China: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:11, 17 February 2025

Country Details

Note that this page of the Guide is for the People's Republic of China; for the Republic of China, see Taiwan. There are separate pages for the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

Railway System

Maps

Online: web archive copy of China and Taiwan map from the Railways Through Europe site, undated
Printed: Quail Map Company: China Railway Atlas, 3rd edition (ISBN: 978 1 898319 82 8) was published in 2008. The Atlas includes Mongolia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. See Printed Maps.

Timetable

Summary timetables are available in some editions of the European Rail Timetable.
For many years, Duncan Peattie produced an unofficial but comprehensive English language timetable for Chinese Railways, sold via his website, chinatt.org. The last edition produced was the eleventh, in 2019; this is now available as a free download from the website. Printed copies are still for sale via the website.

Information is available at the Man in Seat 61.

Journey Planner

Travel China Guide

Ticketing

Based on information from a UK traveller.
All trains have letter prefixes. K trains are the long-distance hauled trains usually comprising of soft and hard sleepers and seats. Even if fully booked, standing tickets are sold and seats can be found in the buffet car, for a while at least.

Travel in China is heavily monitored, and you have to show national ID or passport to join trains and also at the end of the journey to leave the platforms. The details are recorded, so not just a wave and pass. Automatic ticket machines at stations don’t work unless you have a Chinese national ID card, so if buying tickets on the day you have to join the queue at the windows and state what train and class you want. Writing it down on a bit of paper helps. The cashier wasn’t happy with my request for a K train on a journey to Changchun and recommended strongly that I should travel on the high-speed train at a higher price, but I insisted for the K-train and eventually she sold the ticket. They accept cash and Visa, (but not MasterCard or Amex).

If your itinerary is well-known in advance, travel agencies will sell advance tickets (with their mark-ups of course), but at least you know your bed or seat is reserved. You may still need to exchange vouchers at stations for tickets though.

Boarding

Based on information from a UK traveller.
Once you have your ticket, the next stage is station security, and your passport is verified/scanned and then baggage x-rayed and people scanned with a hand-held wand-type detector (you have to stand and turn on a small box for this experience). Then you are into the boarding hall. There are shops and fast-food outlets there. Boarding starts 10-15 minutes before departure and tickets are again checked. The trains for all my journeys were already in the platform and each carriage had its attendant standing to attention at the boarding door. Efforts to look at the loco number incurred much wrath and agitation from the attendant at that end of the train. Fortunately all the loco IDs were in large font and readable from a distance.

Metro and light rail systems

Trams

Changchun. A visit report for February 2025 is in the Visit Reports section

Visit Reports

See China - Visit Reports

Recent and Future Changes

Recent Changes

Future Changes

Special Notes

DETAILS

Lines with Obscure or Sparse passenger services

None known.

@@ Line 70: / Line 70: @@
 ==Metro and light rail systems==
 ===Trams===
-* Changchun.
+* Changchun. A visit report for February 2025 is in the Visit Reports section
-** Information from a UK traveller.  Changchun has one of only 3 original tram systems in China still working. There are 2 routes, G54 which operates from Honqi Street (at Jiangong South Road) a distance of 7km north to the terminus at Chuncheng Street, passing the depot at 4.5km. Line G55 (the western 5km tram route for G55 is a 2014  build, according to Wiki) runs from the same start point on Hongqi Street but after 4km branches west for another 5km along Nanyang Road to Changchun-Xi (West) CNR station. Trams are single bogie cars operating on the 600v dc system. Track is standard gauge. Lines 54 and G55 operate frequently, with as little as 5 minutes between trams on the shared section. These are operated by the 2000’s era ‘modern’ cars, and tickets are 2 Yuan (25p) per journey with the on-board machine accepting local smart cards or 2x 1-Yuan notes. Tickets are not issued. The track quality was poor, and speed seemed to be a maximum of 40km/h. The pointwork was interesting, with one rail having a moveable switch, and the other an open frog. The drivers negotiated these with extreme caution! ‘Tourist’ round-trip services operate hourly over the G54 route starting from the Honqi Street terminus at xx.00, starting from 10.00, and use the old 1941 era cars. These have been refurbished and the one I travelled on was very luxurious and the 88-Yuan (£10) round-trip price included a latte coffee, a souvenir goodie-bag and a card-stamp set. The on board hostess did a running commentary, all in Chinese, but she did show me an English translation of her script. The individual trams are difficult to identify, it took me a while to spot the ID system, it is part of a sticker in small typeface low on the car body. This can be verified by looking at the drivers’ on-board computer which has the same number in one of the data fields. Example – tram 902 has data field entry 7902. Despite having the one depot and common route trackage, tram cars are permanently stickered and liveried either for route G54 or route G55. The system is well worth a visit if you happen to be in that part of the world.
 ==Visit Reports==