Magic of the bullet trains

High-speed services carry passengers in comfort and style for Spring Festival

China's growing high-speed rail network has made life a lot easier for people traveling back home during the annual Spring Festival holiday rush, passengers say.

"I clearly remember 20 years ago, when I first came to Beijing to procure goods, I had to spend more than 50 hours on a train when returning to my hometown in Guangzhou," said Ding Mingyao, a food wholesaler who has been doing business in Beijing since 1994.

For many Chinese, returning home for Spring Festival, the most important holiday of the year, is like a sacred ritual they must perform. The long-held tradition creates an annual travel rush that is perhaps the world's largest recurring human migration. This year, Spring Festival falls on Feb 19.

"Young people cannot imagine how we endured sitting on uncomfortable seats for as long as 50 hours," Ding laughed.

"To be honest, it felt really bad staying two days on a train, but we didn't have any choice, a bullet train was like something from the Arabian Nights for Chinese people, and most ordinary people couldn't afford an air ticket."

Pointing at the spearhead-shaped power unit of the train he was about to take at Beijing West Railway Station, Ding said the time of his train journey to Guangdong province has been greatly reduced.

"Now I get on the high-speed train at 10:30 am and arrive in Guangzhou at about 8 pm, which means I can have dinner with my two daughters at home," he said. "After the girls graduate from the university and move to Beijing, I plan to take the high-speed trains with them during every Spring Festival."

Last year, Chinese passengers made more than 3.6 billion trips during the Spring Festival - 3.3 billion by road, 266 million by train, 44 million by air, and 42 million by boat - the Ministry of Transport says.

For office employees, migrant workers and students who have a long distance to travel to get to their hometowns, rail travel is the most convenient and fastest option.

"I'm willing to stand in a line and wait two hours for a train ticket," said Li Chengxin, a construction worker in Guangzhou who hails from Guizhou province.

"It's virtually impossible to take a bus home because there is usually heavy traffic on the roads during the holiday rush, and flying is too expensive for me."

With the new Guiyang-Guangzhou high-speed railway, Li can reach his hometown in less than five hours, instead of the 21 hours it used to take him.

"Going home by train is no longer an ordeal, but an exciting journey," he said.

China Railway Corp expects 289 million trips to be made during the 40-day Spring Festival travel peak this year, from Feb 4 to March 16, an increase of 26 million compared with 2014.

The nation's high-speed rail network extended to more than 16,000 km at the end of 2014, far longer than any other country's and larger than the European Union's entire high-speed rail network, according to China Railway Corp.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn