Li Ping, a fan of Shanghai Metro, shows off his collection of Metro ticket samples, including some which never made it to the market, at the Jinjiang Amusement Park Station yesterday. |
As train No. 101 inched toward the Jinjiang Amusement Park Station on Metro Line 1 at 10am yesterday, technician Liu Xujun and engineer Huangfu Xiaoyan complimented each other amid a flurry of flash bulbs around them.
The cameras were around to capture an historic occasion.
It was the same train that was put into service 20 years ago when the Shanghai Metro became operational.
It then covered a distance of 6.6-kilometers from the city's Xujiahui area to Jinjiang Amusement Park, which was the train terminal.
"Twenty years ago, you came to us with the translated scripts of the blueprints and we talked how to maintain and repair the trains," Liu told the engineer.
"Now a young man has become a middle-aged person."
Both of them are growing old with the Shanghai Metro, which is coming on its own as well.
Twenty years since that historic start, Metro line construction is picking up in the suburban areas. Each year the city lays out about 30 kilometers of track, which is still considered moving at "a fast pace."
Three extended sections of Metro lines will be operational this year. The current Metro lines stretches 430 kilometers in total.
The future development of subways in Shanghai must take into account the entire development of the city, the Shanghai Metro Authority said.
A lot of projects are still underway as it rides on the fast track of development.
"We should take a long-term view," said Gu Weihua, the vice-president of Shanghai Shentong Metro Group, the subway investor, builder and operator.
"The passenger estimate figure is not enough. We should consider the future passenger increases as well as the urban and rural development."
White angels in Chongqing South West Hospital