China plans to build a fast passenger railway network totaling more than 12,000 km to connect provincial capitals and other main cities, a senior official with the Ministry of Railways has said.

 

The plan includes four north-south routes, four east-west routes and three regional inner-city networks, with the speed of the trains exceeding 200 km per hour, said Su Shunhu, deputy director of the Transportation Bureau with the Ministry of Railways.

 

The four north-south routes are Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Wuhan-Guangzhou-Shenzhen, Beijing-Shenyang-Harbin (Dalian) and Hangzhou-Ningbo-Fuzhou-Shenzhen, while the four east-west routes are Xuzhou-Zhengzhou-Lanzhou, Hangzhou-Nanchang-Changsha, Qingdao-Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan and Nanjing-Wuhan-Chongqing-Chengdu.

 

Meanwhile, the regional inner-city networks will be built in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the Bohai Bay rim.

 

Su Shunhu also said China will build another 16,000 km of railways, mainly to expand the railway network in the west.

 

China is at a crucial phase in its upgrading of its railway transport capacity to achieve further rapid economic growth, and the government has issued its mid-term and long-term railway network policies, which involves extending China's railway length to 100,000 kilometers by 2020.

 

China aims to have separate tracks for passenger and freight trains on main trunk lines by 2020, with half of all the railways to be electric and double-track.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 8, 2006)