A new third rail

NO TRANSPORT accident has caused such an outcry in China as did the collision on July 23rd of two bullet trains, in which at least 39 people died. With the accident and the railway ministry's crass response, public grievance is widespread. A cherished project, the rapid expansion of what is already the world's longest high-speed rail network, is in tatters.

The crash on a viaduct near the coastal town of Wenzhou is above all a big embarrassment to the Communist Party itself. Only a few weeks earlier party officials had been crowing about the network's latest, and most expensive, addition: a 1,320km (820-mile) line between Beijing and Shanghai that cost more than $30 billion. Its opening was timed as a celebration of the party's 90th birthday on July 1st. Soon services on the new line were disrupted by power cuts. Angry passengers waited for hours in sweltering heat.