China flags off Beijing-Shanghai bullet train

China on Thursday flagged off its much talked about high-speed bullet trains linking Beijing and Shanghai ahead of friday's 90th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

The train cuts the travel time of the 1,318-km route to just 5 hours, half of what it took previously.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao travelled by the first train to Shanghai after formally flagging if off in Beijing.

The train links China's prosperous Pan-Bohai and Yangtze River Delta economic zones, cutting the train-travel time between the two cities to under five hours.

The bullet trains were currently being operated between several Chinese cities. However, Beijing-Shanghai covers the longest distance.

The Beijing-Shanghai train track was laid at the cost 215 billion yuan ($32.5 billion). A one-way ticket on this route will cost $63-270. It is expected to carry 80 million passengers a year.

The train travels at a maximum operating speed of about 300 kph (185 mph) instead of originally targeted 350 kph (216 mph) for safety reasons.

The train was also launched amid reports that the costs involved in running high speed trains, which also needed special tracks were driving the railway into heavy debt.

China has the world's longest high-speed rail (HSR) network with about 8,358 kilometres of routes in service as of January 2011 including 2,197 km (1,365 mi) of rail lines with top speeds of 350 km/h (220 mph).

Write ups in official media in Beijing quoted the National Audit Office, as saying that the Railway Ministry was burdened with 1.3 trillion yuan ($200 billion) in debt in 2009 due to expenditure being incurred on the high speed tracks.

The Chinese government is going ahead with massive expansion of the high speed trains with new plans to expand the network to 13,000 km of track this year and 16,000 km by 2020.

The trains are also putting pressure on country's domestic airlines forcing to radically slash their ticket fares.

The electric bullet train, CRH-380A has been designed by China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited (CSR) and manufactured by CSR Qingdao Sifang Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co.

CRH-380A is one of the four Chinese train series, which have been designed to run at an operating speed of 380 km/hr (236 mph) on newly constructed high-speed railway network.

By 2012, China will have more high-speed train tracks than the rest of the world.

China has plans to extend its high speed rail network to northern Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

China also has ambitious plans to extend its high-speed rail network to Europe.