FUZHOU, Sept. 28 -- China's fastest cross-sea high-speed rail started operation on Thursday, with trains running at a maximum speed of 350 km/h along the west coast of the Taiwan Strait.

A Fuxing bullet train G9801 departed from Fuzhou, the capital of southeast China's Fujian Province, at 9:15 a.m., marking the opening of the 277-km Fuzhou-Xiamen-Zhangzhou high-speed railway.

This is China's first cross-sea high-speed railway with a designed speed reaching 350 km/h, according to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., the country's railway operator. It has stops in the cities of Fuzhou, Putian, Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou.

The new rail slashes travel time between Fuzhou and Xiamen, an economic hub and tourist hotspot in the province, to just under an hour.