Domestic Ttrain Ticket Information

Here is the information about China train ticket. if you want to travel in China, do not worry about how to buy the train tickes. We will make a reservation for you sincerely.

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China train 
China has the busiest railway network in the world. According Wikipedia, China has 24% of all global railway traffic. The Chinese network is covering a total length of 78,000 kilometres. Only the USA and Russia have larger networks.

Train tickets fare
Most convenient is that the hotel book a train ticket for you. They will charge you money for this service. How much depends of the hotel. Likely between 20-100 Yuan per ticket. If you go to the train station yourself you will have the cheapest price. A third option is to look for one of the ticket offices in the city. These offices ask a small surcharge (5 Yuan) but are likely not in the neighborhood of your hotel or not easy to find. Children in mainland China under 1.10m travel free, children between 1.10-1.40 pay half fare and children over 1.40m pay the full fare.

At the train station
Tickets at the train station are sold in the ticket office. The ticket office is separated from the station building with its waiting rooms and platforms. At the train station you will see signs for the ticket office. Inside the ticket office is often a special ticket window for foreigners. Summer 2009 we traveled through China but only in Shanghai we saw clearly this counter for foreigners. If you don't see this counter with English signs go to the information desk. Very often the people behind the information desk don't speak English but they can point you which counter you have to queue for buying a ticket.

All passengers who enter the station building have to put their luggage through scanners just like the airport. People who buy a softseat/softsleeper ticket and foreigners are allowed to stay in the firstclass waitingroom. The waitingroom for the secondclass is crowded and hot. The passengers have to wait in the waitingroom till their train number on the electric board is green. When its green the passengers can go to the platform from where the train is leaving. On the platform are the numbers of the train carriages written on the ground. Do not throw your train ticket away after boarding the train: you have to show it when you exit the train station.

Train classes
There are 4 different classes in the Chinese trains:
- hard seat: crowded
- soft seat: very comfortable
- hard sleeper: 2x3 beds; 66 beds in carriage
- soft sleeper: 2x2 beds
The softsleeper has 4 beds in a closed compartment. Two beds are used as couch in the day: the other two are folding beds. The hardsleeper is not closed and you will have contact with the other passengers in the carriage.
Sheets, pillows and blankets will be provided.

Train Beijing <-> Shanghai
There are 10 trains daily between Beijing and Shanghai. Distance is 1460km. Fastest and most expensive are the highspeed bullet trains. The only day train departs 11.00 in Beijing and arrives 10 hours later in Shanghai at 21.00. We took this train from Nanjing to Beijing. Usual speed is between 160-210 km/hour. The train make stops in several other larger cities such as Suzhou and Nanjing. At the end of the journey (near Beijing South Station) the speed was 249km/hour. In 2013 the travel time of this train will be reduced from 10 till only 5 hours.

The other 9 trains depart in the evening in Beijing between 19.30 - 20.30 and arrive between 7.00-9.20 in Shanghai. Comfortable trains are the Z-trains. Fare is ?00 for a softsleeper bed.
The T-trains have Deluxe Softsleeper 2-person rooms with private toilet for ?00 per person. Cheapest ticket is the hardseat in the 1461-train with a journey of 23 hours.

Beijing - China distances
- Beijing - Chengdu (2200km - 26/31hrs)
- Beijing - Fuzhou (2200km - 19/33hrs) - Beijing - Guangzhou (2300km - 20/22hrs)
- Beijing - Guilin (2150km - 23/27hrs)
- Beijing - Harbin (1300km - 8/11hrs)
- Beijing - Lhasa ( 4000km - 47hrs)
- Beijing - Shanghai (1460km - 11/23hrs)
- Beijing - Tianjin (135km - 30min)
- Beijing - Xian (1200km - 11/13hrs)

Beijing train stations
Beijing Railway Station . Downtown and close to Tiananmen Square. Trains to Harbin, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Moscow. Connected by metro/underground, line 2.