High speed China’s high-speed prog
Despite a two-year setback due to corruption scandals and the fatal Wenzhou accident, China is on course to complete its 18,000km national high-speed rail network by 2015 as planned. Han Qiao from China Features in Beijing investigates the current state of play for the world’s largest high-speed network.
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HE Ministry of Railways (MOR) made it clear at the Modern Railways 2012 exhibition in Beijing in November last year that the 2011-2015 railway development programme will continue unchanged. MOR said China will complete its backbone network of four north-south and four east-west high-speed lines by 2015. As a result the total length of the high-speed network will double to reach 18,000km. Total investment in the railway sector during the five-year period will also remain unchanged at Yuan 2.8 trillion ($US 449bn). This represents an increase of 15.7% compared with the level of investment during the 2006-2010 period, says MOR.
China’s ambitious high-speed railway development programme suffered a major slowdown in early 2011 when former railway minister Mr Liu Zhijun was removed from office on charges of corruption. The collision at Wenzhou between two high-speed trains in July 2011 which killed 40 people dealt another heavy blow to the programme.
For the past two years, the Chinese government has taken a cautious approach to high-speed rail development, while efforts have been directed at improving safety management. More stringent commissioning and testing procedures following Wenzhou means it now takes far longer to put a new line into operation. The Wenzhou accident also led to a cut in the maximum speed on high- speed lines as China introduced a safety
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China’s newest high-speed lines Line
Opening date Beijing - Shanghai
Zhengzhou - Wuhan Hefei - Bengbu Harbin - Dalien
Beijing - Zhengzhou Source: MOR
Guangzhou – Shenzhen December 26 2011 Wuhan - Yichang
June 30 2011 July 1 2012
September 9 2012 October 16 2012 December 1 2012
By December 31 2012
margin of at least 50km/h between the maximum design speed and the maximum operating speed. MOR has not given any indication that it is willing to increase the maximum speed above the current limit of 300km/h. According to MOR, the length of high-speed lines with a design speed of 300-350km/h will be 6700km and that with a design speed of 200-250km/h
Length (km) 1318 102 293 536 132 921 681
will be 11,300km by 2015. Wenzhou had a major impact on investment which fell sharply in 2011, and continued its downward trend in 2012 (Figure 1). Manufacturers also faced a tough time, as MOR launched very few tenders for the procurement of high-speed trains during this period. The first signs of a recovery were noticed in the second half of 2012, when
IRJ January 2013
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