The Ministry of Railways pledged yesterday to begin work on the high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai this year.

 

The railway has been approved by the State Council and construction will be launched soon, Wang Yongping, the ministry's spokesman said.

 

The design of a train capable of driving multiple sleepers at a cruising speed of 200 kms per hour -- with a top speed of 350 kms per hour -- will be completed this year before going into production, according to the ministry.

 

The ministry had planned to begin construction in 2006 and have high-speed trains running by 2010.

 

A report by China Business Times last week said that work on the railway appears to have been delayed due to the original budget being close to 50 percent too low.

 

Originally expected to require an investment of 130 billion yuan (US$16.7 billion), the Shanghai-Beijing Express Railway may now top 200 billion yuan (US$25.7 billion) in costs, reported the newspaper.

 

According to the ministry, trains on the Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway will reach speeds of up to 350 kms per hour, slashing the nine-hour trip to just five.

 

The trains now in service between China's two largest cities have a speed limit of between 140 and 160 kms per hour.

 

Meanwhile, the prices of train tickets will not rise as has been the norm since 2002 during the upcoming Spring Festival holidays, the spokesman announced yesterday.

 

The train ticket prices for travel between February 3 and March 14 would remain the same as usual.

 

"This will be true in the next few years, too," Wang said.

 

An hour after the news was published on the Web yesterday afternoon, many netizens had applauded the decision.

 

As one of the country's main means of intercity transportation, the country's railways are always crowded during the Spring Festival season.

 

Starting in 2002, the ministry tried to "streamline" the number of passengers by raising prices by up to 20 percent.

 

However, the measure failed and also drew travelers' fury.

 

Hao Jinsong, a 34-year-old law school student at the China University of Political Science and Law, actually sued the ministry in January 2006 in a bid to stop it from raising the prices of tickets during the Spring Festival but failed after two hearings.

 

In his latest effort, he wrote a letter to the ministry urging against the price hike for the Spring Festival, which falls on February 18, according to a report in Beijing Times.

 

Refusing to comment on any connection between Hao's campaign and the decision to not hike the price this year, Wang said the ministry had decided to stop the practice because it would prove popular with passengers.

 

The railways are expected to carry 156 million passengers during the 40 days between February 3 and March 14, an increase of 4.3 percent over last year.

 

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2007)