Chinese railway enters elite high-speed club

China is edging into the elite club of high-speed trains with the month-long passenger-free trial of its latest service between Beijing and the city of Tianjin in northern China on July 1.

A China high-speed (CRH) train hit a record speed of 394.3 km per hour (kmph) in a trial run on June 24.

It was about half of a commercial airliner`s cruising speed, with a per unit energy consumption of just one sixth that of a private car.

`This shows that China has joined the elite club after Japan, France and Germany as the fourth country capable of turning out high speed trains,` said Wang Zhijian, Deputy General Manager of Beijing-Tianjin Inter-City Railway Co.

The 115-km trip from Beijing South Railway Station to Tianjin Railway Station took 27 minutes, with one-minute stops at Yizhuang and Wuqing stations.

Also read: The Dragon takes off!

Previously, China`s fastest self-developed trains ran at a service speed of up to 250 kmph. Those trains, which debuted in April 2007, served the Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou routes.

The Beijing-Tianjin passenger line, China`s first world-class express inter-city railway, is scheduled to begin its operation on August 1, a week before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games.On a new track

`The high-speed trains have been a milestone in the history of China`s railway development,` said President Hu Jintao in an inspection tour on June 25.

Construction of the Beijing-Tianjin inter-city high-speed railway began on July 4, 2005.

The 115-km line, built at a cost of 12.3 billion yuan (about Rs 7,700 crore), was designed for speeds of 300 kmph, with trains at 3-minute intervals at peak hours. Twenty sets of carriages, each with a capacity of 600 people, will run every hour.

Once in operation, the journey from Beijing to Tianjin will take just 30 minutes. It is also a 115-kilometer test section of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed passenger special railway, which is under construction.

As a pilot project of China`s planned high-speed rail network, the country`s first high-standard passenger rail has overcome crucial technological problems, including concrete-bed rail tracks, express rail roadbeds, bridges, and environment protection requirements.

`All these achievements are done on the basis of absorbing foreign advanced technologies and making independent innovations,` said Wang Zhijian.

Unlike traditional rails laid on a road metal, the Beijing-Tianjin line has adopted the concrete-bed rail track technology widely used in Japan and Germany.

Whereas ordinary tracks need frequent maintenance, lines built on concrete foundations are more stable and require little maintenance, said Hu Jian, Chief Engineer of the inter-city rail project, although construction costs are slightly higher. The service life of concrete-bed rail tracks can reach 60 years.

To reduce swaying and noise when a train passes connections, construction workers welded five 100-m rails into a 500-m rail and had them transported and installed on high performance concrete beds. Sixteen 500-m rails were laid each day.Cutting-edge technology was used to monitor sedimentation of roadbeds and bridges on soft soil and unstable ground. To ensure safe operation of the 350 kmph trains, roadbeds must not move more than 1.5 cm and bridges no more than 2 cm. Engineers have detected “zero” sedimentation that is attributed to the independently developed CFG pier foundation technology, said Fan Chengguo, field operation manager of the project.

To ensure trains running safely at full speed, engineers applied the country’s self developed and most advanced 32-m-long box girder, said Fan.

The railway introduced landscape design for bridge piers, bridges and station houses to harmonize them with surroundings. Noise barrier shields were erected when the rail traversed residential areas.

In August 2007, roadbeds and bridges were completed. Four months later, concrete-bed tracks were laid. In January 2008, communications, signals, traction and power supply works were completed.

Image: North China`s Tangshan Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works rolled out the CRH3 (China railway high-speed), the first high-speed train to be produced in China on April 11, 2008. (Copyright Xinhua. Any unauthorised reproduction is prohibited)

Text: Wu Qi/China Features