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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

> can perform infrastructure miracles.

Some of the infrastructure has lead to extra economic benefit beyond just the infrastructure stimulus. But other infrastructure might not - and i would call them economic waste (but not political waste).

Have a look at the train projects described here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITvXlax4ZXk

The building of those rail networks is meant to achieve a political purpose, rather than an actual productivity increase. Perhaps their leadership thought it was worth the spend, but this sort of spending would unlikely work in the US imho.

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We literally did that with the US highway system, it was just right after WW2.

Same goals, same trade offs, same sometimes major wins, sometimes pointless spending.

Rail > Road for freight, and efficiency. America underfunded rail and the Eisenhower highway initiative demanded it, to justify the investment.

Chinese new year, more people travel in China than the whole of the USA, homecoming notwithstanding. It's mass transposition, there and back again.

They need trains. I've used them shanghai to Beijing, great service. I wish I'd been able to use the maglev in shanghai

With freight, if you consider all factors, road is much more efficient for all but bulk loads or edge cases.

You can make more economical runs per month with trucks than with trains, meaning you get to have less stock on hand as a buffer on both ends.

This has many knock-on efficiencies - fewer resources tied up in goods, lower insurance expense, lower warehousing cost, and above all: a more flexible and responsive supply chain.

China expanded high speed rail that can't be used for freight. It makes perfect sense to connect megalopolises with such a network. But when you start building out to Podunk provincial towns when the passengers can't afford the high prices, they'll continue to take the bus. Meanwhile your shining example for modernity and progress turns into a debt bomb.

>China expanded high speed rail that can't be used for freight.

building out passenger rail frees up capacity for freight on old rail :)

this is actually a big reason HS2 in bongland is (was) getting built

> building out passenger rail frees up capacity for freight on old rail :)

Only if the high-speed rail gets used by passengers. If it's unaffordable, people won't use it.

No, since the previous fast trains aren't run on the old tracks any more. Due to stopping distances etc, you can fit several freight trains in the space needed for one express train.

The maglev in Shanghai isn’t very usable: it doesn’t go to the city center, just somewhere remote in pudong. It is fast, but if you need to get to the airport from somewhere except one or two places in Shanghai a taxi would do better. But definitely ride it once.

  > The building of those rail networks is meant to achieve a political
  > purpose, rather than an actual productivity increase. Perhaps their leadership thought
  > it was worth the spend, but this sort of spending would unlikely work in the US imho.

You might want to read a bit about the Space Launch System, a well-known political jobs program that many consider a hindrance in advancing the art of space flight.

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html

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