The Shanghai-Hangzhou express railroad is 202 km long with 9 stations. The road was built at 350km/h standard. The construction started on Feb. 26, 2009 and the project was finished on Aug. 6, 2010. The road is under intense testing before the commercial operation that was scheduled on Oct. 1 (China's National Day)

The total investment of the road was about 30 billion RMB (US$1 = 7.8 RMB)

China CRH380A reached 416.5km/h in the commercial testing.

on nbc nightly news this evening, it mentioned about china's high speed trains reaching
the fastest speed, and that china now has over 4,000 miles (or km?) of high speed network
and it will double in 2012(?).

it also said that usa will start its hs network in 2015 and may take decades to complete it
at a cost over $100 billions.

More than 4,000 miles. The latest number should be around 7500 km. It is the largest high-speed railway system ( will be a big networks 2 years later when Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Wuhan, shanghai-Wuhan-Chongqing lines are finished.)

USA wants a high speed rail network for only 100 billion USD? They must be joking, 100 billion USD will at most connect a few states.


Whoever said winning isn't everything must be a loser...

China can use US$100 billion to make a lot. Wuhan-Guangzhou line is about 1000 km long and the cost was less than 100 billion RMB or less than US$15 billion.

Part 2

And over here there arguing over weather we can afford a 20km long tramway...

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The line is 135 km long, links Nanchang city and Jiujiang City. It was constructed at 250km/h standard. The total cost is 5.8 billion RMB.

Nanchang is the capital of Jiangxi province with population of about 5 million. Jiujiang is another city in the province.