The first railway in Yunnan, the Kunming–Hanoi Railway (Sino-Vietnamese Railway), dates back to 1910. In 1941, American-supported construction began on the English Yunnan–Burma Railway, but this was aborted due to Japanese advances. The building of railways in Yunnan is difficult due to rugged terrain locally and in neighboring provinces. The rugged terrains requires rail lines to have extensive bridges and tunnels which adds to construction cost. Yunnan is one of the poorest provinces in China and the construction of railways is capital intensive. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Yunnan Province has experienced two periods of railway construction—from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s and from the mid-1990s to the present, which have connected the province with the national rail network and expanded the provincial rail network. At present, railways in operation in Yunnan include:

Yunnan–Vietnam Railway 855 km (531 mi) including 466 km (290 mi) in Yunnan, completed in 1910

Guiyang–Kunming Railway 640 km (398 mi), completed in 1966

Chengdu–Kunming Railway 1,134 km (705 mi), completed in 1970

Nanning–Kunming Railway 898.7 km (558 mi), completed in 1997

Neijiang–Kunming Railway 872 km (542 mi), completed in parts in 1960, 1965 and 2001

Pan County West Railway 136.3 km (85 mi), completed in part in 1975

Kunming–Yuxi Railway 55.5 km (34 mi), completed in 1993

Guangtong–Dali Railway 213 km (132 mi), completed in 1998

Dali–Lijiang Railway 165 km (103 mi), completed in 2009

Mengzi–Hekou Railway or Menghe Railway,completed in 2014

The current network is centered around Kunming and most extensive in eastern Yunnan with outlets to Guizhou and on to the Yangtze River valley and Guangxi and on to the South China coast.

Since the late 1990s, the railway network in Yunnan has undergone considerable track upgrade and electrification to boost carrying capacity. Expansion projects include:

Lijiang–Shangri-La Railway from Lijiang to Shangri-La (Zhongdian), construction began in 2010.

Yunnan to Guilin – construction to start next year and finish in 2015

A rail line around Dianchi Lake: scheduled for completion in 2010

Guangtong to Dali electrification

Kunming to Yuxi: construction to start next year and finish in 2015

High-speed rail[edit]

Several high-speed rail projects have been planned for Yunnan. The high-speed Shanghai–Kunming Passenger Dedicated Line, scheduled to be completed in 2015, is expected to shorten the travel time between Shanghai and Kunming from 37 hours to less than nine hours. This line follows the same route as the existing Shanghai–Kunming Railway from Shanghai on the East China Sea to Kunming via Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan province, passing through the major cities of Hangzhou, Nanchang and Changsha. The cross-country line is part of a nationwide rail upgrade that has allocated 500 million yuan (US$73.2 million) in funds for Yunnan province alone.[1] The original target speed of 350 km/h for the line is faster than that of France's TGV and Japan's Shinkansen which currently operate at 320 and 300 km/h, respectively. In the wake of the Wenzhou high-speed train collision on July 23, 2011 however, the China's Ministry of Railways has lowered the speeds of nearly all high-speed lines in operations and under construction.

International rail connections[edit]

Main article: Trans-Asian Railway

Yunnan province is also expanding the provincial rail network to neighboring Southeast Asian countries. In the east, the Yuxi–Mengzi Railway (141 km (88 mi)), under construction since 2005, and the Mengzi–Hekou Railway (140 km (87 mi)), under construction since 2008, will form a standard gauge railway connection with Vietnam. In the west, the Dali–Ruili Railway (336.387 km (209 mi)), under construction since May 2011, is expected to extend rail service to the border with Myanmar. In the center, under planning is a rail line from Yuxi to Mohan, in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, on the border with Laos. This line could be extended further south to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.