Live footage on state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) showed a slick bullet train leaving Lanzhou West Railway Station at 10:49 am (0249 GMT), with female attendants in Uighur and other ethnic costumes serving 622 passengers.
The line, the first high-speed railway in China’s remote and poor northwest, stretches through the high-altitude Qilian mountain range, an ancient section of the Great Wall and five strong wind zones, slashing travel time between the two cities by 12 hours, CCTV said.
Another train left Urumqi for Lanzhou two minutes later, according to the report.
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the line linking Gansu’s capital of Lanzhou to Urumqi is 1,777 kilometres long and its trains are designed to travel at a maximum speed of 250 kilometres an hour.
The line was one of several being opened this month, including one that cut train travel times between Shanghai and Guangzhou from 16 hours to seven.
Only begun in 1999, China’s high-speed rail network has quickly become the largest in the world, with more than 11,000 kilometres of track in service during 2013. The total is expected to reach 16,000 kilometres by 2020, according to official media.