Zhuzhou in C China's Hunan establishes 100-billion rail transit industrial cluster

Zhuzhou city in central China's Hunan Province is hailed as the "cradle of China's electric locomotives." With its expertise in algorithms, devices, and materials, CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co., Ltd., which is based in the city, has turned into a hub for technological achievements in recent years.

It developed the traction and control systems of China's Fuxing bullet train, which debuted in June 2017.

Photo shows the electric manufacturing center of CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co., Ltd. in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province. (People's Daily Online/Xiang Yu)

Inside the company's electric manufacturing center, industrial robots shuttled back and forth, efficiently distributing materials, while workers orderly carried out their tasks at the production lines.

They were producing traction converters. Xie Mingming, senior supervisor of the center's manufacturing technology department, said the traction converter is the vital core of the Fuxing train, serving as the train's power transmission system, comparable to a car engine.

The traction converter has been utilized in various projects, including trains running on the Lhasa-Nyingchi Railway in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, and the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway.

Equipped with more than 20 advanced production lines, the center achieves annual output worth more than 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion). It has the capacity to meet the production requirements of 200 Fuxing trains, 1,000 standard subway trains, and 840 heavy-duty locomotives every year.

Workers at the electric manufacturing center of CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co., Ltd. in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province. (People's Daily Online/Xiang Yu)

In January 2019, the National Advanced Rail Transit Equipment Innovation Center was approved in Zhuzhou. This center is the country's only national-level manufacturing innovation hub in the rail transit industry.

Over the past four years, the center has collaborated with leading companies in the field to overcome more than 20 technological challenges. This has facilitated the rapid transformation of technologies to marketable products.

A worker demonstrates laser cleaning at the National Advanced Rail Transit Equipment Innovation Center in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan Province. (People's Daily Online/Xiang Yu)

"Currently, more than 400 upstream and downstream enterprises in the advanced rail transit industry have settled in Zhuzhou," said Dai Zhenxing, director of the Zhuzhou advanced rail transit equipment industry chain general office.

Within a 5-kilometer radius in Zhuzhou, it is possible to gather over 10,000 components needed for the production of bullet trains during a short coffee break, according to Dai.