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THE VIDEO SHELF · high-speed rail in china

Why China Is so Good at Building Railways

A Wendover Productions explainer on how China built the world's largest high-speed rail network so quickly and why its rail strategy differs from America's. It covers politics, social benefits and the economics of unprofitable lines.

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Why HN readers recommended it

HN uses it as the go-to short video when threads compare Chinese and US rail and infrastructure.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
Wendover Productions
Topic
high-speed rail in china
Format
explainer
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
4
HN mentions in dataset
6
Recommendation years in dataset
2018–2021

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • [VIDEO] Please, I urge you to watch this. It explains thoroughly why the situation for railroads is very different between China and America. tl;dw: America is more spread out, has better airline control, and less of a political incentive to expand public transport, than China.

    WilliamEdward on Hacker News · 2019-10
    In China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

  • Wendover had a good video about China's rail network a while ago. [1] Major points are: 1. China is willing to build loves that aren't self sustainable - whereas the USA isn't (and the US doesn't factor in the social benefits) 2. China's airspace is …

    lunchbreak on Hacker News · 2018-12
    In As the U.S. fantasizes, the rest of the world builds new transport system (2017)

  • Here's a good video summarizing what China has done with high speed rail in a little over a decade: [VIDEO]

    Fricken on Hacker News · 2018-12
    In As the U.S. fantasizes, the rest of the world builds new transport system (2017)

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.