Summary：China's Premier Wen Jiabao boarded the first bullet train to open the service of the new high-speed line between Beijing and Shanghai on 30 June 2011.

When China's Premier Wen Jiabao boarded the first bullet train to open the service of the new high-speed line between Beijing and Shanghai on 30 June 2011, he described the step as a 'new chapter' in China's railway history, with great significance for the improvement of the country's transportation system and social and economic development. While other countries argue about the pros and cons of high-speed rail, it is already reality in China.

More than 130,000 construction workers and engineers worked round the clock to complete yet another one of the country's high-speed lines. Only 38 months after breaking ground in April 2008, the first bullet train on the 1,318km-long high-speed line left Beijing on route to Shanghai.

Accelerating to 300km/hr about ten minutes after leaving the capital, the new line connects China's two major metropolitan hubs in only four hours and 48 minutes - compared to about ten hours on the old railway.

Originally designed for speeds up to 380km/hr, the Beijing-Shanghai train speed blows away not only France's TGV, which runs from Lorraine to Champagne and averages 272km/hr, but also China's first high-speed train on the Beijing-to-Tianjin route that averages 230km/hr.

After opening the world's fastest high-speed line in January this year, connecting Wuhan-Guanzhou with an average speed of 394km/hr, China seems to be on track to a high-speed rail revolution.