Jiangsu’s railway construction in 2015, with investment increasing by over 10 billion yuan (US$1.61 billion) than that in 2014, remains the focus in traffic system’s construction, and among the new round of 1,600-kilometer national railway construction planning, the high speed railway is 1,500 kilometers. As a result, the high speed railway will connect Nantong, Yangzhou and Taizhou for the first time in 2015, and the construction of railway line connecting Xuzhou, Suqian, Huai’an and Yancheng will begin within 2015, making that the northern Jiangsu areas will soon enter the high speed railway era, according to the Jiangsu Traffic Work Conference of 2015 on Jan 22.
It is estimated that the Nantong, Yangzhou and Taizhou railway line will go to formal operation in October 2015. As the second railway line between Nanjing and Qidong, the 268.3-kilometer-long railway line with a designed speed of 200 kilometers per hour can allow bullet trains to run on it from Yanglin station in Nanjing at its west end, pass Yangzhou and Taizhou, and reach Nantong. Its formal operation will mark that high speed railway lines will connect Nantong, Yangzhou and Taizhou for the first time and that the travelling time by train from Nanjing to Nantong will be reduced to 1 hour 50 minutes from the more than five hours at present, according to sources.
