🇨🇳 Operator
Train routes operated by China Railway
45 routes · high-speed 31 · classic 6 · night train 4 · scenic 4
China Railway runs 45 of the routes in the World Train Map atlas, 38,425 km of railway across 1 country. The longest is the Shanghai–Kunming HSR at 2,252 km; the fastest is the Shanghai–Kunming HSR, running up to 350 km/h; the oldest line it runs over here opened in 1881.
The company itself dates to 2013, filed on Wikidata as a railway company. What this page says about the company comes from China Railway's own Wikidata item, checked against the countries its routes here actually cross before any of it is used; everything about the railway is counted from this atlas. Official site ↗ · Wikipedia ↗ · Wikidata Q1073489 ↗
Open the world railway map →- Routes here
- 45
- Total length
- 38,425 km
- Countries
- China
- Oldest line here
- 1881
- Company founded
- 2013
- Type
- railway company
- Fastest
- Shanghai–Kunming HSR · 350 km/h
- Longest
- Shanghai–Kunming HSR · 2,252 km
High-speed (31)
- Shanghai–Kunming HSR
China’s longest east–west high-speed line: 2,252 km from the Bund to the Yunnan plateau, vaulting Guizhou’s canyons on some of the world’s highest bridges.
Wikipedia ↗ - Jingguang High-Speed
When it opened in 2012 it was the longest high-speed line in the world: 2,230 km from the Yellow River plain to the Pearl River Delta.
Wikipedia ↗ - Shanghai–Chengdu HSR
The great east–west artery takes in Nanjing, Wuhan and the Three Gorges country, reaching Sichuan’s capital from the coast in a single day.
Wikipedia ↗ - Lanxin High-Speed
The world’s longest desert high-speed line: wind-walled against Gobi gales on the old Silk Road.
Wikipedia ↗ - Southeast Coastal HSR
D-trains skim 1,450 km of fishing ports, tea hills and sea bridges between the Yangtze and Pearl deltas. China’s window seat on the East China Sea.
Wikipedia ↗ - Jinghu High-Speed
The world’s fastest scheduled trains: 350 km/h Fuxing sets covering 1,318 km in under four and a half hours.
Wikipedia ↗ - Jingha High-Speed
Cold-proof Fuxing sets built for −40 °C sprint to the ice-festival city of Harbin in Manchuria.
Wikipedia ↗ - Zhengzhou–Chongqing HSR
A 1,068 km route crossing the Funiu and Daba ranges, cutting Zhengzhou–Chongqing from about eight hours to under four and a half.
Wikipedia ↗ - Harbin–Dalian HSR
The world’s first alpine high-speed line: 921 km from Siberian-cold Harbin to the ice-free port of Dalian on EMUs winterised for −40 °C.
Wikipedia ↗ - Datong–Xi’an HSR
Runs the length of Shanxi from the Datong grottoes past walled Pingyao, crossing the Yellow River into Shaanxi to reach Xi’an.
Wikipedia ↗ - Guiyang–Guangzhou HSR
Eighty-three percent tunnel and bridge: 238 bores through Guizhou’s karst down to the Pearl Delta, four hours where the road once took a day and a night.
Wikipedia ↗ - Hefei–Fuzhou HSR
Nicknamed China’s most beautiful high-speed line, curving past Mount Huangshan and the Wuyi Mountains through Jiangnan tea country.
Wikipedia ↗ - Nanning–Kunming HSR
Crosses the folded uplands and Nanpan River gorges between Guangxi and Yunnan’s capital, Kunming.
Wikipedia ↗ - Xi’an–Chengdu HSR
The first bullet line across the Qinling: 127 km of tunnels under the range that divides north and south China, Terracotta Army to pandas in three hours.
Wikipedia ↗ - Chengdu–Guiyang HSR
Billed as the first high-speed railway through such deeply folded karst, spanning Jinsha River gorges on some of the world’s highest rail bridges.
Wikipedia ↗ - Yinchuan–Xi’an HSR
The first bullet line to reach Ningxia, climbing the Loess Plateau and Ziwuling forests from Yellow River Yinchuan to Xi’an.
Wikipedia ↗ - Nanning–Guangzhou HSR
Follows the Xijiang (West River) valley out of Guangxi down to the Pearl River Delta, linking Nanning with Guangzhou.
Wikipedia ↗ - Guiyang–Nanning HSR
350 km/h through Guizhou–Guangxi karst on a line that is mostly bridge and tunnel, passing the Libo World Heritage limestone scenery.
Wikipedia ↗ - Zhengzhou–Xi’an HSR
One of China’s first mountain bullet lines, boring through the loess hills of the Yellow River valley to link Zhengzhou with the ancient capital Xi’an in about two hours.
Wikipedia ↗ - Yinlan High-Speed
Two halves opened three years apart to the day, 29 December 2019 and 2022, and Yinchuan to Lanzhou fell to 2 h 56 min across the loess of Ningxia and Gansu.
Wikipedia ↗ - Zhengzhou–Jinan HSR
A fast diagonal across the North China Plain that crosses the Yellow River to knot together two provincial capitals.
Wikipedia ↗ - Baoji–Lanzhou HSR
The final link of the east–west corridor to Lanzhou, over 90% bridge and loess tunnel, tracing the old Silk Road past Tianshui.
Wikipedia ↗ - Guiyang–Chongqing HSR
Almost entirely bridge and tunnel, this 2018 line vaults the karst gorges of Guizhou to join two of the mountain south-west’s biggest cities.
Wikipedia ↗ - Jinan–Qingdao HSR
A 350 km/h dash across Shandong from the provincial capital Jinan to the seaside beer city of Qingdao.
Wikipedia ↗ - Zhanghu HSR
Crosses the Inner Mongolian plateau via Ulanqab; linked to the Beijing–Zhangjiakou line it put Hohhot about two hours from Beijing.
Wikipedia ↗ - Fuzhou–Xiamen HSR
China’s first 350 km/h cross-sea railway, vaulting three bays on the Taiwan Strait coast to link Fuzhou and Xiamen in 55 minutes.
Wikipedia ↗ - Chuanqing Railway
China’s mountain railway to fairyland: 200 km/h from the Chengdu plain up the Min valley to Huangshengguan, the new gateway station for Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong.
Wikipedia ↗ - Hangzhou–Huangshan HSR
Dubbed China’s most beautiful high-speed line, it slips through tea hills and water towns from West Lake to the granite of Yellow Mountain.
Wikipedia ↗ - Shitai HSR
Burrows under the Taihang range through the 27.8 km Taihang Tunnel, once China’s longest railway tunnel, to join Hebei and Shanxi.
Wikipedia ↗ - Shanghai–Hangzhou HSR
A 45-minute dash from the metropolis to West Lake, the willow-lined water garden that has drawn Chinese poets for a thousand years.
Wikipedia ↗ - Beijing–Tianjin Intercity
China’s first high-speed line, opened for the 2008 Olympics: 350 km/h across the North China Plain, capital to port city in half an hour.
Wikipedia ↗
Classic (6)
- Lanxin Railway
Over Wushaoling at 3,000 m, down the Hexi Corridor past Jiayuguan and along the Tianshan to Turpan: the 1962 railway that first joined Xinjiang to the network.
Wikipedia ↗ - Longhai Railway
China’s east–west trunk, begun at Kaifeng in 1905 and forty-eight years reaching Lanzhou: the high-speed lines beside it were built to take its passengers off it.
Wikipedia ↗ - Jingha Railway
Its Tangshan–Tianjin end opened in 1881 as the Kaiping Tramway and is the oldest railway still working in China; the Z15 runs the whole 1,249 km overnight in ten hours.
Wikipedia ↗ - Lanzhou–Chongqing Railway
Twenty years in the building through the folded Qinling ranges: hundreds of tunnels that finally gave Gansu a fast way down to the Yangtze.
Wikipedia ↗ - Binsui Line
The eastern arm of the old Chinese Eastern Railway, running provisionally from November 1901 and opened properly on 14 July 1903; ten hours from Harbin to the Russian border at Suifenhe.
Wikipedia ↗ - Chengdu–Ya’an Railway
The first completed stretch of the epic Sichuan–Tibet railway, heading west from Chengdu along the old Tea-Horse Road toward the plateau.
Wikipedia ↗
Night train (4)
- Golmud–Korla Railway
Opened 2020 across the Altun Shan between Qinghai and Xinjiang: 1,206 km of salt flats, desert and near-total emptiness — one of the loneliest overnight rides on Earth.
Wikipedia ↗ - Harbin–Mohe Snow Country Train
The “Snow Country Train” heads 17 hours north to China’s northernmost station at Mohe, where −40 °C winters, frost forests and the odd aurora reward the ride.
- Dunhuang Sleeper Y667/668
The branded “Dunhuang” sleeper leaves Lanzhou at 18:00 and follows the Hexi Corridor’s Great Wall forts overnight, arriving near the Mogao caves by dawn.
Wikipedia ↗ - Binzhou Railway
The Chinese Eastern Railway’s west arm, working since 1902: over the Greater Khingan to the Russian border at Manzhouli, where the Trans-Manchurian crosses to Zabaikalsk.
Wikipedia ↗
Scenic (4)
- Qinghai–Tibet Railway
The roof-of-the-world railway: 5,072 m over the Tanggula Pass on permafrost, with oxygen piped to every seat.
Wikipedia ↗ - Hotan–Ruoqiang Railway
The 2022 desert line that closed the world’s first rail loop around a sand sea — 825 km along the Taklamakan’s southern rim on viaducts built to let the dunes blow through.
Wikipedia ↗ - Lhasa–Shigatse Railway
A high-altitude spur off the Qinghai–Tibet line, tunnelling through the mountains to trace the Yarlung Tsangpo canyon to Tibet’s second city.
Wikipedia ↗ - Dali–Lijiang Railway
Climbs from Dali’s Erhai Lake toward the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the old town of Lijiang, nearly all on bridges and through tunnels.
Wikipedia ↗
Photos via Wikimedia Commons — each route page credits the author & licence
How many train routes does China Railway run?
45 of the routes in this atlas are China Railway services, covering 38,425 km across 1 country (China). That is what this atlas draws, not the operator's whole network — a national railway runs thousands of local services no map of notable journeys would list.
What is the fastest China Railway train?
The Shanghai–Kunming HSR, Shanghai to Kunming, at up to 350 km/h. Its fastest scheduled run takes ≈ 11 h over 2,252 km.
Does China Railway run night trains?
Yes — 4 sleeper services in this atlas: Golmud–Korla Railway (Golmud – Korla), Harbin–Mohe Snow Country Train (Harbin – Mohe), Dunhuang Sleeper Y667/668 (Lanzhou – Dunhuang), Binzhou Railway (Harbin – Manzhouli).
When was China Railway founded?
Wikidata records the company's inception as 2013, and files it as a railway company. The oldest railway it runs over in this atlas opened in 1881 — the line and the company are rarely the same age, and this page dates both.
Countries China Railway runs in
- 🇨🇳 Train routes in China 58 routes
Other operators in China
- China Railway Chengdu Group 2 routes