China cuts through mountains to expand bullet train network

BEIJING : China on Wednesday inaugurated a 658-km high speed railway line cutting through a mountain range and connecting the terracotta warriors’ city of Xian in the northwest to Chengdu city in the southwest, taking the total high-speed network to more than 22,000 km.

Though trains on the route will run at 250 km an hour, which is not the fastest in China, the travelling time between Xian and Chengdu will be cut from 11 hours to less than four hours, the state media reported.

This is also the first rail line to cut across the Qinling mountains, which for centuries served as a natural barrier between the north and south of the country.

Engineers working on the project – which took almost five years to complete – had to build 127 bridges and 34 tunnels because of the mountainous terrain and river valleys in the region. The tunnels include a 16-km one with double tracks, which experts have said is among the longest in Asia.

By 2016, China had built 22,000 km of high speed railway lines in about a decade, said to be the longest network in the world. India began work on its first high speed line, the 500-km Mumbaiahmedabad link this year.

“The first high-speed train (on the new route) left Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi province, at 8.22 am. It will make 14 stops before reaching Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province,” official Xinhua agency reported. China plans to build 38,000 km of high speed rail lines by 2025.