China plans five-year leap forward in railway development

According to People's Daily report on Oct 7th, China had a ambitious plan for the national railroad network development during 2006-2010.

China today has has 75,000 kilometers of railways, among which 6,500 kilometers were built in the last five years.

Minister of Railways says that

in the five years from now to 2010, China will build 19,800 kilometers of new railway lines, modernize 15,000 kilometers of existing railway lines, boost passenger train speed to 200 km per hour with fast trains traveling at more than 300 km an hour, and increase the load of freight trains with a single engine hauling over 5,000 tons.

Under the railway development plan approved by the Chinese government, every year 4,000 kilometers of new tracks will be laid, 3,000 kilometers of existing tracks electrified, and more fast passenger trains, including the maglev trains, and large capacity freight trains introduced.

In modern era, speed is important, the railroad is not an exemption. China has raised its train speed for five times since 1997. The sixth acceleration will happen nest year, which will allow passenger trains to run at 200 km/hour on 6000 km railroads. In the next 5 years, China will further raise the speed of passenger trains to 200 km/hr on another 13,000 km of the existing rail tracks, and of freight trains on all tracks will be raised to 120 km/hr by 2010.

Some dedicated express passenger railroads will be built. The first of such railroad was put in service in 2003. The 404-km Qin-Shen railway was designed at 300km/hour standard. China will build 9,800-km dedicated passenger railway lines before 2010, among which 5,457 km will accommodate trains running at a speed above 300 km/hr.

To increase the efficiency of existing roads,

China will introduce 70-ton freight cars which carry more goods than the 60-ton freight cars presently in use.

According to the plan of the Ministry of Railways, China will roll out 70-ton cars for general use, 80-ton cars for coal and 100-ton cars for ore, iron and steel in the next five years.

China will also develop railway container transportation, making 10,000 km of tracks able to accommodate double-deck container transportation, and establishing an annual capacity of 10 million TEUs.

To realize the planned leap-forward in railway development, Liu says China will invest 1.25 trillion yuan (150 billion U.S. dollars) in the next five years.

The Middle-long term planning for China's railroad networks (until 2020)
The bold red lines stand for the new express passenger railroads that will be completed before 2020. According to the plan, China will have 100,000KM railroads before 2020, among which 12,000km are express passenger railroads, 50,000km are double-track railroads and 50, 000km will be electricified.