HARBIN, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- China's northernmost high-speed railway, running through a region of discontinuous permafrost in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, officially entered service on Monday.
The first train departed from the forest city of Yichun at 10:26 a.m. and arrived in Harbin, the provincial capital, at 12:05 p.m., according to China Railway Harbin Group Co., Ltd.
Harbin is a major ice-and-snow tourism destination, while Yichun is a popular summer retreat and forest tourism spot.
The 318-kilometer line has a designed top speed of 250 kilometers per hour and features nine stations, cutting railway travel time between Harbin and Yichun from about seven hours to roughly two hours.
"The Harbin-Yichun high-speed railway can substantially cut travel time between the two cities, while extending Harbin's economic reach northward," said Wu Xingping, a Harbin businessman who frequently travels to Yichun.
This railway extends China's high-speed rail network farther north into the Lesser Khingan Mountains. It underlines the country's efforts to direct more transport infrastructure investment toward border areas, forest regions and less-developed regions, while helping boost development and prosperity in northeast China's border regions, said China Railway Harbin Group Co., Ltd.
China has built the world's largest high-speed railway network. By the end of 2025, the country's total operating railway mileage had reached 165,000 kilometers, including more than 50,000 kilometers of high-speed rail.
The Harbin-Yichun high-speed railway is expected to help turn the ecological, agricultural, cultural and tourism resources of the Songnen Plain and the Lesser Khingan Mountains into industrial strengths, boosting both county economies and forest region transformation in northern Heilongjiang.
Yichun has long regarded forest-based ecotourism as a pillar industry, but its development has been constrained by transportation.
Wang Wei, director of the Yichun Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, said the new railway will bring Yichun into Harbin's "two-hour economic circle," creating opportunities for winter tourism, forest study tours and forest wellness tourism.
Apart from delivering more travelers, millions of residents in cities such as Yichun and Suihua are expected to benefit from improved connectivity, which will also facilitate business travel and closer industrial cooperation.
The line is expected to improve the flow of talent, technology and capital into northern counties and forest areas, supporting local industrial restructuring and transformation, said Sun Haojin, head of the Institute of Economics, Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences.
Building high-speed railways in high-latitude permafrost regions poses major engineering challenges. The new line crosses 14 sections of discontinuous permafrost belts with a combined length of 5.8 kilometers.
"The railway features the highest latitude and the widest annual temperature range among China's high-speed railways, and it is also the first to run through a region of discontinuous permafrost," said Liu Libin, chief engineer overseeing construction of a section of the railway with China Railway 22nd Bureau Group Co., Ltd.
The region has an annual temperature range of more than 70 degrees Celsius, with winter temperatures falling as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius.
Permafrost thaws in warmer periods and undergoes frost heave in freezing weather. Repeated deformation can cause subgrade settlement and track distortion, posing challenges to the safe operation of high-speed trains in such areas.
To address the problem, railway builders used a double-wall casing technique, filling the space between the casings with thermal insulation materials to reduce the effects of temperature changes on concrete pile casting as well as the surrounding permafrost, Liu explained.
Experts said the project provides valuable experience for the building of high-speed railways in other cold, permafrost regions. ■
