china offers build swedens high-speed railway in half the time
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China Offers Build Swedens High-speed Railway in Half the TimeTRANSCRIPT
3/9/2015 GCR News China offers to build Sweden’s highspeed railway in half the time
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinaoffersbuildswedenshighspeedrai7l7w7ay/ 1/7
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3/9/2015 GCR News China offers to build Sweden’s highspeed railway in half the time
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinaoffersbuildswedenshighspeedrai7l7w7ay/ 2/7
“Half the Parliamentary Transport Committee will
China offers to build Sweden’s high-speed railway in half the time2 September 2015 | By David Rogers
A large Chinese rail contractor has secretly offered to buildSweden’s planned high-speed railway in five years fewer, andfor $3bn less, than was originally estimated by the statetransport administration.
A contractor named as China Railway Construction made the confidential bidto the Standing Committee for Transport of Sweden’s parliament, and thenthe document was leaked to Sweden’s national TV broadcaster, SVT.
3/9/2015 GCR News China offers to build Sweden’s highspeed railway in half the time
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinaoffersbuildswedenshighspeedrai7l7w7ay/ 3/7
travel to Japan and half to China to study the high-speed and efficient movement of trains”– Karin Svensson Smith, Green Party MP
The Chinese proposal claims to offer savings in time and expense by buildingmuch of the new railway on elevated viaducts to avoid tricky soil conditionsand land acquisition issues.
Swedish politicians are so impressed by the proposal that they will travel toChina to learn more.
“They say of course that they can build the entire Swedish high-speednetwork in just five years and it’s very interesting for us,” Karin SvenssonSmith, Green Party Member of Parliament and chair of Sweden’sParliamentary Committee on Transport, told SVT.
“We get to review their claims, but we see that they themselves build theirown railways in their own country and in other countries with high speed.”
Sweden’s planners estimate that the new, 150-km-long Eastern Link(Ostlänken) high-speed railway from Järna in greater Stockholm to Linköpingin the centre of the country would begin construction in 2017 and beoperational by 2028.
Trains will run at 320km/h, and the aim is to ease pressure on existing raillines and move passenger and freight transport from road to rail.
But it will be expensive. The work will include building 155 bridges and 27tunnels.
Under the Chinese proposal, the cost of the new railway, estimated by theSwedish Transport Administration, Trafikverket, at SEK170bn ($20.13bn),would be brought down to SEK145bn ($17.16bn), according to SVT.
In terms of high-speed rail construction, China has eclipsed every othercountry in the world by developing a 10,000km network within the lastdecade.
3/9/2015 GCR News China offers to build Sweden’s highspeed railway in half the time
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinaoffersbuildswedenshighspeedrai7l7w7ay/ 4/7
Karin Svensson Smith, Green PartyMember of Parliament and chair ofSweden’s Parliamentary Committeeon Transport (ÅsaSjöberg/Wikimedia Commons)
And it has done so relatively cheaply, forbetween $17m and $21m per kilometre,which compares well to the Europeanexpenditure of between $25m and $39mper kilometre, according to a recentWorld Bank study.
One element of their success is the massstandardisation and prefabrication ofelements making up concrete viaducts,which Chinese planners favour to saveon scarce farmland.
Another is a proficiency in tunnelling.
China wants to export this expertisearound the world. Despite thecancellation of a high-profile project inMexico, Chinese firms have built a high-speed line in Turkey, and are lined upto do so in Russia.
They would also like to be involved in the high-speed railway proposed in theUK.
But if the reactions of its politicians are anything to go by, Sweden may be thefirst western European country to avail itself of China’s high-speed railprowess.
According to SVT, the country’s Parliamentary Transport Committee believesthat the Chinese proposal is so interesting that within the week members willgo to China to see how the Chinese do it.
But China may have competition because, according to Karin Svensson Smith,half the committee will go to Japan, the world’s other high-speed railheavyweight.
“Half the Committee will travel to Japan and half to China to study the high-speed and efficient movement of trains, and there will be a lot of studies onbuilding on bridges, especially in China,” Svensson-Smith said.
3/9/2015 GCR News China offers to build Sweden’s highspeed railway in half the time
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinaoffersbuildswedenshighspeedrai7l7w7ay/ 5/7
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Photograph: One of China’s high-speed trains. China has the world’s largest high-speed rail network (Wikimedia Commons)
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3/9/2015 GCR News China offers to build Sweden’s highspeed railway in half the time
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/chinaoffersbuildswedenshighspeedrai7l7w7ay/ 7/7
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