A railway linking Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province and Guangdong's capital Guangzhou city was set for trial run on Wednesday.

It took three hours for trains to cover the 1,068.6-kilometer railway, said an official with the railway bureau of Wuhan.

The railway costs about 116.6 billion yuan (about 17 billion U.S. dollars) and shortens the 10.5-hour trip between Wuhan and Guangzhou to three hours.

Trial operation of the railway shall start on December 20, according to the official.

China is in a fervor of improving its railway system amid transportation pressure. As planned, it will build 42 high-speed passenger rail lines with a total length of 13,000 kilometers in the three years.