The high-speed railway from Harbin to Dalian in northeast China has started operation. It’s the world’s first ever high-speed rail running through regions with extremely low winter temperatures.

The 921-kilometer rail line connects Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces. The first bullet train, D502, started from Harbin at 9:00 am today and will arrive at the Shenyang station soon.

It will reach its final station Dalian North at around 2:26 pm Beijing time.

The high-speed railway is designed for speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour and will shrink the journey time to as little as 3 hours from 10 hours. The route will adopt two plans during its early operation out of safety concerns.

One set of trains will travel at 200 kilometers per hour in winter and another group will travel at 300 kilometers per hour in summer.