China Opens Xiong'an–Shangqiu High-Speed Rail, Extending Beijing–Hong Kong Corridor

China opened a new high-speed railway to traffic on Monday, linking the Xiong'an New Area in Hebei Province with Shangqiu in Henan Province, as the country continues to expand a network already the world's largest.

The Xiong'an–Shangqiu line forms a new section of the Beijing–Hong Kong High-Speed Railway and accounts for roughly a quarter of the entire high-speed corridor.

The first service on the route, train G3935, departed Beijing West Railway Station at 08:06 on Monday. Along the way it is scheduled to stop at Xiong'an, Hengshui, Liaocheng and Heze in Hebei, and at Shangqiu in Henan, among other stations, before ending its run at Hefei West Railway Station in Anhui Province. The full journey takes about five hours and 40 minutes.

Beijing is now served by three major north–south high-speed rail arteries — the Beijing–Hong Kong, Beijing–Guangzhou and Beijing–Shanghai lines — all of which connect to Xiong'an in Hebei.

Officials expect the newly opened section to reinforce Shangqiu's position as a national rail hub and to substantially reduce travel time between the city and the capital. Wang Xiaojing, a staff member at Shangqiu Railway Station under the China Railway Zhengzhou Group, said the trip from Shangqiu to Beijing on the new line is nearly an hour shorter than on earlier routes that required detours.

The Xiong'an–Shangqiu route was not the only addition to the network on Monday. Three other major high-speed rail lines also entered service, among them the country's northernmost high-speed railway, located in Heilongjiang Province in the northeast.