The project proposal for construction of Lianyungang-Huai’an-Yangzhou-Zhenjiang railway line (hereinafter referred to as the new railway line) was approved on Aug 21 at a joint director meeting of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and its construction will kick off at the end of 2014 the soonest.
Located in east China’s coastal areas and in the north-south central axis of Jiangsu province, the 311.64-kilometer-long new railway line will start from Lianyungang city in the north to Zhenjiang city in the south via Huai’an and Yangzhou cities and parallel to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway.
The new railway line, which is graded as a “special line for passenger transport”, will have double ways with the designed passenger-train speed at 250 kilometers per hour, according to sources.
The new railway line costing approximately 39.96 billion yuan (US$6.45 billion) will be jointly constructed by China Railway Corporation (CRC) and Jiangsu province. The registered capital for the project is 20 billion yuan (US$3.23 billion), among which 30 percent will be shared by Jiangsu province and the remaining 70 percent by the CRC.
“We will strive to get the project feasibility study report approved by the end of this year or the first half of next year at the latest and get the preliminary design assessment and examination approved by the CRC by the second half of next year so that all the conditions necessary for project construction start-up can be met by the end of next year,” said Fan Tianen, director of Development and Reform Commission of Yangzhou City.
