CHINA introduced a new national timetable on January 26, adding over 400 new daily services. These include 243 passenger and 177 freight trains, boosting the total number of daily passenger services to 12,130 and freight to 23,748.
In the new timetable, the recently opened Xi’an - Yan’an high-speed line receives its first through service to Beijing, with a journey time of 5h 42min, almost half the 10h 19min taken by the fastest conventional service.
Two high-speed services in each direction join the current three conventional services on this route each day. Four high-speed services in each direction now connect Beijing with Baiyangdian in Xiong’an, China’s new capital region 100km to the south of Beijing which is intended to relieve the capital.
New direct services connect Hong Kong West Kowloon with 16 cities for the first time, including Nanjing, Wuxi and Hefei in eastern China. Extra daily services from Hong Kong have been added to Shanghai (three in total), Fuzhou (two) and Shantou (five).
Shanghai Hongqiao gains an extra high-speed train with sleeping accommodation on more days of the week. Six new pairs of services are added between Hong Kong West Kowloon and Guangzhou, taking the total to 50.
Services have also been reinforced on many recently-opened lines. The Panzhou - Xingyi high-speed line gains an additional train pair to make eight each day, and the Nanning - Pingxiang high-speed line that fully opened in early December benefits from two extra services, bringing the total to seven daily train pairs.
Journey times have been reduced on some key routes. The fastest service between Shanghai Hongqiao and Changchun West in northeastern China, for example, now takes 9h 3min, cutting the journey time by 1h 58min. Similarly, the fastest service from Hongqiao to Lanzhou West in western China now takes 9h 47min, a reduction of 47min.
