TAIYUAN, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- A high-speed railway linking Datong, China's Shanxi Province, and the city of Xi'an in northwest China went into operation Monday.

Construction on the 859-km Datong-Xi'an high-speed rail began in 2009. The travel time between the two cities is slashed to about six hours from the previous 16 hours with the launch of the new service.

A section of the railway, between Xi'an and Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, began service in 2014, and has handled over 93 million passengers so far.