China - rail travel

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I took one long train ride in China. It was in 1997 or 1998, and some of the parts are a little fuzzy in my memory. It was between Beijing and Shenzhen (just across the border from Hong Kong). This was shortly after the through route was opened. Skipping how I got to be doing it, here are some of the things I recall. How much has changed and how much is the same, I have no idea. That was my last trip, and in fact part of my only trip into Mainland China. Shortly after that my job in Hong Kong ended and it was back to Taiwan where my family had remined while I was working in HK. After my work on the Taiwan HSR ended in 2007, I have not been back since other than two short trips back to Taiwan.

The equipment appeared to be based on what I knew of the Soviet/Russian passenger equipment. Don't recall total train length, but it was somewhere above 10 cars, diesel power. The train had at least two classes of sleepers, berth cars, more or less on the style of the old section sleepers and compartment cars. I think the berth cars were three high, but not sure. Regardless of the class of your travel, BRING YOUR OWN TOILET PAPER. The toilets did not have any. It is not a case of running out, none was provided. I do not recall whether they had toilets with seats or Asian squat pots, but I think they were squat pots. (What is a squat pot someone may ask? It looks like a narrow version of a wall mounted urinal except it is horizontally mounted into the floor with the edge just above floor level and you squat over it to do your business.) There were also coaches. Whether more than one class on this particular train, I do not know. The compartment cars were four bed compartments, but you did not have privacy. You are renting a bunk in a compartment with three other random people. Since you have no privacy, excluding shoes, you sleep in your clothes. Bedding, as in blankets was provided. There was a dining car, good Chinese style food, and that is not the same as American Chinese Restaurant style food. If you cannot eat with chopsticks, bring your own fork, but it is not that difficult to learn to use chopsticks, particularly if you say to yourself, I am either going to do this or go hungry. A non-issue with me since I had been eating with chopsticks regularly by that time.

Total trip length was about 2/3 of a day, a night and about half the next day. The northern section, being near new was limited to 60 km/hr until the ballast and subgrade was considered to be sufficiently compacted under traffic. After getting past that section, the speed limit seemed to be somewhere in the 100 to 130 km/hr range. The timetable I had was in Chinese characters only. Station signs also had a Roman alphabet name along with the Chinese characters. I took pictures of quite a few of these. No one questioned what I was up to with my picture taking. Pictures are stashed in a box somewhere. High platform stations. Don't recall whether level or with some step up into car. As we pulled out of the station, the car attendant stood in the open door holding a salute. After we cleared the platform she closed the door and locked it with a large key. Easy evacuation did not appear to be one of their concerns. The train was in general on time with no significant delays along the way.

The Chinese High Speed Trains: None existed at that time. They are essentially stolen Japanese Shinkansen technology, both track and equipment, and most likely power and signals as well.
 
Last edited:
George Harris said:
The Chinese High Speed Trains: None existed at that time. They are essentially stolen Japanese Shinkansen technology, both track and equipment, and most likely power and signals as well.
Click to expand...
They also have German Siemens technology with Velaro clones.
 
I've been travelling in China since the late 1980's and will skip over my experiences other than the last decade or two, since the trains in question, their condition, and the 'colorful' experiences I had will no longer be the case. The last experience I had with a non-HST in China was back in 2009, after badly spraining my ankle and wanting to get back from Xian to Beijing on the first available train to see a doctor. I was in a four bed compartment, but since the train wasn't full, they ended up transferring the two other Chinese travelers in my compartment to another one, and I ended up in the compartment by myself. (I will skip over the details of the probably-unwise decision I made at the train station in Xian to take a ride offered on the back of a motorcycle to a Chinese herbalist. I still have the bottle of Tibetan Red Oil I purchased from her. Also, I discovered that a popsicle, still in its wrapper, backs a dandy icepack if stuffed into the side of a sock.)

More recently my train travel in China has been on the superb HSTs. My first such ride was between Shanghai and Suzhou in 2012. The HST left from the Hongqiao Station, which was a 50 minute subway ride from my hotel. In contrast, the HST all the way to Suzhou took about a half hour! One hiccup, since this was my first HST experience, is that I didn't realize that you needed to show a national identity card or a passport in order to take the HST, which was not the case for the regular trains I had been using. Unfortunately, I did not have my passport with me when I tried to buy the ticket, and I didn't have enough time to return to my hotel and get back in time to get to my meeting in Suzhou. I did have my Global Entry ID card in my wallet, though, so I pleaded my case that it was like a US government 'passport' card. (Untrue of course, but my experiences in China made me optimistic that it might work. And, two English-reading supervisors later, it did! Of course, I had to go through the same routine in Suzhou to get back, but I was willing to risk taking the slow train if it didn't.)

In later trips, I took the HSTs between Beijing and Shanghai, between Guangzhou and Hangzhou, and between Wuhan and Hong Kong, just before the pandemic lockdown. These days you must book your tickets well in advance, at least for the most popular routes. I had the universities I was speaking at arrange my tickets, but just about any travel agency can do it, so you don't have to go to the station to book tickets. The train stations from which the HSTs leave are ultra-modern, with signage in Chinese and English, though extremely crowded. Allow plenty of extra time to get to your train, especially the first time you use a particular station.

The seats onboard are comfortable, and there is overseat luggage rack room adequate for rolling bags. (I never had to check luggage, so cannot speak as to how convenient and efficient that process might be.) Signage on the trains tell you how fast you are going, which turned out to be just about the only photos I took that turned out, since my Lumix camera captured mostly unreadable blur out the windows, sadly.

By the way, the 10 year visas into China which were suspended for three years due to COVID are now valid again, and you can apply to get a special three year visa when an existing 10 year visa expires to account for the three year suspension!
 

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