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this map of a hypothetical U.S. high speed rail system? (shared jan, 2020)

Of course, the map and others like it were pure fantasy; in 15 years, California’s much-ballyhooed high speed rail project has managed to almost complete one small segment out in the middle of nowhere. That’s the extent of the U.S.’ high speed rail prowess.

But in China, they actually built the map!

In the last 15 years, China, starting from scratch, built a high-speed rail network almost as twice as long as all other high-speed rail networks in the world, combined. I’m not exaggerating; you can look these numbers up on Wikipedia. As of last year, China had 42,000 km of high-speed railways in operation, with another 28,000 km planned. That’s compared to just 2,727 km in Japan, with its famous shinkansen.

And it’s not just the size of this network that’s incredible; it’s the speed.

The speed of Chinese rail construction has to be seen to be believed. Here’s a video showing work on a train station that was built in nine hours.

And China built the system very cheaply — 40% cheaper than Europe, on a per-kilometer basis.

How did China manage this? Well, for one thing, it didn’t have to invent the technologies of high-speed rail as it went along, like Japan and Europe did; instead, China got Japanese and European companies to hand over their technology in exchange for the unspoken (and ultimately unfulfilled) promise of big Chinese contracts.

That was far from the only factor, though. As the World Bank explains, China is the world’s manufacturing center, and thus has all the suppliers for a high-speed rail network in-country. Not only does that allow for quicker coordination among contractors and suppliers, but because both the contractors and the suppliers have basically guaranteed demand from the Chinese government, they can massively ramp up production of everything that’s needed to build a train, instead of having to increase and decrease their capacity in response to intermittent demand as in other countries. The in-country network of suppliers also allows the Chinese government to standardize everything instead of having to work with a patchwork of international standards.

Other factors include the fact that China’s government system allows it to grab land for trains more cheaply and quickly than in other countries, a massive glut of steel and other materials, and a very rapid permitting system (construction typically begins less than a year after the first feasibility study).