Rail Official: Faster, Safer Bullet Trains on Their Way

A bullet train leaves Shenyang North Railway Station in Shenyang, Liaoning province, for Beijing on Jan 22. [Photo/Xinhua]

China is developing faster bullet trains to operate at higher speeds, according to a top railway industry official.

Lu Dongfu, president of China State Railway Group, also a deputy to the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, said the company has launched the CR 450 technological innovation project, which aims to develop a new generation of Fuxing bullet trains that are faster, safer, smarter, more environmentally friendly and save more energy.

Fuxing bullet trains, China's domestically manufactured bullet trains, can travel at speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour.

By 2020, China had 1,036 Fuxing bullet trains running at speeds from 160 to 350 km/h.

"People have never stopped pursuing a higher speed. China's bullet trains run up to 350 km/h, ranking top in the world," said Lu Chunfang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a railway expert.

He noted that, based on research, bullet trains can travel at speeds higher than 350 km/h.

"China has conducted fundamental research, has technologies and has also carried out experiments, in laboratories and on site. We have acquired much data from those experiments, which are very helpful for further research," he said.

In 2016, two trains ran at a speed of 420 km/h when they passed each other along the Zhengzhou-Xuzhou High-Speed Railway.

In 2010, an experiment was carried out to run a train at a speed of 486.1 km/h along the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway.

More smart Fuxing bullet trains will be put into operation before July 1, Lu Dongfu said.

The trains will run on lines from Beijing to Shanghai, Beijing to Harbin, Beijing to Guangzhou, and Chongqing to Chengdu.

China's domestically developed and built smart Fuxing bullet train was first put into operation on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-Speed Railway in December 2019.

The smart Fuxing bullet train makes less noise and consumes less energy, he said.

Before July 1, Fuxing bullet trains will be operated in the Tibet autonomous region, meaning that all provincial-level regions in the Chinese mainland will have access to high-speed train services.

China's high-speed railway network had a total track length of 37,900 km by the end of 2020, ranking top in the world.