After years of explosive growth, railway construction stagnated following a train crash in the city of Wenzhou that left 40 people dead and hundreds injured in July 2011.
But the government has picked up the pace in recent months, with railway infrastructure spending surging 142 percent year on year to reach 70.1 billion yuan in November.
"Approvals of several inter-city rail projects were the main reason behind the large amount of rail infrastructure investment seen in recent months," said Shen Zhengyuan, an analyst at CIConsulting.
The government has approved a series of infrastructure projects worth more than 1 trillion yuan since September to reinvigorate economic growth, which slowed for a seventh straight quarter to 7.4 percent from July to September.
Wang Mengshu, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said he expects the rail investment boom to continue in 2013.
"The government may keep its railway investment target unchanged at 630 billion yuan next year," he said.
According to the 12th five-year plan for railway development, China will invest 2.3 trillion yuan in railway infrastructure during the 2011-2015 period.
China will have around 120,000 km of railway in operation, including 40,000 km of high-speed railway, by the end of 2015. The country's railway network will feature four east-west lines and four north-south lines by the end of the same year, according to the plan.
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