High-speed railway network changes lives of many

The past five years have seen an astonishing expansion in China's high-speed railway system. More than 12 thousand kilometers of line have been built taking China to the top of the world rankings in terms of high-speed railway length.

High-speed train G4135  running from Guiyang to Kunming on December 28, 2016 on the railway built between Shanghai and Yunnan Province. [Photo: gov.cn]

The network is connecting different parts of China together, making people's lives more convenient and offering new economic and social opportunities.

Just a few days ago, a new high-speed rail line linking Baoji, in Shaanxi Province with Lanzhou, in Gansu Province in northwest China finished the construction phase and started testing.

The railway, which connects many poor regions, fills in a gap in the country's rail system and brings new opportunities for local people, including the area's many apple growers. Wu Zhengquan is one of them.

Bao-Lan High-speed railway, linking Baoji and Lanzhou is tested on May 16, 2017. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

"These fields measuring almost four-square kilometres, belong to over 170 houses of our collaborative community. When the high-speed railway opens in July, we'll be able to develop tourism here and earn far more money than we do now," Wu noted.

Last December, a 2000-kilometer-long railway opened between Shanghai and Southwest China's Yunnan Province. The new railway facilitates bullet train journeys to cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Hekunla is from the Pumi ethnic minority who live in the mountainous Nujiang region in Yunnan Province. She was among the first batch of passengers to take the newly launched high-speed train there.

The high-speed rail line between Shanghai and Yunnan Province opens on December 28, 2016. [Photo: gov.cn]

"We are just super excited about the high-speed train. Our people have lived in the mountains generation after generation. While many people say they just want to go home, we feel the opposite, we want to go out and see the outside world," she said.

For some urban cluster areas like the Yangtze River Delta, high-speed rail is speeding up trips between neighboring cities and is creating livelihoods covering different locations. For example, some people commute between cities using the high-speed train for work.

Currently, China's high-speed rail line network measures 22 thousand kilometers, accounting for more than 60 percent of the total high-speed rail lines in the world.

And it's still expanding rapidly. According to China's latest rail plans, the overall high-speed railway will be extended to 30 thousand kilometers, covering 80 percent of big cities by the year 2020.

The map of the national high-speed railway project by 2030 [Photo: ifeng.com]

Fei Zhirong, a senior official from the National Development and Reform Commission, said: "Eventually, the high-speed rail network will basically cover all the provincial capitals and other cities with populations of 500 thousand or above, making travel between neighboring cities possible within one to four hours."

As one example, China's top economic planner has approved a program to build an inter-city railway network in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei by 2030 to push forward regional integration and economic growth.

According to China's National Development and Reform Commission, the ambitious plan will cost around 237 billion yuan (34.4 billion US dollars) by 2030, with the goal of linking together what will be, by far, the world's largest integrated agglomeration of urban economies.