High-speed rail has hit another milestone, this time in China, with the opening of the world's longest bullet train line.
The 1,425-mile high-speed rail system runs from Beijing to Guangzhou, reducing the time travelers would spend commuting between the capital and the manufacturing city from 22 hours to a scant 8 hours.
Traveling at an average speed of 186 mph, the line stops in Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Changsha before arriving at its final destination in Guangzhou.
The opening of this newest high-speed rail line is just the latest in a string of bullet trains that have begun to infiltrate the country after the network began operation in 2007. There are currently 5,779 miles of high-speed track in the country, and the state-run China Daily newspaper says that's set to expand to over 31,000 miles of track by 2020.
But this latest milestone hasn't come without its problems. According to the AFP, safety concerns have been a regular issue since 2008, with one high-speed rail collision occurring in 2011 that claimed the lives of 40 people.
"We can't make sure it's error-proof in the future, and we have been subject to a lot of pressure from the public," Zhao Chunlei, deputy chief of the ministry's transportation department, told the Global Times newspaper.
The timing of the high-speed rail line correlates with China's Lunar New Year holiday celebration, which takes place this February, and will see hundreds of millions of people traveling across the country to visit their ancestral homes in what's described by the AFP as "the world's largest annual migration."
