The 345.4km line from Chongqing West to Guiyang North has 12 stations and a design speed of 200km/h.

Work began on the Yuan 53.1bn ($US 8.4bn) project in October 2010 and included the construction of 209 bridges and 115 tunnels.

The line reduces the Chongqing - Guiyang journey time from 10 hours to two hours, and Chongqing - Guangzhou from 12 hours to seven hours. The Chengdu - Guiyang trip has also been cut from 11 hours the three-and-a-half hours.