Nanjing-bound bullet train breakdown adds to railway ministry's woes

A train on the Shanghai-Nanjing bullet train service broke down about 11:30am today, causing delays for hundreds of passengers. The cause of the 30-minute breakdown is yet to be given by the railway authority, which has come under heavy pressure lately after continuous breakdowns on the newly opened Shanghai-Beijing bullet train route were reported. Passengers said the G7138 train, bound for Nanjing, capital city of neighboring Jiangsu Province, suddenly stopped after pulling into Suzhou Station, in Jiangsu. The air-conditioning and power supply also broke down. The doors were soon open for passengers to leave the suffocating carriages and wait on the platform. Service was resumed in 30 minutes. Railway officials by this afternoon had not explained what caused the breakdown. Expensive tickets for the mushrooming high-speed rail services, plus safety concerns brought by repeated service breakdowns in the past weeks, have put the Ministry of Railways under fire from the public. Ticket prices for the newly opened Shanghai-Beijing high-speed railway range from 555 yuan to 1,750 yuan, higher than the 200 to 300-yuan overnight trains that were canceled after the new line opened on July 1. After-tax income of the railway ministry slumped by nearly 100 percent from a year earlier to 15 million yuan (US$2.3 million) last year, The Beijing News reported today. The country's railway authority reported a sustained revenue growth in the past three years, with the figure rising from 533.4 billion yuan in 2008 to 685.7 billion yuan in 2010. Revenue from its passenger transport service accounted for 19.6 percent of its total income, according to the ministry's 2010 fiscal report. However, after-tax income plunged 99.45 percent last year compared with that of 2009, the newspaper reported. The Ministry said that soaring prices of raw materials, including diesel, steel and maintenance materials, are the main reasons for dragging down the revenue, the newspaper said.

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