CHINA Railways (CR) opened the Jinxing Intercity Railway on December 18. The 101km line links Tianjin to Beijing Daxing International Airport and has four new stations.
The line has a maximum speed of 250km/h and the fastest train between Tianjin West and Daxing Airport takes 41 minutes. Eight trains per day are operating on the line.
The 208km Jinan - Puyang section of the 407km Jinan - Zhengzhou (Jisheng) high-speed line opened to traffic on December 8, marking the completion of the Jizheng high-speed project. The line serves Jinan and Liaocheng in Shandong Province, and Puyang, Anyang and Xinxiang in Henan Province.
The maximum design speed on the new line is 350km/h and fastest train between Jinan West and Zhengzhou East takes 1h 43min, a saving of 1h 29min. CR plans to operate 61 trains per day on the new line.
Work on the project started in June 2020 and the Puyang - Zhengzhou section opened in June 2022. The new line crosses many rivers including the Yellow River and the Beijing - Hangzhou Grand Canal, and several existing main lines such as the Beijing - Shanghai and the Beijing - Kowloon high-speed lines.
Trial operation started on December 2 on the 47km Fangdong Railway running from Fangchenggang North on the Qinfang line southwest to Dongxing City on the Vietnamese border. The line has a design speed of 250km/h and an operating speed of 200km/h.
For the commissioning trials, 12 trains per day are being operated. When the line opens, the journey time between Fangchenggang and Dongxing City will be cut from around 1 hour by road to 20 minutes by rail.
Meanwhile, construction started on December 8 of the 315km Guizhou Huangtong - Guangxi Baise railway. The 160km/h line is a national Class I single-track electrified railway. The line is expected to take five years to complete.
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