The first high-speed rail in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region began operating on Sunday, slashing travel time between the regional capital of Urumqi and the eastern city of Hami by half to three hours. This comes as China said it will promote travel to countries along the Silk Road in 2015.The 530-kilometer rail line is designed to run at speeds of over 200 kilometers per hour and is part of the 1,776-kilometer Lanxin high-speed railway linking Urumqi with Lanzhou, capital of the northwestern province of Gansu, which will be put into service by the end of this year.The railway crosses a vast expanse of the Gobi Desert and windy areas. It will be connected further with China's high-speed rail network.The Xinjiang railway bureau said a high-speed railway connecting Lanzhou and Beijing is now under construction and expected to be completed by 2017, which will reduce travel time between Urumqi and Beijing from the current 41 hours to 16 hours.As the only railway connecting Xinjiang with other provincial regions, the original Lanxin track has a designed transport capacity of only about 75 million tons per year, which is far below the increasing demands of freight and passengers.The new line, however, will unleash the region's transportation capacity by handling most passenger travel and enabling the old line to focus on freight transport.Du Jiang, the deputy director of the China National Tourism Administration, said the decision to promote travel was made against the backdrop of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives which were proposed by China to boost regional economic and infrastructure cooperation, as well as people-to-people exchange in Asia.