China’s Ministry of Railways has approved the timetable of passenger and cargo services on the new Yichang-Wanzhou railway. Wanzhou, the second largest city in Chongqing municipality, is located about halfway between downtown Chongqing and Yichang, in the west of Hubei province. Both Yichang and Wanzhou will have six originating and eight transit services and the journey time between them will be two hours and 40 minutes. By comparison, a hovercraft service that currently operates between the cities takes six to seven hours. Prices for train tickets have yet to be announced, but are expected to be cheaper than that of the hovercraft which is around Rmb270.

The Yichang-Wanzhou line, an important part of the Shanghai-Chengdu Express Railway, was one of the world’s most technically challenging rail projects to construct, as more than 75 per cent of its length runs through mountainous terrain.