Datong–Xi'an high-speed railway

The high speed rail line will run down the length of Shanxi Province from Datong in the north through Shuozhou, Xinzhou, the provincial capital Taiyuan, Jinzhong, Linfen and Yuncheng. It crosses the Yellow River at Yongji, enter Shaanxi and reach Xian via Weinan and Lintong. Another short section of main line runs through and . The whole line now forms part of the Beijing–Kunming corridor of the 8+8 HSR Grid, now under development. The section between Xi'an and Xinzhou (where the proposed Xiong'an–Xinzhou high-speed railway—Xiongxin HSR—would branch off to Xiong'an) forms part of its main line, while the section between Xinzhou and Datong forms part of the Beijing–Zhangjiakou–Datong–Taiyuan branch. Together with the Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan high-speed railway, the Taiyuan-Xi'an section of the Datong–Xi'an passenger railway provides a potential more direct route for high-speed passenger trains between Beijing and Xi'an (and points west) than the usual route via Zhengzhou ( via Taiyuan vs. ). However, as of early 2015, this route appears to be slower than the one via Zhengzhou, and does not seem to be used by any direct Beijing-Xi'an trains. Instead, some services run from Beijing via Taiyuan to the southwestern Shanxi (mostly Yuncheng), while others run between Taiyuan and Xi'an. ==History==

Construction began on 3 December 2009 and was expected to cost ¥96.3 billion. and the Datong-Yuanping section is currently not newly constructed but using quadruple tracks of the northern section of the Datong–Puzhou railway between Yuanping West and Huairen East. These services commenced on May 1, 2019. In 2023，CR issued a tender to increase the speed of the this line to support the construction of the Xiong'an-Xinzhou high-speed railway, but the target speed is still unknown. ==Notes==