The feasibility report on the underground railway project to connect the Beijing Railway Station and the Beijing West Railway Station has won approval from the National Development and Reform Commission recently.

The project is expected to start by the end of this year and scheduled to complete prior to 2008 Beijing Olympics, according to the overseas edition of People's Daily on August 8.

It is reported that it takes traffic bus at least 40 minutes to cover the distance while it will cost only 10 minutes on the subway when it is completed.

The 2.39 billion-yuan railway starts from the Beijing Railway Station in the east and stretches 9.1 kilometers to the Beijing West Railway Station in the west via Chongwenmen, Qianmen, Xuanwumen and Lianhuachi, including 7.2-kilometer underground tunnel with two lift stations at Qianmen and Xuanwumen. Different from subway is that railway trains will cover the distance.

According to the plan, seventy-two pairs of trains will run on the line daily by 2010, and 85 pairs will be on daily by 2015, which means that the railway line will transport scores of million passengers each year.

By People's Daily Online