Take the Fast Train to Suzhou

The train system in China is complex and what works for one route may not work for another. I hope all this information in the blogs here can help someone, but invariably it's a trial and error process where the conditions are constantly changing.

That being said, two very common weekend trips or day trips for people living in Shanghai are the famous cities of Suzhou and Hangzhou. Last post covered how to get to Hangzhou -- take regular trains out of the south station, just like it has always worked in the past. Unless you live very near the Hongqiao station, the bullet train system is useless for that particular route.

For Suzhou, the bullet trains and fast trains have actually given benefits and they are useful.

Also, the regular trains still exist but for the Suzhou trip, they are best avoided. The main reason is because the train lines are shared and the regular trains have to stop and give priority to the faster trains.

For that reason, trips to Suzhou on the regular trains have enormous variability. They could take 45 minutes like in the past, but they could take two hours if you get stuck on the wrong train.

The fast trains are consistently 30 minutes, and enough of them depart from the main downtown station in Shanghai so as not to waste time in going to Hongqiao. As well, the prices for the fast trains are cheap -- 25 RMB. If you pay 50 RMB you can enjoy the bullet trains which go even faster, and yes, they also depart from downtown and arrive downtown.

But the thing is, you have to know in advance what train number is what, where it leaves, where it arrives, the times, and the prices. When Shanghai has 3 distinct train stations, the onus is on you to figure this stuff out.

The internet site mentioned earlier for China Trains has proven to be most reliable. Armed with that information, I've had nearly 100% success rates in booking tickets from train station windows because I try to figure out as much as possible and have several back-up plans in case of things going belly up.

This was seriously put to the test a year or so ago when I ordered a train ticket in the midst of the summer chaos at the Wuhan station. Nearly everyone had problems getting their train tickets, and the word "mei you" was the order of the day. Things were tense, when the main display board shows nearly every train was full. The exception was the train I managed to book that actually had seats available and actually left on time -- which I considered a minor miracle.