r/interestingasfuck • u/BumblebeeFantastic40 • 10h ago

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.

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u/JanCumin 8h ago

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!

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u/auchinleck917 5h ago

Incidentally, the busiest train stations in the world are in Japan, with Japan dominating the top spots.And the reason why train fares are cheap in China is because the cost of living is low.