Three lines linking Henan province with other cities started operation on Sunday, according to the country's top railway operator.

The operation of the 378-kilometer rail line linking Henan's Shangqiu and Anhui province's Hefei, as well as the 276-km section linking Zhengzhou and Fuyang in the two provinces, have greatly shortened travel time for people using the high-speed railways, said China State Railway Group.

With a designated speed of 350 kilometers per hour, it will only take eight hours from Anyang in Henan and 4.5 hours from Bozhou in Anhui to get to Shanghai, half the time compared with the normal-speed train, the company said.

The 389-km section of the Zhengzhou-Chongqing line, which linked Zhengzhou and Xiangyang in Hubei province, was also put into use on Sunday.

The high-speed railway network around Henan's capital city of Zhengzhou is expected to boost regional economic growth as it covers a logistics and consumption market with nearly 400 million consumers, the company said.