New reserved seat carriages in China. New generation reserved seat carriages in China. Types of carriages on Chinese trains

What does an innovative reserved seat look like in China?

In 2017, trains with new-generation reserved seat carriages were launched in China on the route between Beijing and Shanghai. Double-decker trains immediately fell in love with both the Chinese and guests of the Middle Kingdom for their comfort, smooth ride and personal space for each passenger.

In order to implement all the conceived ideas, Chinese engineers had to increase the internal space of the train by almost 40%, and also raise the upper shelves as high as possible.

The main distinguishing feature of the new train was the absence of vestibules and transitions between cars. In fact, the entire train interior is a long corridor with sleeping places on the sides. The boundary between cars in the new trains is purely nominal: toilets and drink machines are located here.

Unlike traditional reserved seat carriages with longitudinal-transverse arrangement of sleeping berths, the seats in the new train are located in the direction of travel. Thanks to this, the corridor is noticeably wider, and passengers have much more personal space.

The ticket price includes a set of bed linen and even disposable slippers. The pillows on the new train are filled with environmentally friendly buckwheat material. There is an orthopedic pillow on the wall in each compartment to ensure a comfortable sitting position.

Thanks to the innovative organization of space, each passenger has a separate table and legroom. Thanks to the thoughtful organization of internal zones, engineers managed to design a train with 880 seats.

In the new reserved seat train You can easily isolate yourself from other passengers using a corrugated curtain. Each compartment has individual lighting that does not blind other passengers, as well as USB connectors, clothes hangers and universal sockets with European, Chinese and American plugs. If necessary, the personal window can be closed with an opaque curtain.

When designing the new train, engineers paid special attention to noise insulation and smooth running. By the way, the double-decker train covers the 1,318-kilometer route between Beijing and Shanghai in just 11 hours. The maximum speed of the train is 250 km/h.

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On this trip to China, I moved a lot from place to place, choosing for this purpose the trains of the Chinese Railways. Thus, there were several sections: Beijing-Qinhuangdao, Qinhuangdao - Dandong, Dandong - Shenyang and the last Shenyang - Harbin. As a result, I traveled about 1660 km by train, it’s as if I was traveling from Moscow to Grozny, for example. Thus, I spent a lot of time on the road and now I want to share my experience of what it’s like to travel by rail in China...

China is currently experiencing a boom in high-speed railway construction. With government support and thanks to special measures, by the end of 2020 the total length of the high-speed rail network will reach 18,000 km. In technological terms, the organization of high-speed rail communication occurs through agreements on the transfer of technology from reputable foreign manufacturers, such as the Canadian Bombardier, the French company Alstom, and the Japanese Kawasaki. By adopting foreign technologies, China is striving to make its own developments based on them, for example, the development of CRH-380A series trains, which set a record for high-speed roads in China, about 500 km/h. But I traveled by train at a more modest speed - about 350 km/h, and I can say with confidence that if Chinese trains are not inferior in speed, for example, to the same Japanese Shinkansen, then in terms of quality of service, cleanliness and comfort, of course, they still have some way to go...

Chinese trains vary in speed and class of service. To designate each train, a Latin letter is used (for example: D, T, K, C, Z) followed by the train number or, less commonly, just the train number. I took a photo of one of my tickets with instructions on how to figure out what was written on it.

In principle, it’s not difficult to understand, but it’s very, very important to know - At which specific station of the city you need does this train arrive!!! If there is a transfer ahead, then from which station the next train leaves. In Beijing, as it turned out, there are 5 railway stations!!!
I’ll give you the Chinese designations for Beijing train stations, in case anyone needs it, because I’m confused myself:

Beijing Central Railway Station ( 北京站 )

Beijing West Station ( 北京西站 )

Beijing South Station ( 北京南站 )

Beijing North Station ( 北京北站 )

Beijing East Station ( 北京东站 )

On my ticket above the word Beijing It was the Central Station that was written in hieroglyphs.

And when you buy tickets, you also need to figure out which station is best to choose for the train to arrive at, so that it is more convenient to get to your hotel, so as not to spend extra money on a taxi later.

If you are planning to travel around China by train, the following information about train categories and car types in China may be useful.
If the train number contains a letter G, D or C, then we are talking about high high speed trains and it is them that I advise you to use when traveling, you don’t want to waste extra time traveling between cities, because these are the types of trains that are among the the fastest and most comfortable.
Train categories G: The fastest and best, reaching speeds of up to 350 km/h, daytime trains.
Train categories D: Second fastest. On some night trains long distance There are compartment cars available.
Train categories C: High-speed trains. They run between neighboring cities.

After you decide on the train, you need to choose the class of your seat; there are only 4 of them on high-speed trains: 2nd class, 1st class, premium and business. All seats are installed with a direction exclusively in the direction of the train, when the train changes its direction (I had this happen), the seats are turned over 180 degrees. Category D overnight high-speed trains have both compartment and luxury compartment cars available.
Advice (of course, based on their financial capabilities) - take premium or business class, there are seats for one or 2 people similar to business class seats on an airplane, in other classes there are 3 people each, and you yourself understand what aromas you will have to sit among the whole way and these will clearly be fragrances not from CHANEL. In addition, you will be given a bottle of water and a bag of snacks, and for trips over 4 hours, a lunch with a choice of dishes will be provided.

Safety!
Prepare to be safe in the area railway station the relevant authorities treat with manic responsibility. All things will be inspected as when boarding an airplane, people are also inspected with special care, tickets and passports - EVERYTHING is checked, and at some stations this check is carried out twice! In addition, people seeing off and greeting are not allowed into the station, so you will have to navigate the schedule, train boarding area, etc. on your own.
Here comes the most interesting part of the “Marlezon ballet”J As I would put it, in China everything is oriented for the Chinese, so the scoreboard will look like this.

Those. at best, you will be able to identify your train number with a Latin letter (if present, sometimes the train number consists only of numbers). Next is the number of the platform and platform - a guessing game in the Chinese style. However, for experienced travelers like us, even such a board was deciphered, so we can now safely go to Mars!

They begin to let people onto the platform to the train no earlier than 15 minutes in advance, so you can find your way in advance on your own or try to find out from the non-English-speaking station staff where to run with your clothes, pointing your finger at your ticket with a silent question in your eyes (practice at home on just in case for a silent question).
Keep your ticket all the way until you arrive at your final destination, because you will need to put it in the turnstile, and they will also check it on the train itself.

They want trains exactly on schedule, minute by minute, parking at stations is only 1-2 minutes, so I don’t recommend leaving the car for smokers to do this. There have been cases when tourists remain in this way at the closed doors of the train without anything at all, but with a pack of cigarettes.

And lastly, buying a train ticket without being in China is quite difficult. Therefore, either rely on chance and buy tickets already in China at the station ticket office, but not for Chinese New Year- this is generally an impossible mission for any money, or use the services of a travel agency in your region, which will help you in advance with this issue.

Thinking out loud, opus No. 6. Traveling by train is sometimes interesting not only from the point of view of convenience. When you look out the window, you can notice something that you wouldn’t pay attention to when you’re at your place of stay...

Firstly, I was surprised by the perfect cleanliness throughout the long journey of the train, no garbage at all on the sides of the tracks. By the way, the cleanliness in China this time absolutely shocked me, not a speck, not a cigarette butt, not a piece of paper - ANYWHERE. It was interesting to know that recently all janitors and cleaners have been made government employees, and this has always been extremely honorable in China. And after a year of such work, all the doors of other government agencies in the country are open to you, so people extremely hold on to such a prestigious job, scrupulously cleaning everything around.

Secondly, the agricultural fields were perfectly sown right up to the railway, sometimes it even seemed that everything looked so perfect that you were driving through Japan.

Thirdly, there were a lot of completely futuristic-looking industrial facilities, I was just staring at them. In a word, you won’t be bored on the road, and this experience will definitely complement your knowledge as a traveler.

Relatively recently, they launched into operation in China new train, and our compatriots can only envy the passengers who travel in reserved seat carriages. Comfortable shelves, designated personal space and most importantly, when moving around the carriage, some passengers do not touch the dangling legs of others.

Recently, the management of Shanghai Railways announced the official launch of a high-speed night train on the Beijing-Shanghai route. Given the huge area of China, flights on ultra-long routes are in great demand there. The distance along the high-speed line (HSR) between the two megacities is 1,318 kilometers, and the new train takes only 12 hours.

The dimensions of this train have undergone some changes, in particular, the height of the cars has been increased and the berths for passengers have been modified. Russian users of social networks have already managed to call the carriages a “reserved seat”, only much more comfortable than their domestic counterparts.

Indeed, all the shelves are installed in the direction of travel of the train, in contrast to the usual transverse arrangement. Each passenger has his personal space clearly marked: regardless of the tier, there is a separate window, an adjustable orthopedic backrest, a table, a lamp and a socket for chargers. But the most convenient thing is that, if desired, any passenger can hide from the intrusive glances of others with a thick screen.

The volume of the new ultra-long-distance night train has been increased by 37% compared to the size of conventional passenger trains. Quantity seats– 880. The developers of this rolling stock have reduced vibration and optimized noise reduction. They claim that the noise from this moving train is no more than from a car on the highway. Considering the fact that the train is traveling at night, its speed is reduced to 250 km/h.

It seems that man cannot do without comparisons. I have noticed this so many times in myself and in other people. As soon as we encounter some new phenomenon, we begin to search our memory to see if we have encountered something similar. And if we find it, we immediately begin to look for differences between similar objects.

Apparently that’s why, sitting in the reserved seat carriage of the Chinese train taking me from Manchuria to Beijing, I involuntarily noted to myself its similarities and differences from the Russian reserved seat carriage, in which I had the opportunity to travel many kilometers across my native country.

First of all, it must be said that in China there are two types of trains: high-speed (in which, in principle, there are no sleeping places, only chairs) and regular ones. In a regular train, the carriages are divided into three classes: a soft sleeper (in our opinion, a compartment), a hard sleeper (in our opinion, a reserved seat) and a carriage with seating areas. Regular trains are three times slower than high-speed ones: a regular train moves at average speed about 80 km/h, while the high-speed one accelerates to 300 km/h.

Before this trip to Beijing, I had already traveled on a Chinese regular train, but it was a seated carriage. Traveling in a seated carriage of a regular Chinese train for 14 hours is a very difficult ordeal. I hope this never happens again. It’s not for nothing that the seats in such cars are called “hard seats”, because they are “tinny”. Although for short distances the carriage is quite suitable.

My past trips on an ordinary Chinese train gave me an internal fear of traveling in them, but this time, entering the reserved seat car and seeing the usual rows of shelves, I felt calm. The carriage seemed quite acceptable.

The first difference that caught my eye was the absence of side seats. On my ticket in the “place” section there was the number 10 and something was written in unfamiliar hieroglyphs. I found a compartment labeled 9/10. The two bottom shelves were already occupied by two Chinese people, who completely covered the table with their food supplies, and the beds with their phones, tablets, chargers and jackets.

The men began to cackle and point their fingers up at the ceiling. Wow! This, it turns out, is why there are no side benches here; they are turned into third shelves in the compartment, the same as luggage compartments on a Russian train.

The third shelf is the most uncomfortable in the carriage. The distance between the ceiling and the bench here is so small that it is impossible to sit on the shelf, even with your head bowed. You can only crawl onto this shelf by climbing a ladder on the side, from the shelf you can only crawl out, but changing your body position while on it is quite difficult. I was not able to sit downstairs on the lower benches or use the table. The men made it clear that this was their territory. For the unlucky ones on the second and third shelves, on the opposite side of the carriage there are folding chairs by the window and a narrow shelf - a pitiful semblance of a table. Above them, along the entire carriage, there was a luggage rack.

Side chairs and table

Luggage rack

But I liked the bed: a neat pillow and a soft synthetic blanket. Everything is already laid out. There is no mattress, but even without it it is quite soft, even though the carriage is called hard.

There is boiling water in the carriage, just like in a Russian train, but I didn’t find an outlet for charging my phone. But the problem of toilets, which are always occupied on Russian trains, has been solved quite well.

Here the toilet is always free. And all because there are two of them at one end of the car and the washbasins are located in a separate room from them. But toilet paper Passengers are not allowed here.

Another pleasant difference from Russian trains is the convenient transitions between cars. Here you can pass from one carriage to another without even noticing it. On a Russian train, the passages between cars are closed with doors and look creepy. There are also sellers of food and all sorts of things walking around the carriages, but unlike Russians, Chinese sellers can put on a real show to sell some little thing.

At night I noticed significant discomfort Chinese reserved seat: The shops here are a little narrower than ours. There are no shelves on the walls for essential things; they have to be kept right there on the bench, which makes it even more cramped.

Weighing all the pros and cons of the Chinese reserved seat in comparison with ours, I still haven’t come to a conclusion which one I like better. Probably, the best one is the one in which you are traveling in a pleasant company, with your friends or just with good fellow travelers.

P.S. I was asked about ticket prices. Prices are about the same as ours.

They accelerate to 300 km per hour and allow you to quickly and expensively travel around the country. By the end of 2015, the length of high-speed railways in China was more than 19,000 km, and by 2020 the Chinese are going to build another 23,000 km (spending 2.8 trillion yuan on this) and connect everything big cities countries.

Last year, the Chinese even proposed building a high-speed railway to Vladivostok, but this idea is still stuck at the negotiation level. Apparently, the Chinese do not want to invest their own funds in the corridor for our shuttles, demanding also Russian participation, and this is difficult now. By the way, in China itself, what the PRC leadership spends on railways a lot of money.

It is not yet possible to cover the entire country with local copies of Siemens and Bombardier. Most Western China, where there are mainly mountains and deserts, has not yet been conquered. In the south, there are also branches that are not duplicated by high-speed ones. So in China there are regular trains with compartment carriages, lace curtains on the windows and tea in the cup holders. I took one of these trains from Dali to Kunming - only 250 km, but the journey took 7 hours!

01. Chinese train stations are huge multi-storey buildings with offices and shops.

02. Station Square

03. The parking lot is a complete mess, it’s impossible to approach with a suitcase.

04. Everything is crowded with cars very tightly.

05. Police booth on the station square. To prevent anyone from pestering the policeman with questions, he fenced himself off with a ribbon.

06. There is a paid waiting room at the station! Costs 20 yuan (220 rubles).

07. For this money they will pour boiling water and take your luggage for storage.

08. This is what the hall looks like.

09. Luggage storage at the station. Storage cost is 15 yuan (160 rubles) for two suitcases. All items are checked on a scanner.

10. There are no elevators at the station; instead, there are these ramps in the middle of the stairs, it is impossible to use them.

11. Store

12. You can buy alcohol for the trip.

13. Only passengers with tickets are allowed into the station; at the entrance everyone is checked with a passport and entered into a computer, things are scanned, passengers are searched. Everything is like at the airport.