What’s New: China’s newest high-speed rail line has officially launched, connecting the capital Beijing with the new city of Xiongan to the south in Hebei province.
A trip on the 91-kilometer line will take as little as 50 minutes, with trains traveling up to 300 kilometers per hour. Travel from Xiongan to Daxing International Airport, which opened last year as Beijing’s second major airport and lies in the middle of the line, will take as little as 19 minutes.
Tickets for ordinary second-class seats will start at 48 yuan ($7.50) each.
What’s the background: Plans to develop the Xiongan New Area were first announced in 2017, as part of a government plan to ease the burden on Beijing through development of a large parallel city to the south.
The high-speed rail link, which cost about 33.5 billion yuan, is a crucial part of the new city’s infrastructure, making it easily accessible to the capital. The line’s current southern terminus will eventually be extended more than another 500 kilometers to the city of Shangqiu in Henan province.
Contact reporter Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)
