I think the most expensive HSR corridor ever built in China per km wise is the Yichang - Chongqing section of the Shanghai-Chengdu corridor. There are simply too many mountain ranges (like Three Gorges, Fuling, where the 816 wgpu project was located) to bore through. God knows how many TBM shields were spent. Unfortunately, given then unsolvable engineering challenges encountered in the late 2000s, the Yichang-Wanzhou section has a strict speed limit of <200kph, pretty much slowing down the supposed HSR traffic to a crawl (but still faster than the unnamable country’s Acela).
Chinese Rail Transport Appreciation & News
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True. But if you look at the bigger picture with regards to the Lanzhou-Xinjiang (actually Baoji-Xinjiang corridor since the mountain ranges begin at Baoji), freight and transportation of strategic materials matter a lot more on this corridor than passenger services. Also, the wind and sand storm problem you mentioned pretty much plagues all railways in Xinjiang and Gansu. There is even a famous video of a train plowing through sand-covered tracks on the Hetian-Ruoqiang line.
Generally speaking, to brain storm a bit, if you were able to rewind the clock back to the early 2010s, wouldn’t quadrupling the numbers of 160kph capable conventional tracks on the existing Lanxin and Longhai Railways from Urumqi all the way to Xi’an (or even to Zhengzhou, or to Xuzhou and Lianyungang port) be a more viable option? And this would be done whilst the Xuzhou-Xi’an 350kph HSR would still be built. Ideally if you could have quadrupled tracks linking the Kazakh border and the port of Lianyungang facing Yellow Sea, wouldn’t that better facilitate the Belt and Road Initiative?
Rail capacity is maximized when you can densely pack the line with trains all running at the same speed. When there are trains of very different speeds on the same line, the number of trains you can run is vastly reduced as you need very large headways (time/distance intervals) between slow freight trains and fast passenger trains. Freight trains are also most efficient when they are superlong/superheavy and travel long distances with minimal number of stops since it takes a very long time for such superheavy freight trains to accelerate and decelerate. Frequent stops are also costly in terms of energy and equipment wear, e.g. on brakes. However, when you have slow freight trains and fast passenger trains running on the same line, the slow freight trains will have to frequently pull into side tracks at stations/yards and stop to let the fast passenger trains pass.
The key point missing from a lot of discussion about Chinese high-speed rail is that a dedicated high-speed passenger line along with a parallel dedicated freight line will have far higher total passenger and freight capacities than two conventional lines with mixed passenger and freight traffic. Building new dedicated high-speed passenger lines (and turning existing conventional lines into essentially dedicated freight lines) is by far the most cost effective way to increase both passenger and freight capacity, with the greater convenience and time savings from high-speed passenger rail travel just being a nice side bonus.
The new railway line will run between Hotan in East Turkestan (Xinjiang province) and Shigatse in Tibet over a distance of 2,000 kilometres. It will cost 400 billion yuan, or 200 million per kilometre, to build. The price tag makes it more than double that of the most expensive line currently under construction – a high-speed railway of 679 kilometres from Moscow to St Petersburg that is costing US$25.3 billion, the report noted.
The Xinjiang -Tibet Railway will pass through mountains, glaciers, frozen rivers and permafrost, with 62% consisting of bridges and tunnels, the report noted.
Construction will begin in November this year and will take 10 years to complete. Trains will travel at 120-160 kilometres an hour between these two remote regions of the People’s Republic of China where campaigns for autonomy or restoration of independence continue to haunt Beijing.
The Xinjiang -Tibet Railway will pass through mountains, glaciers, frozen rivers and permafrost, with 62% consisting of bridges and tunnels, the report noted.
Construction will begin in November this year and will take 10 years to complete. Trains will travel at 120-160 kilometres an hour between these two remote regions of the People’s Republic of China where campaigns for autonomy or restoration of independence continue to haunt Beijing.
What are they talking about? The first phase of the Cali HSR line alone is expected to cost more $130 billion by itself.
That is close to a TRILLION yuan for 795km of rail.
Also, it would be prudent to have the original article linked here. It misses part of the editorializing that the Delhi based tibetanreview.net adds to the story. I mean, having to read about occupied Tibet and East Turkestan should be a dead giveaway...
Here is the original article.
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I don't think there re any planned maglev projects in place with service speed above the one connecting Shanghai Pudong airport and the city centre. Therefore, it will be a while before these two types of high-speed maglev trains entering operational service.Yulong Snow Mountain sightseeing train.
CRRC Changchun maglev showcase.
Yeah, i believe even Britains High speed rail is more expensive than this. Lol. Went from initial cost of $63billion to $93billion now. Delayed by years(from planned 2026 opening to now 2030s) and thats for just 215km.
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It will indeed be the most strategic and militarily significant railway ever built. There needs to be an efficient way to shift troops back and forth between Tibet and Xinjiang. A single-track heavy rail with a focus on military and cargo transport would be ideal. There of course would be limited passenger traffic on this rail.