Traveling by train is something you definitely need to experience if you are planning a trip to China. It has many advantages over traveling by airplane, because
* You get to know the country better and see much more beautiful landscapes.
* You get to know the people better, because you have more time to watch and talk to the people.
* You save money and you save the climate.
* Plus it’s just much more fun and adventure!
Trains are the usual means of transportation for Chinese people, since not everyone has enough money for a car or a plane ticket. So the normal citizen will travel by train. If you are planning a trip to China where you will travel around by train this article provides important informations.

At the railway station
Chinese railway stations are huge! They can be compared to airports, not only in their size but also in their structure. The first time you get there you will probably feel overwhelmed and lost. So let me describe how the railway stations look like in China. They are divided in several parts: The large entrance hall in the middle, a ticket office on one side and the arrivel hall on the other side usually. The place where you go first in order to buy a ticket is the ticket office (售票处). It isn’t exactly an office but rather a big hall. You should expect 30 minutes (if you are lucky) up to 5+ hours (if you are not so lucky) of waiting time. So it is best to buy the ticket immediately when your train arrives at the new railway station, in case you are making a tour to several cities. Usually you can buy tickets about 1 week in advance. In the ticket office there are also several helpful tables that list trains departing from and passing this railway station, their train numbers, the timetables, their route and price. In addition there is a screen which shows you whether there are still free tickets and in which ticket class. The tickets are divided into 5 categories, but more on that later.
Usually the ticket office is on one side of the big entrance hall and the arrival hall is on the other side. When you need to pick up someone, go to the arrival hall gate. There are always many people waiting, some of them with posters, just like in an airport. When you need to take the train you have to go to the big entrance in the middle. First you have to pass the security check. Then you look on your ticket for your train number and find out in which waiting hall (候车厅) you have to go. It’s best to keep your ticket handy because you will pass several ticket controls. Usually there is an escalator and a big screen after the security check so you can find your waiting hall. Once in the waiting hall you wait until they start check-in, much like at the airport. When a huge queue is forming you know it’s about time to check-in now. After check-in you just follow the crowd to your gate and wait for the train, find the the right wagon (the number is on your ticket) and squish in to your seat or bed.

The different ticket types
They are soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seater, hard seater and standing ticket.
The most expensive one is the soft sleeper (软卧). You get a bunk bed in a cabin for four people. This is very comfortable, because it’s not crowded and noisy in a cabin and because you have nice air conditioning. There is also enough space under your bed and above the door to store your luggage.
Then there are hard sleepers (硬卧). Those are taken by normal or rather wealthy Chinese, especially by families, on long distance travels. They have bunk beds divided into bottom, middle and top bunk. However, there are no separate cabins, but about 80 people (correct me if I’m wrong!) in one wagon. Except for the noisiness and the bad air conditioning for the top bunk this class is very acceptable and a good compromise for long trips especially when traveling overnight.
Now we have the seats. There are soft seaters and hard seaters. I don’t know anything about soft seaters and at ticket offices I never saw soft seaters available. But hard seaters are very commonly bought by the average Chinese, especially by students or by poor people. They are significantly cheaper than sleeper tickets but the comfort is also much lower. In one wagon there are 118 seats. On one side 6 people share one table (3 and 3), on the other side 4 people share one table. If you are very tall your legs might not get enough space and if you have fear of contact, this is definitely not the right class for you. But if you are adventurous and don’t care about comfort, as long as you can have fun, go for it! Another important thing to keep in mind is that lights are on 24 hours and that air conditioning tends to be very cold. So sleeping is difficult and uncomfortable, but you will see many many interesting sleeping positions and methods and many more things you probably never saw before. Read more about that in my personal experience.
There is one last ticket, the no-seat-ticket aka standing ticket. This is the cheapest and most horrible ticket. You get this if you buy your ticket really late. This is why you should buy your next ticket as soon as possible. Especially during national holidays, like Chinese New Year(春节) or National Day (国庆), trains are so overcrowded that people feel lucky if they can get a standing ticket, and it is hard to even find a place to *stand* in the train. But there are kind people who will let you sit for a while, because no one wants to stand for maybe over 20 hours…

What does it say on my ticket?
A little further below there is a ticket from my last vacation. Just ignore the crossed phone numbers…
First the most important things:
This train obviously goes from Guangzhou (广州) to Wuxi (无锡) and has the train number K528. The train number can already tell you which type of train you have:
K stands for 快 (kuai4) meaning fast, so it’s a fast train.
T stands for 特快 (te4 kuai4) meaning extra fast train.
Z stands for 直达 (zhi2 da2) meaning direct. They directly connect two cities with only very few stops in between, which saves time
D stands for 动车组 (dong4 che1 zu2) meaning that they have a motor for each wagon. They were introduced this year and are very fast and modern.
N stands for 内 (nei4) for 管内快速列车 (guan3 nei4 kuai4 su4 lie4 che1). Those trains are only within one administrative area so they are common for short-distance trips.
Those without a letter are the ‘normal’ trains, but there are very few of them left because they are old, slow and some don’t even have air conditioning!

At the top right corner you see 深 售, meaning that I bought this ticket in 深圳 (shen1 zhen4). That’s a special case, normally you can only buy tickets departing from your current railway station. However this was at the end of summer vacation and all available tickets departing from 深圳 were sold out! (But that’s another story…)
You can see the date and time under “Guangzhou”. It’s the 27. September 2007 at 8a.m. Next to it you see the waggon number (车 che1) and seat number (号 hao4). So it’s wagon number 15, seat number 118. Below you see 新空调硬座快速. Even when you don’t know Chinese, I suggest you to learn at least how the signs for the different ticket classes look like, because I already had friends who ordered the tickets in advance, but it was only when they checked-in that they realized they got the tickets for the wrong day and in the wrong class… 新空调 (xin1 kong1 tiao2) means new air-conditioned. 快速 (kuai4 su4) means fast. Important are the two signs in between: 硬座 (ying4 zuo4) for hard seater. If you have any ticket with ‘hard’ you need to look out for the 硬 (ying4) sign. If you have anything with ’soft’, look out for the 软 (ruan3) sign. And if you have any sort of sleeper ticket, there definitely has to be this sign on it: 卧 (wo4). Another good way to check is that on sleeper tickets, apart from your bed number it will say if it’s top (上 shang4), bottom (下 xia4), or middle (中 zhong1 Only in hard sleepers!) bunk.

Ok then of course there is the price (which is btw why I love train travel in China xD). Then it just says that this ticket is for the specific date and train and that it is exchangable within 4 days.

Let’s look at the bar code at the very bottom, because this also has some quite interesting informations! Someone in the train told me this and I was astounded. The last 4 digits tell you how many kilometers you will travel. 1935km, quite a bit! The separate number (H0098341) in the middle has to be the same with the number at the top left corner. Otherwise someone has betrayed you. So this is an easy way to detect fake tickets. The 4 digits before this number are the date of purchase, in this case 27. August. The number before that is the counter at which you bought the ticket, in this case counter 6. The other numbers are supposed to be some encrypted codes. At least I don’t know their meaning yet.

Now this was really everything this little ticket could tell you. I hope this was helpful and wish you a memorable train trip!

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