The Beijing Subway will be getting longer with the opening of 3 new sections at the end of December 2012. David Feng wrote a good summary of the new lines over at City Weekend.

The good news is that Line 8 is reopening with a longer northern extension towards Huilongguan, interchanging with Line 13 at Huoying. Line 15 is also extended, and there’s a brand new Line 9 which connects the Fangshan Line to Beijing West Railway Station. Line 9 and the Fangshan Line are still isolated from the rest of the subway system: you’ll need to take a bus from Beijing West Railway Station to Military Museum station on Line 1.

Here’s a map highlighted the newly opened lines: click to expand. Look out for updated versions of our interactive subway map and Beijing Subway iPhone app when the new lines open.

Shanghai Metro Line 22 will connect Shanghai South Railway Station with Jinshan, home of the closest sandy beach to downtown Shanghai. Not that it will likely be beach-going weather when the line opens in late December, 2011.

The new line will have 9 stations, connecting with Line 1 and 3 at Shanghai Railway Station, and Line 1 and Line 5 at a new transport hub at Xinzhuang in Minghang District. The line then heads south into Songjiang and Jinshan Districts. The stations, from north to south:

• 上海南站 Shanghai South Railway Station (interchange with Line 1 and Line 3)
• 莘庄 Xinzhuang (interchange with Line 1 and Line 5)
• 春申 Chunshen
• 新桥 Xinqiao
• 闵西 Minxi
• 叶榭 Yexie
• 亭林 Tinglin
• 阮巷 Ruanxiang
• 金山 Jinshan

Three new items which caught our eye

• Remember the guy who shouted BOMB! on a crowded metro train? He’s been jailed for 18 months
• Some Shanghai bus stops are getting displays to tell you when the next bus is coming
• Hold on to your iPhones while the doors are closing to avoid grab-and-run thefts

The “Sinbundang Line” or “DX Line” has opened to the public in Seoul. The line provides a quick route from Gangnam station to the Bundang area, taking a more direct route than the Bundang Line. It’s colored red on the map below.

Chris Backe has some handy hints about the new line. We’ve submitted an update to our Seoul Metro iPhone app and it should be available soon!

• Zhuxinzhuang 朱辛庄 (Changping Line)
• Pingxifu 平西府
• Huoying 霍营 (Line 13)
• Xisanqi 西三旗
• Xisanqi South 西三旗南
• Yongtai 永泰
• Lincui Lu 林萃路
• South Gate of Forest Park 森林公园南门
• Olympic Green 奥林匹克公园
• Olympic Sports Center 奥体中心
• Beitucheng 北土城 (Line 10)

The Singapore MRT’s Circle Line new extension will open tomorrow, October 8. The new stations extend the line from Marymount to Harbourfront where you can interchange with the North-East Line. There’s another new interchange at Buona Vista with the East-West Line.

An update for our Explore Singapore MRT map is now available on the iTunes App Store. It’s a free update for all users who have purchased the app in the past! Our online map www.exploresg.com has also been updated with the new stations.

Note this is a beta release - we don’t yet have some information for the new stations, such as first/last train times and journey costs. We’ll provide a new update as soon as we get this information added.

• Shanghaiist has a good round-up of news after the crash on Shanghai’s Metro Line 10. Power failure and human error are said to have caused the crash.
• In Beijing, a new interchange passageway has shortened transfer times at the notoriously slow Xizhimen station
• Singapore’s Circle Line will be extended, with the official opening on October 8. We’ll blog about the changes to Explore Singapore later in the week.

• Two roads in downtown Shanghai (Qufu Road and Damuqiao Road) close to make way for Line 12 metro construction
• On October 2 you’ll be able to take free rides on Singapore’s expanded Circle Line. The official opening is October 8.
• Read a review of our iPhone apps on SimonBlog

Happy Mid-Autumn festival to all ExploreMetro fans! Here’s a special holiday treat for you metro-lovers. We’ve made an anagrammed version of the 2011 Shanghai Metro map, scrambling the letters of the English names of all stations for comic effect.

Click below for the full PDF metro map, here are some of our favorites:

• Haha, brainy girls = Shanghai Library
• Huge Shoe healing Communist Ascendancy  = Shanghai Science and Technology Museum
• Mouse came up arse = Aerospace Museum
• Odd anagram = Madang Road

Back in 2008 I created the first anagrammed map of the Shanghai Metro. Since then the Shanghai Metro has added lots of new stations and lines and is now the longest metro system in the world, so I thought it was about time to bring the anagram map up to date!

Note for pedants: I used the common English name of the station as posted on signboards, spelling out directions e.g. South Lingyan Road. For some challenging stations (particularly the ones with lots of Xs and Zs I added “station” e.g. Dongjing Station -> Standing, I jog not.)

The Shanghai Metro company announced that Shanghai Metro Line 2 will have increased service from Thursday 1st September!

More frequent trains!

• On the central part of the line. trains will now run every 3.5 minutes, down from 4 minutes
• On the eastern part of the line, trains between Guanglan Road and Pudong International Airport will run every 8 minutes, down from 9.5 minutes
• On the western part of the line, trains between Songhong Road to East Xujing Station via Hongqiao Airport will run every 6.5 minutes, down from 10 minutes

• Trains to Pudong International Airport will run for 90 minutes more each day: new service hours are 6am to 10pm.
• Extra trains from Guanglan Road to Yuandong Avenue, running until 10.42pm
• Two extra trains from Hongqiao Railway Station and Hongqiao Airport to Longyang Road, departing at 11.04pm and 11.20pm