A Fuxing bullet train commences a test operation along the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway on September 4, 2023. Photo: VCG

The Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railway will raise its operating speed to 300 kilometers per hour from 250 kilometers per hour starting on Wednesday. 

The move will shorten the travel time between Southwest China and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and it represents another step in China's railway development, according to a report by cnr.cn.

Operation of the 857-kilometer high-speed railway linking Southwest China's Guizhou Province to South China's Guangdong Province began in 2014, and due to the complex terrain with mountains and hills, the initial speed of the railway was restricted at no more than 250 kilometers per hour. The upgrading was started in December 2022, which raises its operating speed to 300 kilometers per hour and shortens the travel time between Guiyang and Guangzhou to three hours 39 minutes.

The average speed of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which passes through largely plain terrain, is 350 kilometers per hour.

China is continuously ramping up the construction of express railways. China Railway Co invested 432 billion yuan ($59.2 billion) in the first eight months of 2023, up 7.2 percent from last year, according to the company's Weibo account. The country plans to put 2,500 kilometers of high-speed railways into operation this year.

In North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the first continuous beam in the Baotou-Yinchuan high-speed railway's Yinchuan-Bayanhaote branch line was completed on October 5, establishing a solid foundation for subsequent construction, the People's Daily reported.

The Tianzhu Mountain channel in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, as one of the difficult points of the Xi'an-Shiyan high-speed railway, made a breakthrough on tunneling 3 kilometers on September 30. 

The Xi'an-Shiyan high-speed railway will shorten the travel time between the two interior cities to around one hour from more than five hours, according to Xinhua.

The Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway, also China's first sea-crossing high-speed railway with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour, began commercial operation on September 28.


Global Times