New bullet trains to depart on Monday

A photo taken on June 25 shows the newly launched bullet train in Beijing. [Photo by Zhao Lei/chinadaily.com.cn]

China will put two new bullet train models into operation on Monday on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway.

The CR400AF will depart from the Beijing South Railway Station at 11:05 am, traveling toward Shanghai, while the CR400BF will leave Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station bound for Beijing at the same time, according to China Railway Corp, the State-owned rail operator.

The line is the nation's busiest high-speed link, carrying on average some 505,000 passenger trips a day.

At a naming ceremony at a maintenance facility in Beijing's Daxing district on Sunday morning, Lu Dongfu, general manager of China Railway Corp, said the new trains would be called "Rejuvenation".

The word rejuvenation has been widely employed by the central leadership to refer to its goals of achieving the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". Prior to the new trains, all of the country's bullet trains carried the designation "Harmony".

The new trains were developed mainly based on China's railway standards and technologies and were designed to be better adapted to China's environment and rail transportation patterns, Lu said.

They will travel at a speed of about 350 kilometers per hour, though their maximum speed is 400 km/h, according to designers at the China Academy of Railway Sciences.