China steps into the high-speed rail age as two new projects get final government approval
　　
　　The Beijing-Shanghai railway, linking the two biggest cities in China, is the busiest railway in the world, having an annual cargo capacity of 120 million tons and transporting 30 million passengers.
　　Connecting two economically developed regions--the Yangtze Delta and Circum--Bohai (sea) area-the railway runs through provinces covering one quarter of the country’s population. The 1,453-km-long railway represents only 2 percent of the country’s track length, but it carries 10.2 percent of the total passenger traffic and 7.2 percent of the railway cargo capacity, four times the national average.
　　Given the heavy use and resulting congestion, the State Council, China’s cabinet, has given final approval for an express passenger train on the Beijing-Shanghai route, as well as a Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev (magnetic levitation) project.
　　Based on accepted international standards, an express train means one that has a speed of over 200 km/h. The basic speed of express trains in France, Japan, Italy and Spain is at least 250 km/h.
　　In 1992, China built a railway between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two big cities in south China’s Guangdong Province, where train speeds reached 170 km/h, and it was known as a “quasi-express railway.”
　　Because of their speed, large load capacity and low energy consumption and pollution, as well as safety and convenience, high-speed railways are seen as a good choice for China, which suffers from limited resources and a transportation bottleneck.
　　Early this year, the Railways Ministry announced that, during the 2006-10 period, China would invest 1.25 trillion yuan to set up a 17,000-km-long high-speed railway system, including 7,000 km of passenger railways, on the Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Harbin, Shenyang-Dalian and Lianyungang-Lanzhou routes. All the trains will travel at 200-300 km/h, which means that China will be more advanced than France, Japan and Germany in high-speed railway development.
　　According to China’s railway system development plan, by 2020, China’s entire railway mileage will total 100,000 km, of which 12,000 km will be for passenger transport only. Cargo and passenger routes will be separated, and the government aims to have 50 percent of the routes with multiple tracks and 50 percent electrified by that date. Economic experts predict that to realize this goal, the total basic investment will be 2-2.5 trillion yuan.
　　Experts from the China Academy of Railway Sciences began discussing the feasibility of building a Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway as early as 1990. The focus of the discussion was concentrated on whether high-speed wheel track technology should be adopted, or the maglev technology should be used. The final decision was to build a standard high-speed railroad track.
　　Xu Kuangdi, President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, explained that although the maglev plan was based on advanced technology, it would require a huge investment of 370 billion yuan, or 287 million yuan per km, as a 31-km maglev railway in Shanghai cost 8.9 billion yuan to build.
　　In addition to the cost, the maglev plan imposes high technical demands, which would be a challenge to the long-distance control technology along the Beijing-Shanghai route. But the 170-km Shanghai-Hangzhou railway will adopt the maglev technology.
　　
　　A much shorter trip
　　
　　The experts from the China Academy of Railway Sciences pointed out that the average speed of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway will be 250 km/h, with the maximum speed designed to reach 350 km/h. During the trial period, the distance between trains should be at least 16.7 km. A train is designed to carry 1,000-1,200 passengers. There will be 110-120 trains departing from Beijing and Shanghai each day, carrying over 220,000 passengers between the two cities. If there is no stop along the route, the trip will take only five hours, instead of the current 12 hours. The Railways Ministry predicted that the total investment in the project could be recouped within 15 years.
　　Railways Minister Liu Zhijun said the construction financing for the project would come from private capital inside China, low-interest loans from the World Bank and foreign governments and loans from foreign commercial banks. It is reported that the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co. Ltd. will be set up to handle the construction and operation of the project. Experts said that the high-speed railway is expected to be established within six to seven years, starting with the Shanghai-Nanjing and Beijing-Tianjin segments.
　　The construction of the Beijing-Tianjin passenger line, with a designed speed of 300 km/h, was begun in July 2005, and is expected to be completed before August 2008, when the Beijing Olympic Games begin.
　　During President Hu Jintao’s visit to Germany last November, China’s Railways Ministry signed a contract with Siemens to buy 60 high-speed trains that can travel up to 300 km/h for 669 million euros (6.35 billion yuan). The trains will be put into service on the Beijing-Tianjin line. This type of train may also be used on the Xi’an-Zhengzhou, Shanghai-Nanjing, Wuhan-Guangzhou and Beijing-Guangzhou lines in the future.
　　The train purchase is only a small part of China’s high-speed rail project, because China will independently design and produce high-speed trains that can travel 300 km/h, said Hu Yadong, Vice Minister of Railways, who signed the contract with Siemens.
　　Under the agreement, China will not only acquire trains, but also Siemens’ technologies. That is, Siemens will sell three sample trains to China and the necessary parts to build the remaining 57 trains. Siemens will provide its Chinese partner, CNR Tangshan Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works, with nine key technologies. In addition, the 60 trains will be labeled with a Chinese brand.
　　It is reported that China and Siemens will jointly set up a specialized technology joint-venture corporation to insure train production in the future. And finally, China will solely control the most advanced technologies in Europe.
　　The Railways Ministry’s plan shows that the Chinese-produced train will account for 30 percent of total production in the first phase, 50 percent in the second phase and 70 percent in the final phase. In June 2008, the first Chinese-made high-speed train will be finished.
　　The planned Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train line will be 100 km shorter than the current railway, but its passenger capacity will be triple the current level. The new line is expected to accommodate 120 million passengers every year, which will ease the current railway transfer problem between the two cities.
　　
　　Boosting development
　　
　　The high-speed train line means more than just strengthening the transportation capability. Because there are many big cities along the line, such as Bengbu of Anhui Province and Xuzhou of Jiangsu Province, the new line will promote the economic and social development of east China.
　　It took four years to complete feasibility studies on maglev technology for the Shanghai-Hangzhou route. Professor Sun Zhang of Shanghai’s Fudan University, a railway specialist, said, “It is very wise to adopt different technologies on these two train lines according to their individual conditions.”
　　Professor Sun is one of those who first discussed the feasibility of building high-speed train lines in China, and he witnessed the efforts to realize this goal over the past 10 years. He said he believed that the safe operation of a maglev train line in Shanghai has proved that, technically, the maglev technology can be safely used on a much longer train route. Although the cost of building a maglev train line is still high, he said he was confident that the cost would be lowered as more homemade maglev trains and railway lines are built.
　　Wang Shilan, an economic expert from Zhejiang University who has participated in the maglev project study since 1995, said, “It is a wise decision to build a maglev train line between Shanghai and Hangzhou. Because Shanghai is one of the economic centers of China, and Hangzhou is a famous tourist city, it is a natural requirement to build fast and comfortable train lines to ease the transportation strains between the two cities.”
　　It is reported that construction of the 170-km-long maglev project is scheduled to begin in late 2006, and to be finished in 2008, with a total budget of 35 billion yuan. The line is expected to be put into operation in 2010. The trains’ speed will be limited to 450 km/h in rural Shanghai areas, and below 200 km/h in urban Shanghai for safety reasons.
　　Experts said that once the maglev train line, which links Shanghai, Jiaxing and Hangzhou, is finished, it will take less than 30 minutes for a one-way trip between Shanghai and Hangzhou, which will bind the two cities more tightly.
　　The first high-speed maglev train, to be built by Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Co. Ltd., will be put into trial operation around July. The train, with an all-digital design, can carry 90 passengers and run at a speed of up to 500 km/h. The company, the first civil aviation-related company to produce maglev vehicles, will hold full rights to the technologies adopted in the project, and will become the base producer of China’s high-speed maglev vehicles.
　　
　　High-speed railway
　　A high-speed railway refers to passenger trains that travel at speeds of at least 200 km/h, and can be divided into the wheel track type and the maglev type.
　　All commercial high-speed train lines in the world are of the wheel track type. In France, this type of high-speed train reached a test speed of 515.3 km/h. The first high-speed train line was launched in 1964 in Japan. Current high-speed train lines in the world, in Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium, span 4,600 km. Forty five new lines, totaling about 11,000 km, are under construction or scheduled to be built.
　　The maglev train can be divided into the electromagnetic and electric types. An 18.4-km-long maglev train line in Japan and a 31.5-km-long line in Germany are under test operation. Their speeds reach 550 km/h and 450 km/h, respectively.
　　
　　Shanghai maglev project
　　January 23, 2001: Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co. ltd., Siemens and ThyssenKrupp AG sign a cooperative contract on building a maglev train line between urban Shanghai and Shanghai Pudong International Airport. The construction period lasted from March 2001 to September 2002.
　　The 31-km-long line was designed for a maximum speed of 430 km/h, but the top speed once reached 501 km/h.
　　December 29, 2003: The line began commercial operation, which was the first in China and in the world. By July 2004, over 1 million passengers had taken the maglev train.
　　The increasing speed of China’s railway system
　　January 1994: Shenyang-Dalian line’s speed is raised to 120 km/h for the first time in China.
　　December 1994: Guangzhou-Shenzhen semi-high-speed line is completed with a designed speed of 160 km/h. During the test period, the top speed reaches 200 km/h.
　　April 1996: The speed on the Nanjing-Shanghai segment of the Beijing-Shanghai line is raised to 160 km/h.
　　April 1, 1997: The first large-scale speed promotion is launched on China’s railway system.
　　October 1, 1998: The second large-scale speed promotion is launched. The top speed of the Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Harbin lines reaches 140-160 km/h. Some segments of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen line even see 200 km/h.
　　October 21, 2000: The third large-scale speed promotion is launched.
　　November 21, 2001: The fourth large-scale speed promotion is launched.
　　April 18, 2004: The fifth large-scale speed promotion is launched, with 7,700 km of the country’s railway system seeing a minimum speed of 160 km/h.
　　April or October 2006: The sixth speed promotion will be launched. The average speed on 22,000 km of railway will be over 120 km/h and 5,300 km will reach 200 km/h.

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