Just a few days back, the city of Beijing announced an end to inbound quarantine for all domestic travellers from the rest of China coming into Beijing. To me, this was a great chance to finally get some mileage on the rails.
Unlike my very last journey in late January 2020, the facemask is now a standard requirement to get any length of mileage on board the rails. However, it was also seen as a sign of solidarity — between citizens alike, as well as between me and the rest of the railway family. So I donned mine on with a special feeling of pride, the fact that we were fighting this virus together.
Today I got to meet with the people behind Badaling Great Wall railway station — a station I briefly visited in very early 2020. We went around the entire station looking for where we could improve signage, what facilities were alien to staff, as well as many other things.
Before we arrived at the station, I also gave Qinghe terminus in northwestern suburban Beijing a good look around, in particular at the underground ticket office — now retermed an “integrated service centre”. I also had my recording kit around — so I could record content for rail staff to take a look at, for them to improve their English ahead of the 2022 Winter Games.
The Beijing-Zhangjiakou HSR is indeed a very new line, with many station facilities never trialled before on other lines around the Chinese capital, at the very least. I look forward to going to many other stations on the line, in particular the intermediate stations outside Beijing. Meantime, I’m happy to finally be back with people I know in the real community, and hope this pandemic will end sooner than later.