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China’s Railways, Full Steam Ahead
Fri 05 Oct 2007 Post by : invisible
Category : news about Chengdu
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Issue 4
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To move both its people and its cargo, China relies heavily on railways — generally the least expensive means of mass transportation. The 75,000 kilometers of the country’s railway network (6,500 of which were built in the last five years) constitutes a significant percent of the world’s total railways.
According to official estimates, in 2005, passenger trains in China were able to accommodate only 80 percent of the number of passengers wishing to purchase a seat or berth, and on peak days, that number decreased to 50 percent, leaving unfortunate riders no choice but to stand in the aisles. Railway transport in China leaves 60 percent of the freight demand unsatisfied.
Despite ambitious plans, China’s railway capacity grew only 9.5 percent from 2001 to 2005 while the economy has been booming at an annual average rate of 9 percent. To address this gap, the country is quickly extending existing tracks, building double-tracks to accommodate trains running in both directions, electrifying tracks, separating passenger and freight lines, and centralizing and automating dispatches.
By 2020, the country’s operational railway lines will amount to 100,000 kilometers, according to the nation’s long-term railway-network program, which was implemented in 2005. To use this network more efficiently, China has continually upgraded the speed of both its passenger and freight trains. Until 10 years ago, trains traveled at 60 kilometers per hour, and more than 4,000 steam trains were in operation. Since 1997, China has raised its train speed five times, boosting passenger-train speed on 22,100 kilometers of tracks to 120 kilometers per hour, on 14,000 kilometers of tracks to 160 kilometers per hour and on 5,370 kilometers of tracks to 200 kilometers per hour. Freight-train speed raised to 120 kilometers per hour.
High-speed train to Chongqing
In 2006 China announced an ambitious blueprint for the construction of over 12,000 kilometers till 2020 (5,400 kilometers till 2010) of high-speed railways to connect its major urban centers with 11 high-speed railways (exceed 200 kilometers per hour) north-south high-speed lines, four east-west tracks and three inter-city networks with priority given to the Beijing-Shanghai (to be opened in 2010) line - the first of the north-south high speed lines -- and Shanghai-Hangzhou rail lines paving the way.
When the Chengdu-Shanghai track is completed in 2020, it will connect the current 35- to 40-hour ride from Chengdu the east coast down to just 10 to 15 hours. The train will operate at 200 kilometers per hour but up to 350 kilometers per hour between Chongqing and Chengdu.
Currently, several trains make the 350-kilometer commute between Chongqing and Chengdu in around four hours. These trains average an unimpressive 100 kilometers per hour but are an improvement over what was until recently the only train option—an eight- to ten-hour ride.
By 2020, both Chengdu and Chongqing — potentially the world’s largest city — will have seen major growth in population size and urbanized land area. With trains making the journey in under two hours, day-tripping from one city to the other for purposes of leisure and commerce will become increasingly common, in turn creating a phenomenon already in place on China’s east coast: the megalopolis.
Off to Tibet
Of greater interest internationally was the recent opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which makes traveling overland into Tibet easier for foreigners as well as having a host of other political, social, and environmental implications.
The dream of Sun Yat Sen and Mao Zedong, the highest railway in the world climbs from 2,829 meters above sea level at Golmud (Ge’ermu) to 3,641 meters at Lhasa. The highest point is 5,072 meters at the Tanggula Pass between Tibet and Qinghai.
Building railways on this ground was thought impossible, until China took up the challenge six years ago. The problem was the layer of permafrost on the ground, which ordinarily melts and re-freezes every day and would make ordinarily laid track unstable. Engineers developed a technique to address this, and now trains that average 60 kilometers per hour, with a maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour, are sent over it daily.
In five years it took more than 100,000 workers to lay the tracks and about USD23.68 billion to complete the construction of the 1,142-kilometer Golmud-Lhasa section.
Official estimates say that by next year as many as 4,000 people daily will arrive by rail in Lhasa from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Chengdu. Tibet’s tourism revenues are said to double by 2010 as a result of the railway, with half a million more tourists a year expected to stream into the region.
The first visible sign of the increased tourism in the region being Lhasa’s first five-star hotel, The Brahamaputra Grand, which opened its doors last year. The Grand Hyatt, Intercontinental Group, and Banyan Tree resorts are all reportedly scouting around for properties. Additionally, tourist sites such as the Potala Palace are seeing a significant increase in the number of daily visitors.
By binding the region more closely to the rest of China and opening it up to the outside world, the Qinghai-Tibet railway is expected to reduce the cost of transporting goods into the region by more than half. Plans for expanding the tracks to other cities, including border areas, are in the making, but the ultimate impacts of the railroad into the “Roof of the World” will unravel over the years.
The article was first published in chengdoo CITYLIFE issue No.4
