The two trains pictured:
More info about (and photos of) the driver, Han Junjia:
How come he was able to grow so much taller as an adult??!??!
And his skin colour changed. Obviously fake.
yeah from Fujifilm-colour to DSLR-coloured
I first read; "Same train, 26 years apart." I bubbled; "You be lyin'." And then my eyes was like; "Oh they be talkin' about the driver."
I thought the same. Like it’s the Train of Theseus or something.
It's a shame china is still so full of cars and massive roads, and they don't seem to be placing too much of a priority on avoiding cars and creating walk-able cities.
Not to excuse them, but they do have an absolutely fucking absurd population and population density, so it should be noted that they're doing hilariously better than much of the world, proportionately.
I'd say they're a lot like japan: Very good in some ways, still quite amazingly shitty in other ways, and they've ended up like that because they're fairly non-corrupt (at least on a local level, in the case of china) and actually prioritize genuine economic growth (as in: having industry) rather than making people happy or jerking off the friends of politicians.
There's room for critique.
When I was visiting China, I asked what's up with the prevalence of consumer vehicles getting larger like SUVs (similar to US but I didn't mention that).
The common answer I received was, "I feel safer driving in them."
I think they have a long way to go wean off that sentiment.
oh for sure, the most obvious piece of critique is that cars become exponentially more obviously moronic the more people/density you have, which makes the existence of cars at all in most of asia completely insane.
It's absolutely hilarious to me how people in the west are genuinely surprised that people in China overwhelmingly support their system and government. Just imagine what it must be like to live in a country where you see this sort of progress happening all around you in a single generation. You see a clear and tangible demonstration of the government working to improve your life everywhere you look.
I could be wrong as I know little about the topic but I should imagine people like this train driver has seen, in a single lifetime, such drastic change. Kind of like saying "I remember how bad things were compared to now".
Not really sure what you're trying to say to be honest.
It's also quite amusing to see the cognitive dissonance when you point out that the Chinese system (classified as communist by many here in the U.S.) was the one that has pulled off the greatest improvement in living conditions in human history, pulling hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in basically a generation.
"But muh capitalism!" (Don't worry, capitalism is proceeding to do the opposite.)
A lot of people don't understand the historical context of the US having sat out WW2. The whole myth of capitalism being a superior system was built on the fact that the US got to develop its industries while the rest of the world burned. So, naturally, the NATO bloc that it formed was far ahead economically. And the west has been riding that advantage ever since.
Oh, I believe it. I got a degree in environmental sciences, and in the course of my studies, learned the historical context that goes way back earlier than WW2, even: The United States initially became an economic superpower, and built its industries, on the sheer bounty of natural resources that it extracted from North America and the Caribbean. Nothing much to do with the economic system, except to concentrate the gains to a lucky, elite few.
yup
It does keep baffling me that your average western government keeps rolling out the scary china bad AI face recognition panopticon but like without building a gajillion miles of high speed rail and then people who advocate for the panopticon are still stumped that maybe being chinese sort of fucks rn
It's like we get all the bad aspects of Chinese system with none of the benefits because the difference isn't in the amount of freedoms or human rights, but rather in which class holds power in society.
That's not fair, outside of america we're getting at least 1% of the benefits China gets. That's infinitely more than 0%! 😎
touche
The most surprising to me is how much China got fucked by the opium war.
It's incredibly depressing to read about the horrors of the century of humiliation.
I wish the "old" picture didn't look like it was from the 1940s instead of literally the year 2000.
Funny thing: tech in China was actually behind by 10+ years compared to western standards. Look at an episode from the 1985 edition of Journey to the West, the special effects look like a Doctor Who episode from the Tom Baker Era.
I still remember getting our first color TV in 2002, and that involved moving our old BW TV to the Master Bedroom. Dial-up Internet was also being used in 2007. Both of these examples were in metro Shanghai, which was the hub of development during these times.
A picture from 1940s would most likely be BW (as is the case with 60s era pictures of my great grandparents). While what you see is considered "90s-2000s" era for China.
Seems like the photo was taken with a really crappy camera. Or someone just put a yellow filter over it.
What irks me so much about electric cars is that, while their energy density is much better than that of ICE cars, and they have the potential to increase it further as battery technology advances, when you compare them to even the most modest form of public transport, public transport wins by such a landslide that it's laughable.
Electric cars are only existing right now because the car industry wants to continue to sell very expensive individual vehicles, not for efficiency nor the environment. Electric cars are, in a way, greenwashing. They are certainly better than cars with ICE but there's still so many issues with cars and their infrastructure that them being electric will not change that much.
But buy buy buy, they're "good" for the environment. Buy!
while their energy density is much better than that of ICE cars
Ummmm, no? Battery energy density is much worse than the energy density of gas. Electric is better for the environment but what you said is factually incorrect.
Gas has a Energy density (MJ/L) of 34.2 while lithium ion maxes out at ~4.2.
Public transport is excellent in towns and cities, where there's a high enough density of destinations people are trying to get to, and stops where they can get on and off the public transport, but little use anywhere more spread out. I live a few miles from the nearest town, and there aren't many other houses around here; we have a bus service, but it's infrequent, and it wouldn't really make much sense to make it more frequent as there aren't enough potential passengers. Cars make much more sense around here.
Speaking from a German perspective: We used to have a great solution to public transport in areas that are spread out: public transport infrastructure that is also spread out.
I've lived in several rural areas, all of which used to be connected to rail lines before those were closed down in the 70s to "modernize" transportation (for cars).
If you lived in an area without a rail connection, you'd probably drive a tractor more than a car.
China’s railway infrastructure improvement is so sick.
I wish it would spark similar in the US 🥲
The wealth in the US is held by a few so the country doesn't do things for the many.
High speed bus trial run #1: 85% fatality rate. Project cancelled.
Damn that's quite an upgrade in such a short period of time.
now imagine the entire country doing that and then doing that again and you'll understand just how thoroughly cooked and unable to compete the west is
They were built mostly by the Tangshan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works between 1960 and 1999.
damn they kept that SY in production for a while
The train doesn't go choo choo anymore 😔
But it can play choo_choo.wav if you want.
I actually got to ride one of the steam locomotives in a heritage railway in Connecticut. The Essex Steam Train uses a China Railways SY class 2-8-2. There's another one in New Jersey as well. The stuff made by Tangshan Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works is interesting because it produced the last steam trains in the world that were built for non-tourist purposes. Hopefully China sees the historic value in preserving them and keeps some in a functional state for the long term. They apparently have one heritage railway, the Tiefa Coal Mine System, with a couple of the steam trains still running for tourists.
I wonder how he felt about the train upgrades, like, how often he went "oh this is super cool" versus "i liked how it worked before 😭"
dont be fooled, these photos were actually taken 5 minutes apart. the train syphoned off the youth of that poor man.
Everything about trains and railroads