China launched service on the world’s longest high-speed railway on Wednesday with trains scheduled to run 2,298 kilometres between Beijing and Guangzhou in about eight hours.
The first high-speed “bullet” train left the Chinese capital for Guangzhou, a major city in southern China, early Wednesday morning.
Travelling at an average speed of about 300 km per hour, the service would cut the journey time from more than 20 hours by conventional trains, state media said.
The opening of the Beijing-Guangzhou line brought China’s total length of operational high-speed railways to more than 9,300 km, reports said
