Tongji University is planning to build the country's first experimental rail transport line in its Jiading District campus as a comprehensive subway research platform for future infrastructure development.

According to a preliminary plan, the university will start to build a 1.5 kilometer ground line surrounding the campus early next year. The project is expected to be completed by 2006.

"This line will become a huge 'moving laboratory' for the research and testing of the country's future subway projects," Xie Weida, a professor with Tongji's Institute of Railway and Rail Transport , said yesterday.

He said the line will have two stations. It will not serve students however, only operating as a platform to conduct various subway-related experiments.

In terms of scientific function, the line will incorporate most of the possible positions of how a subway route would run -- straight lines, curves, inclining and declining slopes -- so it can be used to test the feasibility of lines with different types of routes.

The line can also test and improve the efficiency of new trains as well as signal, communication and power supply systems, researchers said.

The line will be extended in future to include elevated and underground sections.

Tongji didn't release the specific cost of the experimental line.

In the long run, the city has planned a subway network of 17 lines, totaling 810 kilometers. Currently, it has 82 kilometers of metro lines in operation.

(Shanghai Daily December 15, 2004 )