China's railway cargo delivery volume reached 3.9 billion tonnes in 2022, up 4.7% year on year.

Chinese state media said railway cargo services raked in 478.6 billion yuan (about US$69.23 billion) last year, rising 9.8% over 2021, citing data from the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.

Last year, China saw some 4,100 km of new railway lines put into operation in 2022, and over half of them were high-speed railways.

"This year, the national railway operator expects passenger trips to climb over 67% from that of 2022 and estimates that overall transportation revenue will generally rebound to the level before the epidemic," the report added.

Over 3,000 km of new railway lines will be put into service in 2023, with 2,500 km being high-speed railways.

Increased China-Europe freight train from Xi'an

Meanwhile, Xi'an, the capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, saw a surge in China-Europe freight-train trips in 2022.

Xinhua said the Chang'an China-Europe freight-train service operated 4,639 train trips last year, up 20.8% year on year, and transported nearly 4.12 million tonnes of goods, an annual increase of 43.3%.

The city ranked first among Chinese cities operating the China-Europe freight service for the number of train trips, the cargo volume and the rate of heavy containers in 2022.

Since its launch in 2013, the Chang'an service has opened 17 cargo routes linking Xi'an with destinations in Asia and Europe and has handled a total of 16,054 train trips.