A single trip from Xiamen, port city of Fujian province, to Hong Kong is expected to be shortened to four hours after the express rail connecting Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong opens to traffic in 2018.

Mass Transit Railway, HK's rail company, recently announced that the HK section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL) will begin test operations in April and go into operation in September as scheduled.

After that, it will only take roughly 4 hours for passengers to commute between Xiamen and HK.

Passengers will first board a rail link connecting Xiamen and Shenzhen, and then stop at Shenzhen Futian Railway Station for a few minutes before the vehicle heading for HK, with a combined travel time of about 4 hours. During the whole process, they don't have to transfer.

Spanning 26 kilometers, the final phase of the XRL, which connects Shenzhen to Hong Kong, has a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour.