Changsha South Station is some 25mins from the city centre
Arriving at Guangzhou South Railway Station (广州南站), some 721km and only 2.5hrs later, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in China’s achievement of what is now the worlds fastest railway. (The Shanghai maglev has a higher top speed, but is short).
Bridging half the gap between bustling Guangzhou in the South and capital Beijing in the North, the WuGuang Passenger Railway (武广客运专线) now brings some serious competition to air travel.
My journey started in Changsha (长沙), capital of Hunan Province (湖南省). The station was 20km and ¥50RMB away by taxi from the city centre: no subway yet or convenient bus. It seemed far. Somewhat a magnificent structure (though frankly just a carbon copy of what appears to be standard design for most high speed stations in China like Beijing South and Tianjin), the ticket machines are still cash only and (unlike Beijing South) there were no shops for last minute snacks or a pre-departure coffee.
The train interiors were nice, but not that exciting
My ticket was for 2nd class. The train was smooth and quiet, aside from the obligatory spoiled brat. The on-board staff were friendly, kowtowing every time they exit your carriage, and were generally smiling. An LED display shows your current speed: my train clocked in at 345km/h in parts. Reclining in the comfy seat, I easily napped when not enjoying the luscious greenery and rice terraces that litter the lands of Hunan and Southern Guangdong Province. When the train enters a tunnel you can feel the speed’s impact: the sides of the train expand, the gap between your seat and the edge momentarily widening. I hope the carriages were designed to do this! For meals, you can have a Chinese style disposable lunchbox delivered to your seat. Sadly freshly made sandwiches or paninis were not available.
An army of cleaners appear from nowhere immediately upon arrival
The ride was actually very pleasant, but it’s hard to forget that you’re in fact still in China. My fellow compatriots included the man in a suit with white sneakers, the uncontrollable kid let loose to scream around the carriage, the old lady hovering around with a toothpick dangling from her mouth. My designated seat was of course already taken by someone else, and when a fellow passenger asked how to get to ShenZhen, the conductor replied “this train only goes to Guangzhou” – a typically unhelpful Chinese answer. In Europe, they’d whip out their timetables and look it up for you. The train could certainly do with a ‘quiet car’ also – not least because of the phone that rang seemingly forever which nobody answered, but it should encourage others to keep their noise down. The hardware is in place but like with many things in China, the software most certainly needs tweaking.
At prices similar to a discounted air ticket it’s perhaps all not worth it at the moment. However once everything is in place, including proper connections within the cities, I can see the high speed rail networks becoming a viable alternative to domestic air travel.
