All guideway girders for the world's first commercial maglev railway being built in Shanghai were put in place Thursday.

The 30-kilometer line between downtown Shanghai and Pudong International Airport takes 2,550 guideway girders, each weighing 190 tons and 24 meters long, according to sources with the Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co., Ltd.

The last guideway girder was hoisted and fixed on the track Thursday, eight months after the positioning of the first girder.

It will take only eight minutes to travel between the downtown area to the airport by the maglev train, which runs at a speed of more than 400 kilometers per hour. A test operation is scheduled for early next year.

The project, using German technology, will cost nearly 10 billion yuan (about 1.2 billion US dollars).

( Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2002)