XpressWest, a private US company, said Thursday it was ending its venture with China Railway International due to “difficulties associated with timely performance and CRI’s challenges in obtaining required authority to proceed with required development activities”, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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In a statement, XpressWest executives said they terminated the partnership because China Railway had difficulty with meeting performance deadlines and had trouble in getting the authority to proceed with development.
The federal government requires that high-speed trains be manufactured in the United States – a requirement that remains a significant challenge for XpressWest since no such trains are built in the country, Marnell said. “As everyone knows, there are no high-speed trains manufactured in the United States”, the company said in a statement. At present, CRI’s representatives aren’t available for comment.
XpressWest will now “aggressively pursue” other development partnerships and options for a more efficient and cost-effective project, Marnell added.
Eventually, the commuter rail would be upgraded to high-speed rail when California’s system is completed.
The project would have marked the first high-speed rail system to be built in the USA by Chinese companies but according to Xinhua, the past few months have been a bumpy ride for negotiations between the two companies.
The company had envisioned the high-speed train running about 150 mph, making for the two-hour trip. China has made bids to build high-speed rail lines through the UK, Australia, Southeast Asia, Iran and Mexico. The only problem with that is that there are no high-speed trains made in America. But recently, these deals have had a string of bad luck.
The China Railway said in a statement that the U.S. company had breached a cooperation agreement by unilaterally announcing the termination. After triumphing over Japan in a battle to build a railway in Indonesia, that project has since been met with multiple delays and some just want it scrapped.
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XpressWest’s project, if connects Las Vegas with Victorville in Southern California, will have a length of about 300 km and cost around 8 billion dollars, while the Phase I only of California High-Speed Rail will extend about 800 km from San Francisco to Los Angeles and cost at least 68 billion. When CRI joined the effort in September, Chinese media reported that $100 million had been secured in initial capital and that regulatory and commercial activities were expected to begin within 100 days.
