Rail transport in the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China
Logos of the China Railway Corporation and the China Railway High-speed passenger service
Operation
Major operators	China Railway Corporation
Statistics
Ridership	2.357 billion passenger trips
Passenger km	1,160.48 billion passenger-kilometers
Freight	3.813 billion tons
System length
Total	121,000 km (75,000 mi)
Double track	57,000 km (35,000 mi)
Electrified	65,000 km (40,000 mi)
High-speed	16,000 km (9,900 mi)
Track gauge
Main	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
High-speed	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge	79,685 kilometres (49,514 mi) (1998)
1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) metre gauge	466 kilometres (290 mi)
750 mm (2 ft 5 1⁄2 in)	3,600 kilometres (2,200 mi) (1998 est.)
Features
No. tunnels	6,102 (2008)
Tunnel length	3,938.9 kilometres (2,447.5 mi) (2008)
Longest tunnel	Taihang Tunnel 27.848 kilometres (17.304 mi)
No. bridges	47,524 (2008)
Longest bridge	Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge 164.8 kilometres (102.4 mi)
No. stations	5,470 (2008)
Highest elevation	5,072 metres (16,640 ft)
at	Tanggula Pass
Map

Map

Rail transport is an important mode of long-distance transportation in the People's Republic of China. As of 2015, the country has 121,000 km (75,186 mi) of railways, the second longest network in the world, including 19,000 kilometres (11,806 miles) of high-speed rail (HSR), the longest HSR network in the world.

Almost all rail operations are handled by the China Railway Corporation, a state-owned company created in March 2013 from dissolution of the Ministry of Railways.

China's railways are among the busiest in the world. In 2014, railways in China delivered 2.357 billion passenger trips, generating 1,160.48 billion passenger-kilometers and carried 3.813 billion tons of freight, generating 2,753 billion cargo ton-kilometers.

Driven by need to increase freight capacity, the railway network has expanded with the country budgeting $130.4 billion for railway investment in 2014, and has a long term plan to expand the network to 274,000 km (170,000 mi) by 2050. China built 9,000 km of new railway in 2015.

The first railway to be built in China was a 600-meter narrow gauge demonstration line that a British merchant assembled in Beijing in 1864 to demonstrate rail technology. The Qing government was uninterested and had the line dismantled. The first railroad to enter commercial service was the Woosung Railway, a 9 ¼ mi (14 km) railway from Shanghai to Woosung (modern Shanghai's Baoshan District) which opened in 1876. This was also built by the British, without approval from the Qing government, which had the line dismantled one year later. Until the defeat of China in the First Sino-Japanese War, the government remained hostile toward railway construction. Beginning in 1895, the government began to grant rail concessions to foreigners, and permitted direct connection to the capital Beijing.

By 1911, there were about 9,000 km of railroads in China, mostly designed, built, owned and operated by foreign companies. The first indigenous designed and constructed railway by Chinese is the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway built from 1905 to 1909, a difficult job due to the mountainous terrain. The chief engineer of this railway was Zhan Tianyou, who is known as the Father of China's Railway.