southwest to the northeast, will connect outlying districts to the city center. The line is scheduled for completion in 2012.

Commuters rejoice!

Commuters who travel daily or weekly between Beijing and Tianjin will be the largest beneficiaries of the new rail line. They will enjoy much more convenient travel on the new high-speed line, as if they are traveling in one city, Zhao said.

Beijing and Tianjin currently have a combined population of around 30 million, many of whom shuttle between the two cities every week. But traffic volume on their current travel routes-via regular railway lines and the Beijing-Tianjin--Tangshan expressway--has approached maximum capacity. The expressway, built in 1993, is the first of its kind in the country. But after 15 years, it now seems worn out.

"Going home via the expressway has become a headache for me," Zhang Liang, a Beijing resident who works in Tianjin, told Economic Information Daily. "The travel usually takes me three or four hours because of traffic jams or road repairs. My record was an astonishing seven hours."

The new rail line will have advantages for industries in Beijing and Tianjin as well. The logistics industry in the greater rail area will take off, according to a report in Logistics magazine.

Tianjin has long felt the pinch of its transport handicaps as it has battled to establish itself as an international logistics center. With the new line exclusively for passenger transport, trucking and freight companies now will have more space on other rail lines and expressways, said the Ministry of Railways.

According to the ministry, the rail line also would help promote logistics efficiency and safety. It could precipitate a shift in Beijing's trans-national logistics to Tianjin's port, because moving freight by sea is much more economical than by other means.

Real estate boom

The railway also is expected to breathe new life into Tianjin's commercial and residential real estate market, said Liu Yulu, an economist at Nankai University, in an interview with Tianjin Daily. The city's comparatively lower property prices will add to its competitive edge.

Beijing's existing residential homes inside the Fifth Ring Road, for instance, sold for an average of about 12,000 yuan ($1,714) per square meter in 2007, according to local housing and land administration authorities. But residential homes in downtown Tianjin sold for only 6,500 yuan ($929) per square meter that year.