Reporters learned from railway authorities that the Beijing-Shijiazhuang and Shijiazhuang-Wuhan high-speed railways are currently under intense construction and a trip from Beijing to Guangzhou by train will only take 8 hours in 2012.
The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway that went under construction from June 2005 is an important part of the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway. It runs through Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong provinces, totaling about 1,068 kilometers. The opening of the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway reduces the travel time between the 2 cities to 3 hours from the original 10 hours.
According to the Wuhan Railway Bureau, the travel time between Beijing and Guangzhou has reduced to 21 hours from over 90 hours in the past, after passenger train speeds were increased several times. Following the opening of the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway and the construction of other high-speed railways in progress, the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway will serve as a main artery running through China from north to south in the future, and the trip from Beijing to Guangzhou will only take 8 hours. An "8-hour transport circle" that China is striving to build will gradually become a reality.
Zhang Shuguang, head of the Transportation Department of the Ministry of Railways, said that China will form a 1-8 hour transport circle, which has Beijing at its center and allows travel between Beijing and most provincial capitals in 1-8 hours. China will also build a transport circle that allows travel between central cities, such as Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Wuhan, and their surrounding cities in half an hour to 1 hour.
China's high-speed passenger transport network connects all provincial capitals and large cities with a population of over 500,000, and covers 90 percent of the population nationwide. It will significantly shorten the inter-city distances.
