The China Railway Corporation will start a new national train operation plan with more bullet trains, boosting the capacity of trunk lines and cargo service.
Starting from midnight on Sunday, the new national train operation plan will come into effect with the addition of newly-launched railways such as the Hangzhou-Huangshan high-speed rail and the Qingdao-Yancheng Railway. At the same time, the longer version of the Fuxing or Rejuvenation train has also officially unveiled to give passengers a different travel experience.
A rail route linking the Zhejiang capital of Hangzhou and Huangshan city in Anhui province opened on December 25th.
The 265-kilometer Hangzhou-Huangshan line will reduce traveling time to just one and a half hour from over three hours before. Residents from Shanghai and Nanjing need to travel only two and a half hours and three and half respectively if they visit Huangshan.
The new rail line will serve as a key route for tourists, and boost visitor numbers as there are seven 5A-level scenic spots including Huangshan Mountain, West Lake and Qiandao Lake, and over 50 4A-level tourist attractions along the route. China’s tourist attractions are graded based on a rating scale by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, with 5A being the highest rating. This development will bring further travel convenience for the country's tourists.
The route features nine stations, and trains will travel at a designated speed of 250 kilometers per hour. Construction began in September 2014, and the project was difficult due to the complex terrain along the route with numerous bridges and tunnels built.
Three new types of domestically developed Fuxing trains designed with varying top speeds made their debut at the end of last December.
A whole series of Fuxing or Rejuvenation trains were rolled out at China National Railway Test Center in Beijing, including new versions－a longer train and two lower-speed versions.
The longer Fuxing trains, coded G9 and G16, went into operation Saturday on the Beijing-Shanghai railway at a time when the country enters the annual Spring Festival travel rush, which is expected to last from Jan. 21 to March 1 in 2019. The longer Fuxing trains, which are 440 meters long and can seat 1,283 passengers, are the longest high-speed trains in China, with a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour. Two other Fuxing trains are expected to run at maximum speeds of 250 km/h and 160 km/h.
The phase II project of the Nanjing-Qidong Railway went into operation on Saturday with 3 sets of trains to be in operation between Nantong and Qidong at 59 minutes for a single ride.
The Qingdao-Yancheng high-speed railway went into operation on Wednesday, making it convenient for the local people to make train rides to various destinations across the country.
Constructed over five years, the railway connecting Qingdao city of Shandong province and Yancheng city of Jiangsu province is part of the country’s "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network. 242 kilometers of the 429-kilometer high-speed railway is located in Jiangsu with 11 stations built along the route.
9 stations are newly built while two stations are overhauled from the original ones.
The operation of the Qingdao-Yancheng Railway has added the province’s total railway length to 3033 kilometers.
(Source：ourjiangsu.com)
