China’s High-Speed Rail Sets World Record 10 Billion Passengers

May 12, 2019 (EIRNS)—Global Times today reports that “China’s high-speed railway had transported more than 10 billion passengers by the end of the first quarter of 2019, a new world record,” as reported by China Railway.

China had almost 30,000 kilometers of high-speed railway track in 2018, twice as long as the rest of the world’s railways combined, the China Railway statement said. There were more than 2 billion high-speed trips in 2018, an annual increase of nearly 17%, or over three-fifths of all rail passengers.

China’s volume of railway passenger transport, freight volume, transport density and other major transport economic indicators consistently ranks first in the world, China Railway said.

The newer Chinese bullet trains, called Fuxing, which went into operation in 2017, have carried nearly 200 million passengers with an average passenger load of 75%, some 1.3% higher than other high-speed trains, according to China Railway. China will see 850 Fuxing high-speed trains put into service by the end of this year.