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Nanjing–Qidong Railway (Chinese: 宁启铁路; pinyin: Níng Qǐ Tiělù), also known as the Ningqi Railway, is a railway in Jiangsu Province of China between the cities of Nanjing and Nantong. Its name is derived from Ning the shorthand name for Nanjing and Qidong, a district of Nantong. It is 268.3 km in length and runs along the northern bank of the lower Yangtze River. The planned easternmost section of the railway from Nantong to Qidong has not yet been built.
The railway serves several cities located between Nanjing and Nantong, in particular Yangzhou, Taizhou, and Hai'an.
History
Planning for a railway along the north bank of the Yangtze River began as early as 1958. In 1977, the government of Jiangsu province designated the railway from Nanjing to Nantong as a project for completion within the next 10 years. Due to funding shortage and disagreement over route, the project was not built for 20 years. The project was revived in the late 1990s with the onset of construction on the Xinyi–Changxing Railway, which was the first railway to be built in Jiangsu province north of the Yangtze River. In 2001, the Ministry of Railways approved plans for the Ningqi Railway, and construction was built in two phases. The Nanjing to Hai'an section was built from March 1, 2002 to December 2003. The Haian to Yangzhou and Nantong sections were completed by July 2005.
As of 2013, a major upgrade project is carried out on the Nanjing–Qidong Railway. It involves electrifying the rail line and building a second track. Once the project is completed (which is expected to happen by the end of 2014), the travel time from Nantong to Nanjing is expected to be halved, from the present 3 hours 50 min to 1 hour 50 min. The EMU train has entered to trial operation from May 6, 2016 and entered to operation from May 15, 2016.
Plans are now approved (Dec 2013) for a cross-river connection from Nantong to the Shanghai metropolitan area (the Shanghai–Nantong Railway). It will connect to the Nanjing–Qidong Railway at Pingdong Station (Chinese: 平东站; pinyin: Píngdōng Zhàn) on the northwestern outskirts of Nantong's urban core. Construction work is expected to start in 2013.