CCTV9英语新闻：China to have a bright new railway services timetables（在线收听）

China will have a bright new railway services timetables from Sunday. It is the largest expansion in decades involving extensive regions and a range of trains. Beijing Railway Bureau said the capital will run 30 more services, leading to a record high of 610 journeys. They will account for 18 percent of the entire number of over 3,400 train services in the country. For more details, Wang Tongxuan joins me in the studio. 

Good news for those who prefer to travel by train...

China put nearly 10-thousand kilometers of track into operation in 2015, spending a total of 824 billion yuan or about 127 billion US dollars. And starting today, 600 more train journeys or 300 return rides will be added into its existing schedule, increasing the country's total number of services to 3,400. More than half of these are high-speed.

Cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou remain major transportation hubs, and a hundred bullet train rides connect these cities everyday. 

In order to better facilitate the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integrated development program, a circular bullet train route linking the capital and its neighbours have been added. This will bring passengers to places in the economic zone within an hour. 

The extra train services in the expansion will allow better connectivity with second and third-tier cities in central and western regions. For example, one route from Qiqihar (in northeast China) to Urumqi (in northwest China) spans nearly 5-thousand kilometers. The journey will last a total of 67 hours and 32 minutes. This route covers the longest distance in the country. Railway authorities have also added more than 60 special tourist trains to its fleet, making small but popular tourist destinations more convenient to reach.