Xinjiang Railroads Lead to…Nowhere
If anyone ever doubted the strategic importance China places on northern Xinjiang, this last week ended the debate. The provincial government recently announced (here in English) the completion of four new rail lines stretching a total of 1,400km, a project that cost 1.68 billion yuan ($243 million USD). Unlike the Urumqi-Kashgar line opened a decade ago, however, most tourists (including me) aren’t likely to care much about traveling these new routes that basically lead to nowhere.
In Xinjiang, the railroad generally isn’t geared toward the traveler. As a case in point, the new train station in my home of Karamay – a small city of 200,000 with plenty of space to grow – is almost 30 minutes outside of town by taxi. Even if it was more conveniently located, though, I still wouldn’t take it for time’s sake. A bus to Urumqi takes almost 4 hours. The train will take 8. The same can be said for the city of Turpan, whose train station is actually located an hour to the north of the city.
That’s not to say that the scenery along these new lines isn’t spectacular. The new lines skirt by some of Xinjiang’s many nature reserves and the bridge you see below crosses through the fertile Yili grasslands.
Most surprising is the fact that this announcement is just the tip of the iceberg. Currently 10 more lines are under construction in different parts of the province with the plan to extend the current 3,000km of track in the province to over 10,000km by 2020. According to Xinjiang Railway director Luo JinBao, that’ll make us the railroad king of China.
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