China's longest light railway completed basic construction Tuesday with trains, rails and electricity installed in Tianjin in north China.

The light railway is nearly 46 kilometers long, stretching from the coastal Tianjin economic and technological development zone to the city's urban areas.

The project, which started on May 18, 2001 with a planned- budget of 6.5 billion yuan (over US$780 million), is slated to open to traffic on a "trail run" in August 2004 with 19 stations and 29 trains in use.

With a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour at times, the total journey of the light railway will take 40 minutes and the time between stops will be three to five minutes long.

The traffic can help relieve the current passenger flow of 30, 000 per hour from the city's urban areas to the coastal economic and technological development zone.

The light railway is expected not only to shorten the traffic time, but will boost economic development along the light route.

(China Daily October 1, 2003)