At 8:10 am on July 1st, the first bullet train on Yichang-Wanzhou Railway line will depart from Yichang East Railway Station, which forms a route that cuts through rugged mountains and under hundreds of bridges and tunnels. By then, a real rapid rail transit along Yangtze River will officially come into existence, linking Shanghai, Wuhan and Chengdu. Bullet train service will cover the whole line, bringing Yichang into an economic circle in which it could reach out for most big cities in the country within ten hours.

    On June 30th, the reporter saw that staff were working overtime in Yichang East Railway Station to prepare for the next day’s maiden journey of the bullet train on Yichang-Wanzhou Railway. At about three o’clock p. m., the automatic barrier system has all been set and it would be put into service in near term.

    According to the railway authority, up to 110 pairs of passenger trains will arrive in or depart from the Yichang East Railway Station, among which 100 bullet trains will run between Yichang and Wuhan, and 33 passenger trains, including 17 pairs of bullet trains between Yichang and Sichuan-Chongqing region. Except for the three train stations in Wuhan, Yichang East Railway Station will be the busiest one with so many trains, 53 pairs more than that in Xiangyang Railway Station.

    In 2012, bullet train service started on Yichang-Wuhan railway, which made it much easier for passengers to go to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen from Yichang, forming an economic circle in which Yichang could reach out for these big cities within eight hours. But since bullet train service was not available on Yichang-Wanzhou railway, it would take at least ten hours to seventeen hours at most to go to Sichuan-Chongqing region from Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Fuzhou. The opening of bullet train service on Yichang-Wuhan railway benefits not only passengers from Hubei Province and Sichuan-Chongqing region, but also those from east and south-east parts of China. By then, it will take less than five hours to go to Chongqing from Yichang, and it also will be much more convenient for passengers to go to Chengdu and Chongqing from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xiamen and Fuzhou.  (Reporter: Tan Tin)