@yeungj1602 It's alright. Tho it's too "railfany" in its critic that falls into a lot of tropes that plague pop-urbanist circles. For example:
@yeungj1602 NO. This is way too rail brained (in a bad way), I would be more forgiving if they instead noted that a good transport city should have multiple integrated modes but no at the get-go this is a poor train of thought (pun intended). 
@yeungj1602 It ignores the role of active transport and all the types of buses etc. Bad Bad Bad. Are we making a transport system for people or railfans?
@yeungj1602 This is a railfan nostalgia trope, these types of systems only exist due to historical legacy. A new system with Paris Metro spacings or mix traffic trams of Toronto would never be built in the era of buses, active mobility and mopeds. It's not how urban mobility works today.
@yeungj1602 Also rant tries to define modes and falls into a "look at all the variety of modes" trope. What is LRT? Because they seem to describe only 2 types of "tram" and they are both weird niche things (fast reigo-tram-train and slow tram).
@yeungj1602 Maybe what they are thinking about is China needs more "Modern European Tramways" (METs) coined by Marco Chitti. Which in that case I agree especially for Tier 3 cities and suburban Tier 1 and 2s.
https://x.com/ChittiMarco/status/1341466165651136514
@yeungj1602 Why I say this? Apart from not being clear with the modes, I question how useful these specific examples are for China. Again no one (except the US during Obama) in the right mind would build a new tramway in the image of Toronto's streetcar system....
@yeungj1602 ... And Paris style express trams-trains rely on lots of underused and idle legacy heavy railway corridors which China doesn't even have much anyways.
@yeungj1602 What does this even mean? More basic metro coverage is good. Next.
@yeungj1602 OK clearly OP has a Beijing bias. This "type" of metro is now found in most Chinese cities with massive systems from Shenzhen/Guangzhou to Wuhan to Hangzhou to, yes, even Beijing (Line 12, 17, 19 and 20 anyone?) lines with 2-4km stop spacing +100kph ops that ARE crosstown.
@yeungj1602 There will be some blending between these two in China: on the metro side those are popping up everywhere. With express high speed metro local services being the "RER" and the express overlay skip stop service being the "Short intercity rail".
@yeungj1602 On the CR side yes a bit of a mess on the ops side. Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, PRD, YRD, Bohai Rim etc have emerging systems but are held back by CR. That being said Kaifeng-Zhengzhou did not have reserved seating.
https://x.com/JRUrbaneNetwork/status/1793637009648746835
@yeungj1602 And so is the Changsha regional system. If I remember correctly.
https://x.com/JRUrbaneNetwork/status/1783331553718018375
@yeungj1602 Everytime someone says China's HSR is overbuilt they bring up the Xinjiang Line that's all they know😂🤣😂🤣😂big trope right here. I challenge them to name another line. But also the Xinjiang HSL allowed for capacity on the old line to be used for EU-China freight trains.
@yeungj1602 Also nah there are so many places that could use a faster line particularly around Sichuan and in the south. China would not be better off with half the HSR network.
@yeungj1602 Which brings me to the next trope in this rant: The complete and utter omission on freight rail. China's HSR system allows the conventional system to carry a lot more freight. CR is now rivalling that of N America in tonne-km carried.
@yeungj1602 I would be more sympathetic if they said: "China builds too much HSR and needs more dedicated freight railways" (I am inclined to agree). However This money for "other rail" is and should be be spent/directed at the provincial level.
@yeungj1602 The national level were most HSR planning is happening has nothing to do with it.
@yeungj1602 China has and is building quite a bit of lines with this. Shanghai even has it on Line 16 but again this is too railfanny. Do you want express metros or metro lines with passing loops? Why do we have to check all the "railfan" boxes.
@yeungj1602 Again strange nitpicking bias, other Chinese cities are building express RER metros (Chengdu, Ningbo, Nanjing) or regular metros with passing express loops (Guangzhou, Chongqing)
@yeungj1602 Strange they bring up Guangzhou, who builds Express RER high speed metros, with passing loops for express trains already. (2nd vid)
https://x.com/JRUrbaneNetwork/status/1819807783224791220
@yeungj1602 Point taken on the excessive undergrounding particularly for Guangzhou. They could do more elevated running in places but I find the savings being suggested to be not at great as OP likes to think exists.
@yeungj1602 Anyways, I left the last bit for later the "overland airline" critic which in pop-urbanist circles has merit but can get carried away especially with China. Which yes I think CR needs to rethink how ticketing on short distance regional express trains work around say Wuhan.
@yeungj1602 The problem is how to run a country the size of the European continent to a takt. I can see it being used in some places on a municipal or even provincial scale. But it also misses the other tradeoff with takt, speed.
@yeungj1602 to make a takt plan work a lot of times you have to slow down trains so they meet at the right places because sometimes (a lot of times really) the geometry of the network and transfers doesn't line up. I question the need for this.
@yeungj1602 Reducing transfer times is good but when you are travelling long distances via CR (which also favors one seat rides anyways) I think actual travel time matters more. Again there are tradeoffs and I don't think they are good for the particularly longer national services.
@yeungj1602 This is a huge urbanist trope. I don't think the suburban stations are a big deal. It keeps costs down and average speeds high. Trains can run full tilt 300-350kph in and out cities. Guangzhou South? I used to think it was in the middle of nowhere but...
@yeungj1602 ... after having some friends in Shunde and Panyu I realized it's not "Guangzhou's station" but a station for the whole Guangfo Region. When you think like that the station makes a bit more sense. The location could be a bit better (more north) but it's not the end of the world.
@yeungj1602 Yes everytime CR tries to do commuter it gets flooded with HSR and Long D trains. You know what that means? it means China needs more HSR to bypass these lines, not as you argued less HSR.
@yeungj1602 As for the last bit yes, "most chinese cities don't have a large legacy low speed network" and I much rather they use that system for freight and long distance passenger trains. If there is such a huge need for local transport, build a metro.
@yeungj1602 I agree with the premise that CR should try to roll out more local services but the framing of the calculation is wrong. 1 CR service can be a train spanning several provinces serving 20 city pairs. A Transilien train (say L) just shuttles back and forth 10 times a day...
@yeungj1602 ... from St-Lazare serving 1 intercity pair eg: you are overcounting 10 times. If I adjusted for that 1.6% the entirety of China's conventional network in one station doesn't sound that great.
@yeungj1602 Overall there are a lot of good well known critiques: missing cross-regional, high speed urban transport options, CR should have more flexible ticketing for regional trains, excessive undergrounding etc.
@yeungj1602 But a lot are also "railfanny"/urbanist tropes like: I want a lot of different rail modes because its interesting to me as a railfan without thinking if they even make sense to build in 2024. Essentially the whole section below does not need to exist:
@yeungj1602 Yet attempts to define better priorities on spending without thinking the opportunity cost and tradeoff of other things a railfan would no care about (anything that is not surface passenger rail like freight)
@yeungj1602 And lastly the dislike of HSR operating like an Airline. Which has merit but from broader perspective in China that is the best way to ensure maximum point to point trips with high average speeds. Which takt, city center stations, unreserved seating would not allow.
@yeungj1602 I am increasingly thinking why China's HSR is successful even in medium flight distances is because it operates more like an airport. China's per-capita ridership is approaching that of France and Japan the two gold standards.
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