China will expand its high-speed railway network in the 13th Five-Year Plan period from 2016 to 2020, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on Tuesday.
According to the 2016-2020 development plans unveiled by local governments, the country will see more railway lines during the period, including the Yinchuan-Lanzhou, Baotou-Xi'an-Chongqing-Guiyang, Datong-Taiyuan-Zhanjiang and Xiamen-Changsha-Chongqing railway lines.
According to the development plan rolled out by Shaanxi province, the province will accelerate construction of its high-speed railway network, Xi'an subway network and interurban railway network in the Central Shaanxi Plain.
Meanwhile, Chongqing municipality will also increase its railway lines by 1,000 km in 2016-2020. During 2016-2020, the "four south-north and four east-west" railway lines put forward in the country's previous medium and long-term railway plan will turn to a network of "six south-north and six east-west" or "eight south-north and eight east-west" high-speed railway lines, according to railway industry insiders.
At present, the plan is under discussion and the official document will come out in June next year, said the report. According to the country's medium and long-term railway plan unveiled in 2008, the "four south-north" high-speed railway lines include Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Harbin, and Shanghai-Shenzhen lines and the "four east-west" high-speed railway lines include Xuzhou-Lanzhou, Shanghai-Hangzhou-Kunming, Qingdao-Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan, and Nanjing-Wuhan-Chengdu.
It will be certain that the country's railway network in 2016-2020 will be expanded, but how to expand the network still needs to be studied, said Zhang Jiangyu, a railway planning expert.
Latest comments