Two railway lines that Anhui province has been working on, to improve connections in the northern part of the province, are close to completion, according to a Shanghai Railway Bureau report of May 23.

One of the lines connects the city of Fuyang in the north with Lu'an, a prefecture-level city in the western part of the province. This 166-kilometer-long line is expected to be completed by late August, at an estimated cost of 4.3 billion yuan ($702 million). It has a top speed of 160 kilometers per hour, and will take some of the burden off the busy Beijing-Kowloon line, while assisting with coal deliveries in northern Anhui, the Shanghai Railway Bureau explained.

The other railway line, costing around 4.9 billion yuan ($800 million), connects the city of Suzhou in northernmost Anhui with the city of Huai'an in Jiangsu province and is 210 kilometers long. it is mostly for moving cargo, especially coal. Construction work on it began in July, 2009 and is expected to be completed this November.

(cnanhui.org)