A Return to an Empty Beijing Railway Station

Peking station. Terminus for trains from Mongolia, North Korea even, and of course, Europe — that’d be Moscow. The Vostok coming in every so often, and also China’s equivalent, Trains K3 and K4. Just a few years back, the biggest headache for Beijing would be replacing the K3/K4 service’s 1990s rolling stock. Today, the question …

Resetting trains mileage – having the Chinese capital’s first rail hub to yourself…

For a long time, I have been very interested in counting the number of miles – kilometres – all that, for all rail journeys I’ve made. However, so far, these were for the national, territorial, or regional train systems I’ve travelled in. Although I’ve been a very active user of metro systems and trams – …

First journey on the Beijing to Xiongan intercity railway

Is the Xiongan New Area (雄安新区) finally the northern China equivalent of Shanghai and Guangdong’s mega-development areas? If you are looking at infrastructure development in that part of northern China, you might be tempted to conclude that it is indeed the case. The project itself has been hugely controversial — critics have claimed that it’s …

Back on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou HSR…

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 …

Arriving into Hong Kong by High Speed Rail

Just before 07:00, my wife and I arrived at Hong Kong West Kowloon railway station by High Speed train. But this would be an arrival like never before. It would be the first time we would cross borders inside a railway station itself in East Asia. Furthermore, media attention just made it an even bigger …