Ten year plan, once finalized. In the office of the National Development and Reform Commission, a feasibility study report that has affected the three provinces of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui has finally been stamped with a bright red seal - the Fuyang Huanggang high-speed railway with a total investment of over 40 billion yuan has been officially approved. This "red artery" connecting the revolutionary old areas of the Dabie Mountains not only fills the gap in the western line of the Beijing Hong Kong (Taiwan) high-speed railway corridor, but also brings the Wuhan "super meter shaped" high-speed railway hub from blueprint to reality.

Hubei section invests 23.1 billion yuan to weave a dense road network

The Fuhuang High speed Railway starts from Fuyang, Anhui in the north, passes through Xinyang, Henan, enters Hong'an, Macheng, and Xinzhou in Hubei in the south, and ends at Huanggang. The Hubei section is 131 kilometers long with an investment of 23.11 billion yuan and is built at a standard of 350 kilometers per hour. A total of 66.7 kilometers of bridges and 10.5 kilometers of tunnels will be built along the entire line, with 4 stations located in Xinzhou East, Hong'an East, Macheng West, and Huangzhou. Among them, 6 lines will be reserved for 3 stations including Macheng West to provide space for future line extensions. Two connecting lines are planned simultaneously, with the Macheng West connecting line (160 kilometers/hour) linking to the existing road network, and the Huangmei South connecting line (250 kilometers/hour) opening up a southbound passage.

Wuhan hub upgrade 'super meter shaped'

As the core project of the West Line of the Beijing Hong Kong (Taiwan) High speed Railway, the Fuhuang High speed Railway will connect the West Line of the Beijing Hong Kong Taiwan Railway and form a closed loop with the East Line (Shangqiu Hefei Jiujiang Nanchang) after its opening, greatly reducing the time and space distance between Wuhan and the Shandong Peninsula and Northeast China. Experts from the China Railway Fourth Institute stated that the line connects economic hubs along the route, helping Wuhan upgrade from a "rice shaped" hub to a "super rice shaped" hub. For the old areas of Dabie Mountains, the construction of Macheng West Station will put an end to the history of no high-speed rail in the area, and revolutionary old areas such as Hong'an and Xinzhou will also be integrated into the national high-speed rail network, transforming from "geographical edges" to "transportation nodes".

Hubei's high-speed railway mileage jumps to the top five in the country

From the first proposal by the local government in 2015, to the signing of a cooperation agreement between Henan and Anhui in 2024, and the joint letter from the three provinces of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui to strive for project approval, to the testing and feasibility evaluation in early 2025, the approval of the Fuhuang high-speed railway embodies the efforts of the three provinces over the past decade. With the implementation of the project, the operating mileage of high-speed rail in Hubei has reached 2585 kilometers, ranking among the top five in the country, accelerating the formation of a "smooth internal and external" high-speed rail network. In the future, when trains cross the Dabie Mountains at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, this red land will usher in a new development opportunity of "one hour to Wuhan and three hours to the Yangtze River Delta".Editor/Bian Wenjun