Construction work began on 26 March of a high-speed passenger railway between the provincial capitals of Changsha, Hunan province, and Kunming, Yunnan province.

The 1,167km railway will be designed for trains travelling at 250 kph, and will form part of the Shanghai-Kunming Passenger Railway. When the line is completed, travel time between Kunming and Changsha is expected to be reduced to only four hours from currently nearly 23 hours.

“The Changsha-Kunming railway will help improve transport between central and southwest China, and it will also beef up connections between the southwest with the prosperous east coast,” said Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang.