Mass transit is speeding up in China with the introduction of high-speed trains, a welcome development in a country that carried “25% of the world’s passengers and freight” last year and has been struggling to accommodate commuters, according to the BBC.

BBC:

The first train took just 39 minutes to travel from Shanghai to Suzhou, cutting the normal journey time in half, Xinhua news agency said.

“It felt like we were travelling on an airplane,” 78-year-old passenger Chen Lijuan told the agency.

Driver Liu Dongwei, who began his career on steam locomotives, said the railways had had six speed increases since 1997, when [25 to 30 mph] was the norm.

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