Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
People should refrain from jumping on the gun and pointing the finger Lets wait until the investigation finish.They did recover the black box and promise an open investigation. Anyway let distinguished between operation error and equipment malfunction .
The first is the responsibility of Operation company but equipment failure under normal usage is still the responsibility of equipment supplier . The same principle apply why car companies paid indemnity to the crash accident, if the failure can be traced to design defect. Sad as it may be but you just can't cover all contingencies Design is compromise between economy and safety. The Japan nuclear accident clearly prove that. If human negligence is the cause head should rolled
(BEIJING) A deadly train crash in China over the weekend has raised concerns about the safety of the country's fast-growing rail network and threatens to undermine its plans to export high-speed train technology.
The concerns were enough to push share prices down in Chinese rail companies by as much as 16 per cent.
China sacked three senior railway officials a day after Saturday's collision between two high-speed trains that killed at least 36 people in the country's worst rail disaster since 2008.
It has been working for years to develop a high-speed rail network to rival Japan's famed bullet trains and use the technology it has acquired or developed to sell its own trains abroad.
The country has one of the highest-density rail systems in the world, according to Michael Komesaroff of Urandaline Investments in Australia.
'The Chinese are running at least two times the level of anyone else in the world. That means signalling and systems management become more critical,' Mr Komesaroff said.
A spokesman for China South Locomotive, which built both trains in a joint venture with Canada's Bombardier, said signalling operations were to blame for the crash.
'The quality of the trains is fine. Neither had any accidents previously. It's the signalling system that went wrong,' he said.
A spokesman for General Electric in the United States said the company supplied the signalling equipment on the line involved in Saturday's crash, but said it did not provide 'vital' equipment.
The crash is a further blow to China's high-speed railway ambitions after the country's railway minister was sacked earlier this year and became the subject of a disciplinary investigation over corruption.
'The markets were concerned about possible slowdown of high-speed railway construction when the railway minister was sacked,' said Du Jun, an analyst with Shanghai Securities.
'The accident might have some impact on export of the high-speed rail as overseas clients would obviously have doubts on quality and safety issues. However, it's a bit too early to draw any conclusions before they find out what exactly went wrong.'
Initial reports from China were that the trains involved in the collision were made with Chinese technology, but Chinese media reports yesterday laid the blame on 'foreign technology.'
China has been on a building boom to expand its national rail network and turn it into a global leader. Under Beijing's five-year plan to 2015, the country will invest between 3.6 trillion and 4 trillion yuan (S$674-749 billion) in its rail sector.
The effort has not been without controversy as China's rail partners from Japan and Europe have often accused it of strong-arm tactics that force them to turn over technology to win contracts only to see China use that technology against them in bidding for other rail deals outside the country.
China has used a number of suppliers for trains and for the signalling equipment used to guide them.
Its foreign suppliers include companies like General Electric, Bombardier, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Alstom and others\. \-- Reuters
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