Currently, my country has 37,900 kilometers of high-speed rail lines. The "four vertical and four horizontal" high-speed rail network has been completed ahead of schedule, and the "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed rail network has been intensified.
Whether it is the Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Shanghai, Shanghai-Kunming and other high-speed railway trunk lines, or some intercity and municipal railways such as the Chengdu-Guangzhou Railway, they have connected the vast land of the motherland, making it convenient for people to travel and promoting social and economic development. But when it comes to the most surprising high-speed railway, I think it has to be the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway.
Schematic diagram of the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway
This high-speed railway with a total length of 837 kilometers and a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour with 300 kilometers of room for speed increase starts from Guiyang City, the capital of Guizhou Province, and passes through Guangxi , and finally arrived in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province. On one end is the southwest region, which is still relatively backward in people's minds, and on the other end is the economically developed Pearl River Delta. Its release was surprising and broke everyone's conventional understanding.
What is surprising is that this high-speed railway only took 10 months from proposal to project establishment and approval. You should know that when the country's "Medium and Long-term Railway Network Plan" was released in 2004, the "four vertical and four horizontal" railway passenger dedicated lines with a total mileage of 12,000 kilometers and a speed of more than 200 kilometers per hour did not include this railway. Even after the "Medium and Long-term Railway Network Plan" was adjusted in 2008, although the "four vertical and four horizontal" lines have changed, there is still no trace of the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway.
EMUs running on the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway
But exactly in the middle of these two times, in May 2007, the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway project was approved. And its project establishment actually has a great relationship with one person. His name is Lin Shusen. He served as the governor of Guizhou in July 2006. On July 20, he immediately proposed the construction of the Guizhou-Guangzhou Railway and the Guizhou-Guangzhou Expressway at a meeting of all members of the provincial government. On May 16, 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission approved the Guizhou-Guangzhou Railway Project Proposal.
What breaks the cognitive convention is that this high-speed railway is almost a straight line. Judging from the railway diagram, this high-speed train departs from Guiyang City and goes all the way southeast. It passes through Duyun, Congjiang, and Rongjiang in Guizhou Province, and enters Guilin and Hezhou in Guangxi. It passes through Guangdong Province along the way. Zhaoqing, Foshan, and finally arrived in Guangzhou.
Guiyang North Railway Station
Such a straight line was a surprising railway line both at the time and now. You should know that when planning the railway direction, the focus is to consider the provincial capital cities, important economically developed cities, population distribution, etc. along the way, and not to draw a straight line for granted. But that’s exactly what the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway did, and it was completed from scratch in just 10 months. Looking at the country, such high-speed railways can be said to be very few.
From the establishment of the project to the completion of the construction, although there were some delays and suspensions due to problems such as the passenger and cargo lines, the construction basically continued smoothly. On December 26, 2014, the entire Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway was put into operation. When it was officially opened to traffic, it became the first high-speed railway in Guizhou Province and announced that Guizhou Province has entered the high-speed rail era. In the following years, the construction of the Shanghai-Kunming High-speed Railway, the Chongqing-Guizhou Railway, and the Chengdu-Guizhou High-speed Railway laid a solid foundation for the current "ten"-shaped high-speed rail hub in Guizhou Province.
Guangzhou South Railway Station
More importantly, with the opening of the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway, the connection between Southwest China and the Pearl River Delta region has become closer. It only takes 4 days to get from Guiyang to Guangzhou. It takes about 30 hours by train. In the past, it took about 30 hours. Through the Yu-Gui Railway, Chengdu-Guizhou High-speed Railway, Shanghai-Kunming High-speed Railway, etc., it is more convenient and faster for Chongqing, Sichuan and Yunnan to travel to Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.
The shortening of time and space not only facilitates personnel exchanges, but also brings about more important ideological changes. Many scenic spots and agricultural products in Guizhou Province that were previously unknown to people in the deep mountains have gradually attracted many Cantonese people. The arrival of Cantonese people has also promoted the gradual opening of Guizhou's original closed mind, opening up another door to the coastal economy. The door of development has been completely opened to the people of the southwest region. This is the most important role brought by the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway.
The fast Guizhou-Guangzhou Railway has attracted coastal people to visit the southwest region
Of course, due to the opening of the Guizhou-Guangzhou Railway, it has also established the role of Guizhou Province as the southwest high-speed rail hub for a period of time , if you want to quickly travel to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from the Sichuan and Chongqing regions, you must pass through Guizhou Province by high-speed train.
Last year, the plan to upgrade the Guiyang-Guangzhou Railway from 250 kilometers per hour to 300 kilometers per hour was also put on the agenda. When the transformation is completed, the time and space distance between Guiyang and Guangzhou will be further shortened, and the connection between the two places will be closer. This most surprising high-speed rail will play an even more prominent role.