--File--A CRH (China Railway High-speed) bullet train, top, passes by other trains at the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, China, 28 June 2011. Some 52.6 million passengers have travelled on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway since it opened to the public a year ago, latest data showed. More than 56, 000 trains traversed the railway in the first year of its operation, Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Company said. After three years of construction, the 1, 318-km railway linking Beijing and Shanghai went into operation in June last year. Trains were initially allowed to travel at a maximum speed of 350 km per hour, which was later adjusted to 300 km per hour to allegedly reduce operation costs. Built with an investment of 217.6 billion yuan (US$34.5 billion), the railway has shortened travel time between the two cities to about five hours.
