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China's new high-speed rail service suffered a blow to its reputation on its first day of service yesterday, with 32 trains delayed in the southern province of Guangdong.
A stalled train engine blamed on a "mechanical glitch" blocked the main rail line in the province and delayed other rail traffic - including 21 of the high-speed trains - prompting an official to apologise for the holdups.
The delays stranded nearly 2000 passengers at a station in Guangdong's capital, Guangzhou.
Generally the trains, which travel at up to 200km/h, were well received.
"It felt like we were travelling on an aeroplane," said Chen Lijuan, 78, who travelled the 85km from his home in Shanghai to Suzhou. "In the past it took more than an hour to get here."
The journey took just 39 minutes.
The speed upgrade is the sixth in the history of China's railways, which provide a vital, low-cost link between the scattered regions of the nation of 1.3 billion people. On some routes, top speeds will climb to 250km/h, cutting the journey time between Shanghai and Beijing by two hours to 9 hours.
Millions of Chinese take trains every year, but the railways have been facing stiff competition from the growing network of highways and increasingly cheap air travel.
China is also upgrading tracks for faster speeds, and expanding its rail network. Last year a 1140km line to Tibet's capital opened, crossing mountain passes at more than 5000m.
Chinese trains carried a quarter of the world's railway freight and passengers last year, despite the country having just 6 per cent of the global total of railways by length. China has 67,600km of railway lines, compared to 212,430km in the United States.
- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS
