Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    RESIDENTS in Shenzhen will be able to take high-speed trains to Meizhou in northeastern Guangdong with the opening of the Meizhou-Shantou High-speed Railway, which is scheduled to open at the end of September.

    The high-speed rail was put under a joint test yesterday, the Shenzhen construction office of Guangzhou Railway Group Corp. said. The test focused on the performance of various systems, including rail, base, bridge, tunnel, power supply, communications and signals. 

    The railway will bring Guangdong’s eastern and northeastern cities into a three-hour living circle with Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

    The Meizhou-Shantou High-speed Railway runs 122 kilometers through seven stations and ends at Chaoshan Station, the interchange station with the Shenzhen-Xiamen High-speed Railway.

    Trains on the rail line can run at a speed of 250 kilometers per hour, and the trip between Shenzhen and Meizhou will be cut to 3.5 hours. Currently, it takes almost five hours to drive from Shenzhen to Meizhou and a train trip takes over six hours. 

    Meizhou and Heyuan are the last two prefecture-level cities in Guangdong without high-speed rail service.

    In 2020, when the Shenzhen-Ganzhou High-speed Railway is put into use, Heyuan will also have joined China’s high-speed rail network.

    Work on Meizhou-Shantou High-speed Railway started in August 2015.

    Meizhou has a population of 5.14 million. Being the hometown of Marshal Ye Jianying and Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, it is the most popular destination for road trips in Guangdong.

    Also known as the “Capital of Hakka in the World,” the city is home to millions of Hakka people, whose ancestors are believed to have moved from central China to the south centuries ago. With a long history and profound accumulation of Hakka heritage, it is both the final settlement place for the Hakka who moved south and the main departure place for the Hakka who have spread across the world since the Ming and Qing dynasties. There are 120 million Hakka people living in over 70 countries and regions, according to a 2014 report.