Construction on a railway between Shenzhen and Xiamen is scheduled to start later this year, cutting travel time between the two cities to three hours, compared with the seven hours a train journey between the two cities currently takes.

Passengers traveling to Shanghai can also expect a shortened journey from the current 29 hours to nine hours in the future.

The 41.7-billion-yuan (US$5.49 billion) railway is designed to be a double-track electric line with a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour.