According to the Lanzhou Railway Bureau’s publicity office, the high-speed train will directly reach in Dunhuang, Gansu Province soon. A high-speed train from Jiayuguan, Gansu Province reached to Dunhuang during a test run on September 15th, marking the city’s first connectivity to the high-speed rail network.
Dunhuang only has a 160-kilometer regular railway connecting with other cities in Gansu so people can only get there now by ordinary train. The 3-kilometer railway construction was finished. It will connect the regular railway to the Lanzhou-Xinjiang high-speed line, the only one in northwest Gansu, so that bullet trains can arrive in Dunhuang.
The official said that the test train will be fully checked to ensure it can run along the whole journey safely. Although the high-speed train’s running speed hasn’t been decided upon, it’s certain that the commuting time of tourists heading to Dunhuang will be reduced.
Now, there are only three direct regular trains from Lanzhou to Dunhuang per day, and the journey takes over 12 hours. What’s more important, Dunhuang will be incorporated into the national high-speed railway network, so that visitors from major cities in other parts of China – including Xi’an, Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan – can reach Dunhuang much faster than ever before.