Guangshen railway or Guangzhou–Shenzhen railway (), historically known as the Chinese section of the Kowloon–Canton railway () in 1911–1949, is a railway in Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China, between Guangzhou and Shenzhen. It is operated by Guangshen Railway Co., Ltd., a publicly traded company.
With a length of , it was the first railway in the People's Republic of China to reach the speed of in some sections, though it is limited to about during commercial operation. Now it has four tracks between Guangzhou East and Shenzhen railway station. Line 1 and 2 are up-direction and down-direction (currently restricted to in operation) passenger lines for CRH EMU respectively, and Lines 3 and 4 are up-direction and down-direction (currently restricted to in operation) mixed passenger and freight line respectively. In order to reduce the interference to passenger trains in the daytime from lower-speed freight trains, most freight trains will be scheduled to run at night.
Guangshen railway connects with several other important railways to different directions. It links Jingguang railway and Guangmao railway in Guangzhou, Jingjiu railway in Dongguan (with which shares two regular speed track), and the East Rail line to Hong Kong at the southern end of the railway. Besides, there are some branch lines along Guangshen Railway, such as Pingyan railway to Yantian Port, Pingnan railway to Shenzhen West railway station and also the line to Huangbu Port.
Before the manifestation of COVID-19 pandemic in January 2020, traditional "Z-class" border-crossing services via the whole or part of the Guangshen Railway, serving Hong Kong and mainland destinations including Changping, Guangzhou East, Foshan and Zhaoqing, as well as to Beijing West and Shanghai, were available. However, the above-mentioned cross-border services were suspended since the on set of COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting 15 January 2023, train services between Hong Kong West Kowloon Railway Station and Guangzhou East Railway Station are available, at which Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway is part of the route.
History
The idea of constructing a railway linking Canton (now Guangzhou) and Kowloon in Hong Kong, a British crown colony germinated in the late Qing dynasty. In 1899, Britain and the Qing government agreed to construct the KCR British Section, but Britain postponed the construction as Britain was busy at the Second Boer War in Africa. In 1907, Qing government and Britain formally signed an agreement in Peking on issuing a £100-million bond as part of loan for the construction of the Chinese section of the Kowloon–Canton railway. In July 1907, construction of the British Section of the KCR began. The construction of Chinese section was delayed and only started in 1909. Under the loan contract, China needed to employ the British engineers for the construction of Chinese section, but China still employed famous Chinese railway engineer, Zhan Tianyou, as a consultant. On 8 October 1911, the Chinese section of KCR with total length of was opened together with the commencement of through train service between Kowloon and Guangzhou which was started to operate at the same time. The northern end of railway at that time was located in Dashatou (), Guangzhou, which was demolished in 1951.
After the establishment of People's Republic of China in October 1949, the 'Chinese section of the Canton–Kowloon railway' was renamed 'Guangshen railway', and repairs were made to sections of the railroad damaged during the war. In 1967, railway department carried out a comprehensive maintenance on Guangshen railway to improve the transport capacity. Beginning in the 1980s economic reform policies of China, the establishment of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and rapid economic development in the Pearl River Delta region has brought large volume of imported goods and increased passenger demand to the railway. Therefore, the second line of Guangshen Railway was constructed during 1984 to 1987 in order to meet the huge demand. Simultaneously Guangshen Railway Company (the predecessor of Guangshen Railway Company), which was directly subordinated to the Guangzhou Railway Bureau (now Guangzhou Railway Group), was established. This company was in charge of the construction projects and operational management of Guangshen Railway. In 1987, Guangshen railway became the first double-track railway in Guangdong province.
Guangshen railway is the first place in China to carry out successfully speed-up on the existing railroad. At the beginning of the 1990s, Guangzhou Railway Bureau and the Ministry of Railways carried out the pre-feasibility research about raising the maximum speed of passenger trains to . At 28 December 1991, the construction of the third line of Guangshen railway, and the speed-up improvement works of original double tracks started. In October 1994, the maximum speed of a train reached during the test. The first sub-high speed () passenger train in China started commercial operation at 22 December 1994, operating between Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
In 1998 the electrification of two sub-high speed lines of Guangshen railway was finished. After the improvement the high speed trains are allowed to run on the existing sub-high speed railroad. A Swedish-built X 2000 tilting train called 'Xinshisu' began to serve intercity train service between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as the through train to Hong Kong. The train are 165m long, consisting of a power car, five passenger cars, and a trailing car. The non-power cars can have a pitch of up to 8 degrees. They are noted for being very quiet (less than 65 dBA) even at . Such Swedish X 2000 trains allowed the line to reach 200 km/h (124 mph) and 220 km/h (137 mph) in some sections of the Guangshen line.
Starting 21 October 2001, the "As-frequent-as-buses" Train Project was fully roll out using 8 sets of domestic made "Blue Arrow" trains, which were high-speed (capable to reach a speed of 210 km/h) electrical trains for express service between Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Construction of the fourth track was commenced at 31 December 2005, and was finished at 18 April 2007 in time for the Sixth Speed-Up Campaign. Since then Guangshen railway has been the first four-track railway in mainland China and it allows passenger trains and freight trains to run on separate lines.
8-car CRH1A highspeed EMUs have been introduced since year 2007 for the intercity train service between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and there were 100 pairs of trains operated daily. The fastest journey time was 52 minutes between Guangzhou East and Shenzhen with no stop in-between. Train numbers D7002 and D7008 (as at year 2007) had been used for such direct service.
Implementation of "stop-at-all-stations" operating model started since 1 May 2009 at which intermediate stations includes Dongguan (located in Changping at that time), Shilong and .
Non-stop trains serving between Guangzhou East and Shenzhen re-emerges since the early 2020s at which "C8" prefix train numbers are introduced for such service.
Guangzhou-Shenzhen service
Regularly operating "C-prefix" trains
Regularly operating service between Guangzhou and Shenzhen uses 8-car CRH1A EMU or CRH6A EMU. Currently train numbers with prefix "C" are in use.
According to as at October 2024 showing all train trips between Guangzhou city and Shenzhen city, train numbers (C800x-C801x) are assigned for non-stop express trips running between Guangzhou East railway station and Shenzhen railway station.
For "C" prefix trains numbered by 4 numerical digits (7xxx or 80xx) serving Shenzhen railway station and Guangzhou city, a majority of trains serve Guangzhou East railway station at Guangzhou side, and within the Guangshen line a few number of trains serve Guangzhou railway station, mostly in a manner as an intermediate stopping before terminating at Guangzhou Baiyun railway station which is located at short distance beyond the Guangshen line.
"Demand-relief" trips
Along the Guangshen line, temporally added trips for the Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen service may be numbered with prefix "Z", "C" or "D", using Shenzhen East railway station or Shenzhen railway station as the terminal station.
In addition to CRH EMUs running temporally added intercity trips typically numbered C9xxx, it is possible that CR200J "Fuxing" trains are deployed to the temporally added trips (with prefix "D" or "C") since the allocation of 4 sets of such type of "Fuxing" train to Guangshen Railway Company Limited (GSRC) at the time of year 2019 and thereafter.
The emergence of "D-class" trip using CR200J trains in Shenzhen railway station begins in December 2019 serving regular long-distance D727, D728 trains for Beijing West while this service actually runs mainly along the Beijing-Kowloon railway which starts its multiplexes with Guangshen line in Dongguan City, meaning that the initial manifestation of CR200J trains along Guangshen line was just confined within a limited distance.
For the use of CR200J trains travelling longer distance of GuangShen line for demand-relief purpose, one noteworthy example is, to start with, an internet media reported that a temporally added service was available on 29 and 30 September and 2, 3, 5, and 6 October 2023, mentioning a pair of train service numbered D7495, D7496 although that was a cross-line traffic between Changsha railway station and Shenzhen East railway station for demand relief.
Shorter "intercity" service between Shenzhen East railway station and Guangzhou East railway station may occur in a rare, temporally manner while not on a regular basis. For the example in relation to the above-mentioned D7496 service in year 2023, to start with, Guangzhou Railway Group maintains several Sina Weibo accounts officially where latest information about status of available tickets up-to-date, in particular for the days within peak demand period, may be posted. Previous posts in the Guangzhou Railway Group's official Weibo channels show that service between Shenzhen East railway station and Guangzhou East railway station was provided with available ticket on-sale among at least some, if not all, of the days that the above-mentioned D7495, D7496 trips were in service in year 2023.
Examples of temporally added "D-class" service between Guangzhou city and Shenzhen city during peak-demand holidays, at which written notice has been announced via the Chinese language page of beforehand, include the added service during "Spring Festival Travel Rush" (or named as "chunyun") in year 2024 numbered D9785-D9786 serving between Shenzhen East railway station and Guangzhou East railway station, and D9791-D9796 serving between Guangzhou East railway station and Shenzhen railway station.
During the holiday week of October 2024, there exists a pair of trains serving between Guangzhou East railway station and Shenzhen railway station, using train set composed by both second class seat coaches and sleeper berth configuration coaches, with train numbers C99 for southbound and C100 for northbound services of peak demand days of October 2024 according to the timetable as shown at the China Railway's official 12306 website.
Rolling stock