The asterisk-shaped rail network comes true

In the past decade, the length of railway managed by the Zhengzhou Bureau Group Co., LTD of China Railway increased from 3,184.1 km in 2012 to 4,726.1 km in 2021. The length of high-speed rail in operation increased by 1.67 times from 707.1 km in 2012 to 1,887.1 km in 2021.

The increasing number of railways has injected constant vitality into high-quality urban development and coordinated regional development.

photo/ Li Xinhua

Zhengzhou East Railway Station opened on September 28, 2012. By the end of that year, the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway was completed. Henan's high-speed rail era approaches. Zhengzhou has become a hub of ordinary railway and high-speed railway, and the framework of the "asterisk-shaped" high-speed railway network has been built.

At the beginning, Zhengzhou East Railway Station only had two high-speed lines, Zhengzhou-Xi’an High-speed Railway and Beijing-Guangzhou High-speed Railway, which sent less than 5,000 passengers per day.

With the opening of Zhengzhou-Kaifeng Intercity Railway and Zhengzhou-Jiaozuo Intercity Railway in 2014 and 2015, the station sent 27,000 passengers per day by the end of 2015.

In 2016, the total number of passengers sent by the station reached 18.14 million, with a daily average of 63,000.

In 2019 and 2020, the Zhengzhou-Xiangyang section of Zhengzhou-Chongqing High-speed Railway, Zhengzhou-Fuyang High-speed Railway and Zhengzhou-Taiyuan High-speed Railway were put into operation successively. G-series high-speed trains, bullet trains, intercity trains, common slow trains all appeared in Zhengzhou East Station.

photo/ Li Xinhua

In 2019, the station served 31 million passengers. On April 3, 2021, Zhengzhou East Railway Station sent 206,000 passengers, which hit a new high.

On June 20 this year, when the first train of the Zhengzhou-Chongqing High-speed Railway and the Zhengzhou-Puyang section of Zhengzhou-Jinan High-speed Railway leaves from Zhengzhou East Station, the asterisk-shaped rail network comes true from the blueprint on paper.

With Zhengzhou as the center, the high-speed rail covers the cities directly under the central government in 1 hour, connects the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the surrounding provincial capitals in 2 hours, and connects the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, Chengdu-Chongqing and other major economic zones in China in4 to 6 hours, forming a high-speed rail travel circle covering the central part and radiating the whole country.

The asterisk-shaped rail network promoted the upgrading of local tourism, culture, entertainment, catering, housing and other industries, and changed people's travel habits and lifestyles.

The developed high-speed rail network has shortened the distance between cities, and more and more people are living a "twin city life". The inter-city railway from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng, Jiaozuo and Xinzheng Airports has become trains of mass transit type.

In the past decade, the average daily number of passengers and trains running at Zhengzhou East Station has a nearly 20-fold increase. Today, a high-speed train leaves every two or three minutes. When high-speed rail reach all directions, the pace of passengers travel more and more leisurely. There are more passengers in the station, but fewer people patronize the manual service window. Electronic ticket, face check, regular ticket, counting ticket, electronic temporary bus identification...... more and more business online processing, which greatly saves the time of passengers to buy tickets.

Safe, efficient, convenient and green, the "asterisk-shaped" high-speed railway has become a beautiful name card of Henan,which will bring more and more beautiful expectations to people's lives.