When restaurateur Seven Song decided to go on a birthday trip from Beijing to Shanghai, her first travel outside the capital since the pandemic, she didn’t hesitate about taking the train over flying. The reasons were simple: high-speed rail is cheaper, more convenient, comfortable, and ultimately faster.
Many others in China agree — the country’s vast rail network has become increasingly sophisticated and the envy of the world, with high-speed trains whizzing between cities at speeds of about 320 kilometers an hour (200 mph).
In July and August, 830 million train trips were made in China, according to the country’s railway network operator. That’s a 13% jump from summer 2019, pre-Covid, and significantly more than the entire population of Europe taking a train journey in the space of two months. Airlines handled 130 million passenger trips in the same period, the Civil Aviation Administration of China data show.
Song’s 1,318-kilometer (820-mile) train journey took a little over four hours, ending in downtown Shanghai and a 20-minute subway ride from her friend’s place. While a flight from Beijing to Shanghai takes about 2 hours 15 minutes, overall travel time is much longer once journeys to airports on city outskirts and long waits for check-in, boarding and baggage collection are factored in, along with risk of delays due to reasons like bad weather. There’s also the option to take a slower overnight sleeper train, which saves a hotel bill.
“I can do many things on the train that aren’t possible on a plane, for example I can be online for the whole trip,” Li Guilin, a professor at the Civil Aviation Management Institute of China, said after traveling by train to an aviation forum in the coastal city of Qingdao this month. “And all of the modern devices and the clean restrooms on the train are comparable with flying business.”
High-speed locomotives were introduced in China in 2008 — when Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics — with an express line connecting the capital and Tianjin. There were 4,194 high-speed trains at the end of 2022, according to the Ministry of Transport, traveling between hundreds of towns and cities.
China plans to have 165,000 kms of operating railway lines by 2025, enough to go around the equator more than four times, including 50,000 kms for high-speed rail. It plowed 711 billion yuan ($100 billion) into the railway sector in 2022, compared with 123 billion yuan in aviation, transport ministry data show.
Rail travel in China has come a long way from the cramped, noisy, slow and often smelly experiences of the past. High-speed trains, mainly produced by CRRC Corp., are generally split into second class, first class and business class at the highest end, with comfortable seats — including ones that can convert to flat beds in the most luxurious cabins — and plenty of room to move around.
“You can even smoke cigarettes for a few minutes at every stop,” 36-year-old Song said.
Booking has also become easier. In the past, tickets only became available a few days before travel, and often could only be purchased at stations, meaning people would have to queue for hours — in some cases overnight — to secure a spot on a train. It was particularly bleak during busy periods such as Spring Festival, when migrant workers and millions of others travel back to their hometowns. High-speed rail tickets can now be bought online via China State Railway Group Co.’s 12306 platform. And Chinese citizens need only swipe their identity cards to board a train, eliminating the need for a paper ticket.
Covid completely upended travel in China, and elsewhere. But demand has been recovering this year — both on the ground and in the sky — after Beijing finally lifted its virus-related restrictions. That’s been good for airlines as well, with air passenger traffic now above pre-pandemic levels, but only domestically — internationally, it is still a long way off a full rebound.
Within China, there are some areas where air travel has a clear advantage — remote and less densely populated regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet, for example, said Guo Qing, managing director of Embraer China.
“The only option, the fast transportation option, would be airplane,” Guo said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Most of the roughly two dozen airports being built during the 5-year plan through 2025 are in Tibet and Xinjiang.
Building railways in challenging environments also takes a long time. The first phase of construction on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway — the world’s highest train line — took from 1958 to 1984, and the second phase only began 17 years later in 2001. The 1,956-km railway started full operation in 2006.
Yet for the most part, train is a popular choice for Chinese travelers in the post-Covid era, with the majority still inclined to stay in the country.
Companies are also encouraging staff to take the train instead of flying. While the flight-shame — flygskam — trend of rejecting air travel for environmental reasons — a movement that has gathered some momentum in parts of Europe — hasn’t really taken hold in China, some firms are leaning more toward rail.
“We have surely seen the trend of more travelers shifting to rail for domestic travel,” which is a plus for companies monitoring their carbon emissions, said Calvin Xie, China head for business travel management firm FCM Travel.
“People feel it’s more efficient to travel by rail because it’s always on time with no delays,” Xie said. “And people have access to the internet so they can work on trains, while it’s more difficult on a flight.”
