New line opens up western region and boosts freight trade

The new high-speed railway line between Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, has slashed train travel times by half to less than 12 hours.

The dramatic improvement will benefit many families planning reunions for Spring Festival.

"For the first time, I feel home is not that far away after all," said Liang Shaofu as he boarded a high-speed train in Urumqi with six members of his family.

The 35-year-old left Lanzhou to set up a dry fruit business in Xinjiang eight years ago, and he has now settled in Urumqi.

The 1,776-km line, which passes through Qinghai province and is the country's first high-speed railway to be built in a high-altitude region, came into service on Dec 26.

"We normally drive home for Spring Festival to avoid the difficulties of buying seven train tickets for the whole family during the peak season," Liang said. "Driving can be very tiring and dangerous sometimes, so one year we even decided not to go back to Lanzhou simply to avoid the trip.

"Just the thought of getting home within a single day is exciting. It is the small things like this that make people feel happy."

The high-speed railway has made the western region more accessible, and some of Liang's friends have asked him about business opportunities in Xinjiang since the service began.

More than 600,000 passengers traveled on the line during its first month, and the Urumqi Railway Bureau said the introduction of high-speed services will ease transport pressure during the Spring Festival peak season.

The existing conventional railway line could no longer support Xinjiang's development.

All passenger trains will gradually shift to the new link, leaving the old one to be used for freight. As a result, Xinjiang's annual freight capacity could surge to 200 million metric tons from the current 70 million.

The high-speed link is a key part of the central government's strategy to develop the western region. Total investment in the railway has reached 143.5 billion yuan ($23 billion), and the 710-km stretch in Xinjiang cost 49 billion yuan.

The line passes through areas that experience high winds, and it also crosses parts of the desolate and inhospitable Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the arid sands of the Gobi Desert.

The project could help China to promote its high-speed railway technology abroad, said Ma Xizhang, director of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway project's management department in Xinjiang.