There is no unified standard for naming railway lines in my country. There are many ways, roughly as follows:
1. Name them with one character each from the names of the two provinces where the starting and ending points are located. , this method is rare and is a conventional name, as is the case with the Qinghai-Tibet Line.
2. Name each of the two provinces where the starting and ending points are located with one character. This method is relatively common. Basically, it is some railways built before the founding of New China. , such as Zhejiang-Ganxi line, Hunan-Guizhou line, Anhui-Ganxi line, etc. Zhejiang is the abbreviation of Zhejiang, Guizhou is the abbreviation of Guizhou, and Anhui is the abbreviation of Anhui.
3. It is also relatively rare to name the city and province with one character each, such as Lanxin Line and Lanqing Line. Lan refers to Lanzhou, Xin refers to Xinjiang, and Qing refers to Qinghai.
4. Name each city with one character after the two cities where the origin and destination are located. This method is basically the current naming convention and is easy to understand, such as Beijing-Guangzhou Line, Beijing-Baotou Line, Beijing-Baotou Line, and Beijing-Guangzhou Line. Haxian et al. Jing is Beijing, Bao is Baotou, and Ha is Harbin. However, in addition to the Beijing-Harbin line taking the word "Ha" from Harbin, it generally takes the word "bin", such as Binzhou line, Labin line, Changbin line, Binsui line, etc.
5. Name the line after the city name and the abbreviation of the city name where the starting and ending points are located, such as Beijing-Shanghai Line, Yuhuai Line, Ningxi Line, Nanxun Line, etc. Hu is the abbreviation of Shanghai, Yu is the abbreviation of Chongqing, Ning is the abbreviation of Nanjing, and Xun is the abbreviation of Jiujiang. Some of the reasons why they are named this way are due to convention, and some may be for convenience of distinction. There are too many similarities between city names in China, such as Nanjing. If you use the character Nan, you will be confused with Nanchang and Nanning. If you use the character Jing, it will be difficult to distinguish it from Beijing. Replacing Nanjing with the abbreviation Ning can avoid these problems, but people who don't know the abbreviation of Nanjing as Ning may not understand it.
6. Name it after the abbreviations of the two cities where the starting and ending points are located, such as the Shanghai-Nanjing Line.
7. Name the line after the city name and place name where the starting and ending points are located, such as Jinpu Line. Jin refers to Tianjin, Pu refers to Pukou, and Pukou is just a district of Nanjing City. The reason why it was not called Jinning Line at that time was because Pukou and Nanjing were separated by the Yangtze River and there was no bridge connecting it. However, if we name it now, we will definitely follow the principle of choosing the bigger rather than the smaller, and call it the Jinning Line. For example, the connecting point of the Jingtong Line is actually in Changping, but Changping is a small place and belongs to Beijing, so it is named Jingtong Line. This happens quite often, such as the Baozhong Line, Xikang Line, etc.
8. Named after a place, usually a shorter branch line, such as Linyi North Line, Chengdu West Line, Wangtou Line, Beilun Line, Hegang Line, Shaoshan Line, etc.
9. Name it after a certain area, such as the Southern Xinjiang Line and the Northern Xinjiang Line.
Needless to say, the various naming methods of railway lines have brought a lot of inconvenience to people, or at least they are difficult to grasp. In particular, some old place names are no longer in use or have been renamed, but the railway line names are still used. People who do not understand the history and the evolution of place names must be confused.
The most typical example is the Longhai Railway from Lanzhou, Gansu to Lianyungang, Jiangsu. Why is it called the Longhai Railway? It’s a long story. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he divided the country into 36 counties. The southeastern region in Gansu Province now includes Beidi County and Longxi County among the 36 counties. It was not until the establishment of Gansu Xingzhongshu Province in the Yuan Dynasty that the name Gansu appeared. Therefore, the old Gansu was simply called Long. The sea in Longhai refers to Haizhou, which is now a district of Lianyungang City. However, there was no Lianyungang before 1961. At that time, it was called Xinhailian City. It was named after the three districts of Xinpu, Haizhou, and Lianyun. It originally belonged to Shandong Province. The railway was built in sections from east to west, reaching Haizhou in the east. , and reaches Lanzhou in the west. The entire line was not completed until 1953, so it was logical to name it Longhai Railway at that time.
After careful analysis, among these 9 naming methods, the most scientific, simple and clear is the 4th one. When building a new railway line, the naming of the railway line should be treated with caution. The naming should be scientific, standardized and clear at a glance.