Third route to link Nanjing, Shanghai

More than 200 trains will run daily at up to 350 km/h

Construction has started on the third high-speed railway connecting Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, with Shanghai that will halve travel times between Shanghai and cities in the southern part of Jiangsu, according to Jiangsu Railway Group.

The new South Jiangsu Riverside Railway will have eight stations, and will join the Beijing-Shanghai and Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed railways in connecting the two cities.

South Jiangsu Riverside Railway will stop mostly at county-level cities and districts, including Jurong in Zhenjiang; Jintan and Wujin in Changzhou; Jiangyin in Wuxi; and Zhangjiagang, Changshu and Taicang in Suzhou.

At Taicang station, the railway will connect with the Shanghai-Nantong Railway, which will be completed in 2020.

Construction of the 278-kilometer-long South Jiangsu Riverside Railway will finish in 42 months. Between 200 and 260 trains will run on the tracks every day at a speed of 350 km/h.

By 2022, people in southern Jiangsu will be able to arrive in Shanghai and Nanjing within an hour.

Lu Yongquan, director of the Jiangsu Transport Bureau, said 10 railway lines with a total length of 1,700 km are under construction in the province.

"About 260 billion yuan ($37.6 billion) will be invested to construct the 10 lines," he said. "From January to September, a total of 33.1 billion yuan has been invested.

"The transportation of southern Jiangsu will be greatly improved by completion of the railways."

Wang Tongjun, deputy general manager of China Railway, said the South Jiangsu Riverside Railway will help improve the railway network in the Yangtze River Delta and greatly reduce travel times from cities in southern Jiangsu.

"It has great meaning to the economic development of the area," he said.

Compared with the southern cities, cities in northern and central Jiangsu have poor railway infrastructure and transportation.

Among the province's 13 cities, seven have no railways on which trains can travel faster than 250 km/h. Only two bridges－the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and the Dashengguan Bridge－allow trains to cross the Yangtze River to reach cities in north and central Jiangsu.