Provincial capital subway ready to roll

Harbin's Subway Line 1 began passenger-free test operations in preparation for the official trial run, which is scheduled for September.

The trial is the culmination of five years of construction work and the city's long-held dream of building a subway, which was first contemplated as early as the 1970s, according to local media.

The Harbin subway will have a top speed of 35 kilometers per hour, making it much faster than metros in many other cities across the country.

Construction on the Harbin subway network began in late September 2008 and it was designed to conform to the standards of Beijing Subway Line 1.

According to the city's plan, the network will ultimately consist of 10 lines, with a combined total of 340 kilometers of track.

The 17.48-km Line 1 runs from Harbin South Station to Harbin West Station. It has a total of 18 stops as well as 110 exits and ventilation facilities.

All the stops along Line 1 have a different visual theme to make them more distinguishable and highlight various features of exit locales as well. At the stops, temperature will remain between 18 C and 20 C in summer and higher than 10 C in winter.

The carriage body is 10 meters long, 2.8 meters wide and 3.8 meters high.

Every train comprises six railcars, with 240 seats in total, and each train can hold a maximum of 1,866 passengers.

The interior of the trains features modern orange chairs and white walls and every car is equipped with LCD monitors.

The exterior of the trains is painted with snowflakes in ice blue, a pattern that represents Harbin's famous winter scenery.

Harbin's subway has won Industrial Design Award of Verein Deutscher Ingenieure in Germany, which is also known as the Nobel Prize of industrial designs.

The uniforms for the Harbin subway staff were made with user-friendly designs after research on uniforms in other cities.

Once the metro is officially launched, trains will arrive every 10 minutes initially, and the intervals will be adjusted to fit the traffic situation later.

Dong Wenya contributed to this story.