Wide-gauge track urged for rail corridor success

Lanzhou Party chief says change necessary to link with Europe

Though almost all of China's railways use the standard rail gauge adopted by 60 percent of railways in the world, the country should consider building a broad-gauge railway to facilitate cargo transport between China and Europe, a senior official said.

Yu Haiyan, Party chief of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, said in a recent interview in Beijing that laying a broad-gauge railway is necessary and will greatly help the economy in China's rapidly developing western region.

Almost all of China's railways use track with a gauge of 1,435 millimeters, but Russia and most of its neighboring countries use a broader track with a gauge of about 1,520 millimeters.

The difference in gauge has caused trouble for rail transport on the Eurasian corridor, which starts from Lianyungang in East China and goes to Europe via Central Asia.

The land corridor was supposed to shorten the time of shipping freight by rail, but because of the track gauge difference and other factors, Chinese trains have to stop at the border and freight is transferred to foreign trains for the rest of the trip west, he said.

Yu, who is heading the development of an experimental economic zone in Lanzhou, suggested that railway authorities should consider building a broad-gauge railway from the border to Lanzhou, a transport hub linking East and West since ancient times.

"With a broad-gauge railway, freight can be transported from Lanzhou to Amsterdam in just a week, compared with 40 days by sea from Guangzhou to Europe," he said.

Lanzhou is the ideal location to put one end of the broad-gauge rail line because "its distance from Guangzhou and other coastal areas of China is similar to its distance from the Alashankou Port", where cargo is moved from Chinese trains to foreign ones on the border, he said.

The proposed railway is part of the favorable policies that the Lanzhou New Area, China's fifth State-level new area but the first one in the underdeveloped western part of China, is trying to get from the central government. Other new areas include Shanghai's Pudong and Tianjin's Binhai.