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‘New Orient Express’ fast train could get travellers to Beijing from London in TWO days
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:36 PM on 09th March 2010* Comments (0)
* Add to My StoriesConsidering it takes almost a day to travel by train to Scotland from England’s south, it’s difficult to believe the latest plans unveiled by Chinese engineers might ever happen. However, according to the Asian power, catching a train from London to Beijing could take just two days if their ambitious project come to fruition.
China wants to build the 200mph ‘Orient Express-style’ rail line through Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia, paying for the entire scheme in return to access to the natural resources of the countries it travels through.The main line would link London with Beijing via Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev, St Petersburg, Moscow, Astana in Kazakhstan and Khabarovsk in Russia’s far east.
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Complementing that service would be lines taking passengers to Turkmenistan, Iran and India or Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Chinese railway consultant Wang Mengshu said the 8,150-mile journey would take just two days to complete. To fly to Beijing from London takes about 10 hours.
China already operates the world’s fastest train – a 250mph service that links Wuhan and Guangzhou. A similar service in Britain would complete a return journey between London and Edinburgh in just three hours.
‘The best case scenario is that the three networks will be completed in a decade,’ Mr Wang said.
Futuristic: This Chinese train was the first in the world capable of travelling faster than 186mph (300km/h)Futuristic: This Chinese train was the first in the world capable of travelling faster than 186mph (300km/h)
‘It was not China that pushed the idea to start with. It was the other countries that came to us.
‘These countries cannot fully-implement the construction of a high-speed rail network and they hope to draw on our experience and technology.’
Mr Wang said his country had offered to bankroll the stretch of railway through Burma in return for a share of the country’s lithium stores.
‘We would actually prefer the other countries to pay in natural resources rather than make their own capital investment,’ he said.
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