High-speed rail in China's Pearl River Delta area to exceed 10,000 km in 2015

By 2015, the total length of operational railway tracks in the pan-Pearl River Delta will reach more than 40,000 kilometers, of which high-speed rail lines will account for 10,000 kilometers, Lu Dongfu, the vice minister of railways said recently.

China's railways in the region will exceed 30,000 kilometers and the high-speed railway in operation will be more 5,000 kilometers by 2012.

Lu said that as of the end of 2009, the railway length in pan-Pearl River Delta regions reached 22,200 kilometers, which is a 16.8 percent increase from 2004 and accounts for 25.6 percent of the whole length nationwide. And in 2004, there were no high-speed rails, but more than 2,000 kilometers of track were laid by 2009.

Lu said that there are more than 13,000 kilometers of track undergoing construction now in this region, and 6,300 kilometers of them are high-speed railways.

By Zhao Chenyan, People's Daily Online