中国铁路部门最近宣布，计划建造一条高速铁路连接北京和伦敦。当时我不得不停下来揣测一番：谁会预定这趟欧亚超级快车的票呢？
难道它将是为中国远赴意大利血汗工厂工作的女裁缝们准备的穿梭快车？也许它定位于一趟花俏的东方快车(Orient Express)，以迎合老龄化的日本旅游市场？或者，它将通过专门向火车迷售票而获利？
上周末的大部分时间，我在香港费尽心思设法让12名同事回到伦敦，这段经历让我得出结论：如果中华人民共和国的铁路奇才们能够说服拟议线路的沿线国家给予合作，并能让旅途足够舒适，那他们的想法还真是不错的。
与其安排复杂的航班路线（方案之一是：香港-奥克兰-圣地亚哥-圣保罗-伦敦），或核算为12个人包一家飞机的价格，或试图预测风向，更容易的做法是把大家带到北京的铁路站台上，给他们一些便当，送他们出发。谁知道呢，他们现在都应该回到伦敦的办公桌前了。
很明显，世界不能仅仅依靠光纤电缆、巨型服务器和社交网站来运行，而且当没有一架加满燃油的波音或空客可以搭乘的时候，那种感觉是相当无助的——除此之外，这也证明，出于各种理由，我们迫切需要投资兴建联通全球的替代线路，以供火山灰、网络恐怖主义和其它灾害让商业活动以及各大陆之间的联络瘫痪的数天/数周/数月期间使用。
在一个更实际的方面，所有那些在几年前决定关闭其旅行部门、如今正担心员工也许正在巴厘岛的蓝天下晒太阳的公司，可能要考虑或者重新设立一个团体旅行部门，或者请一家顶级旅行社来处理如此严重的后勤问题。
我可能在个别问题上对北京的某些行为有不同看法，但如果中国要建设一条高速铁路，能让成千上万的人每天来回穿梭于欧、亚之间，那我愿做第一个购买该铁路月票的乘客。
的确，相比于一年中无数次点对点的紧张旅程，短暂经停维也纳、基辅、阿拉木图、乌鲁木齐和北京的21世纪风格的商务旅行，还是很有一些浪漫气息的。
拥有强大铁路部门的其它国家（加拿大、德国、法国和日本）可能也想考虑填补世界各地的其它缺口。开普敦到哥本哈根，布宜诺斯艾利斯到蒙特利尔这样的线路也可以考虑啊。
译者/功文
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032308
When China's rail authorities recently announced plans to build a high-speed rail link connecting Beijing with London I had to pause and wonder who would be booking passage on this Eurasian super express?
Would it be a shuttle for Chinese seamstresses heading off to work in Italian sweatshops? Perhaps it might position itself as a pimped up version of the Orient Express catering to Japan's ever-greying tourism market? Or maybe it would turn a profit by selling seats exclusively to train-spotters.
Having spent the better part of the past weekend in Hong Kong trying to figure out how I am going to get 12 colleagues back to London, I reckon the rail wizards in the People's Republic are on to a winner if they can persuade other nations along the proposed line to play ball and they make the journey comfortable enough.
Rather than dreaming up elaborate routings (Hong-Kong-Auckland-Santiago-São Paulo-London was one option on the table), checking the price of chartering a jet fit for 12 or trying to predict the direction the winds might blow in, it would have been easier to get everyone to a rail platform in Beijing, pack some lunchboxes and send them on their way. Goodness knows, they all would have been back at their desks by now.
Aside from revealing the glaringly obvious – that the world cannot function on fibre-optic cables, huge servers and social network sites alone, and is rather helpless when there is not a fully fuelled Airbus or Boeing close at hand – it also demonstrated that for myriad reasons there is an urgent need to invest in alternative global transport links for days/weeks/months when volcanic ash, cyber-terrorism and other calamities can bring commerce and continents to a standstill.
On a more practical front, all those companies that decided to close their company travel office a few years ago and are now worried that their foot soldiers might be basking under the blue skies of Bali might want to think about either bringing back a group travel desk or retaining a top-notch travel agency to deal with a logistical headache as big this one.
I might have the odd issue with some of Beijing's behaviour, but if China wants to build a high-speed rail link that could whisk thousands of people back and forth across the frontier-lands of Europe and Asia every day then I will be the first to buy a rail-pass.
Indeed, there is something quite romantic about a 21st-century whistle stop business trip calling at Vienna, Kiev, Almaty, Urumqi and Beijing rather than making countless, stressful point-to-point journeys over the course of the year.
Other countries with a vested interest in the rail sector (Canada, Germany, France and Japan) might want to think about filling in other gaps around the globe. Cape Town to Copenhagen and Buenos Aires to Montreal are also up for grabs.
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