METRO Line 10 which runs between Xinjiangwancheng and Hangzhong Road, city's northeast to west (29.6kms, 27 stations) will extend its service hours starting on 07/03 Saturday. 

The line will be open daily from 5:30am to 7:30pm from Saturday, while the current service is from 9am to 4pm which started its operations from 10th April 2010.

Metro officials said service would be extended further in the future. Most subway lines remain open until after 10pm every day.

The operator also increased the line's capacity by adding three more trains, bringing the line's total to 19. The interval between trains will be shortened to about 6 minutes from 8 minutes during peak hours.

The subway line passes several key & tourist areas - Nanjing Road, Xintiandi, Yuyuan Garden, Wujiaochang,Shanghai Library, Tongji University, Jiaotong University,etc - and connects to five existing subway lines such as Line 1,2,3,4 & 8.

Very soon, Line 10 will be connected to the Shanghai Zoo , Hongqiao Airport Terminal 1/2 and Hongqiao Railway Station.

Today, there are twelve metro lines in Shanghai (excluding the Shanghai Maglev Train), 268stations and over 420 km of tracks in operation,making it the longest network in the world. Daily ridership averaged 3.56 million in 2009 and set a record of 6.113 million on June 25, 2010.

The system is still growing, more new lines and extensions are under construction, and plans through 2020 project a system comprising 22 lines and 877 km of length.

Contributed by gopinatht.0202@gmail.com

On 07/01,another new express railway,Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity railway with a speed of 300kmph has started its operation among the yangtze river delta.Shanghai-Nanjing railway is a passenger only line with a total length of 300.168kms of main line that runs south from Shanghai-Nanjing then Suzhou,Wuxi,Changzhou and Zhenjiang.The new trains, with speeds up to 350 kilometers an hour, more than halve the travel time between Shanghai and Nanjing. They can cover the 300 kilometers in just 73 minutes.

Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway is a part of Z-Shaped main shaft of Nanjing-Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo described in plan for intercity track communication network on the Yangtze river delta(2005-2020).

There was a Hu-Ning railway built in 1908 between Shanghai-Nanjing which was one of china's earliest built major truck railways.For more than 100years,the areas along Hu-Ning railway became one of the most economically active areas of China.Meanwhile,Hu-Ning railway became the world's most traffic intensive and busiest one.

In March 2005,the state council approved plan for intercity track communication network on Yangtze river delta.On May 7 2008,the ministry of railway, Jiangsu Province People's government and Shanghai People's government jointly signed and issued meeting summary on accelerating the construction of Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway.

Following 2years of Intensive construction,Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway appeared spectacularly on the Yangtze river delta as 1st railway among Yangtze river delta urban agglomeration with a speed of 300 kmph. It will be serving as another new express channel between Shanghai & Nanjing.

Contributed by gopinatht.0202@gmail.com

I started my travel from Shanghai Hongqiao Station to Changzhou. The new Hongqiao Railway station is simply amazing.But it is not as big as Shanghai Railway Station and Shanghai South Railway Station, as they are going to use this new station only for High Speed trains such as G-trains (高铁) and D-trains (动车).I found it was an easy trip from downtown, as Metro Line 2 directly connects to the railway station,also Line 10 will be starting its connection soon.

It only took 2min to get off the subway and take an escalator to the security check area leading to the rail waiting lounge.Much faster faster connection between the railway station and metro station, compared with Shanghai South railway station and Shanghai Station.

Everything is automated in the waiting lounge of Hongqiao Station, including entry via check in gate to the platform, vending machines for buying water,drinks,biscuits,chips and other snacks,very big & colour digital boards like Airport departure flight displays. But it is not that easy to buy the things @ the vending machines. Sometimes the water & other items are not available in the vending machines,makes inconvenient. It is better to have the convenient stores in the waiting lounge.

The Outside appearance of this new train is more or less same as D-trains.The seats (2nd class) in G-trains are much much comfortable than D-trains(2nd class) seats.A Bit wider seats and the space between the back side of the front seat and your seat is still longer than D-train seats.Makes more comfortable journey. The trains gets speed up within 2 min after departure itself. The highest speed i had experienced is 320 kmph.

The next problem i faced is Mobile Signal.When the train goes faster and faster, the mobile signals are really bad, cant get thru/talk any calls.

Also they promote this train travels upto 350kmph and can reach Nanjing from Shanghai within 73min.But this applies to the trains which is Non-Stop between these 2 big cities.

Only 1 non-stop train is available daily b/w this route as of now.All the other trains which has stopovers normally in Kunshan,Suzhou,Wuxi,Changzhou and Zhenjiang, in which the travel time is almost similar to D-trains, just a little bit faster. Normally G-trains reaches Nanjing from Shanghai in abt 1.37-2.07 hours, whereas the D-trains reaches in abt 2.10-2.40 hours.

When the ticket price factor comes, it is too expensive for G-trains. A single trip (Shanghai to Nanjing) costs in D-trains is RMB 93 in 2nd class and RMB 112 in 1st class,but in G-Trains it costs RMB 146 in 2nd class and RMB 233 in 1st class.A way too expensive than D-trains. I guess this cost factor also depends on number of passenger travel in G-train.These G-trains have only 8 compartments compared with D-trains which has 16 compartments. As the number of passengers are less in G-trains which are most costly train routes, it is really high priced for tickets.

Finally i arrived in Changzhou, after 1.20hours travel (same travel time of D-trains). And i got to know,they hv built a new station @ Changzhou too, called Changzhou Intercity Station (常州城站).The old station will be called as Changzhou Train Station South Square (火车南广场).

Once again, while returning to Shanghai, i got a chance to buy the same G-train ticket to Hongqiao Station. After arriving Shanghai Hongqiao station, If you travel by metro, it will be convenient, but the case with Taxis are terrible . This Hongqiao Station has 2 exits for taxi departures, such as North exit 出租车(北) and South exit 出租车(南). Actually South exit is the easiest way to connect to the city areas including Changning,Xuhui,Jingan,Huangpu,etc. and North exit connects mainly to Baoshan Dist. But there is no single taxi coming at the taxi departure of South Exit,still have a long queue,whereas few taxis keep coming to North exit,which has more ppls than waiting ppls at south exit. It costs RMB 50.00 to reach my friend's home near Gubei Carrefour. I observed many ppls take the subway for easy access.

by gopinatht.0202@gmail.com