During the just-concluded May Day holiday, another tunnel on the under-construction Yumo Railway was holed through. To date, of the 93 tunnels along the entire Yumo Railway, all except the Jingzhai Tunnel—92 in total—have been completed and connected. In addition, the China-Laos Railway has a total of 15 long tunnels exceeding 10 kilometers in length, all of which have now been holed through.

Only the last 100-plus meters of the final tunnel on the Yumo Railway remain to be holed through

The Jingzhai Tunnel is located in Mengla County, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, with a total length of 9,509 meters. Because of complex geological conditions, its progress has been the slowest, but as of May Day, only 175 meters remained to be holed through. At the normal rate of progress, it should be holed through this summer, so it will not delay the plan to open to traffic by the end of the year.

Unlike other newly built railways in China, although the China-Laos Railway still has one tunnel not yet holed through, its opening date was fixed several months ago—it is scheduled to officially open on December 2 this year. By then, trains will run directly from Kunming to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and Pu'er and Xishuangbanna will also bid farewell to their history of having no rail service.

The reason the China-Laos Railway set its opening date for December 2 this year so early is that the day is Laos' National Day, and opening the railway on that day carries great symbolic significance.

Rendering of Xishuangbanna Railway Station

Although the China-Laos Railway is about to open, its operating speed is not as fast as many had imagined, because apart from the section between Kunming and Yuxi, which is designed for 200 km/h, all remaining sections are conventional railways with a maximum speed of 160 km/h, and they handle mixed passenger and freight traffic. It is very likely that at most power-concentrated EMU trains will operate—the green-bodied power-concentrated passenger trains that many jokingly call "cabbage worms"—rather than the white high-speed trains everyone expected.

Since power-concentrated EMU trains have a maximum speed of only 160 km/h, whether Kunming to Xishuangbanna can be reached in just over three hours is actually highly questionable.

The railway distance from Kunming to Jinghong is about 411 kilometers. If a train ran at the maximum speed of 160 km/h for the entire journey, it could actually arrive in just over two hours. The problem is that a train cannot run at maximum speed over the whole line; it must also stop at Yuxi, Pu'er and other stations along the way, and some sections require speed reductions. So the average speed may be just over 100 km/h, and Kunming to Xishuangbanna will most likely take about four hours.

For comparison, Kunming to Dali is a fast railway designed for 200 km/h, with a total length of 328 kilometers, yet even the fastest trains take about two hours, while slower ones take about two and a half hours—an average speed of only 60% to 80% of the railway's maximum speed. But the fastest train departs from Dali and runs nonstop all the way to Kunming South Station.

In addition, most of the Kunming–Lincang EMU services that opened at the end of last year also take about four hours. The Kunming–Lincang railway is 530 kilometers long, longer than Kunming–Xishuangbanna, but the Kunming–Dali section is a 200 km/h fast railway, and only the 200-kilometer Dali–Lincang section is a 160 km/h conventional railway. At present, even without intermediate stops, the EMU from Lincang to Dali takes 1 hour and 36 minutes, at a speed of about 126 km/h.

Unless nonstop services are also introduced between Kunming and Xishuangbanna that skip Yuxi, Pu'er and other places with no intermediate stops, allowing the train's average speed to reach more than 80% of the railway's design speed, then it would be possible to arrive in just over three hours.