Xinhua, China’s national news agency, reports that China opened the world’s longest high speed rail line yesterday. Measuring more than 1,400 miles, or nearly 2,300 kilometers, the train connects the capital, Beijing, with Guangzhou, a commercial hub, in the south.
Average speeds for the rail line are approximately 300 km/h, the equivalent of 180 miles per hour. Prior to the train, which takes roughly 8 hours to cover the distance between the two cities, commuting from Beijing to Guangzhou was a 20 hour ordeal. An astonishing 155 trains per day will run on the lines, with a second class ticket costing 138 USD (865 Yuan). These trips are in addition to the cheaper, yet slower, existing lines that cost about half as much.
The addition of this new stretch brings the total high speed rail network to 9,300 kilometers, halfway to the 2015 goal of 18,000 km of dedicated high speed lines. This represents 15% of the total 120,000 kilometers of high speed rail planned by 2015.
CBS News offers the following video (which tellingly opened with a commercial for a heavy duty truck). They make the comparison for Americans of equating the distance traversed by the Chinese line to a trip from Boston to Miami.
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