'Great Wall Express' - high-speed train from Beijing to Great Wall of China unveiled
'Great Wall Express' - high-speed train from Beijing to Great Wall of China unveiled
A high-speed train service from Beijing to the Great Wall of China has been launched. The "Great Wall Express" will cut the journey time to the Great Wall in half, to just one hour.
The high-speed Great Wall Express was unveiled on Tuesday in Beijing and will take tourists to Badaling, the nearest stretch of the Great Wall of China to Beijing, reports Reuters.
"You look at Europe, for example Switzerland, they have their own sightseeing trains. We want to make this into Beijing's own tourist train," said Zhou Zhengyu from the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communication.
Construction workers took just four months to renovate an existing rail link, working at what Zhou calls "Beijing speed" to have the line to the World Heritage Site ready for the Olympics. Passengers on board the Great Wall Express will pay 17 yuan (approximately £1.33) for first class seats and 14 yuan (£1.10) for standard tickets.
The project is part of a major upgrade to Beijing's infrastructure; the number of subway lines has quadrupled in the past few years and the government plans to roughly double the length of urban rail track in Beijing to 350 miles by 2015.
The Great Wall of China was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1987.
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