6-Figure Digit Mileage — A Pre-Covid Record
2017 got off to a very good start as David boarded Train G123 from Beijing South Station on 01 January 2017, returning to the rails less than 12 hours after the new year had just started.
On 05 January 2017, David was part of the very first direct Beijing-Kunming HSR train service. The trip to Kunming would be very long, but he joined the train as far south as Shijiazhuang, then head west for his first trip to Taiyuan South HSR hub, which truly impressed him.
Trips in the very first month of the year already took him to many more destinations thanks to a vastly expanded network. Following a day trip to Xi’an, these similar day trips would take David to Zhengzhou (where he also tried the rail link to Xinzheng Airport), Hefei, and Bengbu.
He’d continue tweeting about #Chunyun, China’s Spring Festival Peak Travel Season, throughout the entire 40-day period, allowing viewers from across the planet a unique look at what’s seen as the largest human migration.
Trips in the very first month of the year already took him to many more destinations thanks to a vastly expanded network. Following a day trip to Xi’an, these similar day trips would take David to Zhengzhou (where he also tried the rail link to Xinzheng Airport), Hefei, and Bengbu.
He’d continue tweeting about #Chunyun, China’s Spring Festival Peak Travel Season, throughout the entire 40-day period, allowing viewers from across the planet a unique look at what’s seen as the largest human migration. China’s HSR system expansion has been the focus of a lot of attention; however, the city metro networks across many a Chinese city has been growing with the same amount of dynamism as the national HSR network.
Throughout the year, David gave the networks across China plenty of mileage. All local trips are now covered by city metro — with the percentage of travel by car down.
In 2017, David travelled, for the very first time, on the metro systems in Hefei and Zhengzhou in China, including travelling for the whole extent of the Chengjiao (City-Urban) Line in Zhengzhou, as well as travelling on an expanded Tianjin Metro Line 6.
On 18 April 2017, David launched Next Station: China, a rolling documentary to chronicle the nationwide rail network and all its stations. In the two years before the Covid-19 pandemic, the journey would take him to around 400 stations. This also gave him 6-figure digit mileage — over 110’000 km for all of calendar year 2017. This would make this year the most-travelled for David before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, decimating travel and livelihoods globally.