Shanghaiist: China's New Trains: No. 1 with a bullet

john

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:02:45 +0800

I am visiting Shanghai and want to travel to Beijing. How is the train ride?

Trev

Tue, 15 May 2007 20:08:06 +0800

This seems to be excellent and at excellent value. Hey John - maybe the train from bj to sh does not take a perfectly straight line? One warning - watch out for Pintoblins in mountain regions near nanjing.

John

Tue, 15 May 2007 19:54:31 +0800

I've always been so curious with the new trains: when they first came out, the newspapers were going crazy about how the speed is 200-250 km/h. This is the "specification" tops speed - but how fast do they actually run in day to day operations? Do the trains have a display of the speed like with the Maglev or the current Z-trains? Assuming that the distance between beijing and shanghai is 1500kms, and the new D train takes 10 hours, I guess the average speed is only 150kmh.

ash

Tue, 15 May 2007 19:00:51 +0800

I took the harmonious bullet train from Qingdao to Dezhou the other day, very fast, very clean, and only a little bit more expensive than usual. I wish all Chinese trains would get the harmonious treatment. The Qingdao to Beijing route is now only 5 hours, rather than the 12 hours it used to be on the old trains. Also these bullet trains have a different classes for extra comfort 1st/2nd. I went 2nd both times and was pretty impressed - 1st class must be amazing!