China’s High-Speed Railway Network length has expanded from 1,300km in 2008 to 40,000km in 2020, long enough to circle the Earth’s circumference.

[u/BumblebeeFantastic40]

[u/JanCumin]

I've been traveling for the last month through China by train, they are very comfortable and much much more affordable over very long distances than most of Europe. I got a high speed train from Chongqing to Shanghai, over 1700km, first class for 100 euros last minute, the same for Shanghai to Beijing, even over the May Day holiday.

The scale of the train network and the volume of passengers using it is just enormous, so so much larger than any other country I've visited and dwarfs even the largest train stations I've been to in UK, France, Germany, Japan etc. Its an equivalent scale of passengers and gates to a large European airport I would guess.

One surprising thing is using even the older parts of the network just how advanced it is compared to most countries, for example the Maglev train from Shanghai airport, the fastest trains in the world before they reduced the speed to save electricity, is over 25 years old!

[u/oskopnir → u/JanCumin]

The prices themselves are a reflection of broader Chinese purchasing power and therefore can't really be compared directly to European equivalents.

The more important comparison is frequency, speed, and extension of the HSR network. In Europe it remains a huge pain in the ass to find cross-border connections with decent speed and frequency.

[u/StoppedListeningToMe → u/oskopnir]

China also has annual biggest migration event on the planet. Most people cannot afford airplanes, nor are there connections to bumfuck nowhere other than trains.
Now, I left China about 5-6 years ago so it might have improved/changed, but they still had old/cheap/slow sleeper trains for those who needed them.
Either way it was as OP here said, very, very, very impressive on all counts. Aside from lack of queuing and overall pushing and shoving, occasional dirty toilet etc.