Welcome to the China Super Fast Railroads Page! Chinese will be number one user of railroads and super high speed railroads within the next 5 years. In one arena it already is: The near future World Fair city of Shanghai has the only working high tech Maglev train track in the world!
   

 The Chinese Super High  Speed Lines  
In the summer of 2008 China ran its CRH3 production train on the super high speed tracks at the record speed of 380 km/h (236 mph)! The operating area of the CRH3/Velaro-C (designed by Siemens AG in Germany) and others is getting wider with each year. Currently the following super high speed / high speed lines either under construction on planned for normal rails are:

• Peking - Kanton, >2000 kilometers
• Shengdu - Shanghai, ~2000 kilometers 
• Peking - Shanghai, 1300 km 
• Wuhan - Guanzhou, 900 km   
• Shijiazhuang - Wuhan, 800 km (part of the Peking - Kanton line, section to be finished by 2012).
  

Under construction magnetic levitation track:

• Shanghai - Hangzhou 170 km Maglev track!

   
Finished lines include: 

• Peking - Shijiazhuang, 280 km, (part of the Peking - Kanton line)  
• Shanghai - Shanghai Airport Maglev track, 30 km  

 The Chinese Super High Speed and High Speed Trains  
The traditional Chinese train building industry has made great leaps forward by license building trains and locomotives from most of the worlds major builders. For super fast efforts for example the CRH3 is actually the German originating Velaro train capable of speeds of up to 360 km/h (production unit test drives were conducted up to 380 km/h). The CRH5 is actually an Alstom Pendolino unit, based on the Finnish VR-Yhtyma's Pendolinos, but without the tilting mechanism and top speed increased to 250 km/h (instead of 220 km/h). CRH2 originates in Japan. There is also a CRH train for overnight trips with sleeping accommodations. Many more train types will follow once things get started, the initial order of 60 pieces each for CRH2, CRH3 and CRH5 are just the beginning.   

In early 2009 Chinese announced that they will start production of the super high speed train of their own product developmetn as early as the year 2010! Next year several dozen units should already in revenue use between Beijing and Shanghai. 

Picture: A Velaro-C / CRH3 unit on the test run near Beijing in China, early 2009. Picture by Siemens AG.      

 CRH types
  CRH types chart  NEW!   
  CRH3 technical data  NEW!  

  To the top of the page  

The sleek face of the Velaro-C / CRH3 train for use in China.