Datong–Xi'an high-speed railway
Datong–Xi'an high-speed railway line or Daxi HSR () is a dual-track, electrified, high-speed rail line operated by China Railway High-Speed between Datong, Shanxi and Xi'an, Shaanxi. It has a length of through the provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi Province, traversing the north-south axis of the former, and will accommodate trains traveling at speeds up to . Travel time between the two terminal cities will be reduced from 16.5 hours to about three hours. Construction began on 3 December 2009 and was expected to cost ¥96.3 billion. The line was scheduled  to be completed by 2013 or 2014. The Taiyuan-Xi'an section of the railway was opened on July 1, 2014; the Taiyuan-Yuanping section was opened on September 28, 2018; and the Datong-Yuanping section is currently not newly constructed but using quadruple tracks of North Tongpu Line between Yuanping West and Huairen East. Such service commenced on May 1, 2019. Route. The high speed rail line will run down the length of Shanxi Province from Datong in the north through Shuozhou, Xinzhou, the provincial capital Taiyuan, Jinzhong, Linfen and Yuncheng. It crosses the Yellow River at Yongji, enter Shaanxi  and reach Xian via Weinan and Lintong. As of early 2020 most of the high-speed line is finished, but the section between Huairen East and Yuanping West runs on the 153 kilometre-long Hanjialing–Yuanping railway, a four-track section of the Datong–Puzhou railway. The third and fourth tracks were built for passenger traffic with a design speed of 160 kilometres per hour and were opened on 29 March 2014. A new section of high-speed line, the Datong–Yuanping high-speed railway, is being built to replace it. Another short section of main line runs through and  . The whole line now forms part of the Beijing–Kunming corridor of the 8+8 HSR Grid, now under development. The section between Xi'an and Xinzhou (where the proposed Xiong'an–Xinzhou high-speed railway—"Xiongxin HSR"—would branch off to Xiong'an) forms part of its main line, while the section between Xinzhou and Datong forms part of the Beijing–Zhangjiakou–Datong–Taiyuan branch. Together with the Shijiazhuang–Taiyuan high-speed railway, the Taiyuan-Xi'an section of the Datong–Xi'an passenger railway provides a potential more direct route for high-speed passenger trains between Beijing and Xi'an (and points west) than the  usual route via Zhengzhou (1092 km via Taiyuan vs. 1212 km). However, as of early 2015, this route appears to be slower than the one via Zhengzhou, and does not seem to be used by any direct Beijing-Xi'an trains. Instead, some services run from Beijing via Taiyuan to the southwestern Shanxi (mostly Yuncheng), while others run between Taiyuan and Xi'an.