The longest railway line in the world opened on Wednesday. The line joins China's capital Beijing with the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. The line is 2,298 kilometers long and stretches across half of China. The first train left Beijing station at 9 a.m. and arrived in Guangzhou eight hours later. The super-fast train travels at an average speed of 300 kph and cuts the journey time from 20 hours to just eight. It stops at 35 different cities along its route. A total of 310 trains will run between the two cities each day. A one-way ticket for the journey costs US$138. China's government hopes the train will help the country's economy as business people can now travel across the country a lot quicker.

Chinese media say the bullet train service started on 26 December to commemorate the birth of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong. The train is also a sign of China's plan to become the world's leader in high-speed rail travel. It already has 8,600 km of high-speed railway track, which is more than any other country in the world. It plans to extend this to 16,000 km by 2015 and 50,000 km by 2020. China Ministry of Railways spokesman Zhou Li told reporters: "The opening of the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed line shows China's high-speed railway network has started to take shape." A passenger who travelled on the first train explained how proud she was of the train, saying: "It's amazing China has developed so quickly".