On the 20th, reporters saw at the construction site in Xiaomawan Village, Jiaodong Subdistrict, Jiao'zhou, that workers had begun preliminary exploration for the upcoming Jinan-Qingdao High-Speed Railway project, marking the official start of construction on the Jiao'zhou section of the Jinan-Qingdao High-Speed Railway. According to staff from the Jiao'zhou Transportation Bureau, the Jiao'zhou section of the Jinan-Qingdao High-Speed Railway is 32.6 kilometers long and includes Jiao'zhou North Station and Airport Station; the high-speed railway passes beneath the airport to achieve zero-transfer connections. "By the end of last year, we had already completed clearing farmland and part of the land acquisition work, and a railway construction command center has now been established; pre-construction exploration is now in full swing," the staff member said. The Jiao'zhou section of the Jinan-Qingdao High-Speed Railway involves four towns and subdistricts—Jiaobei, Jiaolai, Jiaodong and Ligezhuang—and construction is expected to begin across all of them in February this year.
Reporters learned that the Jinan-Qingdao High-Speed Railway is an important part of the national "four vertical and four horizontal" rapid railway network. To the west it connects with the Jinan hub and links with the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway and passenger dedicated lines such as Shijiazhuang-Jinan and Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan; to the east it connects with the Qingdao hub and links with the Qingdao-Rongcheng intercity railway and Qingdao-Lianyungang railway, forming a "2-hour" transportation circle within Shandong Province. The Jinan-Qingdao High-Speed Railway has 10 stations, including Jinan East Passenger Station, Zhangqiu North Station, Zouping Station, Zibo North Station, Linzi North Station, Qingzhou North Station, Weifang North Station, Gaomi North Station, Qingdao Airport Station and Hongdao Station. At present, the entire Jinan-Qingdao High-Speed Railway project is in full swing and is expected to be completed and opened to traffic in 2019.