China speeds up building of second high-speed railway linking Beijing and Shanghai

Amid the country's new push to increase the operating mileage of railways, Chinese State builders are making progress in bolstering construction of a second high-speed railway that will link Beijing and Shanghai.

Workers from China Railway No 4 Engineering Group, who are helping build the ‌399-kilometer-long Weifang-Suqian HSR, successfully rotated a continuous beam that traverses the existing Weifang-Rongcheng HSR in Shandong province in the early hours of Aug 11.

The Weifang-Suqian HSR, with an investment of some 76 billion yuan ($11.2 billion), can directly connect Weifang in Shandong province and Suqian in Jiangsu province, with 12 stations, including Weifang North, Anqiu, Zhucheng West, Wulian North, Juxian North, Yinan, Linyi North, Lanling and Suqian East, Zhang Buwei, a CREC4 staff member, said.

Part of the national "Eight Verticals and Eight Horizontals" HSR network, the high-speed railway can help facilitate local travel and support the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin regions, he said.

Early this year, during the working conference of the Chinese railway operator, China Railway aimed to expand the operating mileage of railways from the current 165,000 kilometers to 180,000 kilometers by end-2030. As part of the effort, the country's high-speed rail network will be increased from the current 50,000 kilometers to 60,000 kilometers by end-2030.

China Railway said to better serve Chinese modernization, building a world-class rail enterprise in China is vital.

At present, the construction of the Shandong section of Weifang-Suqian HSR — extending 324.8 kilometers between Weifang North Station in the north and the Shandong-Jiangsu border with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour for the trains — is in full progress, Zhang said.

The rotated continuous beam — owned by Xiong'an High-speed Railway Co Ltd — spans 129.5 meters and weighs over 6,300 metric tons.