中国铁路进入高速时代

SHANGHAI -- A train designed to run at a speed of 200 km per hour left east China's Shanghai for Suzhou early Wednesday morning, ushering in a high-speed era for the world's fastest growing economy.

Brand new homemade high-speed trains CRH are seen at a railway station in Jinan, east China's Shandong Province, April 12, 2007. The CRH trains which could run at least 200km per hour, will serve on high speed routes between major cities after the sixth nationwide railway speedup from April 18. [Xinhua]

Nationwide, 140 pairs of high-speed trains with a speed of 200 km per hour or a faster speed will begin to hit the railways on Wednesday. The number will increase to 257 by the end of this year.

Numbered D460, the train left Shanghai at 5:38 a.m. and is expected to arrive in Suzhou 39 minutes later.

Wednesday marks the the beginning of the sixth "speed boost" of Chinese railways, which has been hard-pressed to cope with the country's hunger for bigger transport capacity.

Chinese railway officials said last year, China fulfilled a quarter of the world's total railway transport volume on railways accounting for only 6 percent of the world's total length.

"The sixth speed lift will boost passenger capacity and cargo capacity by over 18 percent and over 12 percent respectively," said Hu Yadong, vice-minister of railways.