China Rail Map (planned)

Sun Yat Sen's vision on China's Rail network

2008 Planned Rail network map

2008 Planned Rail -- West side of Taiwan Strait

Dr. Sun Yat-sen's map was done circa. 1910s. Dr. Sun worked on this immediately after the revolution when he had to give up the power to Yuan Shikai to get his support for the revolution.

It was based on the ROC territory (e.g. Tannu Tuva and Outer Mongolia are included but Taiwan is not, because there had no treaty ceding Tannu/Mongolia) or the Qing Empire territory prior to the 1911 revolution. It was mostly based on desk work -- so the network is much denser in a relative sense for sparsely populated areas such as Mongolia and Tibet, while Hainan is a void in rail track.

• For Dr. Sun's view on China's territorial claim see my next post
  

The 2008 plan will more likely to be realized (except the rail crossing the Taiwan Strait seems to be a one-sided wishful plan). There is even a map for the West Strait (Fujian) area anticipating the strait tunnel links, in which 3 lines were considered for reaching Taiwan, the northern lines (to Hsinchu and Taichung) are shorter while the southern (via Penghu) looks more pragmatic but the sea bed is much deeper.

• Dark lines represent existing rails
• Red line planned rais
  
• Broken (red) line are rail for which there is still no solid plan yet
• Dotted line are existing rails to be upgraded

Bonus: America's 2050 Rail Plans