The Ministry of Railways announced in Beijing on Wednesday that
China will begin building high-speed "bullet train" railways, on
which trains can travel at speeds above 300 kilometers per hour, in
2005.
The ministry is sponsoring a two-day international seminar on
passenger-dedicated line engineering in Beijing. Sixteen foreign
consultant companies are participating.
The government has approved the building of a total of 3,000
kilometers of railways on which trains can operate at 200
kilometers per hour or more, said Vice Minister of Railways Lu
Dongfu.
Trains on the lines running from Wuhan to Guangzhou and
Zhengzhou to Xi'an will be the 300-kilometer-per-hour bullet
trains.
He Huawu, the ministry's chief engineer, said that the lines are
designed to handle traffic traveling at 350 kilometers per hour,
although the operating speed in the initial stages will be limited
to 300 kilometers per hour and 200 when passing flyovers.
The ministry's long-term program calls for the building of
10,000 kilometers of special passenger railways, with 2,000
kilometers of high-speed railways concentrated in the Bohai Sea
rim, Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta areas, by the end of
2020.
The 3,000 kilometers of new track includes lines from Wuhan, Hubei
Province?to Guangzhou, Guangdong
Province; from Zhengzhou, Henan
Province?to Xi'an, Shaanxi
Province; from Beijing to Tianjin
Municipality; and from Hefei, Anhui
Province?to Nanjing, Jiangsu
Province.
Japan built the first high-speed railway in 1964; currently
trains there run at a maximum of 300 kilometers per hour.
(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2004)