The new national railway lines will open from 00:00 on December 28th. The expansion of the high-speed network sees the introduction four new high-speed trains starting from Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang and Dalian. The high-speed trains will begin their maiden trip to Nanjing on December 28th.
Currently, it takes 21 hours and 2 minutes to travel from Nanjing to Dalian by train. As soon as the new routes come into effect, it will take only 11h and 1m to make the journey between Shanghai Hongqiao Station and North Dalian Station by train and around 9h between South Nanjing Station and North Dalian Station, more than halving the previous travel duration. The trip from Nanjing to Harbin will be shortened from 27h 30m to astonishing 11h.
Furthermore, there will be five high-speed rails from Nanjing to Shenyang, which will likely reduce the pressure of purchasing tickets during the Spring Festival travel rush, a welcome highly side effect of the railway extension.