Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in the evening and arrive hopefully refreshed the next morning with little interruption to
your schedule.
One of the worst things about traveling by train is that it can sometimes be incredibly
hard to get a ticket. During any major holiday period (such as Spring Festival and the Octo-
ber holiday) people queue for hours outside ticket offices desperately trying to get any tick-
et they can to get back to their hometown. This is not the time to take an adventure on the
trains.
Train guru Mark Smith and self-described “career railwayman” provides in-depth in-
formation about using China's trains on his website,
www.seat61.com
.
Beijing has six passenger train stations, most connected to subway stations. These include:
Beijing West Railway Station, Beijing Railway Station, Beijing South Railway Station,
Beijing North Railway Station, Beijing East Railway Station, and the new Beijing Fengtai
Railway Station. All but Beijing East Railway Station (mostly for freight) are connected to
a subway station.
K trains
are the slowest of the train categories, and though they're also the most basic,
they're still reasonably comfortable.
T trains
are faster and are one up in quality from K.
Z trains
are considered the high-quality express sleeper trains; while
C, D,
and
G trains,
which include both high-speed daytime and sleeper categories, are the cream of the crop.
These are the trains that are more likely to have the more expensive, more luxurious private
first and second-class compartments. They're also more likely to have dining cars and snack
bars, but in any case, it's highly recommended you go snack shopping before you board,
just like the locals. A special
S train
category runs from Beijing North Railway Station
directly to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. For more information about this, visit
High-Speed Rail
Despite some hitches in its PR profile in recent years, China's high-speed rail (HSR) system
is still on a ballistic course of development. Originally speeds ran close to 400 kilometers
per hour, but today the trains are limited to 200-350 kilometers per hour (124-217 miles
per hour), and rigorous testing systems have been put in place to avoid mishaps. As of the
end of 2012, China's total HSR network stretched to more than 10,000 kilometers (6,214
