By Xu Shenglan

The spanking new high-speed trains that rolled out Saturday with great fanfare reported its first major glitch after hundreds of passengers were held up in Guangzhou Tuesday apparently because a passenger puffed on a cigarette.

The 670 passengers that boarded the Guangzhou to Wuhan train expected to take off at 3 pm but were forced to wait two and a half hours.

Workers at the station said smoke from a cigarette triggered the complete shutdown of the train.

It was not restarted until workers checked the train and after an automatic computer analysis showed no danger.

"The conductors only told us the train had some trouble but didn't say what kind of problem and when it would start," a passenger surnamed Zhu told Wuhan Evening News.

The delay of the train, which is the fastest in China, made some passengers unhappy.

"We chose the high-speed railway because of speed, but now it's delayed and it's a waste of my time," another passenger complained.

The railway authorities explained that the high-speed trains, which are made in China, are completely sealed and smoking is forbidden throughout the train.

Even if passengers smoke in the space between carriages or in toilets, the monitoring system could sense the smoke and an alarm would sound and force the train to stop.

The trains were designed to conduct an automatic check and stay in safe mode even if only one carriage in the train shows a problem.

Technical workers weren't able to find the smoker as the alarm occurred several minutes after the passenger smoked.

The delay also forced four subsequent trains with about 1,000 passengers to delay departure for at least one hour.

High prices, low interest

The high-speed trains linking Guangzhou and Wuhan are hailed as a great achievement for travelers in China that came at a cost of over 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion).

However, many of the trains remain half empty, and some blame the high ticket prices.

About 50 percent of the tickets from Guangzhou to Wuhan are sold out for the Spring Festival and less than 40 percent of the tickets going from Wuhan to Guangzhou sold since the railway opened four days ago.

Six trains departing Wuhan for Guangzhou every day, three before 8 am and three after 6 pm, have not been fully booked and up to 1,000 tickets go unsold for each 1,200-seat train.

Wuhan Railway Bureau attributed the low interest to the off-peak season departures and high cost of tickets.

Few migrant workers ride trains from Wuhan to the Pearl River Delta Region at the end of the year and even the regular trains are not fully occupied.

First-class tickets cost 749 yuan ($110) for the new high-speed trains and 469 yuan ($68) for second-class.

However, the regular trains that go from Wuhan in the evening and arrives in Guangzhou in the early morning charge just 240 yuan ($35) for a ticket.

The railway authority estimates that their trains will be busy during the Spring Festival.

They said no discounts are planned currently for the high-speed trains.