Trials start on first high-speed railway in China's mountainous Fujian Province

FUZHOU, June 30 -- The first high-speed railway in China's coastal mountainous Fujian Province began trials Tuesday, local authorities said.

The railway, linking Fujian's capital Fuzhou and Wenzhou City in neighbouring Zhejiang Province, began trials at 8:36 a.m. in Fuzhou. This is the first railway linking the two provinces, said an official with the Fujian Development and Reform Commission.

The railway will be formally put into use in October, the official said.

The 298.4-kilometer-long railway costs 12.66 billion yuan (1.85billion U.S. dollars) to build. Nearly 230 kilometers are in Fujian.

The railway has a design speed of 200 to 250 kilometers per hour for passenger trains, and the journey between the two cities will be shortened from five hours to two hours. Construction began in August 2005.

The new line will be an important section of China's coastal railway artery. The other two railway lines in the project, including one rail linking Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province and Xiamen City in Fujian, and the other linking Fuzhou and Xiamen, are still under construction and are expected to be finished in 2010 and 2009 respectively.

"By then, the railways will stretch along China's booming southeast coast, linking the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas, China's two biggest economic powerhouses," said Yu Xuanming, deputy general manager of the Southeast Coast Railway Fujian Co. Ltd., the railway operator.