- This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 11 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
And talking of news, does anyone know if/when the high speed 17hr train to Beijing will start up again. I took it last year and found out last month it was cancelled last December, presumably over safety issues?
The somewhat quick journey I planned last month with my heavily pregnant wife turned into a 30 hour ordeal. It wasn’t that bad to be fair, but 17 hours would have been a sinch.
I’ve never taken this or even heard about it. 17 hours isn’t that bad considering the distance you’re covering going to Beijing. How would the train fare compare to the cost of a flight to Beijing though?
It wasn’t a bad journey, I did it for the experience and not sure I would take the train every time, but if you have time on your hands and want to study/work/hide/relax/read/chat to strangers/catch up on sleep, then it’s not a bad option.
When I took it a year ago, I left Lushan on the morning bus to Chengdu, had lunch and a pint or two, took the metro to the northern station for the 3pm train, read and slept well in my comfortable berth, (the cabin shared with some young Chinese sports troupe) and was in Beijing west station at 7am the next morning. The 4 berth soft sleeper was ¥1,050 or something, so similar to a flight, depending. And compared to ¥650 on the slow train.
I only realised it was cancelled last month when I went to book it for my pregnant wife, who was advised not to fly. It was a bit of a shock when the timetable only showed the 30 hour journey, but that too worked out ok. I just caught up on lost sleep!
I’m kind of amazed you ever got there in 17 hours.
I understood it took circa 15hrs just to get to Xi’an.
Even if it were all high speed beyond that, which I think is only just opening now in places, I guess you’d have to change to high speed train in Xi’an.
There’s pretty good info on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China
Do you remember the route you took?
It took me 29hrs to get CD to Beijing. Which I think is all you can do now, and ever have been able to.
It’s certainly not all you’ve ever been able to do. The express train from Chongqing – Beijing and Chengdu – Beijing was running from January 11th 2011 until some time later that year. I took it on 20th August, it worked, it was fast, although they obviously found it wasn’t very safe so cancelled it. In that way, you can say I am lucky to be here!
It was direct, not via Xi’an. It stopped 4-6 times, but I can’t remember where. I will try to dig out some photos if you need more proof!
The Opening:
The Closing:
http://www.chinatraveladvice.com/forum/112/974-fast-trains-beijing-chengduchongqing
I took the circa 17 hours one from Shanghai to Chengdu last June. That too seems to have been cancelled.
that was quite an easy route, we arrived in Wuhan after only 5 hours. so it gave us plenty of time to (comparatively) crawl the second half of the route.
Yes if you can remember the route you took I’d be interested, I’ve become quite a train nerd since coming to China.
Is it possible the Beijing route also went to Wuhan then went north to Beijing thru Shijiazhuang from there? I can’t think of another high speed route north.
Quote:I’ve become quite a train nerd since coming to China.– that train-spotter in you was always lying under the surface desperate to come out the anorak.
Quote:Is it possible the Beijing route also went to Wuhan then went north to Beijing thru Shijiazhuang from there? I can’t think of another high speed route north.– Could have done, it was a year ago and I’ve done more train journeys since so when I look at the map below from the wiki link above, some of those cities do sound familiar. I guess it was either Wuhan (I don’t think so), or Xi’an (I also don’t remember that one on the itinerary but I suppose I could’ve been sound asleep).
- The forum ‘In Chengdu’ is closed to new topics and replies.