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China unveils 300-kmph train

PHOTO: XINHUA

ON THE FAST TRACK: The first Chinese designed and manufactured high-speed train CRH2-300 in Shandong Province on Saturday.

JINAN (CHINA): The first bullet train designed and manufactured in China with a speed of 300 km per hour rolled off the production line on Saturday morning.

The train was the latest model in the country’s China Railway High-speed (CRH) series.

“This marks that China has joined an elite world club after Japan, France and Germany to become the fourth country capable of turning out such high speed trains,” said Wang Yongping, Ministry of Railways spokesman.

Previously, China’s fastest indigenously-developed trains ran at a speed of up to 250 km per hour. Those trains, which debuted on April 18, serve the Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou routes.

The new train, by comparison, excelled in its air tightness, driving force and smoothness of travelling, according to Mr. Wang.

The streamlined train was made of aluminium alloy and weighs about seven tonnes. “The train body is the lightest of its kind in the world,” said Ma Yunshuang, vice-director with the technical centre of China Southern Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation. “Such a design was for the sake of energy economisation.”

Mr. Ma said the new train, which features a bar in the dining car and double-faced LCD TV screens in the first-class cabins, was equipped with shock absorbers between carriages. A train with eight carriages could seat about 600 passengers. They were expected to run on the 115-km Beijing-Tianjin route starting from August next before the Beijing Olympic Games. — Xinhua

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