A subway train that will run on Beijing's metro line 6 was seen parked at a depot in Beijing, the capital city of China, on Wednesday, February 15, 2012. [Photo: Xinhua]
Subway trains on a new metro line that crosses the downtown area of the Chinese capital city of Beijing will reach speeds up to 100 kilometers per hour, and are capable of carrying 30 percent more passengers, the China News Service reports.
The first phase of metro line 6, which links the city's Haidian district in the west and Chaoyang district in the east, stretching 31 kilometers, will be put into service by the end of the year.
The underground line will adopt a new type of train that is composed of eight cars each, two more than the existing trains, and serve 500 more passengers in a single trip.
Trains on the line will be powered by roof pantographs instead of cables on the rails for the first time in Beijing metro's history of more than 40 years.
The roofs of the new train carriage are two centimeters higher and an air purifying function has been added to the air conditioning systems.
Metro line 6 is planned to be further extended east and west in its second and third phases in order to ease the huge transportation pressure on the east-west metro line 1 that is in service.
A subway train that will run on Beijing's metro line 6 was seen parked at a depot in Beijing, the capital city of China, on Wednesday, February 15, 2012. [Photo: Xinhua]
