(II) From Green-skinned Trains to Fuxing Trains

The history of rail transportation in China, which started in the last years of the Qing government that was hostile to railway construction and which saw sluggish railway development in the Republican era, mirrors a course of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation from post-1949 self-reliance to world prominence in the new age. From the green-skinned trains to the Fuxing trains, from 80 km/h to 350+ km/h, drastic changes have taken place to rail development in China.

i. Advent of railways in China

In 1825, England constructed the world’s first railway using steam locomotives, marking the beginning of rail transportation in modern times.

When the Tangshan–Xugezhuang Railway was opened in 1881, a steam locomotive, “Rocket of China,” manufactured by dozens of Chinese engineers using Chief Engineer C. W. Kinder’s drawings became the first home-made train in China. The locomotive was also dubbed “Dragon” since a dragon was then added to adore either side of the locomotive. The first domestically designed and constructed railway in China is the Beijing–Zhangjiakou Railway for which the Chief Engineer was Zhan Tianyou, who invented a famous zigzag for the railway.

China in the 1920s and the 1930s saw a boom in railway construction and, by the time when the War of Liberation ended in 1949, had 21,989 kilometers of usable railways.

After the founding of the People’s Republic, China repaired railways that had been damaged in wars, and accelerated construction of main and branch lines. At the same time, considerable achievements were also made in the research, development and manufacturing of steam locomotives, internal combustion locomotives, electric multiple units (EMUs), and maglev trains, laying a solid foundation for new China taking off economically.

ii. Green-skinned trains played a big role in the Chinese economy

“Green-skinned trains” in the traditional sense commonly refer to passenger trains with old-fashioned cars which generally run at 100 or 120 km/h. They use coal for water boiling and heating and are mostly equipped with no air conditioning. How it would feel to take a green-skinned train? Many would answer: Crowded and noisy; the passage was always crowded with passengers, and especially during festivals, there were bags, large and small, piled under seats, making it hard to find room to put your feet.

Railways in China before 1994 were for trains running at normal speeds. Such a train consists of a general locomotive hauling cars with no power units, running on a ballasted track. Restricted by various technical conditions, passenger trains run at a speed of 100-120 km per hour at the highest while freight trains 60-80 km. Though years of efforts were made in terms of technical transformation, no remarkable improvement took place in increasing train speeds. In the 45 years after the founding of new China nevertheless, the nearly 80,000 kilometers of normal speed railways played an indispensable role in the economic takeoff and national defense of China. There are to this day still many normal speed passenger and freight trains in service for the public and economic development. On June 27, 2010, the last green-skinned train from Beijing to Shanghai pulled out of the Langfang Railway Station, marking that the then only existent “green-skinned train” shuttling between the two cities officially exited the historical stage.

Starting from late 2014, according to news released by China Railway, all passenger trains (excluding bullet trains, high-speed trains, and intercity trains) operated by Beijing, Shanghai and other railway bureaus would once again be painted green, indicating that “green-skinned trains” would make a comeback in a brand-new form. Trains to be thus painted externally include common passenger trains, K-series (fast) trains, T-series (express) trains and Z-series (non-stop express) trains, bullet trains, high-speed trains and intercity trains. Upon completion, new “green-skinned trains” will have yellowish waist stripes and fairly gray car roofs, with different forms of waist stripes to differentiate the speed classes of passenger trains. These trains will be repainted by batches; not only will current trains be repainted, but those being manufactured will also be subject to the new color plan.

iii. China leads the world in high-speed rail

To explore a mode of development for high-speed railways, in 1994 China’s first sub-high-speed rail line, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway, was completed and put into operation, allowing passenger trains to run at 160-200 km/h. The Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway, by using the existing tracks for speed-up transformation, building new tracks, renting a Swedish-built tilting train and adopting Blue Arrow train sets, was the first to offer transportation service in the nature of public traffic, which marked technologically a substantive stride. More importantly, through research, experimentation, import and development, this railway made preliminary preparations technologically for high-speed railway development in China, hailed as “the start of Chinese highspeed railways.” As China’s first sub-high-speed rail line, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway not only witnessed the historical changes in the rail development of new China, but also, because of its location in the frontline of Chinese economic reform, always remained linked closely with China’s reform and development, and explored as a forerunner the path of Chinese railway development that combines modern technology with market-based financing.

From November 10 to 16, 2006, comprehensive hauling tests were conducted for the sixth round of speed-up campaign, with test data indicating that China already possessed the full range of technologies by which to increase the train speed to 200-250 km/h and that those technologies reached world-leading levels. On April 18, 2007, in the sixth round of speed-up campaign, a total of 500 CRH EMU trains were put into service, inaugurating the era of high-speed railways in China. Hexie trains with a speed of 200-250 km/h, to which China has independent intellectual property rights, began running on the Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou, Longhai, Shanghai-Kunming, Qingdao-Jinan, Guangzhou-Shenzhen and other busy trunk lines, marking the start of a high-speed era for Chinese railways. After six rounds of extensive speeding up, in 2007 China not only saw, for the first time in its 100-year history of railway development, the operation on shared railways of 200-250 km/h EMU trains, 120 km/h general passenger trains, and 5,000-tonnage heavy-haul trains, but created the new model of integral, systematic speed-up transformation for existing railways, greatly advancing the productivity of Chinese rail transportation and setting a new trend in speed-up transformation for railways worldwide. The successful implementation in ten years of the six rounds of speeding up greatly accelerated the historic process of railway modernization in China.

The Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway, China’s first world-level high-speed railway for trains to run at 350 km/h, opened to traffic on August 1, 2008. Constructed from April 18, 2008 to June 30, 2011, the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway marked the successful application of China’s homemade high-speed railway technologies, a milestone that inaugurated large-scale construction of high-speed railways in the country. The most expensive and technologically complex of railways under the Medium- and Long-term Railway Network Plan of China, this railway has a main line 1,318 km long, a maximum design speed of 380 km/h, an initial running speed of 300 km/h, and altogether 23 stations on the line. It connects the two economic regions, the Bohai Economic Rim and the Yangtze River Delta, and runs through 11 cities each with a population of more than a million, in the regions where 26.7% of China’s total population live-one of the most economically vibrant and busiest passenger and freight transportation corridors in China. On June 25, 2017, the China Standardized EMU was officially designated as the Fuxing; on June 26, Fuxing trains were officially launched on the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway, one departing from Beijing and the other from Shanghai. Compared with the Hexie trains, the Fuxing trains have a longer design life and provide power supply and Wi-Fi access. On July 27, 2017, China Railway Corporation had a test run for the Fuxing trains to run at 350 km/h on the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway. A comprehensive and systematic evaluation that followed demonstrated that the Fuxing trains already possessed the capabilities and conditions to run at 350 km/h on the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway. From September 21, 2017 onwards, seven pairs of Fuxing trains were launched to run at 350 km/h on this railway, reducing the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai to about four and a half hours.

Amid globalization today, countries worldwide are working on interconnectivity to advance global development. China currently is making plans for four world-level high-speed railways: the Pan-Asia Highspeed Railway, the Central Asia High-speed Railway, the Eurasia Highspeed Railway, and the China-Russia-Canada-United States High-speed Railway. These four high-speed railways, once completed, would become major channels that connect China to the rest of the world. According to the comment made by an article on the Das Erste website, speaking of high-speed trains now, people would naturally think of “Made in China.” Chinese technology has been shared worldwide. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China’s steps to go global with high-speed rail technology have become steadier and faster. The first high-speed railways in Turkey, Indonesia, Russia, among other countries, all involve Chinese enterprises. Propped by design teams, high technological standards, most cost-effective high-speed rail products and so on, Chinese high-speed rail is playing a leading part in Belt and Road projects and in international cooperation on production capacity and manifesting China’s commitment to living up to its responsibility as the second biggest economy in the world.

After a period of learning and re-innovation, China, in its highspeed rail drive sticking to independent innovation and high starting points and high standards, has formed a proprietary high-speed rail technology system and possessed key technologies to design and manufacture the world’s best high-speed rail cars, in a milestone process which foreign manufacturers spent several decades to complete and which inaugurated a new era for Chinese high-speed rail development. In China today, the Fuxing trains are running across the country to draw a picture that is in motion. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China’s newly opened high-speed railways have topped 20,000 km in length; by the end of 2018, China's in-service high-speed railways totaled 30,000 km, ranking first in the world. Chinese high-speed rail has become China’s “speed logo” that shines across the world, and also “an expressway” that connects China to the rest of the world.