Coastline rapid railway line is expected to pass through the end of the year

According to sources, if it is successful, the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail line of the unfinished coastal railway line is expected to open at the end of the year, while the Hangzhou-Nanjing and Hangzhou-Ningbo high-speed rails have recently entered the commissioning period and are expected to be commissioned by the end of May and officially opened at the end of June.

The Coastal Express Rail Line is the “one vertical” of the main skeleton of China’s four vertical and four horizontal high-speed railways. It passes through China’s richest urban agglomerations and connects the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta.

Sources said that although the coastal railway line is designed as a passenger and cargo line, it will continue to be dominated by passenger transport in the future, and its positioning is mainly linked to the urban clusters on the southeast coast. "Functional positioning is similar to the intercity rail."

According to sources, the total cost of Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail is expected to be close to 60 billion yuan. The cost per kilometer is more than 100 million yuan. It is jointly funded by the Ministry of Railways and the railways along Guangdong and Fujian. The proportion of loans has exceeded the estimate in the feasibility study report. 65%.

According to the feasibility study of the line, the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail is expected to recover costs within 25 years. However, members of the expert group who participated in the demonstration of over-high-speed railway projects told reporters that even considering the dynamic investment rate of return on funds and interest, the 25-year recovery cycle was too conservative. He personally estimated that taking into account the economic conditions along the line, the line will recover investment in 15 years or so. It works.

During the advancement of the railway reform, how will the arrangements for the management of the coastal railway lines still remain uncertain? Sources said that it is not certain that after the completion of the opening of the coastal railway line, it will integrate a special high-speed rail company to carry out asset management, or it will still be similar to the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed rail by a number of high-speed rail companies. However, the operation of the coastal railway line will be similar to that of the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway, etc. The high-speed rail company will entrust the relevant road bureau to operate on behalf of the company.

Fund platter

The coastal rapid railway line departs from Hangzhou and follows the southeastern coastline of China. It passes through Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen and arrives at the Shenzhen North Station in Shenzhen. The total length is about 1,450 kilometers. Its components include: Hangning, Hangzhou-Ningbo high-speed rail, Yongtaiwen high-speed rail, Wenfu high-speed rail, Fuxia high-speed rail and Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail.

Except for Hangzhou-Nanjing, Hangzhou-Ningbo and Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail, the other lines have been completed and opened to traffic one after another. According to the plan, the Hangzhou-Ningbo and Hangzhou-Ningbo high-speed rails are designed for passenger lines 350 kilometers per hour, while other lines, including the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail line, are passenger and freight mixed-speed lines with speeds of 200-250 kilometers per hour.

In fact, in 2011, after the departure of Liu Zhijun, the former Minister of Railways, the Chinese high-speed rail immediately announced a speeddown, and Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail was also adjusted from the original passenger line of 300 kilometers per hour or more to 250 kilometers per hour.

According to the aforementioned experts, the adjustment of Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail plan has also taken into account the consideration of freight transportation, apart from the backdrop of the deceleration of the high-speed rail at that time. The main high-speed railways with Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Shanghai and other cities need to consider suspending the transport of existing passenger trains and releasing the existing capacity of different lines. It is not the coastal railway line that is the main route of China’s railway freight transport that exerts little pressure on the existing lines to release transport capacity, and the coastal railway line There are no existing rail lines that are completely parallel to the direction.

The aforementioned sources pointed out that the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed railway was designed to run mixed passengers and goods. Strategic considerations are also considered. In addition to military considerations, the connection of Beijing-Guangzhou existing cable and other major channels of freight transportation is also considered.

In terms of investment and financing, the coastal railway lines have not reintroduced outside investors other than local governments.

Taking Xishen as an example, the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail has a total length of 501 kilometers, of which the Guangdong section originally planned to invest 28.8 billion yuan, but the actual investment has exceeded 33 billion yuan, of which, the capital exceeds 11 billion yuan by China National Railway Corporation and Guangdong The Provincial Railway Construction Investment Group co-funded, with local investment of about 4 billion yuan, all of which were converted into shares along the land for demolition and relocation. The proportion of equity was about 14%, while the total investment of Iron is currently about 7 billion yuan.

Over 20 billion of the current investment in the line is still the financing of bank loans and railway construction bonds, and the debt ratio has slightly exceeded the planned 65% ceiling in the project feasibility study plan.

Difficulties in attracting capital

The coastal railway line has not been tried to introduce private capital, such as the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail, Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed rail.

The pricing of coastal railway lines will be priced according to the speed standards of each specific line. The price per person per kilometer of the Xiamen-Shenzhen high-speed rail second-class building is expected to be more than RMB 0.3. At present, the per-km price of Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed rail is per person. It is 0.46 yuan.

According to experts in the above-mentioned expert group, according to the 25-year investment return cycle in feasibility study, it is difficult for social capital to be interested in such projects, but in fact, according to the economic development of the surrounding urban agglomerations along the coastal railway line, the investment return of this route The rate should be higher than the conservative expectation in feasibility study.

Sources said that the Beijing-Shanghai-Shanghai-Guangzhou-Guangzhou-Guangzhou Railway was originally a sample project for the introduction of private capital by the former Ministry of Railways, but in the end only Beijing-Shanghai introduced foreign investment such as Ping An, and Wuhan-Guangzhou is still unable to break through the established model of provincial cooperation. In addition, due to the dissatisfaction with the formerly unclear clearing system of the Ministry of Railways, shareholders' rights and interests were difficult to safeguard. Last year, Ping An Asset Management Co., Ltd. and the National Council for Social Security Fund had already proposed a request for stock withdrawal.

In fact, the revenue of high-speed trains that have already been put into operation is clearly different. Sources said that Zheng Xi and other western lines have relatively tight cash flow, but there are plenty of cash flow from Beijing-Shanghai and Wuhan-Guangzhou, and the Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou profits from the Yangtze River Delta are "quite good." He said that the Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou lines have been in operation for two or three years. There are many cities along the route, and the population density is high. The regional economy is developed and the fare bearing capacity is relatively strong.

Under the large clearing system for the two lines of railway revenue and expenditure, the profitability of the HSR is not announced. The source said that there is a rough way to observe the profit and loss. “When the number of departures is about 70 pairs, the line efficiency should be good. However, if it is less than 50 pairs, it shows that the current benefits are not ideal."

The aforementioned expert group reminded that income is not the cause of the current difficulties in the introduction of railways. “There is no fair rule that is the fundamental reason behind the deterring of private capital.”

He said that after the separation of government and enterprises, bank loans, which were the primary thrust of railway investment, will be much more cautious. This will also directly lead to the unsustainable development of China’s railroads in the past. In this situation, social capital may be active, and local governments will have higher enthusiasm for social capital. However, the smooth introduction of social capital depends on the further reform of the railway, especially the reform of the liquidation system.

"Our current railroad rules cannot be called fair rules, but they are cross-subsidies. It's hard to hear that some of them are through the railroad's big clearing system to kill the rich and the poor, and internal adjustments are made." He said that under such rules, non-profitable roads are not in a hurry to make money. There is no impetus for the road system, and the Chinese railway will face the reconstruction of the market environment in the future.