Comment by zokier
2 months ago
It's 2024, we can do better than blurry horribly blown out pictures these days. Check for example https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=34.39719,113.94792&z=15&t=SL&mar... for cleaner shot of the site (zoom in few notches for extra details). Google Maps annoyingly cuts half-way through the factory site.
edit: that ACME mapper image looks to be from mid-2023, in more recent imagery the construction on the east side has been completed.
The thing about that image that amuses me the most is that there is a local grid pattern that isn't aligned north-south, and the factory goes "don't care" and instead smashes itself through everything on a straight cardinal direction alignment.
Though you can see the same alignment as the factory in town further to the west, with newer streets.
I guess it makes sense to align the factory to this grid, and not to the older grid that followed the fields.
The way Chinese towns are organized is incredible. I'm impressed by this map.
No freight train connection to the factory??
There is. In fact it's called a "land port" for a reason, the park has a huge freight yard connected to 2 rail lines it's just not shown in this picture because it's shared infrastructure of the industrial park.
I don't think there is any railway link to the site, at least in the short term. Both of the two rail lines nearby are passanger only high speed (250 km/h to 350 km/h) lines (references: https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%83%91%E9%98%9C%E9%AB%98%E... , https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%83%91%E6%B8%9D%E9%AB%98%E... ). The train yard ~5 km north of the factory is 郑州南动车所, also a high speed rail depot.
That area is called 郑州港区 (literal translation Zhengzhou "port area", full name: 郑州航空港经济综合实验区) is actually for it's closeness to the airport (ZHCC). English reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhengzhou_Airport_Economy_Zone .
Yeah I think so. Zhengzhou has perhaps the largest yard in China. The factory is there for a reason.
Toggle the layer to "Map" and you can find the railway lines easily, although train in the depot looks like a high speed train (huge, long windscreen).
All that track connected to the depot you are talking about is high speed passenger infrastructure. Just touching the south side of the factory is what looks like an old single track line if you follow it to the west there's a passing loop just the other side of the nearest village. If you switch to back and forth between map view and satellite view this eventually leads to a spur shown in map view that stops at a road. Not sure if the line is under construction or decommissioned or what.
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When you zoom out far enough in ACME mapper, the factory disappears. (I'm guessing that's an older image.)
Yep, pretty common for different zoom levels to be different time points. ACME is using plane photography for its high zoom images. You could try zoom.earth for hourly/12hourly satellite imagery.
Although it is generally true that aerial photography is used to supplant satellite imagery in these sorts of public map services, I'm pretty confident that the image of BYD factory here is actual satellite imagery.
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