Riding the Bullet Train to Zhenjiang

China Railways has recently introduced new "bullet trains" on several routes in and out of Shanghai. The trains are called CRH in English, short for China Railway High-Speed, and Hexie Hao "The Harmonious" in Chinese.

I took some photos earlier this year of the CRH's rolling by the Lianhua Lu Metro Station on their way to Hangzhou. Last weekend we finally got to ride one as we spent the weekend in Zhenjiang, China - a city on the Yangtze River, east of Nanjing.

I left work early and we arrived at Shanghai Station just after 5PM. We tried to enter the station via the usual Soft Seat Waiting Room but were politely told we must enter through the CRH entrance. Duh. How did we miss those blue CRH signs?

Avoiding the scuffle at the ticket entrance (a guy and his girl friend tried to enter without tickets) we headed down to platform 13 where the sleek (you might say virile) new CRH was boarding for the 17:30 trip to Nanjing - the D442. Great! And to my delight, just across the platform another CRH was waiting - the 17:35 to Nanjing (D444). I handed the luggage to Sun-Ling and took a few photos before getting on the train.

Unlike the Japanese Shinkansen, this train does not travel on specially built tracks. It uses the regular "electric-overhead" tracks and the highest speed we noted on the car-end ticker was 205 km.

Looking at the photos, you see a "nose cap" on the locomotive. That's because the normal 8-car trains can be coupled together, nose-to-nose, to make a 16-car train. You can see this in the video. The train to Zhenjiang was 8-car, the return 16.

With a 3 X 2 seat configuration, tray tables, seat-back "car-layout" diagrams, smart attendant's uniforms, men's standing toilets, and 100 percent non-smoking cars, the CRH is reminiscent of the Shinkansen. However you will find no "silence car", bowing conductors or polite "cart girls". Both trains we rode were filled with the usual busy and boisterous crowd, with about 10 "standing room" patrons per car, and unflappable attendants.

The cars have differing seat capacities and configurations which don't always agree with the seat-back charts. Car #3 on our return trip had 85 seats - 17 rows.

The rows of seats can be flipped around to face the other way. Wanna see how it's done? Click here.

We were pleasantly surprised to see orderly queues at the Kunshan Station, the first stop. Passengers boarding the train were lined up to enter at the rear of their assigned car, departing passengers left through the front exit. The doors are at platform level which makes entering and exiting quite easy.

We were able to buy the 2 sets of tickets just 5 days in advance from our local Xujiahui branch of China Railways. However, the all the return trains from Zhenjiang were sold out for Sunday night so we bought return tickets from Nanjing, the station of origin even though it cost more.

On Sunday we had a bit of a problem at the Zhenjiang Station. In China, train tickets are not checked by a conductor but are checked as you enter the station/platform and as you board the train. So when we presented our Nanjing to Shanghai tickets to the guy checking the tickets at the CRH entrance to the Zhenjiang Station, he gave them a long hard look. Then he called over his supervisor. She look at them for awhile and then let us through with the caveat that she couldn't guarantee our seats on the train.

Of course we had no trouble claiming our seats once on the train. You can watch us board the train and Sun-Ling boot out the interlopers on this video.

Here are a few more photos from the Shanghai Station.