Chinese train maker CSR Corporation is making a bid to build high-speed trains in the state of California (United States), reported China's 21st Century Business Herald on Thursday.

Chinese train maker CSR Corporation is making a bid to build high-speed trains in the state of California. [File photo]

Previous reports said China's CNR Corporation, another train-making heavyweight, made the bid, but the company's publicity chief Chen Gang told the newspaper on Oct. 22 that he was not aware of any such action.

CSR Corporation confirmed that it formally submitted an expression of interest to bid on the 1,287-kilometer high-speed railway linking San Francisco and Los Angeles on the afternoon of Oct. 22. The project budget rounds up to US$68 billion.

CSR has been preparing to enter the U.S. market for quite a long time. It signed a cooperation agreement with the U.S.'s General Electric in December 2010 to open a joint venture company there, as U.S. law requires that the trains be made on U.S. soil.

Because that project has stalled, a subsidiary company was built by the CSR to pursue their U.S. business, according to the 21st Century Business Herald.

Both China and the state of California are interested in the high-speed railway project. U.S. media said California governor Jerry Brown met Chinese railway officials in April last year to discuss the project, while a delegation comprised of representatives from China's Ministry of Commerce, China Railway Corporation, China Railway Construction, and CSR is set to head for the U.S. to discuss the project at the end of this month.

CSR's trains can be found in 84 countries, and the total value of its international contracts exceeded US$3.5 billion as of August 2014.

While CSR is fully geared up for the bid, the question of whether CNR has actually made the bid has been shrouded in mystery.

According to a report by Reuters on Oct. 20, spokesman for U.S.-based SunGroup Jonathan Sun said that the group had teamed up with CNR and its unit Tangshan Railway to bid for the California project. But a representative from the publicity department of CNR and a senior executive at Tangshan Railway both denied their involvement in the project.

A railway expert told the 21st Century Business Herald that SunGroup, as an agent company, is not entitled to reveal the details of the bid, if any was in fact made.

This expert also said that the actual expenses of the project may add up to more than US$100 billion, far exceeding the current project budget of US$68 billion. The U.S. side assessed the cost per kilometer of the 1,287-kilometer railway at around US$50 million, which only covers basic infrastructure. The actual cost will include the purchase of locomotive trains and the construction of railway stations, amounting to about US$100 million per kilometer.

The expert also warns that the number of passengers anticipated to take California's high-speed trains is not comparable to the number of passengers riding Chinese high-speed rail. The railway, which links San Francisco and Los Angeles (which have populations of 5.32 million and 16 million respectively, greater metropolitan areas included), will carry far fewer passengers than China's Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway.

Besides, U.S. railway passenger volume only accounts for 0.8 percent of total travel flow, the expert noted.

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