China Sure Is Building a Lot of High-Speed Rail

A blistering new speed record comes amidst thousands of miles of new track.

• 
  A train still in testing has broken a Chinese speed record,
•  hitting around 239 MPH.
• The train is part of a massive rail project in China building up 
• to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
• By the end of 2019, China hopes to have added nearly 2,000 
• miles of new rail track.

According to Chinese sources, trains testing on the 

Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway were able to break the 

nation's locomotive speed record at approximately 239 miles

 per hour (mph). The speed is 10 percent higher than the train's

 original designs.

The train is meant to connect China's capital city, Beijing, and its 

close neighbor to the northwest, the city of Zhangjiakou, 

sometimes called Kalgan. The railway will extend a little over 

08 miles between the cities, the latter of which has the nickname 

of "Beijing's Northern Door." The route will be able to shorten

 the trip from three hours to one.

It's not likely that the train will be hitting 239 during its 

conventional trips. Instead, it will stick to the speed it was 

designed to hit: a little over 217 mph. But China isn't just 

shooting for speed with the train.

China Railway (CR), which is overseeing the project through its

 China Railway High-speed project, hopes the line will be the 

orld's first autonomous, driver-monitored railway. CR teams

 have begun debugging the software that will run in maintenance 

stations, and real-time data monitoring has performed well so 

far.

The railway is part of a larger CR plan for nearly 2,000 miles 

of new high-speed rail in 2019. Lu Dongfu, CR's general manager,

 has told state media that high-speed rail in the country will soon 

exceed 18,640 miles (30,00o km). That growth, especially

 connected toward Beijing, is part of the country's planning for 

the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games.CR says the entire

 line will be dotted with A.I-based substations that will monitor

 the train's status and continually check for malfunctions. 

Technology will also affect the passenger's journey, with robots 

guiding passengers toward the trains at stations and even helping 

them with baggage.

China has its eyes on increasingly fast trains. Earlier this year,

 CR announced it was building a prototype that could blow the 

Beijing-Zhangjiakou train away, designed to take passengers on a 

journey at 373 mph (600 km/h). Faster than a plane on its routes,

 CR also hopes the prototype will be running by 2021. During the 

Olympics, China wants tourists to see outside of the capital city as 

well, and its rail expansion could make that easier than ever
.