The new Xi'an-Yinchuan High-speed Railway officially began trial runs on Nov 3, as a bullet train departed from Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province.

It is expected to start operations at the end of the year, when it will cut the travel time between Xi'an and Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, from 14 hours to just three, with a designed speed of 250 kilometers per hour.

Starting construction at the end of 2015, the Xi'an-Yinchuan High-speed Railway is 618 km in length, 193 km of which runs across Shaanxi province.

Crossing the edge of the Mu Us Desert and the largest loess plateau in the world -- the Dongzhi Plateau -- it is an important part of the high-speed rail network in China.

It is also the first ballasted high-speed railway built in the longest section of the loess geological layer in the country.