The North-South railways were built more than 100 years ago with a gauge of 100cm and average speed of probably below 100 km/hour (they were not ranked).

We are going to submit a plan to build a 300 km/h railway worth $58 billion in total. The railway will be built in many different phases and the whole route of 1,545 kilometers will be completed by 2050.

However, many people say that the $58 billion project of 300 km/h railway is too costly and time consuming. The railway tickets are believed to be too high compared with Vietnamese incomes. Meanwhile, they won’t be used to carry cargo and so won’t help the development of businesses. 

They think that it would be better for Vietnam to build railways with a speed of 200 km/h, which would cost $20 billion only and can carry both passengers and cargo.

Trains have a development history of about 150 years, with different technological development in different phases.

In Phase 1, steam locomotives were used, while in Phase 2 internal combustion engine locomotives were used. In Phase 3, trained switched to electric motors, and Phase 4 to magnetic levitation transport (maglev). Currently, trains are trying to run on a low-pressure (near-vacuum) pipeline.

The speed of trains has increased gradually with new technologies – 100 km/h using steam locomotives; 200 km/h with electric engines; 500 km/h using maglev technology and 1,000 km/h when running in vacuum tubes.

Vietnam should not develop 200 km/h trains and there is no need to discuss this because we don’t have this technology. While the investment rate is very high (tens of billions of dollars), the train speed is not really high, so there won’t be many passengers who want to travel on the north-south route. The 200 km/h trains, if built, would mostly serve passengers traveling between provinces with distances of under 1,000 kilometers.

Cargo transport should not be included as the prerequisite in the development of high-speed railways because we still have normal trains which can satisfy cargo transport if they are upgraded.

If we really want to have 200 km/h trains, it would be better to upgrade the railway and make the third rail wider from 1 meter to 1.4 meters (this solution has been chosen by some countries). If so, we would be able to both exploit the current infrastructure and upgrade the train speed to above 100 km, which can both carry passengers inter-provincially, and carry cargo, and the cost won’t be as high as a 200 km/h railway.

The average speed of the trains won’t be much lower than the 200 km/h trains, while the total investment will be much lower.

On the other hand, the expressway for vehicles to run at a speed of 120 km/h would support the railway with 100-200 km/h, so the building of 200 km/h trains is not really necessary, especially when we are about to complete the North-South motorway highway.

We also should not think of building 300 km/h trains because we are in the 4.0 industrial revolution.

If we had built the 1,545 kilometer route in 2010, the project would have been completed. It would have been put into operation and brought certain effects.

However, the story would be different because it is now 2022 and we have just begun discussing the project. The railways won’t be completed until 2050. Therefore, we believe that we absolutely should not implement the project. We don’t have the technology and we would have to borrow money to do every item of the project. The total cost of the project would be extremely high, not just $58 billion.

The most important thing is that we are in a technology transition period and the project may be completed after 30 more years. It may happen that humanity will enter the fifth development phase, while Vietnam would be in Phase 3 at that time.

Meanwhile, maglev trains with a speed of 500 km/h are too expensive, so we should not think of it. It will also be unable to compete with airplanes using electricity which are expected to develop strongly in the future.

A high-speed train running in a vacuum tube of 1,000 km/h could be a good choice for the future because the production cost would be a competitive 300 km/h train, while it has the super high speed of 1,000 kilometers, which can compete with airplanes. Notably, the system does not occupy much land, the corridors are safe, and it is not necessary to build many large cross-river bridges. 

If we need to make a decision now, we should only agree on a principle that we need to build a north-south high-speed railway with suitable speed, technology and cost, with capital of about $50 billion, and we should not immediately agree on a specific project with a speed of 300 km/h and capital of $60 billion.

We believe that it is necessary to set up a committee of domestic and international experts to study a common strategy, conduct surveys, and work with high-speed train manufacturers from Japan, the EU and China.

We have been late for 30 years studying and developing 300 km/h high-speed trains and we must not be in a hurry now as humanity is in a technology transition period after more than 100 years of development. 

Nguyen Duc Thanh (Vietnamese Ambassador to Italy)

Nguyen Duc Binh (Boston Suffolk University)

Nguyen Duc Anh (Paris American University)