At 8:22 this morning, D4251 train successfully departed from Xi’an North Railway Station to Chengdu East Railway Station, marking the official operation of the Xi’an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway and the completion of the “3H economic circle” between Xi’an and Chengdu. As an essential part of the “Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal” high-speed railway network of China, it comes as another significant line of CASCO in Western China after the Lanzhou-Chongqing High-Speed Railway, which is fully put into service recently. 

Traffic control center of the Xi’an-Chengdu Passenger Dedicated Line

As the core signaling system of the Xi’an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway (Shaanxi section), CASCO FZk-CTC system played a significant part in areas such as facilitating successful project operation and protecting passenger safety, and further set an example for implementing effective traffic organization management model in China railway.

Before its application to the Xi’an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway, the system had been successfully applied to key national railway lines such as Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, Shanghai-Kunming High-Speed Railway, Lanzhou-Xinjiang High-Speed Railway, Guiyang-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway, Wuhan-Guangzhou Passenger Dedicated Line, Qinghai-Tibet Railway, Dunhuang-Golmud Railway, Yunnan-Guizhou Railway and Pearl River Delta Intercity Railway, and introduced “abroad” to Africa to provide signaling support for the Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway. And the CASCO project team has accumulated valuable experience and complete business capacity in long-term frontline practice. 

The traffic between Sichuan and Shaanxi has long been a “secret trouble” of local residents due to Qinling Mountains situated between the two provinces. 1200 years ago, Li Bai, a poet of the Tang Dynasty sighed, “the daunting route into the region of Shu is more daunting than climbing the sky”. Over recent years, although the traffic between Xi’an and Chengdu has been significantly improved with the continuous development and application of modern vehicles, the 10-hour expressway network and the 16-hour traditional railway network running through Eastern Sichuan are still daunting. And the operation of the Xi’an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway has completely solved this traffic problem. Departing from Xi’an North Railway Station, the high-speed train runs through the Guanzhong Plain, Qinling Mountains, Hanzhong Plain and Bashan Mountains from north to south into Sichuan Basin and arrives at Chengdu East Railway Station, spanning the shortest distance between Xi’an and Chengdu. Besides, the Xi’an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway comes as the first high-speed railway running through Qinling Mountains in China and the most complex modern high-standard high-speed railway with distinct mountain area features currently under construction. 

With the support of CASCO FZk-CTC system, it takes only 3 hours for the Xi’an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway, with a designed speed up to 250km/h, to run through the entire journey of 643km, which will greatly facilitate the passenger and freight transport between Xi’an and Chengdu, provide trip convenience for residents and enhance economic and cultural exchange between the two regions.