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Railroads
are the major mode of transportation in China. Carrying some 24 percent
of the world’s railroad transportation volume, China’s railroads are
critical to its economy. Because of its limited capital, overburdened
infrastructure, and need to continually modernize, the rail system,
which is controlled by the Ministry of Railways through a network of
regional divisions, operates on an austere budget. Foreign capital
investment in the freight sector was allowed beginning in 2003, and
international public stock offerings are to be opened in 2006. In
another move to better capitalize and reform the railroad system, the
Ministry of Railways established three public shareholder-owned
companies in 2003: China Railways Container Transport Company, China
Railway Special Cargo Service Company, and China Railways Parcel
Express Company.
The national rail system is modernizing and
expanding rapidly and is efficient within the limits of the available
track. Some 71,898 kilometers of track were operational in 2002. This
total included 71, 898 kilometers of 1.435-meter gauge (18,115
kilometers of which were electrified) and 3,600 kilometers of
1.000-meter and 0.750-meter gauge local industrial lines. There were an
additional 23,945 kilometers of dual-gauge track not included in the
total. As of 2002, some 23,058 kilometers of the railroad routes were
double tracked, representing 38.7 percent of the total. In 2004 China’s
railroad inventory included 15,456 locomotives owned by the national
railroad system. The inventory in recent times included some 100 steam
locomotives, but the last such locomotive, built in 1999, is now in
service as a tourist attraction while the others have been retired from
commercial service. The remaining locomotives are either diesel- or
electric- powered. Another 352 locomotives are owned by local railroads
and 604 operated by joint-venture railroads. National railroad freight
cars numbered 520,101 and passenger coaches 39,766. In 2003 China’s
railroads carried 2.2 trillion tons of freight and 478.9 trillion
passenger/kilometers. Only India had more passenger/kilometers and the
United States more net ton/kilometers than China.
In
October 2005, China completed a new section of the Qinghai-Tibet
Railway, a 1,142-kilometer-long section between Golmud and Lhasa. When
it goes into full service in late 2006 or early 2007, the 1,956
kilometer-long line, which began construction in 1984, will link the
rest of China with Tibet via a hub at Xining in Qinghai Province.
Another large-scale railroad project is the New Silk Road or Eurasian
Continental Bridge project that was launched in 1992. In China the
project involves the modernization and infrastructure development of a
4,131-kilometer-long railroad route starting in Lianyungang, Jiangsu
Province, and traveling through central and northwestern China to
Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to the Alataw Pass into
Kazakhstan. From that point, the railroad links to some 6,800
kilometers of routes that end in Rotterdam. China also has established
rail links between seaports and interior export-processing zones. For
example, in 2004 Chengdu in Sichuan Province was linked to the Shenzhen
Special Economic Zone in coastal Guangdong; exports clear customs in
Chengdu and are shipped twice daily by rail to the seaport at Shenzhen
for fast delivery.
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