The construction began in June 2005, covering a distance of 1,068.6 kilometers and cost 116.6 billion yuan ($17 billion).

With a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, the railway will shorten the 10.5-hour trip from Wuhan to Guangzhou to three hours.

The line is scheduled to be operational by the end of the year in time to serve the peak period of the passenger transport during the Spring Festival.

"The distribution of the cities along this railway is dense and these cities have contributed to a large proportion of the GDP of the whole country, especially Guangdong Province, which contributed one-eighth of China's GDP," said Zhang Ning, a professor from the School of Economics and Management at Beihang University.

"After the railway is in operation, it will not only shorten the distance between the cities along the line, but also boost the social and economic ties between these areas," he added.

The coming of the high-speed railway has resulted in airlines with routes from Wuhan to Guangzhou getting nervous, according to a Chinese Business News (CBN) report Thursday.

The report said that to compete with the railway, most airline companies lowered the prices of seats on routes from Wuhan to Guangzhou. The tickets were originally 930 yuan ($136), but in early February will be priced at 220 yuan ($32).

But Zhang pointed out that in the short term, the airlines and the railway will compete with each other, but in the long term, if both industries can integrate the advantages of each side to form a large transportation network, the transport market can be further expanded.

China is in favor of improving its railway system amid transportation pressure. As planned, the country will build 42 high-speed passenger rail lines with a total length of 13,000 kilometers in three years.

The test-running trains prepares for their first journey at the station in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, Dec. 9, 2009.