Guizhou-Guangzhou high-speed railway to open at end of 2014

The Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railway will be ready for operation by the end of the year, connecting the mountainous Southwest China city with the South China metropolis.

By then, it will only take two hours from Guiyang, Guizhou province, to Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and four hours to Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

Chai Qiangduo, a spokesman of Guiyang-Guangzhou High-speed Railway Company, said on Thursday that the construction of the railway is now in its final stage.

The Guiyang-Guilin section of the railway will be the first to begin a test run on Aug 1, followed by the Guiling-Zhaoqing section on Sept 1 and the Zhaoqing-Guangzhou section on Nov 1, Chai said.

As a key project in China's planned rail network, the Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railway stretches 857 km and runs at a speed of 250 km per hour.

The railway marks a new era for Guizhou province, which makes the exchange between Guizhou and the Pearl River Delta more convenient, Chai said.

"With the Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railway put into use, railways of Chongqing-Guiyang, Chengdu-Guiyang, Shanghai-Kunming will also start construction. Guiyang will become a transportation hub linking cities in the Pearl River Delta and southern China," he added.