China opens 1,142 km of new high-speed rail ahead of National Day... Total length exceeds 50,000 km

(Beijing = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Hyun-jung = China opened a new high-speed rail route totaling 1,142 km across the country ahead of the National Day holiday.

According to China Central Television (CCTV) and Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 29th, China opened four new high-speed rail lines the day before, including one connecting Xiong'an New Area in Hebei Province and Shangqiu in Henan Province.

Accordingly, with the construction of a total of 1,142 km of new routes, China's high-speed rail network built over 20 years through the 'mid- to long-term rail network plan' announced in 2004 increased to a total of 50,000 km.

The section receiving the most attention is the 552km long line connecting Xiongan, Hebei, and Shangqiu, Henan, called 'Xi Jinping New City'.

Xiongan New District is a national-level new district created in 2017 to decentralize Beijing's non-capital functions, and is a large-scale national project led by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Shangqiu is a major railway transportation hub in eastern Henan Province, where the east-west Xuzhou-Lanzhou high-speed railway and the north-south Beijing-Hong Kong high-speed railway intersect.

With this opening, it is evaluated that the connection of the core section of the North-South high-speed rail artery, which runs from Beijing and Xiong'an through Henan to Hefei and southern China, has been completed.

Up to 64 high-speed trains operate per day between Xiongan and Shangqiu, and the fastest train can travel between the two areas in 2 hours and 27 minutes.

David Feng, a Chinese railway expert, said that the number of users of Xiongan Station was limited compared to its huge size, and that with the opening of this line, Xiongan was fully connected to the national high-speed rail network.

On the same day, a new high-speed railway connecting Harbin and Yichun was opened in Heilongjiang, the northernmost province, and some sections of the high-speed railway connecting Xi'an and Chongqing in Shaanxi Province and the Xingshan-Yichang connecting line in central China's Hubei Province were also opened.

Initially, up to 20 high-speed trains will be operated per day on the new Xi'an-Chongqing section, and up to 38 high-speed trains per day on the Harbin-Yichun route.

China's high-speed rail network, the world's largest, has been expanding at a rapid pace since 2004, expanding its range of connections to major cities as well as small and medium-sized cities and border areas.

This large-scale opening took place ahead of the National Day holiday, one of China's peak travel seasons.

The China National Railway Group recently predicted that the number of rail users for 16 days, including the Mid-Autumn Festival (Chuseok) holiday and the National Day holiday starting on the 1st of next month, will reach a record high of 284 million.