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Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway

The Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway which can be called Jinghu High-speed Railway is one of the great projects in China. With a total length about 1,318 kilometers, this high-speed railway is a tie connected two major economic zones in the People's Republic of China: the Bohai Sea Rim and the Yangtze River Delta. This project had already began in 2008 April and lasted for about 2.5 years. It will be finished in the October 2011 according to the schedule as a milestone in China railway industry.

The new Beijing-Shanghai line is being built to improve journey times and ease pressure on existing railway corridors between the two cities. At the very beginning, construction of this project was expected to take five years. But till the end of 2010, this high-speed railway line had been in a comparative mature stage and it may be open in the next October with a 3.5-year project time.

With an aim to serve a train runs in 380km/h, once till this railway is open, it will be named as the world’s fastest one — the position currently occupied by the trains of the Wuhan–Guangzhou line, which opened in December 2009. The non-stop train from Beijing South to Shanghai Hongqiao is expected to finish the 1305 km journey in 3 hours, 58 minutes, averaging 329 km/h.

*Basic Information

Name	Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway
Termini	Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway
Opened Time	October 2011
Length	1302 km (main line) 1318 km (total)
Duration	about 5 hours in total
Type	CRH (China Railway High-speed), for passengers transfer services
Operating Speed	380 km/h
Places Involved in	Beijing City, Hebei Province, Tianjin Province, Shandong Province, Jiangsu Province, Anhui Province and Shanghai City

*The Project of Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway

After about 10 years to discuss since 1998, this high-speed railway project had been started in 2008. With the announcement of Premier Wen Jiabao in the opening ceremony on 18^th April 2008, the railway project with the largest investment, the highest technique and the advanced world constructed level started its first footprint.

According to the situation along this line - more than a quarter of the country's population lives close to the line, which accounts for 10.2% of passenger transport and 7.2% of freight, this project is a chance for China to help the domestic economic field as well as tourism industry enter into a rapid developed era.

In the past, people who took trains to Shanghai from Beijing had to spend 14 hours. While this high-speed railway will reduce this journey time into 5 hours with a transport volume of about 220,000 passengers per day

*Infrastructure

With the original project plan, the Chinese Ministry of Railways prepared to build this high-speed railway with the domestic technology only. However, in May 2006, the Ministry opened an invitation to tender for contracts to the foreign market, with particular interest in the German and French high-speed railway technology.

From the data referred, Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway will built about 21 from the Beijing South Railway Station to the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station via many provinces with some stops there.

According to the present process of it, the high-speed rail with maximum speed of 380 kilometers per hour crossing the 1,318 kilometers of Beijing to Shanghai line required higher and more precise requirements over the track.

Two thirds of the new route is expected to be constructed on embankment, with the vast majority of the remaining third being laid on bridges. Two major river crossings, of the Yellow and Yangtse rivers will be needed.

*Specifications
The Beijing–Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co., Ltd. is in charge of construction. The project is expected to cost 220.9 billion yuan (about $32 billion). An estimated 220,000 passengers are expected to use the trains each day, which is double the current capacity. During peak hours there should be a train every five minutes. 1060.6 km, or 80.5% of railway will be laid bridges. There are 244 bridges along the line. The 164-km long Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge is the longest bridge in the world. The 113.69-km long viaduct bridge between Langfang and Qingxian is the second longest in the world, and the viaduct between Beijing's Fourth Ring Road and Langfang is the fifth longest. The line also includes 22 tunnels, totaling 16.1 km. 1196 km of the length is ballastless.

According to Zhang Shuguang, the deputy chief designer of China's high-speed railway network, the continuous operating speed is expected to be 350 km/h (220 mph), with maximum operating speed up to 380 km/h (240 mph). The average commercial speed from Beijing to Shanghai will be 330 km/h (210 mph) and cut the train travel time from 10 hours to 4 hours. The rolling stock used on this line will be the CRH380 trains. CTCS-3 based train control systems will be used on the line, to fulfill the requirement of 380 km/h of running and the minimum train interval at 3 minutes. 16-car trainset will be used, the power of each trainset will be 20 MW, at capacity of about 1050 passengers, each passenger from Beijing and Shanghai consumes less than 80 kWh in average.

To ensure the safe, high-speed and stable operation of the train, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line utilized the Chinese Railway Type II slab tracks, the world's most advanced track system. These tracks replaced the traditional railway ballast by concrete paved board with the base structure to reduce the vibration noise of the high speed rail with sound track geometrical conditions that will provide better comfort for passengers.

*Footprint of Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway

In December 1990, the report of Jinghu (Beijing-Shanghai) High-speed Railway Construction Policy had been finished by Chines Ministry of Railways

In 1994, a further study of Jinghu (Beijing-Shanghai) High-speed Railway Construction Policy had been finished.

In December 1994, the official department of Jinghu High-speed Railway Construction had been built up.

From October 1998 to April 2000, the Chinese Ministry of Railways had improved the Jinghu (Beijing-Shanghai) High-speed Railway Construction Policy according to the evaluation report.

In 2001, the government had done the preparation work of the necessary land to construct this high-speed railway.

From July to October in 2003, the temporary international consultation work had been finished

In September 2003, the necessity and the inevitability to build Jinghu High-speed Railway ensured the construction of this project.

From October 2003 to July 2005, the finalized international consultation work had been finished.

During the 2006 to 2007, the Chinese State Department and other related departments had finalized the preparation work of this project. And on the 27 December 2007, the Jinghu High-speed Railway Co. Ltd had been found.

On 18 April 2008, the Jinghu High-speed Railway project had been started.

From 2008 to 2010, this project had been fully started and every part of this railway had been finished in succession.

And on 15 November 2010, The overall track-laying run-through ceremony of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway line was held in Central China’s Bengbu City, marking the remarkable project staged into testing and commissioning phase.

On 3 December 2010, a high-speed passenger train manufactured by CSR set an operating speed record of 486.1 km/h on a test run on the Beijing-Shanghai line.

In June 2011, Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed train may be launched and officially open to the public at the end of June. And the trial prices had been announced as following:

*Stations

There are 24 stations on the line. The line has two speeds of service, 300 km/h (186 mph) 'G' trains and 250 km/h (155 mph) 'D' trains.

Station Name	Chinese	Total distance (km)	Travel Time		High-speed rail transfers*	Location
Station Name	Chinese	Total distance (km)	250 km/h	300 km/h	High-speed rail transfers*	Location
Beijing South	北京南	0	0:00	0:00	Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Railway	Beijing
Langfang	廊坊	59				Langfang	Hebei
Tianjin West	天津西	Not on main line			Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Railway Tianjin–Qinhuangdao High-Speed Railway (through connection line with Tianjin Station Tianjin–Baoding High-Speed Railway	Tianjin
Tianjin South	天津南	131	0:36	0:34		Tianjin
Cangzhou West	沧州西	219				Cangzhou	Hebei
Dezhou East	德州东	327			Shjiazhuang-Jinan Passenger Dedicated Line	Dezhou	Shandong
Jinan West	济南西	419	2:26	1:32	Shjiazhuang-Jinan Passenger Dedicated Line	Jinan
Taian	泰安	462				Taian
Qufu East	曲阜东	533				Qufu
Tengzhou East	滕州东	589				Tengzhou
Zaozhuang	枣庄	625				Zaozhuang
Xuzhou East	徐州东	688			Zhengzhou–Xuzhou High-Speed Railway	Xuzhou	Jiangsu
Suzhou East	宿州东	767				Suzhou	Anhui
Bengbu South	蚌埠南	844			Hefei–Bengbu High-Speed Railway	Bengbu
Dingyuan	定远	897
Chuzhou	滁州	959				Chuzhou
Nanjing South	南京南	1018			Hefei–Nanjing High-Speed Railway	Nanjing	Jiangsu
Zhenjiang South	镇江南	1087				Zhenjiang
Danyang North	丹阳北	1112				Danyang
Changzhou North	常州北	1144				Changzhou
Wuxi East	无锡东	1201				Wuxi
Suzhou North	苏州北	1227			Suzhou–Jiaxing Intercity Railway	Suzhou
Kunshan South	昆山南	1259			Shanghai–Nanjing Intercity High-Speed Railway Shanghai–Wuhan–Chengdu High-Speed Rail Corridor	Kunshan
Shanghai Hongqiao	上海虹桥	1302	7:56	4:48	Shanghai–Hangzhou High-Speed Railway Shanghai–Nanjing Intercity High-Speed Railway Shanghai–Wuhan–Chengdu High-Speed Rail Corridor	Shanghai

Note: * - Lines in italic text are under construction or planned.

Data from: wikipedia

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