High-Speed Rail Service to Kunming Ready to Roll

High-speed rail service to the southwestern city of Kunming will begin on Wednesday, adding scenic and mountainous Yunnan province to the nation’s growing bullet-train network. Service will initially connect Kunming with the nearby cities of Guiyang and Changsha, and be expanded to the larger cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the first half of January. Trips on the 2,252-km line between Shanghai and Kunming will reduce travel times to just over 11 hours, compared with the previous 34 hours. The line will be the longest east-west corridor in China’s growing high-speed rail network, and cost more than 300 billion yuan ($43 billion). From Shanghai the line will pass through Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guizhou provinces before reaching Yunnan, which borders Myanmar. The line will be able to handle 30 million passengers per year initially. Tickets are expected to sell for a starting price of 800 to 900 yuan.