Railways Minister Liu Zhijun according to official media said the high-speed train system linking Beijing and Shanghai will be put into operation in June.
Travel time between the two cities is expected to be cut to less than five hours from the current 10 hours.
Domestically made high-speed trains will travel the 1,318-kilometer line at speeds of up to 380 km per hour. This is not encouraging news for short haul airlines servicing this route.
Beijing News reports that on December 3, a China-made CRH-380A train set a new China speed record of 486.1 km per hour on a test run on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway.