Test success for Xinjiang bullet train
Print Edition
A TRIAL run for the first high-speed railway in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Tuesday marked a countdown to formal operations by the end of the year.
A CRH2-061C high-speed train ran through the 300 kilometer Urumqi-Shanshan section at speeds of 160 to 277 kilometers per hour. The designed speed is 250kph, but the train must slow down in some areas because of high winds.
The line is part of the Lanxin Railway, which links Lanzhou City in northwestern Gansu Province and Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
The 1,776km line, which crosses a vast expanse of the Gobi Desert, will cut the travel time between Lanzhou and Urumqi from the current 21 hours to 8 hours or less.
During the test run, Adi Turdi, 34, became the first Uygur man to operate a bullet train. He normally operates a train from Urumqi to Hami at a speed of 140kph.
The run showed that the track and the train operated within safety limits, said Fu Lianzhu, chief engineer of the line’s trial run project.
Since the railway passes four major windy areas in China, a 462km wind shield was built to prevent any damage caused by gales, said Fu.
The Lanxin Railway is currently the only railway connecting Xinjiang with other provincial regions. The new line takes a slightly different route, winding into neighboring Qinghai Province before re-entering Gansu and picking up the old route that heads northwest toward Xinjiang.
The operation of the new line will complement the current railway networks and serve more of the population, said Erkin Tuniyaz, vice chairman of the regional government.
The line will greatly improve Xinjiang’s transport capabilities to central Asia and Europe and strengthen its role as a transport hub along the Silk Road economic belt, he said.
In a speech in Kazakhstan last September, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the construction of a “Silk Road economic belt” as a way of developing political and economic ties with China’s neighbors and accelerating the development of China’s western regions.
Xinjiang is a major energy powerhouse for China. Insufficient transport capacity has long restricted development as raw materials and products have to be sent to inland regions by truck, which is slower and more costly, said Lai Xin, a senior official with the region’s development and reform commission.
The new line is a passenger line, which will relieve transport capacity and make it more convenient for bulk commodities to be sent from Xinjiang, he said.
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