The new service will cut the travel time between these cities by more than six hours. The train reached a maximum speed of 394.2 km per hour during trail runs that begun on December 9. The commercial operation was launched today with two trains covering the distance while passing through 20 different cities along the route.
The high speed line will use technology developed in co-operation with foreign firms such as Siemens, Bombardier and Alstom, sources said.
The new service is expected to act as a catalyst in the development of central China that includes backward areas like Xianning by linking it to the highly developed Pearl River Delhi, which is an industrial hub in south China.
Chinese railway authorities pointed out that the average speed of the high-speed railways is 243 km per hour in Japan, 232 km per hour in Germany and 277 km per hour in France.The era of high speed railway began in China in 2004 when Guangzhou was linked to Shenzhen, both in Guangdong Province, with a train traveling at 160 km per hour. This was followed by the launch of a high-speed line linking the capital with the port city of Tianjin at the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The government recently announced it plans to build 42 high-speed lines by 2012 in order to spur economic growth amid the global downturn. China has unveiled a massive rail development program, considered to be the world’s biggest plan outside the United States. The goal is to take the rail network from the current 86,000 kilometers to 120,000 kilometers.
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