The Train Leaving for Spring
5 min read“The train the train rumbles aloud, with a long coach one by one, in front high quality steel loaded, and golden grain behind, the workers transport busily, to prepare supplies for the people.”
This was a nursery rhyme of over 30 years ago, from which it is not difficult to see the important role of railway transportation to the economic and social development. Trains are necessary to transport large-scale of people and logistics to the distant Xinjiang.
However, there was not an inch of railway in Xinjiang at the time of old China. In 1952, Chairman Mao issued an order of “continue to construct the Lanzhou-Xinjiang line”, ang thereafter the prelude of railway construction in Xinjiang was advanced. In 1962, the history of no railway in Xinjiang was finally over.
The western part of Lan-Xin Railway connected the second Asia-Europe continental bridge in the world from Lianyungang to Rotterdam after the reform and opening up in 1978, and Urumqi became the frontier of opening up to Central Asia, West Asia, and Eastern Europe. The network structure of roads was further improved, and the railway construction became the “locomotive” of the economic and social development in Xinjiang.
For a quite long time after the founding of China, trains are all green, so it is called “green train”. However, the speed of green trains is less than 50 kilometers per hour on average, hence severely restricted the passenger and logistics. As electric railway and high-speed railway appeared in Xinjiang in the late 90’s, the “Green Train”in childhood memories were becoming less and less, and the trains of pulling whistle and spraying white smoke gradually withdrew from the vision of people in Xinjiang.
In November 2004, the first electric railway (Jinghe-Yining-Horgos Railway)was constructed, and the railway construction in Xinjiang stepped into a high-speed development period The first high speed railway-the second double line of Lan-Xin Railway was constructed in November 2009. Since then, Xinjiang has entered the era of high-speed railway, goods can be delivered to the inland within one day when the speed was increased which greatly reduced the costs of industry transfer and logistics, and the bottleneck transportation problem for minerals, cotton, fruits and other materials was abolished. Mainland masses can enjoy the fresher fruits of Xinjiang and the predicament of buying travel tickets for migrant workers’ going in and out of Xinjiang has disappeared.
On June 10, 2010, the grand blueprint of railway construction in Xinjiang was presented in front of people. That was a main frame of “Four vertical and four horizontal lines”, forming four major ways, four railway hubs and six ports. The horn of great western railway construction was blown once again.
The train bound for Xinjiang
On June 28, 2011, the first train from Hetian, passing Kashgar to Urumqi, slowly went out of the platform, implied that there was no place in southern Xinjiang that the train cannot reach. The departure marked Hetian, the last place without trains, finally had trains.
The length of the railway from Kashgar to Hetian is of 488.27 km, passing through southwestern Tarim Basin and the southern edge of the Taklimakan Desert, connecting with the Southern Xinjiang Railway at Kashgar Station, and finally reaching the destination of Hetian after 10 cities (counties).
In December 2011, the Jinghe-Yining-Horgos railway was connected with the Kazakhstan railway, which became the second railway opening to the west following the Alataw Port railway.
By the end of 2012, the rail mileage in Xinjiang had reached 4,000 km.
Urumqi Railway Station is not only the total hub of Xinjiang but also an important human and freight hub between Centra Asian regions and China Horgos Border in Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture receives thousands of tourists everyday In 2020, the railway mileage of Xinjiang will be 12,000 kilometers, covering all prefecture-level cities and 90% of the county towns. More developed and impeccable railway network will accept more people, goods and funds just like the open arms.
Only opening up can bring development, railway transport plays an important role in keeping the double-digit growth rate of the Xinjiang economy.
Railway undertakes more than 95% of the transportation task of long-distance bulk goods, for Xinjiang is far away from the mainland. The very reason that Xinjiang has become the grand energy route in the true sense is that railways ensure the transportation of coal, oil and other scarce resources. It is the priority of agricultural materials’ that transportation ensures the realization of agricultural harvest for ten consecutive years. It is the increased railway speed and the passenger trains that effectively serve the tourism industry of Xinjiang. The total number of tourist reception of 2012 was 48.61 million with the tourism revenue of57.6 6 billion Yuan. Suchgood result” largely lied on the support of the railway Urumqi-Beijing highway is under construction Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture is called the”first prefecture in China”, the Gross National Product of the prefecture ranked after most of the cities in Xinjiang before the train reached. However, since 1984, the train has driven the development of transportation, petroleum industry and distinct agriculture, which has put the economy of the Prefecture in a far ahead position in Xinjiang. Similarly, another example is Kashgar, it has constructed three zones of” of billions of output value” in Shache County, Shule County, and Jiashi County, by holding the strategy of “build the main position of Kashgar in the economic circle of Central and Southern Asia”.
The development of railway has not only promoted the economic development of Xinjiang, but also changed the people’s minds greatly.
As for Atushi, the capital of Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture, though the trains from Southern Xinjiang only stop here for no more than five minutes, the antiquated ideas have been greatly changed by the opening of the railway passenger and freight transportation. In the past, nobody cared about the various kinds of high-quality fruits, farmers were anxious about the selling of their fruits in every fruit harvest season; but now, there comes the railway, and the concept of farmers has changed, various types of agricultural associations and farmer brokers emerge, and they load the distinct agriculture products on the trains to all directions. The Kirgiz people also put down their whips to start businesses, and some even take trains to do business out of the Prefecture.
