Published : 2025-08-01
On August 1, 2008, the intercity high-speed railway from China's Beijing to Tianjin officially commenced operations.
After opening, the maximum operating speed of the trains reached 350 km/h, reducing the direct travel time from Beijing to Tianjin to within 30 minutes.
The Beijing-Tianjin intercity high-speed railway has a total length of 120 kilometres, with stations at Beijing South, Yizhuang, Wuqing, and Tianjin, and a reserved station at Yongle.
The trains operating on this line are the domestically produced CRH2 and CRH3 electric multiple unit (EMU) trains.
The railway adopts a mixed transport organisation model of intercity trains and cross-line trains with a minimum interval of 5 minutes between trains.
The Beijing-Tianjin intercity high-speed railway has employed a large number of internationally leading construction technologies, including large-scale ballastless track technology and 500-metre long rail onsite welding techniques.
These technologies give the line characteristics such as long lifespan, minimal dust pollution, and low noise, making the technical content and quality unprecedented in the history of China's railway construction.
The completion of the Beijing-Tianjin intercity high-speed railway not only allows the two mega-cities of Beijing and Tianjin, each with a population exceeding 10 million, to form a "half-hour transport circle," achieving city integration, but also opens the door to the "high-speed era" for China's railways.
The completion of the railway also signified a qualitative leap in the modernisation of China's railway construction.
It is the first high-standard, 350 km/h designed high-speed railway in mainland China and the first intercity passenger system opened for operation in China's "Mid-to-Long Term Railway Network Plan."
China's railways took only three years to cover the ground that took other countries 30 years to achieve, gradually approaching and surpassing the "world speed."
As early as June 24 of the same year, the CRH3 train achieved a speed of 394.3 km/h during testing, while maintaining normal operation, signifying that the Beijing-Tianjin intercity high-speed railway has reached the standards of world-class high-speed railways.
