High-speed rail route set to arrive on time following Shanghai link-up

The construction of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail link, China's longest express rail route, has entered into its crucial final stage, with its bottleneck section in Shanghai's Jiading county's Anting town successfully linked-up late last month.

Some 1,000 workers from the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Fourth Harbor Engineering Co Ltd, one of the leading builders of the railway construction project, worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week on a rotational basis to ensure the process met its deadline. The overall project is due for completion in 2011, in time to begin operations in 2012.

High-speed rail travel, largely the preserve of countries such as Japan and France until the 1990s, is now sweeping across China. China's hi-speed network will be nearly as large as that of the rest of the world's put together when the 1,300 km Beijing to Shanghai line is completed.