World's longest high-speed rail line takes smooth test run

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- China put the 2,298-km Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway, the world's longest, into a test operation on Saturday.

Running at an average speed of 300 km per hour, it only took two and a half hours for the train to cover the 693 km distance from Beijing to Zhengzhou, the northern section of the whole route that links the country's capital and the southern economic hub.

Aboard the new train, more than 100 domestic and foreign reporters were invited to test run the rail line.

Zhou Li, director general of science and technology with the Ministry of Railways (MOR), also aboard, told passengers that he was confident in the country's railway technologies.

"We will keep tracking the condition of equipment in real time and report potential risks immediately," Zhou said to reporters.

The railway authorities have taken a string of targeted measures to guarantee a safe trip, such as intensifying the maintenance of fixed equipment and mobile devices on board and improving the control system to address possible problems under extreme weather, he added.

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