Are the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railways and the high-speed railways along the Yangtze River redundant construction? There are practical needs and unavoidable hardships
Some people are talking about the problem of duplicate construction of high-speed rail on the Internet.
For example, since there is a Fuzhou-Xiamen railway, why build the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway?
Since there is already a Changjiu intercity, why build the Changjiu high-speed railway?
Since there is already a Shanghai-Hanrong railway, why build a high-speed railway along the Yangtze River?
These lines are basically parallel, not far from each other, and the cities where they stop are similar, what is it that is not a duplicate construction?
It sounds like that, but there are also unavoidable factors.
For example, the Fuzhou-Xiamen Railway starts from Fuzhou Station in the north to Xiamen Station in the south, with a total length of 276 kilometers, and started construction on September 30, 2005, and the whole line was completed on July 20, 2009, and opened to traffic on April 26, 2010. The design speed of the Fuzhou-Xiamen railway is 250 km/h, and the initial operating speed is 200 km/h, which has recently been increased to 250 km/h.
The Changjiu Intercity Railway starts construction on November 28, 2007 and was put into operation on September 20, 2010, starting from Jiujiang in the north and Nanchang in the south. The design speed of the railway is 250 km/h, and the actual operating speed is 220 km/h.
The Shanghai-Hanrong Railway runs from Chengdu in the west to Shanghai in the east, and consists of Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway, Hening Railway, Hewu Railway, Hanyi Railway, Yiwan Railway, Yuli Railway, Chengdu-Chongqing High-speed Railway and other lines, and was put into operation on July 1, 2014. The Shanghai-Hanrong Railway has a total length of 2,078 kilometers and 38 stations, with a design speed of 120-350 km/h and an operating speed of 160-300 km/h.
In fact, the design speed of most sections of the Shanghai-Hanrong railway is more than 250 kilometers per hour, only the section from Yichang to Chongqing through Enshi, due to poor geographical conditions, the design is conservative, and the design speed is only 160-200 kilometers per hour. The railway from Wanzhou to Liangwu is a single-track railway with a design speed of 120 km/h, connecting Wanzhou with the Shanghai-Hanrong Railway, which is not part of the Shanghai-Hanrong Railway.
These lines were built relatively early, when high-speed rail was just emerging, so the design speed was conservative. In fact, compared to the average operating speed of less than 120 kilometers per hour at that time, this was quite advanced.
However, at the moment, the speed of these lines is obviously no longer able to keep up with the needs of the times. For example, from Shanghai to Chengdu, taking the train with the prefix D or G prefix takes 11 hours and 11 minutes at the earliest, and the slowest takes 15 hours and 52 minutes, which is generally more than 12 hours. As long as it is not the peak tourist season, the price of air tickets is very expensive, and most people will choose to take a plane when traveling. This is also an important reason why Chengdu aviation is relatively developed.
In addition, if the Fuzhou-Xiamen railway is part of the coastal high-speed railway, and the Changzhou-Kowloon intercity is part of the Beijing-Kowloon high-speed railway, it faces the problem of inconsistent speeds. For example, a high-speed train from Shanghai to Shenzhen, in Zhejiang and Guangdong can run 300-350 kilometers per hour, and in Fujian can only run 200 kilometers, the same, Hefei to Jiujiang, Nanchang to Shenzhen are 300-350 kilometers / h, Nanchang to Jiujiang is only 220 kilometers / h, not only will be scolded to death by passengers, but also is not conducive to improving the overall speed. Too many intestinal obstructions like this can seriously affect the efficiency of the high-speed rail network.
Moreover, the Changjiu intercity connection is the two most developed cities in Jiangxi, and the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway connects the three most developed cities in Fujian. Therefore, there is a realistic demand for the construction of the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway and the Changjiu high-speed railway, which are mainly used to run inter-provincial trains.
Some netizens said that if the operating speed of 200 km/h is recognized as a high-speed railway, it can reduce the duplication of high-speed rail construction. In fact, the reason for the repeated construction of high-speed rail is not complicated, and it has nothing to do with whether it is called high-speed rail, but has a great relationship with whether it is fast enough.
If it is only inter-city in the province, it does not matter whether the design speed is 200 km/h or 350 km/h. For ordinary people, they really don't care about the difference of hours. If the line is part of the main artery of the country, it will not work, it will have to be speeded up or rebuilt. Due to design reasons, most of the lines could not be increased on a large scale, so they had to be rebuilt.
In addition to the consideration of efficiency, there is also an inevitable local game in the repeated construction of high-speed rail. Generally speaking, where the status is high, the economy is good, the population is large, and the method is strong, the high-speed rail line will pass through. To give a very simple example, the Beijing-Kowloon high-speed railway has made a bend in Hefei and another bend in Xingguo, Jiangxi, and why? The reason for the detour to Hefei is because Hefei is a rare provincial capital city along the Beijing-Kowloon high-speed railway, with a high status, a good economy, a large population, and a guaranteed passenger flow. Why is it a detour to such a remote county town as Xingguo? Obviously, there are people above who have strong manpower and strong methods.
For high-speed rail, my proposition is: there must be, but it cannot be built indiscriminately. High-speed rail can be used as the main mode of transportation between urban agglomerations, metropolitan areas and cities in the province, but not as the main mode of transportation for long-distance mobility. For example, from Northeast China to Guangzhou, from Shanghai to Lanzhou, there is no need to take the high-speed rail. Such long-distance transportation should be generously handed over to aviation.
Therefore, high-speed rail in developed areas should be dense to create urban agglomerations on the track. In remote areas with small populations and backward economies, it is not advisable to blindly pursue high-speed rail, and the ordinary railway of 160-200 km/h is the best mode of transportation. As for rapid transportation, it is better to hand it over to airplanes.
Why do Yunnan, Sichuan, and Xinjiang have so many airports? Because the territory is too vast and too isolated, the economy is too backward, and the population is too sparse, it is not cost-effective to build high-speed railways, and it is enough to have railways, expressways, and airports.
(Wuhan, February 11, 2024)