Bullet Trains Slash Journey Times As Families Head Home
1. High-speed services carry passengers in comfort and style for Spring Festival holiday
 |
| A train attendant wearing the traditional clothing of the Miao ethnic group serves passengers on the Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railway in December. Cao Ning / For China Daily China's growing high-speed rail network has made life a lot easier for people traveling back home during the annual Spring Festival holiday rush, according to passengers.
"I clearly remember 20 years ago, when I first came to Beijing to procure goods, I had to spend more than 50 hours on a train when returning to my hometown in Guangzhou," said Ding Mingyao, a food wholesaler who has been doing business in Beijing since 1994.
"Young people cannot imagine how we endured sitting on uncomfortable seats for as long as 50 hours," he laughed.
"To be honest, it felt really bad staying two days on a train, but we didn't have any choice - a bullet train was like something from the Arabian Nights for Chinese people, and most ordinary people couldn't afford an air ticket."
Pointing at the spearhead-shaped power unit of the train he was about to take at Beijing West Railway Station, Ding said the time of his train journey to Guangdong province has been greatly reduced.
"Now I get on the high-speed train at 10:30 am and arrive in Guangzhou at about 8 pm, which means I can have dinner with my two daughters at home," he said. "After the girls graduate from the university and move to Beijing, I plan to take the high-speed trains with them during every Spring Festival."
For many Chinese, returning home for Spring Festival, the most important holiday of the year, is like a sacred ritual they must perform. The long-held tradition creates an annual travel rush that is perhaps the world's largest recurring human migration. This year, Spring Festival falls on Feb 19.
Last year, Chinese passengers made more than 3.6 billion trips during Spring Festival - 3.3 billion by road, 266 million by train, 44million by air, and 42million by boat - according to the Ministry of Transport.
For office employees, migrant workers and students who have a long distance to travel to get to their hometowns, rail travel is the most convenient and fastest option.
"I'm willing to stand in a line and wait two hours for a train ticket," said Li Chengxin, a construction worker in Guangzhou who hails from Guizhou province.
"It's virtually impossible to take a bus home because there is usually heavy traffic on the roads during the holiday rush, and flying is too expensive for me."
With the new Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railway, Li can reach his hometown in less than five hours, instead of the 21 hours it used to take him.
"Going home by train is no longer an ordeal, but an exciting journey," he said.
China Railway Corp expects 289 million trips to be made during the 40-day Spring Festival travel peak this year, from Feb 4 to March 16, an increase of 26 million compared with 2014.
The nation's high-speed rail network extended to more than 16,000 km at the end of 2014, far longer than any other country's and larger than the European Union's entire high-speed rail network, according to China Railway Corp.
zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn
2. Expat backs big shake-up of system for buying tickets
Before high-speed railways began to spread in China, Bob Covey, an expat working in Shanghai with his Chinese wife, often had a convoluted and prolonged journey back to his wife's hometown, Shaoxing in neighboring Zhejiang province.
They would return for a family reunion every year during Spring Festival. The trip, a two-hour car ride, could turn into an epic journey lasting eight or nine hours.
"Sometimes we intended to take the train but could only get tickets from Shanghai to Hangzhou and then had to take a long-distance bus from Hangzhou to home. We often got caught in traffic and the bus journey took us seven hours. It would have been only an hour by train," said Covey, a 51-year-old media consultant from the United States who relocated to Shanghai in 2010.
In addition to the length of the bus journey, he also had concerns about his safety when traveling on a bus.
"I didn't feel safe on the highways. A lot of times we were cut off by trucks, and some almost hit our bus. I thought taking a bus would be fine, but it turned out to be a mistake," he said.
Since the introduction of bullet trains to his wife's hometown, the journey back home has been transformed.
"High-speed rail has made the journey much more convenient. I felt more relaxed and confident that I would arrive safely," he said.
Although his journey is relatively short, Covey can readily appreciate the huge difference high-speed rail makes on long journeys. One thing he really welcomes is the strict enforcement of a smoking ban on the high-speed trains.
He recently took a slow overnight train from Guizhou province back to Shanghai, and nearly everyone on the train was Smoking.
"It was a horrible experience and the journey seemed so long," he said. "I usually get sick after such a trip, and it's highly unhealthy. Luckily, there's a strict ban on smoking on high-speed trains."
When it comes to comfort, he also prefers high-speed trains to aircraft.
The train allows people to walk around, and the ride is so smooth that sometimes passengers don't even realize the train is moving.
It is possible to walk comfortably without the need to grab seats for support, he said.
"On a plane, it's difficult to get to the athroom when the flight attendants are serving snacks because the snack trolley takes up the whole aisle," he said.
Trains allow him to mingle with strangers and provide an enjoyable traveling experience.
During a high-speed train trip back from Xiamen, Fujian province, last summer, he sat with three young Chinese men who taught him a card game.
"My Chinese was not good and neither was their English, but we had a lot of fun. That might never happen on an airplane," he said.
High-speed trains also provide a better opportunity to observe and enjoy the sights of the passing countryside.
"I've traveled to many parts of China on high-speed trains. It's nice to see the fascinating countryside, mountains and creeks, houses and gardens. In an airplane, you just see the clouds and watch in-flight movies," he said.
He also thinks modern railway stations, such as Shanghai Hongqiao, are better than many airports to navigate.
The public transport system in Shanghai is also a big plus in terms of overall convenience, Covey said. He grew up in Vermont, where people all had their own cars. Living in Shanghai is the first time he has had to rely entirely on public transport.
"The transportation infrastructure in Shanghai is brilliant and on the right track. The metro lines connect the airports, train stations and bus routes. It is the best metro system I have been on. Although I need to travel an hour across the city to get to the railway station, that doesn't bother me," he said.
The only problem he used to have with high-speed rail travel was that, as a foreigner, he needed to go to the railway station to buy a ticket. The process involved waiting in long lines to use a machine to read his passport. Last year, during Spring Festival, he waited in line for seven hours to buy a ticket.
"I first went to one ticket selling branch and gave up," he said. "The next morning we got up very early and waited in a huge line."
But the problem has been solved. Starting this year, once foreigners register their names and passports at a railway station, they can obtain tickets online.
"That was big news for me," he said. "This year, I bought the round-trip tickets so conveniently."
zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn
3. New line opens up western region and boosts freight trade
The new high-speed railway line between Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, has slashed train travel times by half to less than 12 hours.
The dramatic improvement will benefit many families planning reunions for Spring Festival.
"For the first time, I feel home is not that far away after all," said Liang Shaofu as he boarded a high-speed train in Urumqi with six members of his family.
The 35-year-old left Lanzhou to set up a dry fruit business in Xinjiang eight years ago, and he has now settled in Urumqi.
The 1,776-km line, which passes through Qinghai province and is the country's first high-speed railway to be built in a high-altitude region, came into service on Dec 26.
"We normally drive home for Spring Festival to avoid the difficulties of buying seven train tickets for the whole family during the peak season," Liang said. "Driving can be very tiring and dangerous sometimes, so one year we even decided not to go back to Lanzhou simply to avoid the trip.
"Just the thought of getting home within a single day is exciting. It is the small things like this that make people feel happy."
The high-speed railway has made the western region more accessible, and some of Liang's friends have asked him about business opportunities in Xinjiang since the service began.
More than 600,000 passengers traveled on the line during its first month, and the Urumqi Railway Bureau said the introduction of high-speed services will ease transport pressure during the Spring Festival peak season.
The existing conventional railway line could no longer support Xinjiang's development.
All passenger trains will gradually shift to the new link, leaving the old one to be used for freight. As a result, Xinjiang's annual freight capacity could surge to 200 million metric tons from the current 70 million.
The high-speed link is a key part of the central government's strategy to develop the western region. Total investment in the railway has reached 143.5 billion yuan ($23 billion), and the 710-km stretch in Xinjiang cost 49 billion yuan.
The line passes through areas that experience high winds, and it also crosses parts of the desolate and inhospitable Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the arid sands of the Gobi Desert.
The project could help China to promote its high-speed railway technology abroad, said Ma Xizhang, director of the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway project's management department in Xinjiang.
cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn
4. Workers switch from motorcycles to rail
Migrant workers in Guangdong province had to endure long, uncomfortable motorbike rides when they returned to their hometowns in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Guizhou province for Spring Festival in previous years
Now, however, they can make the journey quickly and in style following the opening of two high-speed railway lines linking the two regions with Guangdong - provided they are lucky enough to obtain tickets.
"In the past, when there were no high-speed railways, many of my friends had to go back home by riding motorcycles during the peak travel time," said Ma Yunian, a migrant worker from Mashan county in Guangxi.
Ma, who works for a furniture factory in Guangzhou's Panyu district, added, "It was a very harsh journey-sometimes it took me a whole day to drive home."
Ma, 42, bought a train ticket for less than 170 yuan ($27), and will travel on Thursday. The journey from Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, to Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, takes four hours.
The 577 km line took four years to build and became operational in December.
The 857 km high-speed line linking Guangzhou and Gui-yang, the capital of Guizhou, also started to carry passengers at the end of last year.
Ma said, "The lines run through the most scenic spots in Guangdong, Guangxi and Guizhou, as well as remote counties, providing a more easy and comfortable journey for us migrant workers."
Ma, who has been working in Guangzhou for more than 20 years, traveled home by bus instead of on a motorcycle last year.
"It took more than 12 hours on the bus, and it was uncomfortable," he said.
However, demand for highspeed train tickets was so strong that not everyone was able to buy one, and as a result many migrant workers will again be traveling home by motorcycle.
To help them on their way, they are able to apply for free gas supplied by Sinopec.
Wu Guanghua was waiting in line at a gas station in the Shunde district of Foshan in Guangdong, home to thousands of migrant workers from Guangxi and Guizhou, on Tuesday.
"It was very difficult to buy a high-speed train ticket," he said.
Wu, 34, a migrant worker from Guigang in Guangxi, set off on a motorbike after filling his tank.
"I expect to see my children at home after 10 hours," he said. "The journey may be very harsh, but there will be a happy ending."
Guangdong's transport authority said more than 600,000 migrant workers in the province are expected to ride motorcycles to their homes in neighboring Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan and Fujian provinces and Guangxi before Spring Festival on Feb 19.
qiuquanlin@chinadaily.com.cn
Source - china.daily
|
No comments:
Post a Comment