* A bullet prepare departed Yan’an on Friday, linking the sacred revolutionary heartland to the nation’s high-speed rail community.
* More than half of the brand new route crosses comfortable, water-sensitive loess, presenting world-class engineering challenges.
* The line’s opening has introduced China’s high-speed rail mileage to over 50,000 km.
XI’AN, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) — Some 90 years in the past, American journalist Edgar Snow spent practically two days bouncing alongside in a truck on the bumpy highway from Xi’an to the revolutionary heartland of Yan’an in northwest China. Today, the identical journey takes nearly one hour.
On Friday, a smooth silver bullet prepare departed Yan’an, Shaanxi Province, for the provincial capital Xi’an, house to the famed Terracotta Warriors, with the newly opened 299-km high-speed railway related to the nation’s quickly increasing high-speed rail community.
“It gives us another perspective of ‘China speed,'” mentioned the 28-year-old Moroccan scholar Abdelkader Rachdi, onboard the C9309 prepare on the inaugural journey, noting that the brand new 350-km-per-hour prepare service is each sooner and extra handy than earlier than, and inexpensive too.
LINKING LEGACY WITH FUTURE
Yan’an, perched on the loess hills of northern Shaanxi, gained worldwide consideration by way of Snow’s 1937 traditional “Red Star Over China,” which depicted the area as considered one of China’s poorest areas but additionally as a beacon of hope, with the Communist Party of China (CPC) main the nation towards independence and liberation.
During the Long March (1934-1936), Mao Zedong and his comrades reached Yan’an, the place they established the CPC headquarters and lived and labored for 13 years. This was the place the place they led the Chinese People’s War of Resistance in opposition to Japanese Aggression and the place the War of Liberation commenced in opposition to the reactionary Kuomintang regime, earlier than the People’s Republic of China was based in 1949.
“Yan’an is of great significance as it symbolizes the turning point of the Chinese revolution led by the CPC, and is the cradle of the great Yan’an Spirit,” mentioned He Lei, a professor on the China Executive Leadership Academy, Yan’an.
As a strategic stronghold in northwest China, Yan’an opened an airport practically 90 years in the past. However, because of tough geological circumstances on the Loess Plateau and different elements, it was not till 1992 that the primary standard railway connecting it to Xi’an was opened.
The arrival of high-speed rail in Yan’an comes 17 years after China opened its first high-speed railway line between Beijing and Tianjin in 2008, when the Olympics have been held within the Chinese capital.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, Yan’an has emerged as each a non secular landmark for the Party’s continued “self-revolution” and a logo of profitable poverty alleviation. New museums, Party schooling institutes, and upgraded infrastructure have drawn elevated nationwide consideration. A go to by the newly elected prime management days after the twentieth CPC National Congress concluded in 2022 has additional raised town’s profile.
“The Yan’an Spirit of maintaining the correct political direction, seeking truth from facts, serving the people wholeheartedly, and being diligent and enterprising will continue to lead the country to overcome difficulties and forge ahead bravely, and basically achieve modernization by 2035,” He mentioned.
Yan’an has develop into a vacation spot for an growing variety of vacationers in search of historic and modern inspiration. It is famend for exporting fantastic ideas, in addition to ample items and assets — from apples and intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship to mineral merchandise. The metropolis’s GDP grew by 5.5 p.c in 2024, outpacing the nationwide common degree.
TACKLING WORLD-CLASS ENGINEERING CHALLENGES
Construction of the high-speed rail venture began in 2021. Designed for operations of as much as 350 km per hour, the road marked the quickest prepare working on the Loess Plateau.
More than half of the brand new route crosses comfortable, water-sensitive loess, presenting world-class engineering challenges in controlling floor settlement and guaranteeing structural stability.
“Boring tunnels through loess soil is like piercing holes in a block of tofu. Once excavation begins, the surrounding structure quickly fails to stay stable,” mentioned chief designer Liu Wentao. Through modern assist and waterproofing methods, engineers succeeded in lowering floor settlement by over 80 p.c, attaining the precision required for high-speed rail operations.
As the Loess Plateau is likely one of the most ecologically fragile areas in China, ecological restoration and conservation got excessive precedence throughout building.
The route is basically elevated or underground, with 91 p.c working on bridges or by way of tunnels. Its 47 tunnels span over 169 km, greater than 3 times the size of the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
The opening of this line has introduced China’s high-speed rail mileage to over 50,000 km, exceeding the entire of all different nations mixed.
High-speed rail connects 97 p.c of Chinese cities with populations over 500,000 and carries as much as 16 million passengers each day, equal to relocating the inhabitants of a megacity throughout the community every day, mentioned Li Xiaoyong, a supervisor from the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.
Further efforts will likely be made to enhance the trendy built-in transportation system, strengthening cross-regional coordination and planning, selling multimodal integration, and enhancing transportation hyperlinks and companies in distant areas, as famous in a suggestions doc for the formulation of the fifteenth Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). (Video reporters: Fu Ruixia, Liang Aiping, Lin Juan and Chen Changqi; video editors: Li Ziwei and Luo Hui)