The Panxian-Xingyi High-speed Railway (HSR) project, the last of Guizhou province's nine HSR projects, has been approved by the China Railways Corporation and the Guizhou provincial government. When completed, every city in Guizhou will be connected by high-speed rail.
The Panxian-Xingyi HSR, 98.3 kilometers long, will connect Panxian (or Panzhou), a county-level city governed by Liupanshui, and Xingyi city. The train will be able to reach 250 km/h and transport 9.87 million passengers annually.
The railway carries a price tag of 13.97 billion yuan ($2.03 billion) and is expected to begin its four-year construction phase by the end of 2018. Relevant documents were recently reviewed and approved.
The railway will be a huge boon to the national railway network and urbanization process in western Guizhou. It will take passengers a max of two hours to travel from Guiyang, capital of Guizhou, to any other major city in in the province.
Guizhou has also been building HSRs linking Guiyang with cities in other provinces in order to turn Guiyang into a major hub in China's HSR network.
HSRs have remarkably boosted Guizhou's development. In the first half of 2018, the number of passengers receiving HSR services in Guizhou has grown at the rate of 57.6 percent and the province's tourism industry has grown rapidly.
