A 6-lane parallel line for the heavily crowded Beijing-Zhuhai Express has been planned to build basically along the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, which is expected to be a part of the planned expressways of Guangdong Province during the country's 11th Five-Year Plan, said Zhou Weiyuan, head of the Bureau of Communications of Shaoguan, northern city of Guangdong, in an interview with Guangzhou daily.

According to Zhou, the section of the parallel line in Guangdong is planned to be 260 km long, of which 160 km will cross Shaoguan city. With better conditions than the current Beijing-Zhuhai Express and a designed speed of 120 km/h, it will join the Airport Express of Guangzhou. This plan was set up by the Second Survey and Design Institute of the country's Ministry of Railways in a research this January.

As a major artery from north to south of China, Beijing-Zhuhai Express has witnessed the soaring traffic during rapid economic growth in Guangdong. With over 20,000 vehicles surpassed per day and 75,000 one day during spring transportation, it is easy to cause numerous traffic accidents and jam on the express. Situated high on the mountains, this section is also affected by fog and frost, and its slopes are too long for the vehicles. All these disadvantages have turned it into a bottleneck of the entire artery.

The would-be parallel line will share the load by communicating the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and areas north of Shaoguan - Jiangxi and Hunan provinces. Apart from its role as an alternative for drivers in times of bad weather, severe accident and congestion, it is the fastest link between Shaoguan and Guangzhou, which represents a key for the north of Guangdong to integrate with the PRD.