The ministry said that the 1,300-kilometer railway is designed to run at 350 kilometers an hour and will have 21 stations along the way. But at the beginning, trains will run at 300 kilometers an hour, shrinking the whole running hours between the two cities to 5 hours from the current 9 hours.

The existing railway between the two cities will transport goods instead of passengers after the new one is built.

China approved the railways proposal last month, for a new high-speed wheel-track. It will be open for private and foreign investments.

Since the early 1990s, many senior scientists and government officials have debated over which technology should be used to construct the railway ¡ª the magnetic levitation system or a wheel-track.