Beijing South and Beijing West are not the same building

Here is the mistake, and it is expensive, and people make it constantly. You book a train from Beijing. You go to Beijing station. Your train leaves from Beijing South, which is a completely different building on the other side of a very large city, and you are now watching a taxi meter and a departure time move toward each other.

Chinese cities do not have one station with several entrances. They have several stations, named north, south, east and west, and the compass point is not decoration. Read the station name on the ticket. Then read it again on the morning.

Loosely: the newer directional stations handle the fast trains and sit further out. The old central one handles slower long-distance services.

Leave more time than feels reasonable

You go through security to get into the station, then an ID check at the gate for your specific train. Gates shut several minutes before departure and they shut properly, with staff who are entirely unmoved by how close you were.

Forty-five minutes at a small station. An hour at a big one. More around public holidays, when the concourse becomes something you wade through.

Your passport is the ticket

There is nothing to print. You booked with a passport number and you scan the passport at the gate, so the name on the booking has to match it exactly. This is worth checking at the point of booking rather than at the barrier.

What the classes actually buy you

The official system is 12306, as an app and a website. Travel apps resell the same seats with a fee and a nicer interface, which for a first trip is money well spent.

Second class is comfortable, and is what most people take. First class is roughly half again as much for a wider seat and more legroom. Business class is about triple, gets you something close to lie-flat, and is genuinely lovely on a five hour run and impossible to justify on a ninety minute one.

The letter in front of the number

• G is the fastest.
• D is high speed but slower, and often overnight.
• Z, T and K are the older long-distance trains. Slower, cheaper, sleeper berths, and a completely different experience.

A G train can halve the journey time of a K on the same route for roughly double the fare, which is usually the right trade and occasionally not.

Questions people ask

Can foreigners buy Chinese train tickets online?

Yes. 12306 accepts passport numbers, and third-party travel apps sell the same tickets with a booking fee.

How early should I arrive at a Chinese train station?

Allow 45 to 60 minutes. You clear a security check to enter the station and an ID check at the gate, and gates close before departure.

Do I need to print my ticket?

No. Foreign passengers travel on the passport used to book, scanned at the gate.

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