2 explosions in 2 days (Nov 2022): What's wrong with China's railroad system?

foreign [Music] this is a scene from a high-speed railway station in Nanchang a provincial capital city of China on November 12 2022 at 8 pm a Transformer on the side of the road at the station caught fire and made explosive noises the surrounding weeds caught fire thank you the fire wasn't small and kept coming out [Music] foreign [Music] after that all High-Speed Rail services at Nan Chong West station were suspended fearing the spread of fire many people fled in panic [Music] [Laughter] foreign [Music] an hour later the fire was put out officials said there were no casualties the rail where the fire broke out is under the management of the China Railway Nanchang Bureau group the official response said the fire caused a blackout of the railroad's contact Network which affected passing through trains some passengers said the fire caused a power outage causing some trains to be laid for about five hours [Music] one day before the fire at Nanchang West station on November 11 2022 an explosion occurred in two subway cars on Shanghai metroline 11. from the video you can see the trains emitting Sparks smoke and a loud explosion the accident happened in the morning during work hours foreign ERS chose to get off the train and Escape some were trapped in the cars a passenger described the incident to Chinese media afterward on the morning of November 11th she took line 11 to work between about 7 25 and 7 35 the train suddenly stopped the power in the car went out and the sound of Subway machines and air conditioning all stopped people didn't know what the reason was at that time the train waited on the elevated bridge for about an hour and then they were Guided by the staff to adore at the front of the subway and got off from a temporary ladder built at the site foreign there were also descriptions online that the train was full of smoke a large number of police officers appeared afterward the Shanghai rail official said that the grid failure caused power supply interruptions in some sections and two trains were forced to stop the people at the scene heard a loud noise is it a Subway explosion as understood by the netizens foreign rail officials and the Chinese media have been warding off rumors they claimed that the loud noise was not an explosion but a chirping sound caused by the subway touching the net and pulling the ark just like the electric Sparks and loud noise when the plug enters the socket the cause of the failure is unclear it could be the train failure that caused the contact grid failure or it could be a fault in the contact grid itself or by weather the timing of the two incidents is so close that it has sparked heated discussion among the Chinese at home and abroad is it possible that the strict preventive controls in mainland China have been in place for too long and that the lack of Maintenance of the high-speed rail and Subway systems has led to these incidents is the story by Chinese officials credible the fact is that there have been so many accidents in various systems in China like the many explosions that have been broadcast on our channel that the scenes that appear so shocking don't even make the news in China's official media only very big accidents are reported and the official stories keep changing China's trains are divided into different types such as regular speed High-Speed Rail trains with powered cars and direct trains trains with powered cars have power mounted on each car since the cars are powered they can start and accelerate quickly the speed of such trains is one notch lower than that of high-speed rails in addition trains with powered cars can run on ordinary railroads as well as high-speed railroads while high-speed trains can only run on the high-speed rail because of their high speed regarding the train transportation system the largest accident officially reported in China occurred on July 23 2011. a high-speed bullet train rear-ended a train with powered cars near wenzhou city in the wealthy Eastern province of Judge young a train was forced to stop on the tracks due to a power outage it was then rear-ended by another train causing six carriages to derail and four to fall under the viaduct there were about 100 passengers in each car officials claimed that only 40 people died a public investigation was launched and it was widely believed that at least 200 people had died and 355 were missing the following day the front pages of major official newspapers failed to mention the serious train collision at 1am on July 24 2011 about five hours after the accident while people were still in shock and grief the government authorities announced to stop the search and rescue and claimed that there were no signs of life they immediately started to crush the front powertrain and carriages and bury them in place however 16 hours after the CCP stopped the search and rescue one of the special police Chiefs who participated in the rescue but refused to accept orders from his superiors rescued three people in a row the youngest a girl of two and a half years old had been trapped for more than 20 hours when she was rescued on the same day on July 24th a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Railways went on to say how can we hide an accident that the whole world knows about the ambulance crew told me they buried the train to facilitate rescue work and I believe that explanation when asked by reporters to explain why a young girl was rescued from the wreckage 20 hours after the accident long after authorities had announced that there were no more signs of life on the train the man gave a short answer saying it was a miracle foreign two days later the head of the train that was buried under the overpass at the scene was dug up again and sent to an unknown location officials on the mainland said at first that the accident was caused by lightning that caused the signal to malfunction and that what was supposed to be the red light was shown as green in fact many stop and go accidents have happened to Chinese high-speed rails for example the Beijing Shanghai High-Speed Rail the best operated rail in China has had several stop and go accidents since it opened officials claimed that they were caused by a lightning strike that caused the power supply to malfunction but a few months later the findings of China's State Council accident investigation panel denied the ministry of railway's claim the technical flaws in signaling caused the accident suggesting that poor organization and management were the causes of the accidents making the investigation found two officials from the ministry of Railways primarily responsible the wenjo trained Mega accident has drawn the world's attention to China's High-Speed Rail quality one common belief is that the Chinese Train control system or ctcs is flawed ctcs is the central system of High-Speed Rail operation it connects trains dispatching centers signal transmission lines and equipment without it the most advanced trains in the most sophisticated tracks wouldn't be able to maintain high-speed operation This Train control system has been labeled by the Chinese Ministry of Railways as the result of independent development and Innovation by mainland China when trains travel at high speed ground signals are difficult to discern so the automatic train protection device ATP has become a necessary condition for the construction of high-speed rails the signal source for the ATP onboard system comes from a series of signal transmission devices from the ctcs from the rails to the signaling machines transponders speed sensors and the software programs that connect them an anonymous engineer of CNR group limited once revealed to overseas Chinese media reporters that the ctcs Train control system in mainland China is actually a copycat it mainly introduces the technology of Japan based on which then integrates the technology of France Germany and Canada to form the so-called independent innovation technology of China the fact that the core technology of ctcs is not in the hands of the Chinese side has also been exposed by the mainland media the Chinese media China business news quoted an informed Source saying that as an introduced technology the core technology of ctcs is still in the hands of foreign parties he had opened the ctcs program and found that core modules could not be deciphered and the program text had several texts with obvious foreign design marks as a complete model this part of the program text can't be Rewritten and the core technology of ctcs is still in the hands of foreign parties also a domestic sales manager of a signal Factory told China business news that the ctcs system including the software and hardware parts is basically monopolized by the relevant government departments although bidding is also used the equipment is mostly produced by its subordinate subfactories in chenyang Beijing and Xi'an which are responsible for the production of Hardware Equipment China State Council report which cited poor organization and management as the main cause of the accident name two senior officials of the ministry of Railways as primarily responsible did it have anything to do with this it must be Leo jerjun the former minister of Railways of China has been working in China's Railway system for more than 20 years he became the minister of Railways in 2003. Leo is considered a member of Jiang Simmons faction having been promoted by Jiang the former General Secretary of the CCP lives eight years in charge of the industry have been controversial during his tenure the ministry of Railways was repeatedly questioned by the public for mismanagement and constant accidents these include the derailment of a passenger train t195 from Beijing to chengdao on April 28 2008 due to speeding which was officially reported to have killed 72 people and injured more than 400. another example is that in April 2008 the Beijing Shanghai High-Speed Rail started construction and by November 2010 the track laying was completed on the whole line just as the Beijing Shanghai high-speed Railway was about to open to traffic an audit office report uncovered seven major construction problems one of the most important findings of the audit was that construction units entered the site before the project was tendered for construction in 2013 Leo was sentenced to death by the court in the first instance with a two-year reprieve which was commuted to a life sentence in 2015. according to an official Communist Party notice Leo was morally corrupt and fooled around with several women for the Chinese public the man is best known for his involvement in a television drama Chinese media reported that a businessman with close ties to Leo invested in the filming of the new TV series of the classic dream of the red chamber and conducted a nationwide casting call primarily to provide Leo with beautiful girls the news also led to a number of Chinese entertainment Stars issuing statements denying any involvement with Leo according to the report the businessman was found to have helped a number of companies win bids for railroad projects through Leo and others with the winning bids amounting to more than 180 billion remnb or about 25.6 billion US dollars from which the businessman made illegal profits of more than 350 million US dollars according to Hong Kong's trend magazine issue 334 of 2013 Leo's corruption case was revealed not thanks to his Mistresses reports although it is rumored online that Leo had 18 Mistresses and three of them were Russian Beauties there have long been Rumors in official circles that Jiang and Leo shared Russian Mistresses the newspaper quoted informed sources as saying Minister Leo actually took the blame for jiong and the Russian Beauties he went to Great Lengths to get were serving Jiang the report also claimed that Leo had a lot of personal videos and pictures from Jiang Simmons special train that information is stored overseas by Leo's Close Associates for future blackmail or self-preservation at certain times during his regime jiang's men was accompanied by Leo on his special trains during his visits to localities Leo's meticulous attention and flattery made him a pivotal figure in jiang's Clique controlling the so-called semi-independent Kingdom of the ccp's ministry of railways since 2012 XI jinping's Camp has been reorganizing and purging the ministry of Railways as a result the ministry of Railways has been ripped open revealing a large part of its corruption in 2014 a judge in Beijing disclosed that he had visited more than 100 Banks and Frozen more than 400 million U.S dollars in Connected assets while undertaking Leo's bribery case over the past year China's Ministry of Railways was later reorganized into the China Railway General Corporation now known as the National Railway group on October 8 2022 shanghuang Zhu the last Communist Party minister of Railways and the first general manager of China Railway Corporation was arrested this official took over Leo's position after Leo stepped down on October 8 2022 the Chinese government announced that the investigation of shang's alleged bribery case was concluded he was arrested on suspicion of bribery and bribery with influence against this backdrop it is likely that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the explosions and other accidents that have been circulating online about China's train system large and small of course in the official Chinese press China's railroad technology including High-Speed Rail is still well packaged to evoke a sense of national pride among Chinese people in order to adapt to the multi-slope conditions of the railway lines we set up a rapid acceleration mode on the high-speed emu's so that the trains could rapidly improve traction performance on the slope there are nearly 10 000 welding seams on the body of a high-speed emu and each welding seam has a dozen of welding parameters on various aspects including electricity current voltage and Welding angle these parameters are important references for our workers and also ensure the welding quality because of the stormy waves at Sea we put on anti-collision covers for everything inside the high-speed emus to smoothly transport the train from the factory to the port we practiced a few times just like a wedding rehearsal to be familiar with the route [Music] thank you