'Cheaper and safer'

Yang Mingying, 58, has noticed a huge difference between the outdated Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and the new trains that run on the Yuxi-Mengzi Railway, which opened three months ago.

After retiring from her job at a railway station in Kunming, Yang had time to ride the new train and visit friends and relatives. On June 23, accompanied by her husband and granddaughter, she took the Kunming-Mengzi train to visit her sister in Tonghai county, Yuxi city.

"I used to repair the 1 meter-wide rail tracks for the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and I know how slow the old trains were," said Yang. "It took almost a whole day to travel from Kunming to Tonghai on the old track, but now it takes just two and a half hours."