High-speed railway links major west China cities

A bullet train runs on the Xi'an-Chengdu high-speed railway in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Dec. 6, 2017. The high-speed rail line linking Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi, and Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, went into operation Wednesday, slashing the travel time between the two cities from about 11 hours to just 4. The 658-kilometer new line is China's first rail route running through the Qinling Mountains, the natural boundary between north and south China. (Xinhua/Liu Xiao)