Since China is so good at making bullet trains, why are we not collaborating with China for bullet trains? If we can buy everything from them, then why don’t we buy bullet trains from them?

中国如此擅长制造高铁，为什么我们不和中国合作修高铁呢？既然我们什么都能从中国进口，为什么我们不从中国进口高铁呢？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Profile photo for Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam

It wont work for us

In China - Bullet Trains are a Neccessity. A Mode of Actual Transport. It is entirely Demand Based and its development too is demand based.

Thus their entire Infrastructure, Set Up, Laying out Railway Lines, Communications Networks and Financial Investment - is based on the presumption that Bullet Trains or High Speed Trains - have a strong demand and fulfil transporation of Passengers from Cities to Outskirts , Semi Urban and even Rural China and ensure Cities down get overcrowded.

So when the Chinese plan a Train Network - their assumptions and planning is on an actual feasible and practical model.

因为高铁对我们是无用之物。

在中国——高铁是必需品，是很有用的运输方式，中国高铁的出现是有广大的需求作为基础的，中国高铁的发展也是以需求为基础的。

因此，中国高铁的基建、铁路线、通信网络和金融投资的建立，都是为了高铁而进行的，可以满足从城市到郊区、半城市化地区甚至农村的乘客运输。

所以当中国人计划高铁网时，他们的设想和规划都基于可行和实用的模型。

In India - Bullet Trains are a GIMMICK. Our Reason for a Bullet Train is for a Poster of Modiji to be circulated in the elections so that random halfwits can say Manmohan Singh - 2G Scam,3G Scam, Coalgate and Modi - Bullet Train, Electrification, Latrine building etc and post 5 Million Tweets on it

We have Zero Demand for a Bullet train.

We dont have a Single Semi Urban or L2 Population in India. Our Cities are overcrowded by between 260% - 1100% while our Semi Urban Areas are underpopulated.

We have no need of any Long or Deep Connectivity and what little connectivity we need - we have tolerable roads.

但在印度，高铁只是个噱头。我们之所以支持高铁，就是为了给莫迪抹金造势，人们会说曼莫汉·辛格搞了2G骗局、3G骗局、煤炭门丑闻，而莫迪呢，他给印度修高铁、通电、建厕所等等，为了歌颂莫迪狂发500万条推文。

我们对高铁的需求其实是零。

在印度，我们没有半城市化或二线城市的人口。我们的城市太过拥挤，人口超容260% - 1100%，而半城市化地区人口稀少。

我们不需要远途连通，只需要短途连通——我们的道路还能凑活用用。

The Chinese Model of Laying out a Network will simply not work for India. China cannot design a Bullet Train route without the Big Picture.

The Chinese dont just make Bullet Trains - they design Railway networks and Systems on the whole. Laos, Indonesia, Kenya, Ethiopia - all have Chinese Designed and modified Railway Networks.

So obviously - they cannot sell us Already Made Coaches since they have no clue of our Railway Design.

中国高铁网的规划在印度也行不动。如果没有中国的大局观，是无法设计出高铁路线的。

中国人不仅制造高铁，他们还规划了高铁网络和系统。老挝、印度尼西亚、肯尼亚、埃塞俄比亚——都有中国设计和改进的铁路网。

所以事实很明显，他们无法把现成的火车卖给我们，因为他们对我们的铁路设计一无所知。

The Chinese sell us over 60% Materials required including Fiberglass Panels and Carbon Fibre Encasings and Grade 11 Glass as well as Streamline Forged Coach Cone Connectors.

We set up and assemble our own Coaches with Japanese Engines and Japanese - Indian Assembly and run a handful of Lines and Boast about the Bullet train to the world.

Not Chinese Style - They always work on Demand , We always work on what we south Indians call Banda

中国向我们出售了超过60%的材料，包括玻璃纤维面板和碳纤维外壳，11级玻璃以及流线型锻造圆锥连接器。

我们用了日本的列车头，和日本合作组装了自己的车厢，运营了几条线路，并向全世界吹嘘印度也拥有高铁了。

Joseph Wang

Assuming you mean the United States.

Politics. There is absolutely no way that the US would allow China to build a rail system in the US.

我们拿美国来举个例子。

因为政治。美国绝对不可能允许中国在美国修建铁路系统。

Robert Leo

I disagree with the answers.

America has been considering high speed rail since the 60s, there have been multiple trials BUT not much really have been successful.

I think there are many reasons:

Competition proves that high speed rail is not feasible

我对这些答案并不认同。

美国从60年代就开始考虑高铁了，也进行了多轮试验，但并不太成功。

我认为原因有很多：

竞争证明高铁并不可行

If you have any doubts, choose between rail and other modes of transport between ANY cities in America.

Amtrak, the American passenger rail system, sucks big time. I know there are many fans for Amtrak BUT it’s mainly a pleasure travel experience instead of a mode of transportation. Amtrak offers extremely limited schedule (how about boarding ONLY at San Francisco at 3am and getting off at Los Angeles at midnight?), twice the price for flights, and 3 times minimum the time it takes for cars, so you are taking literally a train vacation not as a mode of transportation.

如果你不信，你可以在美国任何城市之间试试铁路和其他交通方式。

美国客运铁路系统美铁(Amtrak)简直烂透了。我知道美铁有很多粉丝，但它只能提供愉快的旅行体验，算不上一种正经的交通方式。美铁的发车时间很不合理(凌晨3点在旧金山上车，午夜在洛杉矶下车，要命不？)，价格还是机票的2倍，时间至少是汽车的3倍，所以你其实是坐火车度假，而非把火车当做一种交通方式。

Our inner city and inter-city transportation sucks.

If I were to take a flight to Las Vegas, I would have spent more time going to airport DRIVING/waiting for the flight than the flight itself. And depending on the price I probably would spend more money DRIVING to the airport and parking for my vacation. How long it takes for public transportation? Thrice the time compared to driving, not to mention God forbid if I have lots of luggage to drag through transportation platforms.

我们的市内交通和城际交通也烂透了。

如果我坐飞机去拉斯维加斯，除了飞行时间之外，我还得花更多的时间开车去机场/候机。如果搭乘公共交通又需要多长时间？答案是需要自驾的3倍时间，如果还要拖着很多行李在站台穿梭，就更崩溃了。

Koushik Venkatasubramanian

Sure.

China has a magnificent High Speed Rail (HSR) network which is bigger than the entire world put together. Some of their Maglev trains are completely indigenously built and run at 430 kmph. They even have a plan for something that runs at 600 kmph and will be operational by 2025.

当然了。

中国拥有宏伟的高铁网，比全世界其他国家加起来还要大。他们有些磁悬浮列车是完全国产的，时速高达430公里。他们甚至还计划建造时速600公里的列车，将在2025年投入使用。

Does this all mean that India should be going after HSRs?

India is currently building a HSR with Japanese technology (Shinkansen). This will cost a whoo INR 1.1 lakh Crores or 1.1 trillion rupees. That’s for about 500 KM. And guess what the Indian Railway budget was last year? 1.7 trillion INR. We are basically building it on loan from Japan (granted, it’s a cheap loan).

Nothing indigenous about it, everything is Japanese with some parts manufactured in India. And this is also delayed, thanks to land acquisition problems.

但这是否意味着印度也应该建高铁呢？

印度目前采用日本技术建造高铁(新干线)，将耗资1.1万亿卢比，里程大约500公里。猜猜印度铁路部门去年的总预算是多少？只有1.7万亿卢比。我们基本上是从日本贷款建造这条高铁的（当然，这笔贷款很划算）。

这条高铁没有印度本土技术，100%都是日本的，仅有部分零件在印度制造。但由于征地问题，这一计划也被推迟了。

Are you scratching your head? I sure am. What would the cost of a ticket be to go on the Indian HSR? Estimates say it’s between INR 4,000 and 5,000. Will there be demand? I’d wager that there won’t be demand in the short term, maybe not in the medium term either. Even in China, they run many of their routes on losses. But they can, we probably cannot.

Anyway..

Perhaps we should do other things before we decide to buy shiny toys like bullet trains. With an additional 1.1 trillion INR invested in the railways, maybe we should do other things like :

你是不是开始挠头了？我自己是的。印度高铁的票价要怎么定价？估计在4000到5000卢比之间。那么会有需求吗？我敢打赌，短期内不会有需求，也许中期也不会。即使在中国，很多路线也还是亏损的。但是他们可以亏得起，我们可能不行。

不管怎样. .

也许在我们决定购买高铁这种闪亮的玩具之前，我们应该先完成其他目标。在铁路上投资的1.1万亿卢比，也许应该先拿来做其他事情，比如:

First, start electrifying routes. We still are at 70% electrification.

Convert manned and unmanned railway crossings into bridges so we can reduce fatalities. We have too many of those every single day.

Invest in tech for anti-collision, Advanced signaling, circuit monitoring, Digital procurement auctions etc. Start with buying tech, but have an agenda to indigenously create tech in 10–15 years

Hygiene (yes, most excreta still comes out from under the train and on to tracks). Move to bio toilets.

Modernize railway stations

Build more tracks (we have only added 11K km since independence), connect more hinterlands.

Incentive people to work for railways (yes, we are short of people at the lower blue collar levels, go figure that out)

首先，普及电力线路。我们的电力普及率现在仅有70%。

把有人和无人的铁路道口改造成桥梁，减少死亡人数。我们每天都会发生不少这种事情。

投资防撞、高级信号、电路监控、数字采购拍卖等技术。可以先购买技术，争取在10-15年内完成自主技术研发。

卫生（是的，大多数排泄物还是直接从火车下方和铁路上排走）。应该升级为生物厕所。

完成火车站的现代化改造。

修建更多铁路（自独立以来我们只新建了11K公里的里程），连接更多的内陆地区。

鼓励人们为铁路系统工作（是的，我们缺少低蓝领阶层的人）

Remember that the Indian Railways is the economic engine of the hinterlands. For every Re 1 increase in railway output, the countries output increases by Rs 3 (economic activity increases). It employs about 13 lakh people.

Also remember - trying to bug Bullet trains is like Rajiv Gandhi going to USA in 1985, coming back to India and wanting to build malls, while there was acute food shortage for sections of the population. Demand is critical. Right now demand is for connectivity at a reasonable speed, not bullet trains.

There is plenty we can do to improve railways, Bullet trains probably is low on that list, priority-wise!

记住，印度铁路是内陆地区的经济引擎。铁路产出每增加1卢比，国家经济就增加3卢比（经济活动增加）。铁路雇佣了大约130万人。

还要记住，对高铁的痴迷就好像拉吉夫·甘地1985年访问了美国，回印度后就想要建造购物中心，但当时印度还有不少人口面临严重的食物短缺问题。需求是最重要的。现在的需求是速度合理的互联互通，而非高铁。

我们可以做很多事情来改善铁路系统，高铁的排名并不靠前！

Allan Kay

I’ve noticed all comments are virtually based on current problems and not about the future. Eg: Signals, avoidance of human accident, land acquisition and automated gates. An elevated rail system will eliminate that and the spread will encourage dispersion of population from city centers. But I guess it’ll be expensive.

我发现大家的评论其实都基于当前的问题，而非未来。比如：信号，避免人为事故，土地征用和自动门。高铁系统将解决这些情况，会促使人口从城市中心疏散出来。但我想会很贵。

There’s no long term planning in exstence because the elections are only a few years apart and therefore the distant future is not part of the politicians agenda.

I’m not an Indian citizen and neither a politician but looking form a distance, I can see India having problems with transportation connectivity. This will impede the future development in every field of the economy in time to come.

目前印度缺乏长期的规划，因为选举几年一次，政客们不会为未来考虑。

我不是印度公民，也不是政治家，但我也能看出印度在交通连通方面存在问题。这会阻碍各个经济领域的未来发展。

Dawei Chen

I'm not in US but here I guess a possibility.

The advantage of train is it has multiple stations and can get on and off easily. However it is slower than airplane, even for bullet train which is 350km /h is 2~3 times slower than plane.

China is crowded and there are many big city in the middle way. Bullet train is best solution.

However in US big cities are SET in East or west coasts. Not many in the middle, thus airlines are more profitable?

我不在美国，但我猜有可能。

火车的优点是车站多，上下车很容易。但火车比飞机慢，350公里/小时的高铁也比飞机慢2~3倍。

中国很拥挤，国内有很多大城市。高铁是最好的解决方案。

但美国的大城市都集中在东海岸或西海岸。中部的大城市不多，所以航空公司更有利可图？

Peter Banh

High Speed Rail is working well for China due to high population so there is high demand for it. It doesn’t work for countries like US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

高铁在中国运行良好，因为中国人口众多，对高铁的需求很大。但高铁在美国、加拿大、澳大利亚、新西兰等国家行不通。

Michener Park

>> why don’t we buy bullet trains from them?

Actually China thanks Japan for taking India’s first bullet train project.

If Japan could turn back the clock, Japan would not take India’s first bullet project.

为什么我们不向中国购买高铁？

实际上，中国感谢日本接受了印度的第一个高铁项目。

如果时光可以倒流，日本也不会接受印度的第一个高铁项目。