China plans to build 13,000 km (8,078 miles) of high-speed railway by 2012

The station costing more than 14 billion RMB yuan (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) was put into use on Dec. 20, 2009. It was the first station built for the Wuhan-Guangzhou high speed railway passenger special line.

China operated a high-speed railway network with a combined length of 7,531 kilometers, the world’s longest, said Chinese Railways Minister Liu Zhijun Tuesday while addressing the seventh World Congress on High Speed Rail held in Beijing, December 7, 2010.

Liu said China’s high-speed railways have been operating well, with reliable equipment and a good safety record. China’s high-speed rail network has been developing quickly in recent years.

A CRH380A train on last Friday set an operating speed record of 486.1 km per hour on a test run on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway. China plans to build 13,000 km (8,078 miles) of high-speed railway by 2012.

english.people.com.cn