China to mass produce 400km/h high-speed trains by the end of 2019

A committee of experts in China has approved a design for high-speed trains that could run at a speed of 400 kilometers an hour, which will be in service before 2022 to serve the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. An intelligent train linking Beijing to Zhangjiakou, North China's Hebei Province, will use the train, a Chinese official said on Tuesday. 

This marks the first high-speed train in the world that can run above a maximum speed of 350k/h, said Bayin Zhaolu, a senior official in Northeast China's Jilin Province, at a press briefing of the State Council, China's cabinet.

The train, developed by local companies in Jilin, will adopt China's own BeiDou Satellite Navigation System for the first time and have "impressive functions" in intelligent driving, intelligent service and intelligent maintenance, Bayin said. 

The train is expected to be in mass production by the end of the year.

Companies in Jilin are also developing a new generation of subways that use international leading autonomous operating systems, Bayin said. "A subway train, made of carbon fiber, could inspect, dispatch, drive, stop, reverse and wash itself," the official said.

The windows in the train operate a touch-screen display system that will allow passengers to watch TVs and send texts and images, according to Bayin.   

The nation has also rolled out plans to build a super-fast maglev train between Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province to Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality that would run between 600k/hr to 800k/hr an hour, the Securities Times reported in July.