High-speed Railway Booms in China

The high-speed railway is greeted by an unprecedented development opportunity in China. In the next three years, a huge amount of money will be put into this field.

China is entering into the high-speed railway age with increasing miles of high-speed rails across this country.

It only takes half an hour from Beijing to Tianjin, one hour from Shijiazhuang, Hebei to Taiyuan, Shanxi and less than 3 hours from Wuhan, Hubei to Nanjing, Jiangsu. The data can show how fast the high-speed railway is. With more and more fast trains put into use, the high-speed railways began to be known to every Chinese people. According to the introduction of Wang Zhiguo, Vice Minister of Railway, more than 110,000 kilometers of railways will be used in China by 2012, of which high-speed railways go through 13,000 kilometers. Now, here gradually comes out a railway net consisting of four high-speed railways connecting West China and East China and four articles crossing from North China to South China. Taking high-speed railways from Beijing to the capitals of most Chinese provinces will take less than 8 hours.

The Great Achievements

The construction of high-speed railway in China started in 2004, in which the State Council approved the “Long-term Program of Railway Construction”. It was put forward in the Program that 12,000-km-long high-speed railways will have been built by 2020. The length was increased to 16,000 km in 2008. Tianjin-Beijing Intercity Express and Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan High-speed Railway were finished one after another. Thereinto, the Tianjin-Beijing Intercity Express is the fastest high-speed railway in the world, which can run at 350 kilometers per hour. And the journey from Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan which previously took 10 hours by ordinary trains only costs 3 hours by high-speed railway.

According to the data from the Ministry of Railway, China’s high-speed railway saw its explosive development in 2009, in which 5,557-km-long high-speed railways were put into use. Different high-speed railways have laid a fast and convenient connection between Ningbo and Wenzhou, Wenzhou and Fuzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen and so on. When the world longest high-speed railway - Wuhan-Guangzhou High-speed Railway can run at 350 km/hour and reduce the journey between the two cities to less than 3 hours, the whole world has to admire and praise the great achievements of China’s high-speed railway.

Wang Zhiguo said that the high-speed railways put into use in China have lengthened to 6,552 kilometers. More than half of them are the ones with hourly speed of 250 to 350 km/hour.

More Expectations in the Future

Liu Zhijun, Minister of Railway, said that 26,000-km high speed railways will be put into construction from 2010 to 2012, of which 9,200 km will be used for carrying passengers. By the end of 2012, the total length of high-speed railways in China will reach 11,000 km and passenger lines will cover 13,000 km. The cost of building one-km high-speed railway for passengers is one billion yuan (USD 146.5 million). Therefore, the total investment in that field will reach 900 billion yuan (USD 131.8 billion) in the next three years.

“The construction of China’s high-speed railway system will see a harvest in the next few years,” said Wang Zhiguo. “With the construction of high-speed railway network, it will only take one or two hours to travel from a province’s capital to a neighboring province. Meanwhile, the journey from Beijing to most capital cities in China will take not longer than 8 hours by high-speed railway. 90% of Chinese population will enjoy the fruits of the development.”

It was known that the four main passenger lines connecting North and South China are Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway, Beijing-Guangzhou (Shenzhen) Passenger Line, Beijing-Harbin High-speed Railway and Hangzhou-Shenzhen Coastal Passenger Express. The four main railways connecting West and East China are Xuzhou-Lanzhou Express, Hangzhou-Changsha High-speed Railway, Qingdao-Taiyuan Passenger Line and Shanghai-Chengdu Express. In addition, more and more intercity expresses will be built to make people’s travel more convenient.