Shanghai South Railway Station enters the “High-speed Rail Era”: the number of trains operated increases by 31.7%, with high-speed trains accounting for 60%.
As reported by the Bloomberg News, starting from 0:00 on January 5th, the national railway will implement the train operation diagram for the first quarter of 2025. The Shanghai Railway Station, which operates Shanghai Station, South Shanghai Station, Hongqiao Station, Songjiang Station, West Shanghai Station, Beixiang North Station, Anting North Station, Anting West Station, Jinshan North Station, and Liantang Station, has revealed its new train schedule. After adjusting the diagram, Shanghai Railway Station has fully utilized the new lines and channels, optimized the structure of train operation, and increased the number of passenger trains to a record high in recent years. South Shanghai Station has launched the first high-speed train and officially entered the “high-speed rail era”. The effect of the hub station at Songjiang Station is also emerging.
South Shanghai Station enters the “High-speed Era”
吕红梅，副主任 of the South Shanghai Passenger Department of Shanghai Railway Station introduced that on January 5th, the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway Passenger Line will launch high-speed trains on the South Shanghai Connection Line, connecting the Shanghai-Suzhou-Wuxi-Lake High-speed Rail and the Shanghai-Kunming High-speed Rail with South Shanghai Station. This means that South Shanghai Station has officially entered the “high-speed rail era”. On the same day, a new operation diagram was implemented, and the first high-speed train of South Shanghai Station, G1305, departed at 7:01 am. It will stop at Hangzhou West Station, Huangshan North Station, Nanchang East Station, Ganzhou West Station, Huizhou North Station, and Xintang Station along the way, with a total journey time of 7 hours and 39 minutes, and will arrive at Guangzhou East Station at 14:40 pm on the same day. After adjusting the diagram, South Shanghai Station plans to operate 118.5 pairs of trains, an increase of 31.7% from before. Among them, high-speed rail accounts for 60%, mainly covering short-distance destinations such as Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huangshan, as well as medium and long-distance destinations such as Xiamen, Nanchang, Zhengzhou, and Changsha. At the same time, in order to meet passenger travel needs, the station has also retained 11 pairs of conventional trains for popular destinations such as Chongqing, Wuchang, Nanning, and Guangzhou. South Shanghai Station has also added two new loop train products, “Big Loop” G8387 which will terminate at Hongqiao Station in Shanghai with a journey covering popular tourist areas such as Huzhou, Qiantang River, Huangshan, Jiuhua Mountain, Lujiang River and Yangcheng Lake with a total distance of about 1320 kilometers and a travel time of about 8.4 hours; “Small Loop” G8981 which will terminate at Shanghai Station with a journey covering cities such as Suzhou, Huzhou, Xuancheng and Wuhu with a total distance of about 770 kilometers and a travel time of about 5 hours.
Additionally, the Jinshan Railway operates 38 pairs of trains daily with an increase of 0.5 pairs since before. Among them, there are 20 pairs of Jinshan Railway trains running between South Shanghai and Jinshan Wei daily.
The effect of Songjiang Station in Shanghai as a hub is emerging
Songjiang Station in Shanghai is the third largest hub station after Hongqiao and East stations in Shanghai. Once it starts operating, it will further unclog the channels to the west of Shanghai and strengthen its connection with the road network in the Yangtze River Delta region. The effect of this hub station is beginning to emerge. After implementing the new diagram, Songjiang Station plans to operate 95 pairs of trains including 56.5 pairs of bullet trains. The trains will cover more than 20 provincial administrative regions such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi and Hubei. Passengers can take trains to Haikou in the south or Qiqihar in the north or Lanzhou in the west by train. In addition, by utilizing the newly opened Shanghai-Suzhou-Wuxi Lake high-speed rail channel and leveraging South Shanghai Station’s strategic location advantage, there will be 43 passenger trains running between Songjiang Station and Hongqiao Station in Shanghai as well as 20 trains between Songjiang Station and South Shanghai Station to cater for commuter travel needs with a maximum journey time of just 14 minutes.
The number of passenger trains increased to a record high in recent years
With the opening of the Shanghai-Suzhou-Wuxi Lake high-speed railway on December 26th of 2024 expanding Shanghai’s external transportation channels further still. Under the
