China Railway

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Rail network of the Chinese State Railways and the THSR (2016)

China Railway , short: CR ( Chinese  中國 鐵路  /  中国 铁路 , Pinyin Zhōngguó Tiělù ) is the name of the state railway company of the People's Republic of China .

Companies

The Chinese State Railway has existed since the People's Republic was founded in 1949 and was subordinate to the Chinese Ministry of Railways until 2013 . Since March 14, 2013, it has been organized as an independent company that is wholly state-owned. According to its own information, its share capital is RMB 1.036 billion and is subordinate to the Chinese Ministry of Transport. The state-owned company is thus still bound by the instructions of the central government. The CR, headquartered in Beijing , operates passenger and freight transport with the help of 21 primary subsidiaries, with additional subcontractors.

China Railway Express (CRE) is a subsidiary of CR . It takes on the tasks of automobile logistics, i.e. the transport of cars by rail.

In 2007, the CR founded a company for container transport ( China United International Rail Containers ) with the participation of DB , a French and an Israeli company , with the foreign companies making investments in the construction of 18 freight stations, among other things. There has been massive investment in new vehicles and the infrastructure in recent years, and the country's high-speed network has been vigorously expanded in recent years.

Infrastructure

The approximately 80,000 km long rail network consists largely of tracks with standard gauge , but also older meter gauge - and narrower lines are still available. The signal systems consist of different systems and are mostly to the left of the track, as Chinese rail traffic is operated on the left. The light signals are similar to the Eastern European Hl signals , but without speed information, the shape signals have their origin in Great Britain .

Steam locomotives were manufactured until the 1980s, and in 2003 the state railway withdrew its last from scheduled service. In the 1970s, the diesel locomotive was increasingly introduced. Electric locomotives were used from the 1960s, but most of the route electrification did not take place until the 1990s and later.

Freight transport

Freight traffic, which makes up over two thirds of the total volume of traffic, consists for the most part of coal shipments, followed by steel, ore and agricultural products. In contrast, the significance of container traffic is very low. Reasons for this are, on the one hand, the short transport routes along the most frequented east coast, where trucks and inland waterways are clearly preferred, and, on the other hand, high prices, poor service, the continued lack of electronic tracking (tracking & tracing) and the low productivity of CR.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zhenhua Chen, Kingsley E. Haynes: Chinese Railways in the Era of High-Speed. Emerald Group, Bingley 2015, ISBN 978-1-78441-985-1 .
  2. ^ Brian Hollingsworth, Arthur F. Cook: Das Handbuch der Lokomotiven , Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-138-4 .
  3. ↑ http://www.sh1.org/zhongguo/s.htm Chinese railway signals on sh1.org
  4. ↑ Publication of the Lörrach University of Cooperative Education: Rail freight transport in China (PDF; 2.4 MB)