[3][4] The line is the world's first alpine high-speed railway operating at high latitudes and low temperatures in winter.

The climate of northeast China poses a challenge to the design; parts of the line had to be rebuilt before the opening due to deformation caused by frost heaving.

Under the winter timetable, the 921 km (572 mi) journey from Dalian to Harbin takes five hours eighteen minutes.

The first commercial passenger services started on December 1, 2012 with two trains leaving simultaneously, one from Dalian and the other from the new Harbin West station.

Extra insulation has been added within the skin of the carriages and even the vacuum toilets have been modified to operate in this extreme cold.

This creates distortion on the ground surface that ordinary high speed railway lines could not cope with.

During construction, about 20 percent of the track that had been built directly on the ground had to be redesigned and rebuilt due to frost damage.