China's bullet train to cut Beijing-Shanghai travel by 13 hrs

BEIJING: Chinese railway is all set to test its bullet train in the longest Beijing-Shanghai rail corridor next month, which is expected to cut the travel between the two cities by 13 hours.

The 1,318-km link will cut the journey between Shanghai and Beijing, separated by over 1300 km, to less than five hours from the current 18 hours, state-run Shanghai Daily reported.

The new line, which will open to the public on June 20, has been designed with a travel speed of 350kph and above. A train logged 486.1kph during a previous test on a stretch between Shandong and Anhui provinces last year.

It is not yet known how much the tickets will cost. Flights between Shanghai and Beijing cost around 1,200 yuan (USD 185) at present with a journey time of one and a half hours.

The Shanghai-Beijing bullet train project is said to have cost 220.9 billion yuan (USD 33.6 billion), the highest expenditure on a national infrastructure project to date.

Significantly, the fast rail line between the two cities touted as the most prestigious, is being opened after the recent sacking of China's longstanding Railway Minister, Liu Zhijun in connection with a probe into suspected corruption.

Liu said last month that another 700 billion yuan (USD 106 billion) would be invested in construction this year to build more high-speed links and improve facilities.

China is also aggressively marketing its high speed rail technology in other countries. Recent reports said Chinese high speed railway may make forays in Britain as the UK government has evinced interest besides California.