From BBC Business News: China has officially opened the world's longest high-speed rail route, linking the capital Beijing with the southern commercial hub of Guangzhou (Canton). The first bullet train left Beijing on Wednesday morning. Trains will initially travel at 300km/h (187mph), more than halving travel time.
A Chinese official has described the route - parts of which were already in operation - as "one of the most technically advanced in the world".
The 2,298km route will have 35 stops. They include such major cities as Wuhan and Changsha. The previously 22-hour journey will now take less than 10 hours.
I can speak from experience here. I took the bullet train from Shanghai to Beijing and the train hit its top speed of over 300 km/h regularly but the journey had loads of stops! But in Chin, when the doors open at a stop, you get about 60 seconds to get on and then the doors close and the train ramps it up to top speed very quickly! The overall time for my journey was over 5 hours I think, which covering nearly 800 miles is quite incredible. That’s double the distance from Glasgow to London, but in half the time.
Virgin Rail takes 4 hours 40 minutes to cover the 400 miles from Glasgow to London, so I think with all their crowing, Virgin still have to up their game in order to match the industrious Chinese.
It looks like most of the world’s greatest engineering projects of the 21st Century are going to be built by China. Will the dream of London to Beijing by high speed rail ever happen? I am now coming round to thinking yes!
#china #highspeedrail #bullettrain
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