Connecting all corners at high speed...

Only 3 days after the China-Laos high speed railway opened, 2 new high speed inter-city connections started operation in China.

While the 1,000km high speed rail connection between #Kunming, #Yunnan province south to #Vientiane capital of #Laos was officially opened on December 3, two other high speed rail (HSR) connections in China were both put into operation on December 6.

One 373km HSR connection in the far North-East of China between Mudanjiang and Jiamusi and another 245 km HSR track crossing the amazing natural sceneries between #Zhangjiajie and Huaihua in China’s central #Hunan province. Both tracks have been built in approximately 5 years.

The new track in North-East China, extending the line from #Liaoning province capital #Shenyang up north-east into #heilongjiang province (along the Russian border), runs through 173 bridges and 34 tunnels (bridges and tunnels account for more than 50% of the whole rail line) with a designed speed of 250 km/h, shortening the inter-city travel time from 7 hours to a little over 2 hours.

As being one of the coldest areas in China with temperatures going down to minus 30-40 celcius during wintertime, the track has been engineered "frost-resistant".

The new 350km/h HSR track in Hunan province is characterized by its remarkable natural views of mountains, rivers and natural reserves. More than 90% of this track are spent through 162 bridges and 118 tunnels.

China's HSR network has grown from 10,000 km tracks in 2012 to about 38,000 km in 2021 with the ambition to come to 50,000 km by the end of 2025. That is 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝟴 𝗸𝗺 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝟰 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀.

About 6.5 million passengers were daily transported per day by the HSR network in China in 2019, while the number was only 350,000 in 2008.

#highspeedrail #connectivity