Full speed ahead for China’s high-speed rail network in 2019 in bid to boost slowing economy

China plans to expand its high-speed rail network by 3,200km in 2019, which is more than is currently being operated in either Spain, Japan, Germany or France, in a bid to aid a slowing economy locked in the trade war with the United States.

The China Railway Corporation, the state-owned agency in charge of railway construction, plans to put a total of 6,800km of new track into service in 2019 as Beijing again relies on infrastructure investment to arrest an economic slowdown, according to a government plan released this week.

Spain, which has the world’s second biggest high-speed rail network after China, only has a total of around 3,100km of track in operation, followed by Japan, Germany and France.

China’s spending spree on railway infrastructure, which started in the aftermath of the global financial crisis a decade ago, means Beijing is well ahead of its schedule to build a total of 30,000km of high-speed railway lines by 2020.

At the end of 2018, China had over 29,000km of 250km/h (155mph) high-speed railway lines, two thirds of the world’s total, having added 4,100km in 2018 as part of a 4,683km overall expansion project last year.

As China is completing its strategic goal of building a nationwide high-speed rail network after a decade of construction, which has greatly reduced travel time between major Chinese cities, the railway authority is now looking at new lines that extend deep into the country’s remote corners.

These include a second railway from Sichuan to Tibet – a line that is strategically important but also has to cross some of the deepest valleys in the world along the route.