China ushers in era of high-speed trains

Wednesday marked the beginning of the high-speed era for China, with 140 pairs of trains with speeds of at least 200 kph hitting the railways nationwide. By the end of the year, the number is expected to increase to 257, a Xinhua report said.

The first train, numbered D460, left Shanghai at 5:38 am and arrived in Suzhou, which is 85 kilometers away, 39 minutes later. Sixty-seven people paid the 24 yuan (2.28 euros) fare to become the first batch of passengers on the high-speed train. On ordinary trains, the highest ticket price was only about 13 yuan (1.23 euros).

The trains will all have CRH (for China Railway High-speed) painted on their bodies. Each car will also have its own power supply system, unlike ordinary cars which are towed by a locomotive, Shanghai Daily said.

According to Xinhua, the event marks the beginning of the sixth "speed boost" of Chinese railways, which is a cheap transportation link between the regions of the vast nation.

AP reports that on some routes, the top speed will reach up to 250 kph, cutting travel time between some cities dramatically. The trip between Beijing and Shanghai, for example, will take only nine hours, instead of eleven. And what was originally a 38-hour trip between Guangzhou and Chongqing would be lessened by 7 hours.

China will also update its tracks to allow for faster speeds and expand its network. Railway officials say that Chinese trains carried a quarter of the world's railway freight and passengers last year, although the country only had 6 percent of the global total of railways by length.

China only has 67,500 kilometers of railway lines, and boosting speed is seen as the best way to increase capacity in a country where land availability is growing tighter.

Vice Railways Minister Hu Yadong said that the speed increase would raise passenger capacity by more than 18 percent and freight capacity by more than 12 percent.