China has now the largest electric rail lines network in the world, overtaking Russia.
BEIJING- China’s electric railway mileage has surpassed 48,000 kilometers, ranking first in the world, the China Railway Engineering Corporation Railway Electrification Bureau Group Co., Ltd. (EEB) said Tuesday. It achieved this figure following the launching operation of a 921-kilometer electric railway line connecting the northeastern cities of Harbin and Dalian. The line is also the world’s fastest rail line in regions with extremely low temperatures.
Wang Zuoxiang, head of the EEB technology department, said the country started to build electric railways in 1958, and in just over half a century, the mileage has exceeded that of Russia, the former country with the most electric railway mileage. There are 68 countries and regions with electric railways. Behind China, the leading ones are Russia with 43,300 kilometers, Germany with 21,013 kilometers, India with 18,810 kilometers, Japan with 16,965 kilometers and France with 15,217 kilometers.
According to the 12th five-year plan for railway development, China will have around 120,000 kilometers of railway in operation — 60 percent of which will be electric — by the end of 2015.
In between, Sichuan province started laying tracks on Sunday for the first high-speed railway in mountainous southwest China, where ancient visitors called a trip there harder than that to heaven. The railway, which will link cities including the cities of Mianyang, Deyang, Chengdu and Leshan, stretches 312 kilometers across the Wenchuan earthquake struck areas.Work is expected to be completed by the end of 2013. High-speed trains will run at a designed speed of 200 kilometers per hour.
The total investment for the line will reach 40.5 billion yuan (6.4 billion U.S. dollars). There are 30 million residents along the railway. The railway is expected to make transportation more convenient in China’s southwestern regions which are neighbouring Laos and Vietnam, both located in the ASEAN. China has currently 8,600 kilometers of high-speed rails in operation.
(Source: Xinhua)
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
