Do you know you can explore China's beauty through affordable train trips? From Beijing to Hong Kong, from Shanghai to Chengdu, you can visit all of these great cities and more through the extensive rail network in China.
How have intercity travels shrunk over time?
If you take a train from Beijing to Hong Kong, how long would it take?
(FYI: At a distance of 2,440 km, it is about the same distance from Washington, D.C., to Dallas, or from Paris to Athens, both of which would take more than 40 hours by train.)
The answer is less than nine hours with a high-speed train running at 350 km/h!
But China's rail isn't always this fast.
Let's have a look at how the time for train travel has shortened between Beijing and other big cities nationwide.
Here come the Fuxing bullet trains
It's not only the sheer speed of the country's rail system that is impressive – Chinese innovation in the architecture of trains has also been gripping.
Fuxing, as a substantial upgrade on the Hexie (meaning "harmony"), represents the progress and achievements China has made in high-speed rail, with domestic elements from design to manufacturing. It debuted on the Beijing-Shanghai line on June 26, 2017.
Fuxing's overall design and core technologies involving car body, bogie, traction, braking and network were independently developed by China. China has independent intellectual property rights of those developments. And among the 254 important standards, Chinese standards account for 84 percent.
- Car body
- Braking
- Supporting facilities
- Bogies
- TCMS
- Traction
- Assembly
*The model has been simplified for a better visual experience, and classifications are examples and may not be technically precise.
Data as of October 30, 2015
How did China begin its path of innovation in high-speed rail?
China has come a long way in building a high-speed rail of its own.
The earliest experiments in high-speed rail were conducted in Germany, and then Japan opened the first line in 1964.
In the history of high-speed rail, China wasn't the first. The trend of technology concentration can be seen from the number of patent applications. Most of the related patents were obtained by Japan, Germany and France in the early stages of the high-speed rail's development.
But China caught up quickly by importing as well as developing its own technology starting from 2004.
With more than 10 years of development, China's high-speed rail has embarked on a road of independent innovation, reaching and surpassing the world's advanced level in many technical fields.
Since 2008, China has implemented 29,000 km of new high-speed lines, the most extensive in the world.
Top five countries or organizations with the most high-speed rail patent applications
Here each dot represents 100 patents.
- 2000-2002
- 2003-2005
- 2006-2008
- 2009-2011
- 2012-2014
- 2015-2017
China
Japan
South Korea
Russia
European Patent Office(EPO)
Source: IncoPat patent database (Data retrieved in July 2019)
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Credits
Multimedia Producers: Xu Jiye, Zhao Hong, Zhou Rui. Interactive Designer: Li Yixiao. Interactive Developer: Bi Jiankun. Copy Editor: Henry Zheng Weimin. Copywriter: Zhao Hong. Data Editors & Visualization: Zhang Yujia, Li Yixiao, Zhou Rui, Zhao Hong. Chief Editor: Chen Ran. Project Manager: Si Nan. Managing Director: Zhang Shilei. Supervisor: Jiang Heping.
Special thanks to Kan Hong, Chu Zhanxing and the data team at Chinese media outlet The Paper.
