Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    THE Futian Station in CBD started operating two pairs of high-speed trains to Changsha, capital city of Hunan Province, starting yesterday, the first day of a new national railway operation schedule, a release from the Guangzhou Railway Group Corp. said yesterday.

    This is the first interprovincial high-speed train route from the Futian Station since it was put into service at the end of last year.

    Trains G6028/3 and G6018/5 depart from Futian at 11:56 a.m. and 6:32 p.m. each day. It takes three and a half hours for the trip. The trains don’t stop at the Shenzhen North Railway Station.

    The fares are 730 yuan (US$116) for VIP seats, 612 yuan for first-class seats and 397 yuan for second-class seats.

    On the new schedule, train D2325/04 from the Shenzhen North Railway Station to the Fuzhou South Station will be extended to Wuyishan East Station, which will make travel from Shenzhen to the tourist spot Wuyi Mountain easier.

    In another development, train Z230, the first direct express train linking Shenzhen and Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, departed from the Shenzhen Railway Station in Luohu District at 9:30 a.m. yesterday, carrying 600 passengers.

    It will arrive at Urumqi at 9:47 a.m. tomorrow. The whole trip takes 48 hours and 17 minutes and covers a distance of 4,600 kilometers, the Shenzhen Railway Station said yesterday.

    The fares are 714.5 yuan for a soft sleeper and 423.5 yuan for a hard sleeper. The train will pass through Xining, Zhangye, Jiayuguan, Liuyuan, Hami and Turfan, well-known tourist cities in China.

    The new train service, the third-longest route in China, is an adjustment that the Guangzhou Railway Group Corp. has adopted according to the new national railway operation schedule, the biggest schedule change for China’s railway system over the past 10 years.

    The longest route is the route between Guangzhou and Lhasa, which covers 4,980 kilometers and takes 52 hours and 41 minutes.

    Trains Z384/5 and Z386/3 from Changchun to Guangzhou will be extended to Sanya, Hainan Province. Travelers from Changchun don’t need to change trains to Sanya for their trip of 4,426 kilometers, which takes about 51 hours.