A new hypersonic（超音速）plane design has been revealed（透露）by a Chinese research team. The plane can take passengers and cargo（负荷）from Beijing to New York in just two hours. It will be one-seventh of the time that presently it takes to travel between the two cities on a plane.

The plane, designed by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, has two sets of wings. It could journey at more than 3,700 mph, meaning at more than 6,000 km/h, faster than five times the speed of sound.

The South China Morning Post gives more details about this plane. It has a biplane（双翼飞机）group structure, viewed from the front，looks like a capital “I”, which will be able to handle much more than present hypersonic vehicles.

However, that high speed comes at a price. Under the same size as a Boeing 737, the plane will only be able to carry about one-fourth: only about 50 passengers and 5 tons of cargo. However, the 737 can carry 200 passengers and 20 tons of cargo.

The team has reportedly tested out a model “I-plane” in specially designed wind tunnels（风洞）, stating that it performed well at seven times the speed of sound-more than 8,600 km/h.

China has tested many kinds of hypersonic planes over the Gobi Desert in recent years, and some can reach 10 times the speed of sound, the paper said.

The new high-speed railway connecting Beijing with China’s northeastern provinces not only shortens travel time, but also has high technology and an environmentally friendly design. The new line opened on Friday and showed China’s strong ability to build high-tech and green high-speed railway and infrastructure（基础设施）.

The new line links Beijing with Shenyang, Changchun and Harbin—the capital cities of China’s three northeastern provinces—and shortens travel time between Beijing and Harbin in the northern most Heilongjiang province to less than 5 hours. Two old routes took more than 7 or 8 hours. Trains running on the line will initially travel at a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour, the company said, but then its maximum design speed is 350 km/h.

A part of the route from Harbin to Shenyang, Liaoning, was put into operation in 2012. Another part from Shenyang to Chengde, Hebei, began to serve in 2018. The 192 km part from Chengde to Beijing opened on Friday. To reduce noise from railway operations, engineers designed a 1,840-meter “tunnel-like” sound barrier（屏障）on the part that passes a residential area between Beijing’s fourth and fifth ring roads.

The new line has 46 bridges and 30 tunnels. The station is based on environmentally friendly thoughts, the station’s designer Wang Qingyi said. Also, an electricity-saving system has been used to save energy. Because of the new design, lights are not turned on during the day, when the lobby is bright enough for passengers.

A new type of bullet train that can operate under temperatures as low as -40℃ runs on the line. The new train can endure（忍受）extremely cold weather, and provides Braille on the door of restrooms, said Ren Mengyi, the chief leader.

“China is to promote (推广) e-tickets for high-speed trains in the whole country in 2019.” Lu Dongfu announced.

Passengers will be able to use their mobile phones or ID cards to enter or leave the railway station, without carrying paper tickets, said Lu.

Many people in China are already using mobile phones for subways and buses. The technology for high-speed rail, however, can only be used in some stations and lines crossing big cities. At stations in some areas far away, travelers still need the paper ticket to get on the train.

As early as the fourth season in 2018, trials (试验) for the e-ticket will begin at many pilot stations and the service will become useful all over the country in 2019, according to the Wuhan Railway Bureau.

Many netizens (网民) believed that paper train tickets couldbecome extinctsomeday. “As an environmentalist, I am very happy to see we’re moving into the times of paperless ticketing, as it will save a lot of trees.” user @blingblingsu said on China’s Twitter—like Weibo. “Finally, I don’t have to wait in line to get the paper ticket which is a waste of time and makes me afraid of missing the train,” another user said.