High-speed train. Photo: VCG

The operation speed of high-speed railway connecting Beijing with Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province, will be gearing up to 350 kilometers an hour (km/h) in June, the China Railway announced on Friday. It will become the fifth high-speed rail in China that operates at such a speed.

Starting from June 20, the section linking Beijing with Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province will operate at 350 km/h. The section has passed trial test on May 13, marking an important achievement in building safety standard demonstration line of Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed rail. 

The test used Fuxing bullet train and high-speed integrated testing vehicle, with a comprehensive check on up-down track, bridge, telecommunication, signal and overhead line system. During the test, the train's speed once hit 385.1 km/h.

After the speed-up, the minimum transportation time from Beijing to Wuhan, a journey of around 1,330 kilometers, will be reduced to 3 hours and 48 minutes.

The current maximum operation speed of the Beijing-Guangzhou rail is 310 km/h. Among which, the Wuhan-Guangzhou section, opened in 2009, originally operated at 350 km/h and the speed has then been decreased to 300 km/h since 2011. The Beijing-Wuhan section, opened in 2012, operates between 300 and 310 km/h. 

Construction of the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed rail, with a total length of 2,300 kilometers, was completed in December 2012. The rail has transported 1.6 billion passengers to date. 

Currently, there are only four high-speed rails in China operating at 350 km/h, mostly in short-distance travel. They're Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail, Beijing-Tianjin intercity rail, Chengdu-Chongqing high-speed rail, and certain parts of Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed rail. The Beijing-Guangzhou rail is also the longest in terms of travel distance.  

Except maglev, 350 km/h is the fastest speed in the world in land transportation, and China's high-speed rail is also the world's fastest. 

More high-quality standard trains and Fuxing bullet trains will operate between Beijing and Wuhan starting from June 20. Ticket will be sold based on market price, starting from 410 yuan ($60.4). 

Ye Yangsheng, the chief engineer at China Railway, was quoted as saying in a statement China Railway sent to the Global Times on Friday that it is a complicated and systematic project to promote the normalization of high-speed rail operating at 350 km/h, factoring into technical condition, market demand, operating cost and environment renovation. 

The section connecting Wuhan with Guangzhou has operated for a relatively long time, "with more tunnels, more impact from external environment, and more track defects," China Railway said, noting that it will conduct comprehensive improvement on the section to pave way for speeding up.

Among China's high-speed rails with a designed speed of 350 km/h, there are still over 20 lines that are yet to reach the designed speed, news website jiemian.com reported.

Global Times