- Gordon Dumoulin
Driverless smart high speed trains on China's first railway route 110 years ago....
Driverless high speed train between Beijing with Zhangjiakou (174 km), two of the main host cities of the 2022 Winter Olympics. The trains started operation on December 30 reducing travel time from three hours to just 47 minutes after less than 4 years construction.
The smart trains on the Jingzhang high speed railway are managed by 5G-equipped signals, intelligent lighting, and 2,718 sensors to identify any problems in real time. The cabins are designed for handling snow sports equipments and each seat has its own touch-screen control panel and wireless charging docks.
Robots and facial-recognition technologies will be used in the 10 stations along the way for assisting in directions and luggage to paperless check-in.
The stretch between Beijing and Zhangjiakou was the first railway in China (the imperial Pekin-Kalgan Railway, built from 1905-1909. It was an 8 hours ride back then. While the new smart high speed is going underground at major tourist sites, tourists and athletes might consider the class S2 train on the original track returning to Beijing (3hours), enjoying the wonderful scenery along the way.
