It’s been a long time since Istanbul was an economic focal point between Asia and the West. But, yesterday, at the opening of the deepest underwater railway ever built, Turkish officials described their vision to "restore the Silk Road" and link London with Beijing—thanks to a Japanese-funded railway beneath the Bosphorus.
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By now, you probably experienced enough travel headaches to last you another year now that both Thanksgiving and other major holidays are over. Many of you probably traveled by plane, train or automobile to get back home to spend the holidays with your loved ones, and not-so loved ones, too. Traveling to your home probably became an all-day ordeal, but if you were riding by China’s newest high-speed railway, you probably could have been there and back in the same day.
China’s high-speed railway takes travelers from Beijing, which is located in there northern part of the country, all the way down to Guangzhou in the south covering a total of 1,428 miles at 186MPH. A ticket to ride the new railway isn’t cheap as it’ll cost approximately $139 for the full trip from Beijing to Guangzhou, but the travel time has been severely cut down from 20 hours to 8 hours. And 8 hours would be perfect if you’d like to catch up on your sleep, but it’ll have to be done during the day as the line currently doesn’t offer overnight service.
If you need to travel from Beijing to Guangzhou in as little time as possible, air travel is still the best option, but for those folks who don’t want to spend more money for a flight as well as worry about more security, China’s new railway seems to be the way to go.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Regulators Propose Mandatory Black Boxes In All Automobiles, Qbeak Prototype Unveiled,
China has a thing for pushing the limits of trains. As of today, that includes distance: the country claims to have the world’s longest high-speed rail line. Paying ¥865 ($139) will take you 1,428 miles from Beijing in the north to as far as Guangzhou in the south. The 8-hour, 186MPH trip is technically slower than flying, but it’s cheaper and potentially less stressful than the often protracted airport boarding process. It’s certainly far more viable than the 20-hour rail trip it’s replacing, which could lead to some locals choosing a ground route that wasn’t even a realistic option until now.
[Image credit: Xinhuanet]
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Wall Street Journal
Source: Gaotie (translated)
Indian Railways has just made it a little easier for rail travelers with a new web app called RailRadar, which uses Google Maps to track trains on a real-time basis. This is certainly welcome on one of the largest rail networks in the world — it operates more than 10,000 trains everyday — though the service is only available on 6,500 trains for now. To find out where your train is, simply search for its name or number and RailRadar will spot it for you. You can also find trains by entering the name of the station. Blue highlights indicate trains that are on time while red means it’s behind schedule. If you click on a train, it’ll show its entire route from start to finish. The logical next step would be for this to be on smartphones like how it is in Japan, though we’re not sure if that’s in the cards just yet.
[Thanks, dil]
Filed under: Transportation, Internet
Indian Railways launches RailRadar, lets you track trains via Google Maps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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