Daily Blog
Sunday, 22 February 2009 11:02
Written by Urbanatomy

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So trains from Shanghai to Beijing as of April 1st will officially be 2 hours quicker according to reports out this weekend. That means cutting down the travel time to 10 hours from 12.

According to the Shanghai Daily it means that prices (one-way) will rise to RMB 655 for upper berths and RMB 720 for lower berths. Which sounds a bit pricey to me. In fact, if you fly then you can get a fare for around RMB 700 on April 1st... Okay, your carbon footprint will be bloody massive, but you can leave after an after-work burger in Blue Frog Shanghai and be in Blue Frog Sanlitun by 10pm...

On that note, the scheduling of these new trains is pretty pivotal. Right now, the most popular trains leave at 7, 7:15 and 7:30pm - all arriving in the morning just in time for work. If they're going to leave at 7pm now, then who wants to arrive at Beijing train station at 5am... Hmmmmmm.

Anyway, the real exciting stuff comes in 2012, when the all-singing, all-dancing super duper bullet train arrives and slices the new journey time in half to only 5 hours. Now that's what I'm talking about. The 236mph train is going to kick some serious ass, whipping through some 818 miles. But most importantly it is going to be the most energy-efficient train (something that Nick Gier loves, and would love the US to, er, love) in the world.

That's like wearing a pair of fluffy carbon slippers on a shagpile carpet... Soft indeed.

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