World’s High-Speed Train Makers Set Sights on U.S.

Walt Disney World in Florida may be the next stop for bullet-train makers in Japan and China. Central Japan Railway and China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock are competing for the $8 billion that President Barack Obama has granted for 13 high-speed corridors across the United States, including a line between Tampa and Orlando in Florida that may include a station at the Walt Disney resort near Orlando. The Japanese company, also known as JR Central, is eyeing North America as a shrinking population at home limits its growth. Alstom of France, Siemens of Germany and Bombardier of Canada also want to sell trains, tracks and operating equipment under an initiative that the U.S. transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, called “an absolute game-changer for American transportation.” Other high-speed corridors run between New York City and Buffalo, New York; Los Angeles and San Francisco; and Chicago and Detroit. “High-speed rail is going to be a big industry in the U.S.,” said Masayuki Kubota, a fund manager at Daiwa SB Investments in Tokyo. “A lot of companies are going to try and get a piece of the action.”  Bullet trains are generally considered to be those traveling faster than 180 miles, or 290 kilometers, an hour. Japan is home to the world’s first “shinkansen,” or high-speed train system. It also has the biggest high-speed network, which carried 308 million people in the 12 months through March 2009. JR Central runs the busiest bullet-train line in Japan.