BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- China is trying to enhance its railway freight transportation capacity by 16.7 percent through upgrading freight trains with 70-ton ones, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Sunday.

   From this year, all the newly-built freight trains in China will be 70-ton trains, which will gradually replace the outdated 60-ton trains widely used in China, the Ministry of Railways told the newspaper.

   The new-type 70-ton freight trains, designed with China's own intellectual property right, can carry more weight and run at a speed of 120 km per hour. While the 60-ton freight trains speed at about 80 km per hour.

   In 2005, about 2,000 70-ton freight trains were firstly used in China on the railways connecting western coal-rich Shanxi Province and Qinhuangdao, a port city in the North China's Hebei Province.

   The wide use of such new freight trains is expected to further alleviate China's transportation crunch, the Ministry of Railways said. Enditem