Dear Robert, Your article is very valid and unfortunately the truth. For the sake of accuracy, some of the pictures are of suburban trains which are not the trains that are having the accidents that you are talking about. I think the article and the pictures need to be in sync, which is unfortunatley not the case.

As I site here typing this on my sylvania netbook I can't help but to emphasize the need for India to learn a thing or two from China. Not regarding their trains, but the one child per family law.

India and China want to go space and the moon, yet they can't even make their railway systems safe. And in India, absolute poverty and hunger are still prevalent. And there is an increase in religious intolerance. China, get your dirty hands from Tibet and the Philippines' share of territory in the Spratlys. Observe international law! Freedom for Tibet! Freedom and Democracy for China! Go to hell, Chinese communist imperialists!

While accidents happen on all rail systems, and India certainly has its fair share, the Chinese have committed big bucks (maybe as much as $400b) and much prestige to their high speed rail network. That a fatal crash should occur so soon after the project was developed should cause serious concerns among Chinese rail travelers and those who paid taxes for the construction. India makes no claims to have the most advanced or fastest rail network in the world, but it reliably moves as many as 30 million people a day around a vast and cost-effective system that reaches to almost every part of India. It is an imperfect institution, buts its 1.4 milllion employees have undertaken serious efforts in the past few years to enhance safety. When accidents do occur, there is not the shock of having lost lives despite having built the most splashy railway infrastructure of modern times. Hence the major difference between India and China on the rails, which is a point missed in the article above.

hey i am new to the magazine,please check the situation of Pakistan railways

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaAam9VTjIc

Yeah, most Indian trains don't cross 100 kmph. The Chinese trains travel at 250 kmph plus. In India you would know that 350 are killed and 35 grievously injured in the slow moving trains. In China you would be told that 35 are dead and no one injured and that in times of great tragedy there is great love, on the super-fast trains. I would prefer the bullock and the trains of India any day over the bullet and the trains of China. Who wants lies and authoritarianism added to cheap imitation. China did not choose the magnetic levitation technology of Japan but went for the wheel based technology that is not suited to the fast moving bullet trains. Now you have them flying over bridges at the speed of a bullet. A few more of these accidents and the public will refuse to travel on these trains. It may be reserved exclusively for Communist party members and Chinese soldiers.

As I lay here in my pajama jeans typing, I site in disbelief that the railway would even allow people to ride in such unsafe conditions. That shows you how much they care about their citizens.

If there is a hero in this bloody tale, it's a CIA officer named Darren LaBonte who was assigned the al-Balawi case with his counterpart Zeid. Working out of the Amman station, LaBonte, a former U.S. Ranger and FBI agent, fretted that al-Balawi might be bad, telling a friend, "This guy is too good to be true."LaBonte was right. After the CIA killed Mehsud, al-Qaida's then No.3, Mustafa al-Yazid, also known as Sheikh Saeed al-Masri, hatched a plan to use al-Balawi to kill Zeid. When Zeid refused to go to Pakistan to meet al-Balawi in what now appears in hindsight to be an obvious ambush, al-Yazid switches gears and sends him to Khost wrapped in explosives.LaBonte was concerned about whether al-Balawi could be trusted. He writes: "We need to go slow on this case." The Amman station chief said if there was ever a moment to take a risk, it was now. LaBonte was overruled.After the fateful meeting in Khost had been arranged in which the CIA would meet this "golden source" for the first time, LaBonte appealed again to his Amman supervisors. "We're moving too quickly. We're giving up to much control by letting Balawi dictate events."

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The prompt dismissal of three senior railway officials is unlikely to diminish public outrage at the accident, which came hard on the heels of several malfunctions in a new high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai. The 1,318km (820-mile) line was launched with much fanfare at the end of June to coincide with official celebrations of the party’s 90th birthday. Even the rare sight of a Chinese official bowing in apology at a press conference about the crash appears to have done little to placate critics. Online demands abound that the railway minister, Sheng Guangzu, lose his job too. Mr Sheng was appointed only in February following allegations that his predecessor Liu Zhijun lexi belle (a high-speed rail fanatic) was involved in corruption. The internet has proved a powerful amplifier of public scepticism in China, especially since Twitter-like services began to take off a couple of years ago. In this case, it has provided real-time, uncensored insights into a disaster that the authorities would doubtless have preferred to be covered in bare-bones style by trusted party organs. ChinaGeeks, an internet-monitoring website, has translated some of the comments that have been posted online by Chinese users. As China Media Project, another website, notes, even the official press has been quoting the observations of microbloggers.The party has been stumbling in its response. The railway ministry took hours to issue its apology. Mr Sheng, the minister, gave a terse interview (in Chinese) to state television on his way to the scene, saying nothing about human error. The sacking of three top officials of the Shanghai rail bureau, which is responsible for the area where the collision occurred, was no more than a routine party response to major accidents. It took similar action in 2008 after the last big railway disaster.The Global Times, a Beijing newspaper, said in an English-language commentary that the latest accident had delivered “a strong shock to China’s social psychology” and raised doubts about the country’s railway construction plans. These call for a huge expansion of the high-speed network in the next few years.

Bush should give advice to no one. He should just shut up for the next few months, then quietly disappear from our sight. RIO maybe go and live off his oil money in Paraguay..