Introduction
China has the world’s longest high-speed rail (HSR) network with some 38,000 kilometers in operation,[1] which comprises nearly 70% of all the world’s high-speed lines[2] and more than three times that of the entire European Union.[3] China has more than 2,500 high-speed trains in operation, more than all the rest of the world combined,[4] and it also has the fastest trains in operation anywhere,[5] with several generations now operating at speeds between 350 Km/h and 400 Km/h. Shanghai’s Maglev is still the fastest operating train in the world,[6] with sustained speeds of 430 Km/h. China’s rail system carries about 3.5 billion passengers per year, nearly 70% of these on high-speed trains. During the 40 days of China’s Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), passenger volume reached a peak of more than 400 million.
The Chinese government planned the HSR program in part to compress passenger travel on these dedicated tracks and free much of the slower existing rail system for freight, to remove trucks from the nation’s highways, thus lowering costs and in turn making highways safer for automobiles. The Shanghai-Nanjing route for example has 38 trains each way each day – carrying perhaps 150,000 passengers, which frees a huge amount of track time for freight. China’s high-speed trains have dramatically reduced the travel time between most major centers. Shanghai-Beijing is down from 12 hours to 4; Shanghai-Nanjing from 4 hours to 1; Wuhan to Guangzhou from 14 hours to only 3 hours.
There are always potential difficulties establishing routes due to the number of communities to serve and the consequent number of stops – which negate the advantage of high-speed trains. China seems to have arrived at an excellent solution. As an example, the 275 Km. route from Shanghai to Nanjing serves 6 communities between the two terminal stations, with some trains on this route travelling on an express basis and making no stops (1 hour), with others stopping at one or several cities on route, with different trains making different combinations of stops (1.5 hours). This has proven to be a convenient method to serve all cities on the route while still maintaining low average travel times.
Many of the statistics and other information available online on China’s (and other) train travel are inaccurate at best, one website claiming China in 2019 had 1.4 trillion train passengers. Even Statista is quite inaccurate, confusing test runs of experimental trains with regular operating speeds of scheduled rail.[7] France’s TGV is listed at its maximum one-time test speed of 575 Km/h, when it operates at only 300 Km/h. Statista has operating speeds wrong too, listing China’s Fuxing at 418 Km and Hexie at 486 Km/h, which normally operate at only 300 and 350 Km/h although they have proven capable of operating at these higher sustained speeds.
Train and Passenger Classes
China has three generations of high-speed trains in operation: G, D, and C. The G-trains are the fastest commercial-use high-speed trains in the world with speeds of 350 Km/h to 400 Km/h. The D-trains operate at 250 Km/h and the first-generation C at 200 Km/h. Below this, there are still the ‘normal’ trains with designations of Z, T, K, N and more. The Z, T and K trains run at 160 Km/h, 140 and 120. Slower trains are used for short rural trips where time is not so important.
These train alphabets are not nothing. I once took a G-train from Shanghai to Haining (the world-famous leather market), a trip of maybe 30 minutes if I recall correctly. I didn’t have a return ticket since I wasn’t certain of my return time, so I simply asked the wicket lady to put me on “the next train to Shanghai”. That was a big mistake. N-train. Ten kilometers per hour on the flat, much less uphill. That train stopped at every town, village, pig farm and strawberry patch on its way to Shanghai, and many times we had to pull off the track to permit a faster train to go by. Two and half hours to return home. I wondered why the ticket was so cheap. The kind of mistake you make only once.
I would note too that punctuality is a hallmark of Chinese transportation generally, this certainly applying to the HSR network. If the schedule states the departure time as 11:02, then at 11:02 the doors silently close and the train is moving. I’ve experienced a few departure delays, typically due to an arrival that is late, but usually by only 5 or 10 minutes. I don’t have available the percentage of on-time departures and arrivals but it must be in the high 90s.
These high-speed trains typically have cars that are First-Class, Second-Class and Business Class, and trains not dedicated to short runs have sleeper cars which are very clean and perfectly comfortable even in older trains, the later generations offering lovely duvets, a separate TV for each bunk, electrical outlets, lights, Wi-Fi. Regular sleepers have four bunks to a room while the highest grade has only two berths to a compartment, suitable for couples, and equipped with a sofa, a wardrobe, and private bathroom. Sleepers typically carry a 25% or 30% cost premium over regular seats.
Business Class
These offer a pleasant alternative to air travel for the typically rushed and pressurised one-day business trips, for example from Shanghai to Guangzhou or Hong Kong. We board our train in the evening after dinner, do a bit of work or watch TV, and awake at 7:00 AM downtown at our destination, with enough time for breakfast before our first meeting. On the return trip, we have a leisurely dinner with friends, board the train across the street, and awake at 7:00 AM back in Shanghai. With two full nights’ sleep, there is no jet lag and no residual fatigue.
Here are some typical ticket prices:
G-train
Beijing-Shanghai, 1,350 Kms; 350 Km/h (4 hours)
2nd Class, 550 RMB ($80)
1st Class, 900 RMB ($135)
Business Class, 1,700 ($250)
D-Train
Kunming-Lijiang, 500 Kms; 250 Km/h (2 hours)
2nd Class, 220 RMB ($30)
1st Class, 350 RMB ($50)
C-Train
Beijing-Tianjin, 125 Kms; 200 Km/h (1 hour+)
2nd Class, 55 RMB ($8)
1st Class, 90 RMB ($13)
It’s almost impossible to compare train fares with the US because in China the fares vary only by distance and train type. Amtrak has a fare schedule that on first approach appears occult, apparently following the convoluted airline model of changing fares by time of departure and other secret paranormal factors, so a particular price could be almost anywhere. On some routes, twice the distance costs half the price. Still, they appear to be much higher than in China by a factor of perhaps 5 or more.
China’s Maglev Trains
The first Maglev train in China was a Siemens design installed in Shanghai, with service beginning in 2004. It was until recently the world’s only regularly-scheduled operating Maglev (at 430 Km/h), but now they are becoming common in China. Maglev technology is simple in principle at low speeds, but smoothness and stability at high speed are exceptionally complicated. Maglevs have a higher level of safety in that they cannot be derailed since they ‘wrap around’ the track, and maintenance costs are low compared to rail trains because there is no wear on the track bed and few moving parts to degrade or require maintenance and replacement.
Chinese engineers initially produced quite successful low-speed Maglevs (200 Km/h) entirely on their own IP, for use throughout China as city trains, done to gain experience and develop their own proprietary designs and technology. These trains are now operating in Beijing, Changsha, and other cities, running on short local routes. There are few other Maglev trains in existence. Korea built a Maglev track to shuttle visitors at the Daejeon Expo, which still runs the few kilometers between the Expo Park and the National Science Museum, but it is very slow, and another in 2016 that runs only a few kilometers between the airport and a subway station, also very slow. Japan built its first “commercial maglev line” in 2005, with a route less than 10 kilometers and a maximum speed of only 100 Km/h – about the same as Shanghai’s new subway lines.
China’s 600 Km/h Maglev
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