The journey between Baotou in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Beijing is to be shortened to less than four hours after the launch of a new high-speed railway linking the two cities, according to a report in the Baotou Evening News.

The high-speed rail infrastructure consists of two parts: the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Intercity Railway and the Zhangjiakou-Hohhot Railway.

Rail officials said that after it is put into operation, 20 pairs of high-speed trains will run on the two lines. Hohhot, Baotou and Ulaanqab in the autonomous region will all have high-speed trains heading to Beijing.

The Beijing-Zhangjiakou Intercity Railway and Zhangjiakou-Hohhot Railway will be opened and operated in accordance with the unified arrangements of China Railway and are scheduled to open at the end of December.

The east Ulaanqab-Hohhot section of the Zhangjiakou-Hohhot Railway was officially launched in August 2017.

Earlier in June, 2019, the Huai’an-Ulaanqab section of the Zhangjiakou-Hohhot Railway completed joint commissioning and started trial operations.

As part of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games project, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway started joint testing on Oct 5. Work on the railway's debugging and testing is progressing smoothly, officials said.