China on Sunday successfully tested a low-to medium-speed magnetic levitation train, the first domestically developed one in the country, in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

 

The test maglev train is 11.2 meters long, 2.6 meters wide and 3.3 meters high. It ran steadily on a 425-meter-long experimental line in the provincial capital of Chengdu.

 

"The successful test of the train shows that China has mastered the technology of low-to medium-speed maglev trains," said Zhang Kunlun, deputy director of the School of Electrical Engineering of the Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu.

 

The maglev train is developed by a maglev research team of the university, one of China's key engineering universities.

 

The cost of this maglev train is low, and is suitable for urban traffic, Zhang said.

 

With a weight of 18 tons, the test train can hold 60 people. It can travel at speeds of up to 160 kilometers per hour, according to Zhang, also a maglev expert with the Ministry of Science and Technology.

 

China is expected to build a 175-kilometer-long maglev railway this year between Shanghai, the country's largest metropolis, and Hangzhou, a famous tourist destination and capital of East China's Zhejiang Province.

 

(Xinhua News Agency May 1, 2006)