National Development and Reform Commission: 400 km/h high-speed rail will steadily advance commercial operation

On November 4, the National Development and Reform Commission held a press conference in the "Strive for the 15th Five-Year Plan" series to introduce updates on strengthening development support. Xia Xin, Director of the Infrastructure Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China will build approximately 15,000 kilometers of new railways, including about 10,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, to basically achieve the goal of railway modernization.In terms of key tasks, the main corridors of the "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed rail network will be essentially completed, with high-speed rail mainly serving passenger transport and regional connector lines being reasonably expanded. Efforts will be made to accelerate the establishment of a comprehensive technology and standards system for 400 km/h high-speed rail construction and operation, and to steadily promote commercial operation. The construction of conventional railways will be strengthened, capacity expansion and renovation will be accelerated on busy trunk lines, and bottlenecks in trunk line channel capacity will be essentially eliminated.A specialized railway freight network will be developed, the functional layout of national railway logistics bases will be optimized, the operation range of container train services will be expanded, and the operation of 200 km/h freight trains will be promoted as needed. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the aim is to add 220 million tons of new freight capacity.For major projects, the high-standard Yangtze River high-speed railway will be fully completed, construction of the coastal high-speed railway will be accelerated, border railway construction will be steadily advanced, the coal transport system from Xinjiang to external regions will be accelerated, and preparatory work for projects such as the second Qinhuangdao-Shenyang corridor will be promoted. (National Development and Reform Commission)