New railway links Beijing with “city of future” for coordinated development

BEIJING/SHIJIAZHUANG (Xinhua) -- The Beijing-Xiong’an intercity railway opened to traffic on Sunday, connecting the Chinese capital with the country’s “city of the future” - the Xiong’an New Area.
At 10:18 am, the C2702 Fuxing bullet train left the newly built Xiong’an Railway Station for Beijing, marking the inauguration of the line’s operation as well as the use of Xiong’an Railway Station, the first completed major infrastructure project in Xiong’an.
“I’m very excited to take the first train on the new railway,” said Xiao Huibin, 48, a passenger from Rongcheng County in Xiong’an. He said he had taken many photos before boarding the C2702 train and would keep the ticket as a memento.

A bullet train bound for Beijing stops at the Xiong’an Railway Station, in Xiong’an New Area, north China’s Hebei province on December 27, 2020.     --Photo Xinhua

Xiao, who runs a food trade business in Beijing, commutes between Beijing and Xiong’an roughly once a week.
“It takes me over two hours one way by bus or by car. Now, the intercity trains have made my trip much more convenient,” he said.
Travel time from Beijing West Railway Station to the Xiong’an New Area was cut from one and a half hours to about 50 minutes. It takes only 19 minutes to travel from Beijing Daxing International Airport to Xiong’an.
Of the 91 km newly built section of the railway, the part between Daxing airport and Xiong’an went into operation on Sunday, with a designed speed of 350 km per hour. The stretch between Beijing West Railway Station and Daxing airport opened in September 2019.
Travel time will be further reduced to 36 minutes after the existing section is upgraded, said Li Zheng, a senior manager of the Xiong’an high-speed railway corporation.
Located about 100 km southwest of Beijing, the Xiong’an New Area spanning the Rongcheng, Anxin, and Xiongxian counties and some adjacent areas - aims to become a new engine for the modern economic system and to promote regional coordinated development.Located near Baiyangdian Lake, Xiong’an Railway Station has a construction area of 475,200 square metres, the size of 66 soccer fields, and is designed to appear like dew on a lotus leaf. The station’s oval roof is a photovoltaic power generation system, echoing the green drive to develop the Xiong’an New Area.
Generating an annual average of 5.8 million kWh of power, the system helps cut carbon dioxide emissions by 4,500 tonnes every year, equivalent to planting 120,000 hectares of trees, according to Wu Yadong, chief engineer of the station project from China Railway Construction Engineering Group.
A 15-metre-wide sunlight belt improves the daylight in the waiting hall, said Wu. Liu Weiqun, chairman of the China Railway Design Corporation, said they had adopted building information modeling (BIM) technology and some 70 cutting-edge technologies to build the railway. It includes the Internet of Things, cloud computing and big data, setting a new benchmark for intelligent high-speed railways globally.

(Latest Update Deceember 29, 2020)