By TANG Jun

The high-speed railway through Guangdong Province to Hong Kong will have more trains and reach more cities from March 11, according to a statement by China Railway Tuesday.

In all, 25 new trains will run from Saturday, with a total of 51 trains crossing the Hong Kong-mainland border each day.

Suspended for nearly three years during the pandemic, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong high-speed line resumed its operations on January 15.

At that time, trains were only stopping at Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen. Since then, the West Kowloon railway station in Hong Kong has handled more than 1 million passengers.

From Saturday, high-speed trains will also make calls at cities in the east of Guangdong, including Zhaoqing, Chaozhou and Shantou.

For now, trains from Hong Kong only run to Guangdong province. Services to another 58 cities in the Chinese mainland are set to resume in April.

The first phase of the line from Shenzhen North–Guangzhou South, commenced in 2011 and was extended to the city center of Shenzhen at Futian in 2015. The final phase connecting Shenzhen to Hong Kong opened in September 2018.

The rail link was in operation for only around 16 months, when it was shuttered in January 2020 as a result of Covid prevention and control measures.

It takes one only 18 minutes to travel from Hong Kong to Shenzhen by train, and 47 minutes from Hong Kong to Guangzhou.