Job Discussion Forums

[gerard]

Where??? Anyway my bud has a ticket 18 hours and 220 for a slleper. This sounds too cheap and too fast. Does anyone know for certain??? Fast train yes but this sounds too good. Has anyone done this marathon???

[Diletante]

That is both very quick and very cheap. I took a train from Beijing to Shenzhen, and it was about 26 hours. So 18 hours is possible, I guess, since Guanzhou is closer, and perhaps the train he is taking is a bit more kuai than mine was.

However, for 220, tell him to make sure he has a sleeper. I'd imagine he has a soft seat, or, horror of horrors, a hard seat. My soft sleeper was about 450-500. Perhaps it is a hard sleeper, which is pretty decent, but I'd make sure.

Or maybe the problem is since he's going from "Peking to Canton" he's traveling through some time warp when people still used those names, and the tickets were cheaper back then. Who can tell?

[Roger]

Peking to Canton is about 2200 kms. Last time I travelled this route it took the train about 25 hours. To Shenzhen it is an extra 140 kms, which trains now do in just one hour.
As for the fare, I am rather skeptical. 220 does not buy you a hard sleeper, to be sure! I paid RMB 330 on the considerably shorter trip from Canton to Shanghai *some 1400 kms), hard sleeper, aircon.
It probably is hard seat. Go to carriage no. 7, right after the start, and upgrade your ticket to hard sleeper - so long as possible! THere usually is a run for the few tickets available! Hard sleeper costs double the fare of a hard seat.

[cheekygal]

may be a little bit late to post. but my ticket from shanghai to urumqi, *sitter*, 48-hours trip, cost me 400 RMB. So 220 is possible. but might be as well just a soft *sitter*

-cheekybabe

[gerard]