Datong–Xi'an high-speed railway or Daxi HSR ( zh, s=大西客运专线 , t=大西客運專線 , p=Dà–Xī kèyùn zhuānxiàn) is a dual-track,

electrified Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. In the context of history of technology and economic development, electrification refe ...

, high-speed rail line operated by CR Taiyuan Group and CR Xi'an Group between

Datong Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province, China. It is located in the Datong Basin at an elevation of and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. As of the 2020 census, it had a population o ...

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

and

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

. It has a length of through the provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi Province, traversing the north-south axis of the former, and will accommodate trains traveling at speeds up to . Travel time between the two terminal cities will be reduced from 16.5 hours to about three hours.

Route

The high speed rail line will run down the length of Shanxi Province from

in the north through

Shuozhou Shuozhou is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi province, China, bordering Inner Mongolia to the northwest. It is situated along the upper reaches of the Fen River. The prefecture as a whole has an area of about and, 2010 PRC Census, ...

Xinzhou Xinzhou, ancient name Xiurong (), is a prefecture-level city occupying the north-central section of Shanxi Province in the People's Republic of China, bordering Hebei to the east, Shaanxi to the west, and Inner Mongolia to the northwest. As ...

, the provincial capital

Taiyuan Taiyuan; Mandarin pronunciation: (Jin Chinese, Taiyuan Jin: /tʰai˦˥ ye˩˩/) is the capital of Shanxi, China. Taiyuan is the political, economic, cultural and international exchange center of Shanxi Province. It is an industrial base foc ...

Jinzhong Jinzhong, formerly Yuci, is a prefecture-level city in east central Shanxi province of the People's Republic of China, bordering Hebei province to the east. As of the 2020 census, its total population was 3,379,498 inhabitants of whom 1,226,61 ...

Linfen Linfen () is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Shanxi province, People's Republic of China, China, bordering Shaanxi province to the west. Linfen City is located in the southern part of Shanxi Province, with the remaining branches of T ...

and

Yuncheng Yuncheng () is the southernmost prefecture-level city in Shanxi province, People's Republic of China. It borders Linfen and Jincheng municipalities to the north and east, and Henan (Luoyang and Jiyuan to the east, Sanmenxia to the south) and ...

. It crosses the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

at Yongji, enter Shaanxi and reach Xian via

Weinan Weinan ( zh, s=渭南 , p=Wèinán) is a prefecture-level city in east-Guanzhong, central Shaanxi, Shaanxi province, northwest China. The city lies on the lower section of the Wei River confluence into the Yellow River, about east of the provinc ...

and Lintong. As of 2022, most of the high-speed line is finished, but the section between Huairen East and Yuanping West runs on the -long Hanjialing–Yuanping railway, a line built mainly for freight with a design speed of that was opened on 29 March 2014 to bypass a section of the

Datong–Puzhou railway The Datong–Puzhou or Tongpu railway (), is a major trunkline railroad in northern China, and the main axial railway of Shanxi Province. The railway is located entirely within Shanxi and diagonally bisects the province from Datong in the northea ...

. In future passenger traffic will run on a section of the new Jining–Datong–Yuanping high-speed railway that has been officially under construction next to the line from Datong South to Yuanping West since June 2020. 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 Xiong'an New Area is a state-level new area in the Baoding area of Hebei, China. Established in April 2017, the area is located about south of Beijing and east of downtown Baoding. Its main function is to serve as a development hub for the ...

) 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 Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan high-speed railway, or the Shitai passenger railway () is a high-speed railway operated by China Railway High-speed, running from Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan, respectively the provincial capitals of Hebei and Shanxi ...

, 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 Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan, China. Located in northern Henan, it is one of the nine National central city, national central cities in China, and serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational center of the province. Th ...

( 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

), while others run between Taiyuan and Xi'an.

History

Construction began on 3 December 2009 and was expected to cost ¥96.3 billion. The line was scheduled to be completed by 2013 or 2014. The Taiyuan-Xi'an section of the railway was opened on July 1, 2014; the Taiyuan-Yuanping section was opened on September 28, 2018; and the Datong-Yuanping section is currently not newly constructed but using quadruple tracks of the northern section of the

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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Datong-Xian Passenger Dedicated Railway Line High-speed railway lines in China Rail transport in Shanxi Rail transport in Shaanxi