China on September 29 opened its first cross-sea bullet train, linking major cities in the southeastern Fujian province.
The bullet trains — or high-speed rail (HSR) as they are called in China — will travel at the same 350 km per hour speed as other trains on the network.
The new track, which links five cities in Fujian, including capital Fuzhou and business-hub Xiamen, includes portions along a cross-sea bridge, running right across the strait from Taiwan. The over-sea segment covers around 20 km of the total 277 km route.
China’s HSR network is already the world’s largest. A further 2,500 km will be added to the network this year, taking the total length to 44,500 km, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, with plans to reach 50,000 km of HSR by 2025.
The entire network comprises newly built track to accommodate the faster bullet trains. The first route, connecting Beijing and Tianjin, went online in 2008.
The latest phase of expansion is covering China’s remote and sprawing western regions, with new tracks being opened in Tibet, Xinjiang and Sichuan.
The railways suffered a financial hit during three years of the stringent zero-COVID policy that had imposed restrictions on travel, but this year it is expecting a boom with the coming weeks marking the first national holiday “golden week” post-Covid, starting this weekend. The railways said they expect “190 million train trips to be taken from September 27 to October 8,” the SCMP reported.
