Beijing-Shanghai rail line to be finished in 2010

Beijing, Apr 3: A high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai will go into operation in 2010, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.

Xinhua cited the Ministry of Railways as saying construction of the line, approved last month, would begin soon and would take around five years to complete.

The new rail line will run at speeds of up to 350 km per hour (220 mph), cutting the trip between the capital and the country's financial centre to five hours, Xinhua said.

The fastest passenger trains between the two cities currently take about 12 hours to complete their journey.

Xinhua last month cited railways minister Liu Zhijun as saying the project would integrate some foreign technology but would rely mostly on domestic technology.

The National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning agency, said last month the 1,320 km (820 mile) project would use conventional wheel-on-rail high-speed train technology, not magnetic levitation.

It said a limited company would be set up specifically to construct the project, for which capital from domestic and foreign private investors would be welcome.

Separately, the State Council, or cabinet, last month also approved a high-speed magnetic levitation train line between the eastern cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou.

Xinhua said the Shanghai-Hangzhou project would use ''some German technology'' that levitates a train above a magnetic track, allowing it to speed at 430 km an hour (270 mph), but that the equipment would be mainly made in China.

That would most likely point to the maglev technology produced by Transrapid, which groups ThyssenKrupp, Siemens A.G.

and the German government.

Transrapid already operates such a line in Shanghai.

Reuters