Hang Onto Your Seats: China to Juice Up Old Rail Network

After more than a decade of building the world’s biggest high-speed rail network catering mostly to more affluent city dwellers, China is turning its attention to millions of small-town folk with plans for a major speed upgrade of their trains.

China’s state-of-the-art high-speed rail network has grabbed global headlines over the last 10 years, as the nation built up a 25,000-kilometer (15,500 miles) system cutting travel times by half or more using trains that travel up to 350 kilometers per hour. But those trains comprise just a third of China Rail Corp.’s (CRC) total fleet of 73,000 carriages, in a nation that depends heavily on rail travel.

Many of the older routes not served by high-speed rail are about to get one of their biggest speed upgrades in decades, as CRC gets ready to roll out its first new generation of traditional, more local trains to replace the current generation that has been in service for the last quarter century. Those new trains will travel at speeds of 160 kilometers per hour, up sharply from the current 120 kilometers to 130 kilometers per hour.

The new generation of trains recently won certification from China’s railway authority, and is now ready for mass production, a representative from CRRC Tangshan Co. Ltd., one of several units of rail equipment giant CRRC Corp. Ltd. that will build the new carriages, told Caixin.

The trains will shave about an hour of travel time for every 1,000 kilometers traveled compared with the fastest trains now on the older rail network. The savings will be as much as seven hours over the same distance on routes traveled by some of the slowest trains that make frequent stops in smaller towns.

Before its economic transformation dating back to the 1990s, China was largely a nation of rail travel — especially for long-distance trips and trips between the nation’s many rural communities. A massive urban migration over that period has helped to fuel development of air travel and high-speed rail, which typically require longer distances between major hubs to be economical. But for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who still live in mid-sized and small cities, rail travel on the slower, more local networks is still a common form of transport.

Three years ago the rail operator stopped placing major orders for new carriages from the older generation of trains, known as the 25-series for their 25-meter (82 feet) length, with a history that dates back to 1962. The operator is expected to soon begin placing major orders for the faster cars following the recent certification, with a peak replacement period set to occur over the next five years, rail sources told Caixin.

No prices have been announced yet for the new trains. But they are likely to sell for more than the 5 million yuan ($719,000) price tag for the most advanced 25-series carriages, meaning the entire upgrade will cost more than 200 billion yuan.

Contact reporter Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)