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The China Star, China's first home-made
high-speed locomotive, is shown in this undated file photo.
(newsphoto) |
Construction of a 115-kilometer-long track, China's first ever
city-to-city commuter express passenger rail route, linking Beijing and
Tianjin, is scheduled to start in July.
Sources from the Chinese Ministry of Railways said the agreement on
building the commuter rail route has been signed by the ministry and the
municipal governments of Beijing and Tianjin in Beijing.
According to the agreement, construction of the rail line is expected
to be finished at the end of 2007 and to go into service in July 2008.
At 200 km per hour, the trip from Beijing to Tianjin will take
approximately 40 minutes only, some 30 minutes less than the current time,
a source with the ministry acknowledged.
Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun said the construction of the commuter
express rail route is of vital importance to the 2008 Beijing Olympic
Games and to the development of the Bohai Sea rim.
A series of new technologies plan to be introduced for the new rail
line, to make it a showcase of high-standard express passenger track in
the country, said Liu.
The central government, or the State Council,
decided to build express train tracks in China's three most populous
regions, the area around
Beijing and Tianjin, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl (Zhujiang)
River Delta.
The State Council has approved relevant
transportation layouts for the
tracks in the three regions.
A 295-km track will run between Shanghai and Nanjing and another will connect
Nanjing, Hefei and Wuhan, helping local people get to major cities
within the delta in a couple of hours.
The Pearl River delta also plans to build a 595.6-km-long commuter
track network.
The State Council required relevant departments to press ahead with
technological innovation while resorting to sophisticated foreign
technology in building commuter track and exert the utmostto minimize the
land occupied and protect the environment.
(China Daily) |