China Railway High-speed
China Railway High-speed is a high-speed rail service operated by China Railway in addition to China Railway's older Classic Rail services.
The introduction of CRH series was a major part of the sixth national railway speedup, implemented on April 18, 2007. By the end of 2020, China Railway High-speed provided service to all provinces in China, and operated just under passenger tracks in length, accounting for about two-thirds of the world's high-speed rail tracks in commercial service. China has revealed plans to extend the HSR to 70,000 km by year 2035. It is the world's most extensively used railway service, with 2.29 billion bullet train trips delivered in 2019 and 2.16 billion trips in 2020, bringing the total cumulative number of trips to 13 billion as of 2020.
Over 1000 sets of rolling stock are operated under the CRH brand including Hexie CRH1/2A/5 that are designed to have a maximum speed of, and CRH2C/3 have a maximum speed of. The indigenous designed CRH380A have a maximum test speed of with commercial operation speed of 350 km/h. The fastest train set, CRH380BL, attained a maximum test speed of. In 2017, the China Standardized EMU brand including CR400AF/BF and CR200J joined China Railway High-speed and are designated as Fuxing together with letters CR. With a gradual plan, the CR brand is going to replace the current CRH brand in service.
Depending on their speed, there are 3 categories of high speed trains, G, D and C.
High-speed rail network
High-speed rail services were first introduced in 2007 operating with CRH rolling stock. Those run on existing lines that have been upgraded to speeds of up to and on newer dedicated high-speed track rated up to.China will continue to operate the largest high-speed rail network in the world by the end of 2021, with a length of over 40,000 km. Beijing to Hong Kong High Speed Railway, the longest HSR route in the world, stretches 2,440 km.
CRH service on upgraded conventional lines
As of September 2010, there were of upgraded conventional railways in China that can accommodate trains running speeds of 200 to 250 km/h. Over time with the completion of the national high-speed passenger-dedicated rail network, more CRH service will shift from these lines to the high-speed dedicated lines.A. Intercity service :
- Beijing – Beidaihe, Qinhuangdao
- Beijing – Tianjin, Tanggu
- Beijing – Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan
- Shanghai – Kunshan, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Nanjing, Hefei, Xuzhou, Nantong
- Shanghai – Hangzhou, Yiwu, Jinhua, Quzhou
- Nanjing – Hangzhou
- Guangzhou – Shenzhen
- Shenzhen – Jiangmen – Zhanjiang
- Wuhan – Zhengzhou, Changsha
- Changsha – Nanchang
- Xi'an – Baoji
- Beijing – Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin
- Beijing – Jinan, Qingdao, Shanghai
- Beijing – Zhengzhou, Wuhan
- Shanghai – Zhengzhou, Qingdao, Shenyang
- Shanghai – Nanchang
- Wuhan – Changsha – Guangzhou
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The table below lists the upgraded conventional railways that run CRH high-speed trains every day.Overnight high-speed trainsUnlike the "conventional", which run round the clock, most high-speed rail lines operations shut down each night. There are several sleeper EMU services running on the upgraded rail or high-speed lines operated with CRH1E and CRH2E trains.Conventional higher-speed Z-series overnight rail services may also use certain sections of the high-speed rail network; e.g., the planned Shanghai-Chengdu train Z121/2/3/4 will use the Huhanrong PDL from Nanjing to Wuhan. With the schedule change planned for December 21, 2012, some of these trainsets will be re-purposed to also provide overnight high-speed service between Shanghai and Xi'an North. In the 2014, Chunyun season, overnight HSR trains first ran on Beijing-Guangzhou (Jingguang) and other lines. In November 2016, CRRC Changchun unveiled CRH5E bullet train carriages with sleeper berths. Made in the CRRC factory in Changchun and nicknamed Panda, they are capable of running at 250 km/h, operate at -40 degrees Celsius, have Wi-Fi hubs and contain sleeper berths that fold into seats during the day. In 2017, CRRC unveiled a high speed train with double decked sleeper "capsules" classed as the CRH2E series high speed rail train. On January 5, 2019, the CR200J entered service replacing many locomotive-hauled trains. Rolling stockChina Railway High-speed runs different electric multiple unit trainsets, the name Hexie Hao is for designs which are imported from other nations and designated CRH-1 through CRH-5 and CRH380A, CRH380B, and CRH380C. CRH trainsets are intended to provide fast and convenient travel between cities. Some of the Hexie Hao train sets are manufactured locally through technology transfer, a key requirement for China. The signalling, track and support structures, control software, and station design are developed domestically with foreign elements as well. By 2010, the track system as a whole is predominantly Chinese. China currently holds many new patents related to the internal components of these trains, re-designed to allow the trains to run at higher speeds than the foreign designs allowed. However, these patents are only valid within China, and as such hold no international power. The weakness on intellectual property of Hexie Hao causes obstructions for China to export its high-speed rail related products, which lead to the development of the completely redesigned train brand called Fuxing Hao, based on indigenous technologies.The trainsets are as follows: ;Hexie :
;Fuxing :
Chinese CRH trainsets delivery timetableBased on data published by Sinolink Securities; some small changes were made according to the most recent news.
RidershipAnnual HSR ridership is highest in the world and has ramped up very quickly, as self-reported by rail authorities. China is the third country, after Japan and France, to have reached one billion cumulative HSR passengers. Ridership in 2018 was above 2 billion per year; by 2024 it was above 3 billion per year.Technology developmentBefore the introduction of foreign technology, China conducted independent attempts to domestically develop high-speed rail technology. Some notable results included the China Star, but domestic companies lacked the technology and expertise of foreign companies, and the research process consumed a large amount of time. In 2004, the Chinese State Council and the Ministry of Railways defined a modern railway technology and equipment policy as "the introduction of advanced technology, the joint design and production, to build China brand". The realization of the railway "leapfrog development" is the key task required to develop and utilize the technology required for high-speed trains. In 2007, Chinese state media quoted the People's Republic of China Ministry of Railways spokesman Zhang Shuguang to have stated that due to historical reasons, China's overall railway technology and equipment is similar to that of developed countries' rail systems in the 1970s; high-speed rolling stock development is still in its infancy stage. And that if using only their own resources and expertise, the country might need a decade or longer to catch up with developed nations.Technology introductionOn April 9, 2004, the Chinese government held a conference on modern railway equipment and rolling stock, in which they drafted the current Chinese plan to modernize the country's railway infrastructure with advanced technologies.On June 17, 2004, the Ministry of Railways launched the first round of bidding on the high-speed rail technology, but the company must be:
In the first round of bidding, 140 rolling stock orders were divided into seven packages of twenty orders each. After extensive review and negotiation, three consortiums won the bid:
In November 2005, the Chinese Ministry of Railways and Siemens reached an agreement, and Siemens in a joint venture with Changchun Railway Vehicles and Tangshan Railway Vehicle was awarded sixty high-speed train orders. InnovationThe introduction of high-speed trains, a foreign advanced technology, was required in order to implement China's "Long-term Scientific and Technological Development ". The core technology innovations necessary for a high-speed rail system to meet the needs of China's railway development resulted in the Ministry of Science and Ministry of Railways signing the "independent innovation of Chinese high-speed train cooperation agreement Joint Action Plan" on February 26, 2008. Academicians and researchers from CAS, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Southwest Jiaotong University, and Beijing Jiaotong University have committed to working together on basic research into improving China's scientific and industrial resources into developing a high-speed train system.Under the agreement, China's joint action plan for improvement of train service and infrastructure has four components:
Technology exportOn July 27, 2009, Chinese Ministry deputy chief engineer Zhang Shuguang stated that the United States, Saudi Arabia and Brazil are interested in Chinese high-speed railway technology. On July 28, the Federal Railroad Administration and the US government are negotiating on the introduction of Chinese railway technology. On October 14, 2009, Prime minister of Russia Vladimir Putin and the Russian Railroad Administration signed an Organizing and developing railway in Russia memo with Ministry of Railways of China, planning to build a high-speed railway from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk.The first actual export of Chinese High-Speed Rail technology is the Jakarta - Bandung High-speed Rail of Indonesia with modified Fuxing trainsets and operational speed of 350 km/h. Construction of its first phase, from Eastern Jakarta at Halim to the suburbs of Bandung at Padalarang & Tegalluar, commenced in 2016 and was completed by late 2023. By its first full year of operation the line had carried approximately 5.79 million passengers, with plans to extend the line to Surabaya in preliminary studies as of 2025. Accidents
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