The world of Chinese reserved seat. "Feel the difference" - a Chinese reserved seat car (how it is better and worse than ours from Russian Railways) Types of cars in Chinese trains

They accelerate to 300 km per hour and allow you to quickly and expensively travel around the country. By the end of 2015, China had more than 19,000 km of high-speed rail, and by 2020, the Chinese are going to build another 23,000 km (at a cost of 2.8 trillion yuan) and connect all big cities countries.

Last year, the Chinese even offered to build a high-speed railway to Vladivostok, but this idea has so far been stuck at the level of negotiations. Apparently, the Chinese do not want to invest their own funds in the corridor for our shuttles, demanding also Russian participation, and this is now difficult. By the way, in China itself, what the PRC leadership spends on railways lots of money.

It is not yet possible to cover the whole country with local copies of Siemens and Bombardier. Most of western China, where there are mostly mountains and deserts, has not yet been conquered. In the south, there are also branches that are not duplicated by high-speed ones. So there are ordinary trains in China with compartment cars, lace curtains on the windows and tea in cup holders. On one of these trains I went from Dali to Kunming - only 250 km, but the journey took 7 hours!

01. Chinese stations are huge multi-storey buildings with offices and shops.

02. Railway Station Square

03. Parking is a complete mess, it is impossible to approach with a suitcase.

04. Everything is packed with cars very tightly.

05. Policeman's booth on the forecourt. So that no one would get the policeman with questions, he fenced himself off with a ribbon.

06. There is a paid waiting room at the station! It costs 20 yuan (220 rubles).

07. For this money they will pour boiling water, take luggage for storage.

08. This is what the hall looks like.

09. Luggage storage at the station. The cost of storage is 15 yuan (160 rubles) for two suitcases. All things are checked on the scanner.

10. There are no elevators at the station, instead, such ramps are made in the middle of the stairs, it is impossible to use them.

11. Shop

12. You can buy alcohol on the road.

13. Only passengers with tickets are allowed into the station, at the entrance everyone is checked by their passport and entered into a computer, things shine through, passengers are searched. Everything is like at the airport.

14. Free waiting room

15.

16.

17. They let you out onto the platform only when the train has arrived, you can’t go down earlier.

18. There are also no normal ramps or an elevator to go down.

19. Wagon

20. Everything is like ours)

21. Sticker with the route.

22. Chinese railway worker

23. Coupe like ours

24. Carpets are beautiful, with patterns!

25. The linen is clean (I would like to think so), immediately filled.

26. Trash bowl. There are no outlets, they are in the hallway.

27. Before departure, they carry food.

28. And this is an economy class car, like our reserved seat.

29. There are no doors in the compartment and 3 rows of shelves instead of two.

30. In the vestibule - open washbasins. Comfortable

31.

32. Arrived at the final

33.

34.

35. Cleaner

36.

37. Exit from the station. In general, it is not easy to navigate at Chinese stations for those who do not know Chinese.

38. Here, street vendors sell food with might and main.

39. Early breakfast

40.

There is such a cool blogger Kim Korshunov, he is also a columnist for the program "Miracle of Technology" on NTV, he is also the editor-in-chief of the website and channel of the same name onyoutube . He decided to travel from Shanghai to Beijing by train.

There were three options: either a super-fast train, which everyone probably saw in some programs. Either a regular reserved seat, like ours, or a luxury version of a reserved seat (these are the newest trains, there are about a dozen of them for the whole of China).

Ticket price

Most fast option travels 1,500 km from Shanghai to Beijing in 4.3 hours. But a ticket costs about the same as a plane ticket. Most a budget option costs about 2000 rubles. The cars there are almost exactly the same as ours. Well, the price, in fact, too.

The intermediate option, which Kim called "the coolest reserved seat in the world," costs about 6,000 rubles at the rate. Expensive, but there are a few points. Firstly, this is a suite (more on that below), and secondly, a ticket was bought on the day of departure, one can say an hour before departure (if you take it in advance, it will be cheaper, and if you use some benefits, even cheaper). Thirdly, such the train is coming just 11 hours. In our country, for comparison, the train would travel this distance in 16 or even 20 hours.

Separately, I want to say about the purchase of tickets. RZD is much more convenient. I went into the application, bought a ticket in 5 clicks and that's it. No paperwork, no lines, no cash.

Train

Outside, the train is very similar to our Sapsan. Well, in terms of speed, in fact, it is also about the same. Normal cruising speed is 120-160 km/h. There were 3 stops along the way.

From the side, the train seems to be double-decker, because the windows are in two rows, but in size it is about the same as a regular Russian single-decker car. There is no second floor, just the lower and upper passengers have their own small windows. With your own curtains. And in general, despite the fact that this is a reserved seat, personal space is separated as much as possible - more on that later.

In the wagon

As such, there are no carriages on the train. The whole train is a long "gut" without doors and vestibules, like ours. On the one hand, this is good, you can move around on the ride.

On the other hand, there is nowhere to smoke. If someone snores loudly or some child throws a tantrum, then it will be heard not only in one car. Also, the whole train will have to listen to the knocking of the doors to the toilet. And they knock. But it is noteworthy that they do not clap and, despite good sound insulation, there is silence in the whole train.

Guides and tea

When boarding the train, no one checks any documents, although then the conductor still passes through the train. I don’t know how many conductors for the whole train, but it seems that there is only one. That is, one conductor and 2 cleaners (yes, in China, a conductor and a cleaner are different people).

In addition to the fact that the absence of a large number of conductors is a cost reduction, in principle they are not needed. But there is no one to order the other side of the seagulls, no one gives out cups for free. You also need to bring chess with you. No one sells cookies and newspapers, souvenirs and lottery tickets Same.

The restaurant car is just a counter where you can buy a local "Doshirak" and some garbage. But no tea, by the way.

The car has free drinking water. But it does not surprise us, we also have it.

Toilet

A toilet is like a toilet. Nothing special. There is no soul, if anyone is interested. Toilets are located in pairs, opposite each other. Toilets, of course, bio. Everything is clean, it smells nice (there is a hanging flavor like "Christmas tree").

A distinctive feature - in addition to small sinks in the toilet room itself, there are also sinks nearby. That is, if you just need a sink to wash yourself or wash something, you don’t need to occupy the toilet.

Space organization

As I said, the car is reserved seat, but all the time I want to call the seats compartments, because everyone has their own place. I would even say that this reserved seat provides much more privacy and convenience than our compartments.

Each place has its own curtain. You can close and no one will disturb you.

Normal ladders lead to the second floor and no one will step on your bed, on your table and so on. And if the curtain is closed, then you won’t even notice that someone climbs or descends.

I am very pleased that all the seats are located along the car, and not across (hello, Russian Railways), so no one's legs stick out in the aisle. This is a really huge plus. Moreover, the seats are arranged in such a way that you can stretch out to your full height, more on that later. In general, you walk calmly, you don’t dodge your legs, you don’t smell other people’s socks, the passage turns out to be wide.

Personal space

Your place in the Chinese reserved seat is not just a place on a bench and a bunk - it's just a small room, albeit with a curtain instead of a door. The curtain, by the way, is very high quality and with magnets so that it does not open. In general, I must say that everything is done efficiently, reliably, powerfully. At least that's the impression.

Everyone has a table at their disposal (and on the second floor too!), everyone has personal lighting (German by the way from Schneider Electric), a spotlight for reading, a universal socket (American plug, European and USB), a mesh pocket and three hooks for clothes.

With hooks, however, a small embarrassment. Since all the hooks are above the bed, it will not work to hang a long coat or a fur coat - the floors will somehow lie on the bed and interfere.

As I said at the beginning, everyone has their own window. And each window has its own personal curtain. It's cool actually. Such a small corner. No need to fight with anyone and argue about whether to open the curtain or close it.

Bed

Let's start with the fact that all the places have already been filled (both above and below), there are slippers of different colors nearby (apparently, so that the neighbors do not confuse). The bag can be removed under the bed - half an elephant will fit there.

On the bed you can sit at the table. You can sit with your legs stretched out on the bed, leaning your head against the wall, on which a soft headrest is prudently made.

There are no mattresses in Chinese trains, instead of them something like a soft blanket, then a sheet, a blanket, a pillow. The pillow, by the way, is buckwheat.

The length of the bed is approximately 2.0 meters. And this, by the way, is surprising, because the average height of the Chinese is 165 cm for men and 155 for women (it seems that the new Russian Railways cars were made just according to Chinese standards, because an ordinary European does not fit there in any way).

In general, as you can see, Chinese new trains have both pluses and minuses. I like Russian Railways more in some things, but in terms of organizing personal space, Chinese cars are definitely better. Something like capsule hotels, only cooler. And one more thing: in some surprising way, the cars have a very smooth ride. No jerks, pitching, jerking and quiet.

How are you? Which wagons do you think are better: ours or Chinese?

It seems that a person cannot do without comparisons. I've seen it so many times in myself and others. As soon as we encounter some new phenomenon, we begin to search in memory, and not whether we have met something similar. And if we find, then we immediately begin to look for differences between similar objects.

Apparently that is why, sitting in the reserved seat car of the Chinese train taking me from Manchuria to Beijing, I involuntarily noted to myself its similarities and differences from the Russian reserved seat, in which I happened to travel many kilometers through my native country.

First of all, it must be said that in China there are two types of trains: high-speed (in which there are basically no sleeping places, only chairs) and ordinary ones. In an ordinary train, cars are divided into three classes: soft sleeping (in our compartment), hard sleeping (in our reserved seat) and a car with seats. Ordinary trains are three times slower than high-speed ones: an ordinary train moves with average speed about 80 km / h, while the high-speed accelerates to 300 km / h.

Before this trip to Beijing, I had already traveled on a Chinese regular train, but it was a seated car. Riding in a seated car on an ordinary Chinese train for 14 hours is a very difficult test. I hope never to repeat this. No wonder the places in such cars are called “hard seats”, because it is “tin”. Although for short distances the car will fit perfectly.

My past trips on a conventional Chinese train have shaped my inner fear of traveling in them, but this time, going into econom-class train, and seeing the usual rows of shelves, I felt calm. The car seemed to be quite acceptable.

The first difference that caught my eye is the lack of side seats. On my ticket, in the “seat” section, there was the number 10 and something was added with unfamiliar hieroglyphs. I found a compartment labeled 9/10. The bottom two shelves were already occupied by two Chinese, who completely filled the table with their food supplies, and the beds with their phones, tablets, chargers and jackets.

The men began to cackle and point their fingers up at the ceiling. Wow! That, it turns out, is why there are no side benches here, they have been turned into third shelves in the compartment, the same as luggage shelves on a Russian train.

The third shelf is the most uncomfortable in the car. The distance between the ceiling and the bench here is so small that it is impossible to sit on the shelf even with your head tilted. You can only crawl onto this shelf by climbing the ladder on the side, from the shelf you can only crawl out, but changing the position of the body while on it is quite difficult. I did not manage to sit down on the lower benches and use the table. The men made it clear that this was their territory. For losers from the second and third shelves with opposite side the car has folding chairs by the window and a narrow shelf - a miserable semblance of a table. Above them, a luggage rack stretched along the entire carriage.

Side chairs and table

Luggage rack

But I liked the bed: a neat pillow and a soft synthetic winterizer blanket. Everything is already laid out. There is no mattress, but even without it it is quite soft, even though the car is called hard.

There is boiling water in the carriage, as in the Russian train, but I did not find a socket for charging the phone. But the problem of toilets, which are always occupied in Russian trains, is quite well solved.

Here the toilet is always free. And all because there are two of them at one end of the car and washbasins are located in a separate room from them. But toilet paper is not allowed here.

Another nice difference from Russian trains is convenient transitions between cars. Here you can go from one car to another without even noticing it. In the Russian train, the passages between the cars are closed with doors and look creepy. Food vendors and all sorts of things also walk around the cars, only unlike Russians, Chinese sellers can put on a real show to sell some little thing.

At night, I noticed a significant inconvenience of the Chinese reserved seat: the shops here are a little narrower than ours. There are no shelves on the walls for essentials, they have to be kept right there on the bench, which makes it even cramped.

Weighing all the pros and cons of the Chinese reserved seat in comparison with ours, I did not come to the conclusion which one I like more. Probably, the one in which you are traveling in a pleasant company, with your friends or just with good fellow travelers is still better.

P.S. I was asked about ticket prices. Prices are about the same as ours.

What does an innovative reserved seat look like in China

In 2017, China launched trains with a new generation of second-class carriages on the route between Beijing and Shanghai. The two-story trains immediately fell in love with both the Chinese and the guests of the Celestial Empire for their comfort, smooth running and the availability of personal space for each passenger.

In order to realize all the conceived ideas, Chinese engineers had to increase the internal space of the train by almost 40%, as well as raise the upper shelves as high as possible.

The main distinguishing feature of the new train was the absence of vestibules and transitions between cars. In fact, the entire interior of the train is a long corridor with berths on the sides. The border between the cars in the new trains is purely nominal: toilets and vending machines with drinks are located here.

Unlike traditional second-class carriages with a longitudinal-transverse arrangement of sleeping berths, the seats in the new train are located in the direction of travel. Thanks to this, the corridor is noticeably wider, and passengers have much more personal space.

The ticket price includes a set of bed linen and even disposable slippers. The pillows in the new train are filled with environmentally friendly buckwheat material. On the wall in each compartment there is an orthopedic pillow to comfortably sit in a sitting position.

Thanks to the innovative organization of space, each passenger has a separate table and legroom. Due to the well-thought-out organization of the internal zones, the engineers managed to design a train with 880 seats.

In the new reserved seat train you can easily isolate yourself from other passengers with the help of a corrugated curtain. Each compartment has individual lighting that does not blind other passengers, as well as USB connectors, clothes hangers and universal sockets with European, Chinese and American plugs. If necessary, the personal window is closed with an opaque curtain.

When designing a new train, engineers paid Special attention soundproofing and smooth running. By the way, the two-story train overcomes the 1,318-kilometer route between Beijing and Shanghai in just 11 hours. Max Speed trains - 250 km / h.

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