International Railway Journal - July 2008 - (Page 35)

China Shanghai high-speed project, and approval was granted for construction of the Hong Kong Shenzhen section of the planned 147km-long 200km/h line linking Kowloon West station and Guangzhou Shibi station, which will cut the Hong Kong - Guangzhou journey time by about half to just under 50 minutes. Five-year plan Under its 11th five-year plan, China plans to build about 7000km of highspeed lines. Five more lines are planned in addition to the Beijing - Shanghai line: Beijing - Guangzhou, Beijing Harbin, Shenyang - Dalian, Xian Xuzhou, and Ningbo - Shenzhen. By 2020, China’s high-speed rail network will consist of four south-north lines and four east-west lines with a total length of about 10,000km. Planning of the Beijing - Shanghai high-speed line can be traced back about 15 years, but for the first 10 years there was considerable debate about whether the new line should be built using maglev or conventional steel wheel on rail technology, before a final decision was made in favour of the latter. The Beijing - Shanghai high-speed project is not simply a line linking China’s three biggest cities of Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. It also connects the Bohai and Yangtze River Delta economic regions, which are the two most important economic zones in China, accounting for about 27% of China’s total population and generating about 40% of national GDP. So, the new Beijing - Shanghai line will also cater for important intermediate traffic flows such as Shanghai to Nanjing, Nanjing to Jinan, and Jinan to Tianjin and Beijing. The existing Beijing - Shanghai line (Jing-Hu line) is the busiest in China, Artist’s impression of the Nanjing-Dashengguan Yangtze bridge. carrying about 10% of total rail passenger traffic and 7% of railfreight, but cannot meet the passenger and freight transport demands of the Bohai and Yangtze River Delta economic regions. Traffic on the Beijing - Shanghai highspeed line could reach 80 million passengers a year. Diversion of longdistance passenger tariff to the new line, which will more or less parallel the Jing-Hu line, will allow the latter to be mainly used for freight, and this traffic could increase to more than 100 million tonnes annually. The new Beijing - Shanghai line will be 1318km long. It starts at Beijing South station, runs through Tianjin, Jinan, Suzhou, Bengbu, Nanjing, and ends at Shanghai Hongqiao station. There will be 21 stations, most of them purposebuilt, and 11 will serve cities with a population of more than one million. viaducts, including several big bridges across the Yangtze, Yellow, and Huaihe rivers. Construction of the 9273m-long Nanjing-Dashengguan bridge over the Yangtze River should be completed by The new line will be designed for threeminute headways during peak hours with a maximum speed of 350km/h. the end of next year. The maximum span on this bridge is 336m, which Chinese engineers claim is the longest span on a 300km/h level high-speed railway bridge in the world. Construction of the 5143m-long bridge over the Yellow River has also started. The new line will be designed for three-minute headways during peak hours with a maximum speed of 350km/h. However, when the line opens trains will initially operate at Big bridges To avoid occupying too much land, and keep noise to a minimum, about 80% of the line will be on bridges or railway workshop equipment plants n ts r age ired fo areas requcovered n o tHall 7.2a Stand 104 sand filling plants - lifting plants - bogie drop plants working platforms - special cars IRJ July 2008 35

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International Railway Journal - July 2008 Contents This Month News Transit News Market News/Technology News News Analysis Conference Report Korean Railways Face a Bright Future Korean Exports Surge Ahead Ready to Roll in China Velaro Shows Eastern Promise Are You Sitting Comfortably? Compin Meets New Challenges The Fabric of Society Grinding Out a Result Rendezvous Full Contact List The Last Word

International Railway Journal - July 2008

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