China has decided to slow down its high-speed rail project in the aftermath of the strong criticism evoked by July 23 bullet train crash and ordered its fast trains to cut down their speed giving priority to safety concerns.
The Chinese Cabinet headed by Premier, Mr Wen Jiabao, has asked the railways to cut down the speed of high-speed trains following the last month’s crash in which 40 people were killed and about 200 injured.
The Cabinet also ordered for re-evaluation of the safety systems of rail projects that have been approved but yet to start construction and to suspend the examination or approval of newly proposed projects, state-run China Daily reported.
According to the report, all high-speed rails and passenger lines would be scaled down except the Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Tianjin and Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed lines.
The bullet trains connecting various cities travel around 200 km speed while the high-speed trains from Beijing to Shanghai travels around 300 kmph covering over 1,600 km distance in just over four hours.
According to new rules, trains with a design speed of 350 km will be lowered to 300 km and trains designed to run up to 250 km/h will operate at 200 km/h and the speed of 200 km trains will be lowered to 160 km.
The decision is a signal that China is slowing its high-speed rail programme, which has put the country in the same league as Japan and EU in terms of high-speed rail development, the report said.
China has planned to build a 13,000-km high-speed railway network by 2012, 16,000 km by 2020.
Plans are afoot to increase the speed of the trains to 500 kmph radically reducing travel time between the cities.
The ministry said it posted 85 per cent profits this year mainly due to high-speed trains.