Planning the World's Biggest High Speed Network

Unprecedented in scale and scope, China's investment in high speed rail will bequeath the country no less than 13,000 route km of high speed line by 2012. Over the following 8 years, another 5,000 route km will be added, making China's the most extensive high speed rail network in the world. This article gives an overview of China's high speed railway plan for the next 10 years (by 2020), and includes a national grid of the high speed lines to be built and a description of the technology to be employed.