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Beijing has two
major railway stations: Beijing
Railway Station (or the central
station) and Beijing
West Railway Station.
Three other railway stations in
Metropolitan
Beijing handle regular passenger traffic: Beijing East, Beijing North,
and
Fengtai. There are also several other small stations
serving suburban
area.
As of August 1,
2006, Beijing Railway Station has 167 trains stopping daily, while
Beijing West
Railway Station has 176 trains.
There are
railway lines from Beijing to Guangzhou, Shanghai, Harbin,
Baotou, Taiyuan, Chengde and Qinhuangdao.
International
trains, including lines to cities in Russia and Pyongyang, North Korea
(DPRK),
all run through Beijing. Direct trains to Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR also
depart
from Beijing.
Construction on a
Beijing-Tianjin high-speed rail began on July 4, 2005, and is scheduled
to be
completed in 2007.
Foreigners can buy tickets in
English
BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Foreigners will find
it easier to buy train tickets in the Chinese capital now that the
city's major
railway station has begun to provide services in English.
Beijing Railway Station in the downtown
area will
staff two English-language information and ticket sales windows during
the
62-day summer transport period starting Sunday.
The railway station will open a total of
120
ticket windows during the hectic months of July and August, including
windows
for senior citizens and deaf and mute people.
The station expects 5.99 million
departures in the
two busy months, up 6.5 percent from the same period of last year.
Coastal
cities such as Dalian, Qingdao and Yantai are expected to be popular
with
tourists and students anxious to escape the sweltering heat and
pollution of
the big cities.
Up to 15 additional trains will operate on
some
busy routes, according to the office.
Beijing West Railway Station, the
capital's
busiest, expects a record 7.55 million departures in the two peak
summer months
with a daily average of 122,000 passengers, up 12.8 percent over the
same
period last year.
The station will arrange one extra inbound
and one
extra outbound train on nine routes, bringing the total number of
services each
day to 121.
China's railway authorities raised the
maximum
train speed for the sixth time in April and 286 trains now run at up to
250
kilometers per hour every day.
Typical Beijing-Shanghai fares
Beijing-Shanghai
one-way per person
By
Z-category sleeper train... By
D-category daytime train...
Hard sleeper
Soft
sleeper Deluxe
sleeper
Soft class seat
RMB
350 ($46)
RMB 500 ($66)
RMB 921
($122)
RMB 327 ($44)
For more detailed fares and
timetable see www.seat61.com
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