 billion worth of imports and exports in the first three quarters of this year - a 19.3 percent year-on-year increase. And its port handled 23.9 million TEUs over the first 10 months, ahead of that of 23.56 million TEUs at Singapore Port. Shanghai International Port (Group) Co,
Keep reading

Praise, scorn for teacher's odd command

Image
A middle school math teacher has stirred controversy after forcing 20 of his students to slap their own faces for three minutes because they made noise in class and scored poorly on exams. Angry local residents are demanding that the teacher resign and asking the school to announce a punishment. But some of the teacher's students, including some who were forced to slap themselves, are calling for leniency. The incident occurred in a class at Donglu Middle School in Pudong on Tuesday when the math teacher surnamed Yang ordered 20 students in his class to slap their faces after he was irritated by them making noise in class. The students said Yang was known as a very strict teacher, so almost all the students obeyed his order and started slapping themselves in the face for about three minutes. Those who slapped too lightly were told by the teacher to slap harder, students told the Oriental Morning Post. Yang's behavior has sparked anger among local residents, especially so
Keep reading