Tianjin residents to watch Olympic Winter Games in 2 hours via new railway lines

A high speed train. [Photo/Xinhua]

As Beijing and Zhangjiakou prepare for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the train line is expected to speed up. It is expected to take less than two hours to travel from Tianjin to Zhangjiakou by the time of the Winter Olympics.

The grassland in Zhangjiakou attracts many tourists from Tianjin during the summer. The 320 kilometer trip takes five hours by car and five and up to six hours by train. No high speed trains are available today between Tianjin and Zhangjiakou.

The Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is the first in the country, built by Zhan Tianyou, a distinguished Chinese engineer and completed in 1909. The line connects Fengtai District in Beijing and Zhangjiakou in Hebei, passing through Badaling and Xuanhua. The total length of the railway line is around 200 kilometers.

The Beijing-Zhangjiakou High Speed Railway Line will start from Beijing North Railway Station and reach 174 kilometers to Zhangjiakou South Railway Station. It will have nine stops, including Tsinghua University Station, Qinghe Station, Changping West Station, and Xuanhua North Station. The expanded branch will stop at Yanqing Station.

The total length in Beijing will reach 70 kilometers, with construction completed in four and a half years. The parts along the Badaling mountain area will reach 15.4 kilometers and are expected to open in 2019. During the Winter Olympics, a train will leave Beijing to Zhangjiakou in every 15 minutes.

Badaling West Station is one of the major construction projects as the first high speed train station more than 100 meters underground. The station hall will be 600 meters away from the Great Wall and 300 meters away from the cable tramway.

Three railway lines will be launched in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei with a total length of 800 kilometers, according to the Railway Administration. The total length in the region will take up 10 percent of the national plan.

The three lines are the expanded line of the Beijing-Tianjin intercity high speed train line, Tianjin-Baoding Railway Line connecting Tianjin and Hebei, and the Zhangjiakou-Tangshan Railway Line connecting two cities in Hebei.

After the launch of the three train lines, passengers will be able to travel directly from Beijing South Railway Station to the newly launched Tianjin Airport by rail. With the help of the Tianjin-Baoding Railway Line, it will be more convenient for passengers in the north to travel to the southern and southwestern regions on the Beijing-Guangzhou High Speed Train and Beijing-Guangzhou General Railway Line.