Trainspotting

Beijing-Shanghai Express
A new high speed train service will cut the train journey to Shanghai down to 4 hours when it starts service in 2012. According to Xinhua, the domestically developed train will run at 380 kph, making it the fastest rail service in the world. But it’s not just Beijing, according to the ministry of Railways’ there’ll be 12,000 km of high-speed track laid by 2020 and the 24 hour ride to Guangzhou will be cut to nine hours.

Beijing-Tianjin Express
Since the opening of the high speed link connecting the capital with Tianjin last month, the number of people traveling by train to the port city has shot up. Railway authorities have announced that, on average, 60,000 people take the service every day. 90% of seats are occupied on week days and on weekends services regularly sell out. Railway authorities have advised travelers planning to take a trip to Tianjin to purchase their tickets in advance in order to avoid disappointment.

Luxury Lhasa Train
We first heard reports that a luxury train to Tibet was in the works a couple of years ago and as recently as last month AP were reporting that Tangula was all set to pull out of the station on Sep 1. However, news has since arrived that the luxury train service is out of action indefinitely.

Kunming – Singapore Express
Go Kunming report on that China and ASEAN are trying to raise funds to establish a rail connection that will link: Kunming, Dali, Baoshan, Hekou and other cities in Yunnan province with Singapore plus major cities in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.

Advice on buying tickets:
In the lead up to the Olympics, China’s railway authorities announced that during that sensitive Jul 20- Sep 20 period, train tickets could only be purchased 5 days in advance of your trip, down from 10 day advance sales. In late July, Beijing authorities further restricted advance sales to only 3 days before departure. In mid-August they finally decided that 5 day advance sales were ok after all. We assume that tickets will be available 10 days in advance again after Sep 20.

Useful Links
Finally, now that the dates for the upcoming Mid Autumn Festival and the National Day Golden Week Holidays have been officially set, we though it might be timely to offer this collection of train-travel-related links.

English-language sites
Seat 61 – China

Chinese-language sites
Huoche.com.cn
Huochepiao.com
ipiao.com
Piaojia
Kuxun – train tickets
Google Shenghuo – train and long distance bus tickets

Links and Sources
Panoramio.com: 和谐号与东便门 (image)
xj71.com: Train to Tibet image
News.cn: Map of China's rail network Xinhua: China to produce world's fastest train