This Day, That Year: railway

Item from July 28, 1993, in China Daily: Construction of Beijing West Railway Station is well underway.

The station will cost 2.4 billion yuan ($360 million) to build and will be the largest in Asia when it is completed in 1995.

The nation's capital has four railway stations－Beijing Railway Station, Beijing West Railway Station, Beijing South Railway Station and Beijing North Railway Station.

As Beijing establishes a new administrative center in Tongzhou district, a new Beijing East Station is also being planned.

The city's fast expansion of railway stations reflects the growth of the country's railway network in recent years.

According to a plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission last week, China will build a 175,000-kilometer rail network by the end of 2025, including 38,000 km of high-speed railways.

The rail length under operation was 121,000 km last year.

Since the opening of the first high-speed rail line eight years ago, 19,000 km of such lines has been built.

China is also developing the next-generation bullet train that can run at 400 kilometers an hour.

Currently, high-speed trains in China run at speeds ranging from 250 to 300 km/h.

A boy does homework on a high-speed train from Beijing to Hangzhou on July 1, 2016. [Photo by A Kai/Asianewsphoto]