China

Country Details

See Wikipedia

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

National Railway Operator

China State Railway Group Company Ltd..

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.

Gauge

• 1,435 mm (4 feet 8½ inches) standard gauge
• 1,067 mm (3 feet 6 inches) narrow [Cape] gauge
• 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 inches) metre gauge
• 760 mm (2 feet 6 inches)

Electrification

• 25 kV, 50 Hz- National Standard
• 1500 V DC - Metros
• 750 V DC - Tramways and 3rd rail on some metros.

Metro and Light Rail Systems

See UrbanRail China Map and Links.

Metro Systems

• Chengdu. The fourth biggest metro system in the world. map here. The system has fifteen Metro lines and one light rail line. Most people will probably arrive at Tianfu International Airport. Day tickets are available here from ticket machines for 20 Yuan (about $2 sterling). There are two types of ticket machine - one deals with rechargeable cards, the other sells day tickets. Unless you have Alipay, you will need to use cash.

Trams

• Changchun. A visit report for February 2025 is in the Visit Reports section
• Chengdu. Tram line 2 is shown on the metro map.

Visit Reports

See China - Visit Reports

Recent and Future Changes

Future Changes

In February 2025 agreement was reached to build a 20 km dual [1435 mm/1520 mm] gauge cross border railway between Gashuun Sukhait [MN] and Gantsmod [CN] to speed freight transfer at the border. Construction should take about two and a half years with opening in 2028.

Updated May 2025

Lines with Obscure or Sparse passenger services

None known.