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A new trunk rail line from Beijing to Guangdong Province could make history in Chinese railway by cutting the travel time by more than half. A team of experts yesterday completed a study on the feasibility of the rail link. The 12-member group, investigating a potential new Jingguang Railway, finished a tour of future station locations and possible paths through the province with a visit to Shaoguan. The new link is expected to run a distance of more than 2,000 kilometres long at a speed of 200 kilometres per hour, double that of the old one, so the whole travel will need just about 10 hours, said an official with Shaoguan Transportation Bureau. The current rail journey from Beijing to GuangZhou needs 23 hours at least. The new railway will be devoted to passenger transportation, while the existing link from Beijing to GuangZhou will continue to be used for the movement of cargo as well. But according to experts, the proposed path for the railway will have a terminal in Shenzhen. Construction of a specialized passenger express railway has been on the cards for some time, with the current Beijing-Guangzhou Railway unable to cope with heavy passenger numbers, particularly during peak travel periods like Spring Festival, National Day and May Day. Yu Changfu, director of Wuhan Railway Branch said, the new Jingguang railway is a must in the new century as the old one is no longer capable of supporting both cargo and passenger transportation. The group of experts, also known as the Fourth Railway Institute, have also been charged with a specialized passenger line project linking Wuchang, in Central China's Hubei Province, with Guangdong, under the Ministry of Railways.