China will open four high-speed rail lines with a combined length of more than 1,100 kilometers on Monday, extending high-speed rail services to smaller cities and counties and creating faster routes across the country, according to China State Railway Group, the national railway operator.

The four projects are spread across northern, northwestern, central and northeastern China. Among them, the Harbin-Yichun line in Heilongjiang province will become China's northernmost high-speed railway.

On the 318-km Harbin-Yichun line, trains will run at up to 250 kilometers per hour, bringing Suihua and Yichun into the national high-speed network. The fastest journey between Harbin, the provincial capital, and Yichun will take 1 hour and 46 minutes.

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Yichun West, at the line's northern end, is the country's northernmost high-speed railway station. The line was built in a region where extreme winter temperatures can fall to minus 40 C, leaving construction teams with a short annual working season.

The other three lines will operate at speeds up to 350 km/h. The longest, the 552-km Xiong'an-Shangqiu line, crosses the North China Plain, linking Xiong'an New Area in Hebei province, south of Beijing, with Shangqiu in Central China's Henan province, via Shandong province. The fastest journey between its endpoints will take 2 hours and 27 minutes.

For several counties and smaller cities along the route, the opening will mean their first high-speed services. Trains using the line and connecting railways will also link Beijing with Hefei and Huangshan in the eastern province of Anhui, and Xiong'an with Shanghai.

The line forms part of the Beijing-Hong Kong high-speed corridor, several sections of which are already in service, while others remain under construction or in the planning stages.

Li Yongqing, chief engineer for the Xiong'an-Shangqiu project at China Railway Design Corporation, said bridge construction methods were chosen to minimize disruption to existing roads and railways.

"The route passes through nine ecologically sensitive areas, and its alignment was adjusted to avoid core protected areas," Li said.

"In areas such as Hengshui Lake, fully enclosed noise barriers reduce noise, block light and prevent objects from falling, helping protect bird habitats."

In northwestern China, the new 171-km Xi'an-Ankang line will cross the Qinling Mountains to bring southern Shaanxi province closer to its capital, Xi'an.

The fastest journey from Xi'an East to Ankang West will take 45 minutes. Ankang and the counties of Zhashui and Zhen'an will gain high-speed services for the first time. The line forms part of the Xi'an-Chongqing high-speed railway, whose Ankang-Chongqing section remains under construction.

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The 101-km Yichang-Xingshan line in Central China's Hubei shows how a short new link can improve a much longer journey. By connecting two high-speed rail corridors, it will give some trains between Wuhan, the provincial capital, and Chongqing in southwestern China a faster route.

The fastest journey between the cities will be reduced to 3 hours and 54 minutes from 4 hours and 56 minutes.

The openings build on the world's largest high-speed rail network, which surpassed 50,000 km in December 2025. The network grew by nearly a third between 2021 and 2025, and China plans to expand it to about 60,000 km by 2030, according to China State Railway Group.

Contact the writers at luowangshu@chinadaily.com.cn