On June 24, 2026, the Shanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission officially released the approval document, and the Northwest Special Railway Project in Jincheng City received the construction admission ticket. As a core project of Shanxi coal transportation that has been planned locally for many years, the total investment of this line is estimated to reach 3.084 billion yuan, which will directly break through the railway bottleneck of bulk material transportation in the northwest area of Jincheng.

The entire newly-built railway line is 24.01 kilometers long, starting from the north throat of the existing Jiafeng Station on the Houyue Railway, crossing the Qin River and Duanrun Line along the way, and setting up the Suzhuang Interchange Station on the east side of Duanshi Town. Then, it extends eastward along the south side of the Linghou Expressway into Hudi Township, and two stations, Hudi Station and Fanzhuang Station, are set up in sequence. The route spans two administrative regions, Zezhou County and Qinshui County, fully conforming to the distribution direction of the industrial areas along the route.

Segmented adaptation to differentiated freight demand

This route does not adopt a unified construction standard, but is designed based on the transportation positioning of different sections. The Jiafeng to Suzhuang handover station section adopts electric traction, matched with HXD series locomotives, with a traction mass of up to 5000 tons, directly connecting to the heavy load transportation capacity of the Houyue Railway mainline. The section from Suzhuang Handover Station to Fanzhuang Station adopts internal combustion traction, and reserves conditions for subsequent electrification transformation to meet the distribution and transportation needs of short distance mining areas along the line. The design speed of the entire line is uniformly set at 80 kilometers per hour, which fully matches the operational efficiency requirements of the freight dedicated line.

Key factors in regional transportation structure adjustment

After the project is completed and put into use, the transportation channels for bulk products such as coal, coke, and chemicals along the route will be directly opened up. Large tonnage goods that originally needed to be transported by road can be directly connected to the national trunk line network through railways. The continuous promotion of coal transportation around the railway in the local area can also rely on this route to obtain solid transportation support. The shortcomings of the regional coal collection and distribution system can be directly filled, and the pressure of heavy traffic on the highways along the route will be significantly reduced. Logistics costs and transportation emissions can also be reduced synchronously. Keywords: Shanxi coal export, railway transportation

This route is also a key step in improving the layout of the freight network in southeastern Shanxi. In the future, it can also link with the surrounding port collection and distribution system, further expanding the radiation radius of Shanxi coal transportation.Editor/Cheng Liting