BEIJING, July 2 (Reuter) - China put into operation a double-track railway line to Xinjiang in its far west that aims to speed development of the land-locked region, the People's Daily reported on Sunday.

The second track of the line running 1,620 km (1,000 miles) from Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, opened for traffic on Saturday, it said. The project, to add a second line to the single one in operation for 30 years at a cost of four billion yuan ($482 million), started in September, 1992, it said. Initial annual capacity on the two tracks will be 20 million tonnes, rising to 30 million in future, it said.

Xinjiang is a major producer of oil, cotton and other commodities but development has been hampered by lack of transport links to China's industrial east and southeast.

The People's Daily also reported the opening of a 340-km (210-mile) expressway in Sichuan, another province handicapped by poor transport, linking its capital, Chengdu, with its biggest industrial city, Chongqing. The expressway took five years to build and cost 3.95 billion yuan ($475 million), some of it from the World Bank, it said.

By the end of 1994, China had 1,555 km (965 miles) of expressways and plans to double that by 2000, the Xinhua news agency reported.