The first subway in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, began trial operation Friday.

With a length of 21.72 km and 16 stops, the No. 1 north-south subway consists of 7.39 km long ground and elevated routes. The trial operation is being carried out on the Olympia central station-Maigaoqiao station section, which was completed at a cost of 8.5 billion yuan (about US$1.05 billion).

The trial operation will last until late August and the subway system will go into formal operation on September 1st, according to Yang Tao, head of the Planning Institute of Nanjing City and also planner-in-chief for track transport program of the city.

The subway system is expected to handle a maximum of 290,000 travels on the first day of the experimental operation, said Yang. Construction of the city's second subway project, an east-west track line with a length of 25.15 km and a budget of 10.5 billion yuan (about US$1.3 billion), will start in October.

Apart from Nanjing, subway services are also available in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, as well as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, both in south China's Guangdong Province.
 

(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2005)