29 JULY: A World Bank report has highlighted the extraordinary growth of China’s high-speed passenger rail network.
The country plans to build 13,000 km of high-speed rail lines by 2012, more than the rest of the world combined.
Trains will travel at a maximum speed of 350kmh on 8000 km of track and at 250kmh on the rest.
The Beijing-Shanghai line, due to open next year, will halve travel time between the two cities to five hours.
By 2020 the network will have expanded to 16,000 km, serving more than 90 per cent of the population, at a total budgeted cost of 2 trillion yuan ($US326 billion), according to the government’s blueprint.
China is building a fleet of state-of-the-art trains for the network with the help of foreign firms including Bombardier, Siemens, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Alstom .
"This transfer of technology and know-how, together with the experience of building and operating several thousand route-kilometres of high-speed railway, will make China’s one of the most advanced railway industries in the world", the World Bank says.
