| Thank you Mr. Wang for maintaining this weblog. I have lived in China for about 5 years in several cities and after experiencing the old green Chinese trains that are smoky and so slow, I always chose air travel. I now live in Shanghai and after viewing the pictures and description here, I decided to book a train trip to Beijing. I went to the Shanghai Rail Station at about 3pm on Friday, April 21, 2006 and booked 2 tickets on the Z14 train to Beijing departing just a few hours later. There is no longer a 'foreigners' ticket window at Shanghai Station, but anyone wanting to book a soft seat or sleeper ticket can do so inside the 'Soft Seat Ticket Office'. If you were walking into the main entrance, this would be on the left about 50 meters (on the outside of the station). It is a large office with a place to sit in front of the ticket agent. This will save time and there is always someone who can speak at least basic English. I travelled with another person and we booked our soft berths in a 2-person compartment. The entire train is composed of soft sleeping compartments (no 'seat only' tickets). This applies to all 'Z' train lines, apparently. The train has 18 cars, but only 2 of the cars have 2-person compartments. I have read online that only the Z13/14 and Z21/22 trains have the 2 bed comparts. The prices that Wang Jian gave for the 4 -person berth ticket is still correct. We paid 893 RMB (lower) and 921 RMB (upper) for our tickets. The train arrives at the main Beijing Station. Since we were returning from Beijing on Monday the 24th, we bought the return ticket upon arrival in Beijing. There is a soft class ticket window on the front of the station, but he attendant did not speak English. There is also a large ticketing hall. If you speak some Chinese or have a Chinese friend with you, then no problem. Otherwise, you should probably ask your hotel to book the tickets for you. There is a large waiting hall for soft class passengers on the first floor, but the Z trains depart from the middle concourse on the second floor. Be aware, the old station is downtown. It is called 'Beijing Zhan' and it is an old building. Although it is equipped in a modern way, there is an extreme bottleneck at the main entrance at popular departure times because x-ray machines are adjacent to the entry doors and all luggage/packages must go through. As usual in China, there is no single line (queue), so a person must simply 'ride the wave' and seize every opportunity to squeeze further into the mass of humanity toward the door. You should plan to arrive at least an hour before the train is scheduled to leave, in my opinion. We did not face this difficulty in Shanghai, which has several entrances around the station building. We had checked out of our hotel, but the train didn't leave until 7pm and we didn't want to carry our heavy bags around for the day. Luggage storage is available at an all-day rate of approximately 7 RMB per piece. Although there is an official storage room on the front of the station (far-right side as you face the building on the outside), there are also several smaller stalls nearby. Someone may try to take you over to one of these (the official storage personnel will not do this). We went to one of these small competing storage places and were quoted a price of 30 RMB for 3 pieces of luggage. Thinking this was too expensive, we went to the official one which was 20 RMB. The Beijing Station area was quite pleasant. Gone are the days of rundown buildings and drifters camped out. Although there were some beggars and people trying to promote local hotels, we were not bothered much. There is a large shopping mall adjacent to the station. It has several restaurants including a KFC and several noodle shops. Also there is a Watsons Drug Store and many other places you would expect at a mall. The mall is attached to a very large Howard Johnsons Hotel. The gift shop of the hotel opens into the mall and sells baked goods. After 5 pm, everything is buy 1 get one free. We got 2 pieces of delicious apple pie for 5 RMB each. The line 2 subway stops in front of Beijing Station. I have a brochure about the express trains. I'm willing to scan it, but I don't have a place to post the pictures. Anyway, here are the station points for the 'Z' trains (all of them leave around 7pm and 11 pm, averaging about 150 km per hour. The Shanghai-Beijing trip is 1.463 km (914 miles) and takes almost exactly 12 hours. Here are the cities served. The first number is Beijing (or Tianjin) to the other city; the second number if from the other city to Beijing (or Tianjin). (Z1/2, Z5/6, Z7/8, Z13/14, Z21/22 Beijing-Shanghai) : (Z3/4 West Beijing-Hankou) : (Z9/10 Beijing-Hangzhou) : (Z11/12 West Beijing-Wuchang) : (Z15/16 Beijing-Haerbin) : (Z17/18 West Beijing-Changsha) : (Z19/20 West Beijing-Xi'an) : (Z29/30 Beijing-Yangzhou) : (Z37/38 West Beijing-Wuchang) : (Z41/42 Tianjin-Shanghai) : (Z49/50 Beijing-Nanjing) : (Z61/62 Beijing-Changchun) : (Z72/73 Beijing-Hefei) : (Z85/86 Beijing-Suzhou) I don't have fare info on these routes, but they should not cost more than the Beijing-Shanghai fares described already. Sorry for such a long reply, but I hope it will help someone. Thanks. |
Train from Beijing to Shanghai