An inter-city railway is expected to be built between Beijing and Zhangjiakou, a city in the neighboring Hebei Province, where an airport under construction may potentially serve as the capital's back-up, an official said here Wednesday.

The 160-km-long railway line will start construction in August this year, said Zheng Xuebi, a deputy to the National People's Congress, the parliament, and mayor of Zhangjiakou.

Trains, which run at 300 kilometers per hour on the railway line, will take less than one hour to make the run from the capital to Zhangjiakou, which is now at least three hours, according to the mayor.

Media reports said the inter-city railway would cost 30 billion yuan (4.39 billion U.S. dollars).

Zhangjiakou is building an airport for both military and civilian use. "We have actively applied to relevant authority to make the airport a back-up for Beijing and Tianjin," he said.

Zhangjiakou seldom has foggy weather and is close to Beijing, he said. Flights bound for Beijing and Tianjin can land in Zhangjiakou in atrocious weather, he said.

Construction of the high-speed Beijing-Shanghai railway and Beijing-Shijiazhuang railway would kick off in 2009, according to the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

The inter-city railway between Beijing and Tianjin, a port city about 120 kilometers southeast of Beijing, was opened on Aug. 1 last year, a week before the Beijing Olympics.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2009)