China: Emerging rail networks blend metro and main line features

A new generation of suburban railways is emerging across China, blending features of the high speed, conventional main line and metro environments that have traditionally been highly segregated. Benjámin Zelki, Toma Bačić and Andy Hellawell investigate. As China’s rapid urbanisation accelerates, the clear demarcation that used to characterise its urban and main line rail networks is starting to evaporate. Such is the scale of many of the largest conurbations that dedicated metro networks are not enough to provide coverage: instead, airport links, suburban corridors and short-distance inter-city rail services are emerging across China, and many of these are highly integrated with the rest of the national rail network.

At the same time, there are also lines emerging which run on fully segregated alignments, connecting suburban areas to metro hubs, often running on largely elevated alignments and with longer distances between stations, of around 4 km in many cases. These can also be classified as suburban rail, distinguishing them from conventional and express metro networks, which are also growing unabated. Examples of standalone suburban railways can be found in Nanjing, Ningbo or Binhai.

Meanwhile, as is common in Europe, other projects are taking shape using spare or underutilised capacity on conventional main lines to facilitate the launch of dense suburban rail operations sharing tracks with other services, as can be seen southwest of Beijing.

This story was originally published by Railway Gazette. Read the full story at Railway Gazette →