THE Jining-Tongliao railway in Inner Mongolia carried a total of 18.37 million tons of freight in 2006, up from 5.04 million tons in 1996 after its first year of operation.

According to Xinhua News Agency, the railway received funding from both Beijing and the territorial government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Construction of the railway started in 1990 and the line opened to traffic in December 1995.

In 2000, the operator of the railway added two branches to the line, and a third branch is expected to open to traffic later this year.

The Jining-Tongliao railway covers a distance of 1,150 kilometres, and is said to be an increasingly important route for coal transportation in China.