China Plans Maglev System To Travel at 650 km/h

The Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the Hong Kong Special Administration Region are planning to design and build a maglev train system with a speed of 650 km per hour, that will link all three cities, and then extend elsewhere in China. The plan was disclosed at an Aug. 5 transportation infrastructure forum in Guangzhou, organized by the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The plan is to build a 30-minute traffic circle among the three cities, which are part of an economic area called the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in southern China, comprising nine megacities and the two special administrative zones of Hong Kong and Macau, with a total population of 71 million people. The output of this GBA zone, if it constituted a separate nation, would be the 12th largest in the world.

The passenger-flow density of Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong will reach 260 million people by 2035, thus a new high-speed project is a necessity for this area, explained Chen Xiangsheng, dean of the College of Civil and Transportation Engineering at Shenzhen University. Besides Guanzhou and Shenzhen, other Chinese cities including Shanghai and Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Chongqing are also planning for maglev lines, he added.

In another breakthrough in rail traffic, China Railway just completed on June 28 performance tests for the fastest commercial high-speed train in the world. It successfully ran on the Meizhou Bay cross-sea bridge at a single-train speed of 453 kph. The CR450 train, which was built by the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) and tested in southeastern China’s Fujian province, will run with passenger cars at a standard speed of 400 kph.