Page Two	E-mail PagePrint Version

BEIJING - 01/18/04 - China has abandoned plans to build a high-speed magnetic-levitation railway between Beijing and Shanghai in favor of less expensive conventional trains, reports the Associated Press.
 
The China Daily, citing unidentified sources, said Premier Wen Jiabao was involved in the decision to use the conventional rail system, and that the decision to terminate the rail project was made at a recent meeting of the State Council, the country's Cabinet.

Besides cost, "the maglev technique was excluded because it does not match the wheel-track technique used by railways in China," the paper said, citing Wang Derong, vice-chairman of the China Transport Association.

The Railways Ministry had no immediate public comment and did not answer its telephone Friday morning. At least one newspaper, the Beijing Morning Post, said the decision to abandon the maglev plan had not been finalized.

The scrapping of the 9-year-old maglev project - just two weeks after the country's first maglev, a short stretch in Shanghai, began regular operation - represents a setback for the development of the technology in China, which many had seen as one of its key markets.

It also appears to open the market for other alternatives on the proposed Beijing-Shanghai line.

Other options for the railway, according to state media, include styling it after the Shinkansen, Japan's high-speed bullet train, or two methods used in France - TGV and the Inter-City Express. The Shanghai maglev is German-built.

The online edition of the People's Daily said the decision was part of a larger plan for the nation's railways passed by the Cabinet.

"There have been many versions of the rail and maglev dispute, but an end has been put on them by the passage of the medium-and-long term plan," the People's Daily said. "This is indeed the end of decade-long feasibility studies."

Leaders envision a high-speed railway network for China that includes four north-south lines and four east-west lines, the government said.

Such a network would help move hundreds of millions of Chinese who increasingly are traveling around their own country - and, more important, help transport goods and raw materials.

China began daily runs of the world's first commercially operated maglev in Shanghai on January 1, but the $1.2 billion German-built system covers only 18 miles. It connects Shanghai to its 3-year-old airport, the city's second.

The Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Project was first proposed in 1997. The cost of the 750-mile railway has been estimated at $14 billion.

The maglev cost can be as high as $36 million to $48 million per half mile, twice that of wheel-track lines, the China Daily said.

German companies spent decades and billions of dollars developing maglev technology, but had searched in vain for a customer until Shanghai leaders picked the system as a way to highlight the city's high-tech ambitions.

Go back, or read the latest Page Two stories:

MEXICO LIFTS CALIFORNIA LETTUCE BAN

MEXICO CITY, Mexico – 10/20/06 – The weeks-old ban on California lettuce shipments to Mexico has been lifted after US Department of Agriculture tests for the E. coli bacteria proved negative; California is the country’s leading producer of lettuce with an estimated 70-75% of the total US production of iceberg lettuce and between 80-85% of the leaf lettuce.