Hong Kong and Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, are now connected by direct high-speed train services.
The first departure left Chengdu on the morning of 1 July and arrived in the Special Administrative Region around 10 hours later, after traversing a distance of some 1,650 kilometres.
A 46-year-old passenger from Chengdu told China’s Xinhua news agency that she planned to make the return journey by train. “I can have morning tea in Hong Kong and a hotpot later in Chengdu for supper,” she said.
[See more: The Greater Bay Area’s rail network is expanding fast]
Tickets for the service start at 796 yuan (890 patacas). The outbound service departs Chengdu at 8:48 am and arrives in Hong Kong at 6:55 pm.
Officials say the new service will help improve economic ties between the Greater Bay Area and Chengdu, a top logistics, commerce and finance hub in western China and a city of 20.9 million people.
China’s high-speed rail system is the world’s longest, spanning around 40,000 kilometres and deploying trains that can reach top speeds of 350 kilometres an hour.
