Summary：New, high-speed railway service connecting Beijing and Harbin, Heilongjiang province, will become fully operational ...

New, high-speed railway service connecting Beijing and Harbin, Heilongjiang province, will become fully operational on Friday, reducing travel time between the two cities to less than five hours, the national railway operator China Railway Corp said on Thursday.

The 1,198-kilometer track passes through Beijing and the provinces of Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, serving as a new passage linking China’s northeastern region and the northernmost province to the capital and other parts of the country.

The train will initially travel as fast as 300 kilometers per hour, the company said. It’s maximum designed speed is 350 km/h.

A section of the route, from Harbin to Shenyang, Liaoning, was put into operation in 2012. Another section from Shenyang to Chengde, Hebei, began service in 2018. The new section from Chengde to Beijing will begin Friday.

Tickets were made available as of 10 am on Thursday.