Asked by a visitor last year why their new high-speed train was to be called the CRH380, engineers at Chinese locomotive manufacturer CSR Sifang laughed. Because the trains would operate at up to 380km/h of course, they said.
This week, sleek new CRH380s – the CRH stands for China Railway High-speed – will begin commercial service between Beijing and Shanghai. But China’s railway mandarins may be regretting their choice of name.
Far from clocking in at what would be world-beating 380km/h, the new services are to be capped at 300km/h. That is still a highly impressive pace, but – whisper it – no faster than the swiftest Shinkansen trains operating in neighbouring Japan.
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