New 360-km line takes China’s high-speed rail link to 20,000 km
10 Sep 2016
China on Friday opened a high-speed railway linking Zhengzhou in central China's Henan Province with Xuzhou in eastern Jiangsu Province, taking the country's high-speed rail network to over 20,000 kms.
The 360-km line which connects high-speed railway in the west with two major north-south lines, will cut travel time between Xi'an and Shanghai to six hours from nearly 11 hours at present.
There are nine stations on the line, which has trains running at speeds up to 300 km per hour.
Construction work on the line started in December 2012 and test operation started in April 2016.
With the commissioning of the new line, China's high-speed railway lines now extend across over 20,000 km, the world's longest.
China is competing with Japan to market the bullet train network in India and various other countries.
While Japan bagged the contract to build Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed train, China is conducting feasibility study to build the bullet train track between Chennai and New Delhi.