Construction of a 115-kilometer-long track, China's first ever city-to-city commuter express passenger rail route, linking Beijing and Tianjin, is scheduled to start in July.

Sources from the Chinese Ministry of Railways said the agreement on building the commuter rail route has been signed by the ministry and the municipal governments of Beijing and Tianjin in Beijing.

According to the agreement, construction of the rail line is expected to be finished at the end of 2007 and to go into service in July 2008.

At 200 km per hour, the trip from Beijing to Tianjin will take approximately 40 minutes only, some 30 minutes less than the current time, a source with the ministry acknowledged.

Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun said the construction of the commuter express rail route is of vital importance to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and to the development of the Bohai Sea rim.

A series of new technologies plan to be introduced for the new rail line, to make it a showcase of high-standard express passenger track in the country, said Liu.

The central government, or the State Council, decided to build express train tracks in China's three most populous regions, the area around Beijing and Tianjin, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl (Zhujiang) River Delta.

The State Council has approved relevant transportation layouts for the tracks in the three regions.

A 295-km track will run between Shanghai and Nanjing and anotherwill connect Nanjing, Hefei and Wuhan, helping local people get to major cities within the delta in a couple of hours.

The Pearl River delta also plans to build a 595.6-km-long commuter track network.

The State Council required relevant departments to press ahead with technological innovation while resorting to sophisticated foreign technology in building commuter track and exert the utmost to minimize the land occupied and protect the environment.

(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2005)