New intercity railway lines to be added

Train attendants take a selfie at the Yujiapu high-speed railway station in Tianjin Binhai New Area on Sunday. [Photo/Xinhua]

More than 20 intercity lines will be added to the railway map in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in the next several decades, according to a report released on Wednesday by regional transportationan evaluation authority.

With an investment of about 615 billion yuan ($96.6 billion), the construction of 24 intercity railways in the region will be completed by 2050, with the total length reaching 3,453 km, the Third Railway Survey and Design Institute Group Corp said in the report.

The 24 lines will crisscross an area of 216,000 square kilometers.

Meanwhile, the Yujiapu high-speed railway station started operation on Sunday, shortening the travel time from Beijing to the central business district in Tianjin Binhai New Area to 45 minutes.

Occupying an area of 93,000 square meters and 60 meters below ground, the Yujiapu is the world's biggest and deepest underground high-speed railway station.

It will also ease traffic pressure between downtown Tianjin and the Binhai New Area as the light railway connecting the two was suspended after last month's deadly blasts.

"This will be the largest intercity railway network in China, " said Niu Xueqin, a professor with the school of transportation at the Shijiazhuang Railway University.

By 2020, the intercity lines will cover all of the cities and towns that have more than 50,000 residents in the central areas of the region, and those with over 100,000 population in the eastern Binhai zone and the southern functional zone.

Tang Yue contributed to this story.