Sale of high-speed train tickets halt

• Source: Global Times
• [10:08 July 05 2010]
• Comments

By Chen Xiaoru

Just days after the launch of the new high-speed rail trains between Nanjing and Shanghai, railway authorities in the provincial capital of Jiangsu Province have suspended the sale of tickets to Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station and Shanghai Railway Station from Sunday onwards.

The move has some questioning why 4.89 billion yuan ($722.2 million) was invested into the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station to develop the surrounding area into a local transportation hub, as passengers frustrated over the inconveniences of its suburban city location say the new high-speed rail route may not provide a more efficient way to travel.

Riders complain that the majority two-thirds of the 60 daily trains destined for the newly constructed Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station instead of the downtown Shanghai Railway Station make for an inconvenient commute with few public transport options available to bring them into the city center upon arriving.

"The Shanghai Railway Station is certainly more convenient for me," Fu Lefeng, a man who lives in Shanghai and frequently travels by train to Nanjing, told the Global Times Sunday. "The Hongqiao station lacks enough public transport nearby, so commuting from there is a hassle."

He added that taking the new, more expensive G-trains, which are priced at 146 yuan ($22) per economy class ticket - rather than the existing D-trains that take some hour longer to go the same distance, but costs 52 yuan ($7.6) less for the comparable fare - really saves him little in the end.

"The extra hour or so gained from taking the G-train is wasted by the time spent on traveling from Hongqiao to the city core," he said. "It's only actually worth taking the new high-speed train if I can get off at Shanghai Railway Station."

The head of operations for the Nanjing Railway Station told the Global Times Sunday that adjustments to the schedule will be made before sales resume.

But the woman who declined to disclose her name said that she could not say when that would be, nor could she provide further details on the matter.

The temporary suspension of the Shanghai-bound ticket sales comes after the high-speed trains connecting Shanghai and Nanjing, which travel faster than any other class of passenger rail trains in China at speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour, halving commuting time between the two cities to 73 minutes, were put into motion on Thursday.

The opening night saw more than 3,000 passengers stuck in transit as the subway line 2, with an extension newly built for Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, had already closed for the day by the time riders arrived to the city around 11 pm.

With fewer buses running on the outskirts of town in Hongqiao, some passengers were left stranded waiting for the subway to open the following morning, according to local media reporting.

Passengers who pull up at Shanghai Railway Station in Zhabei district downtown, however, have greater flexibility with subway lines 1,3 and 4 all within their reach.

According to Shi Lei, a professor of economics at Fudan University, public transport linking railway stations are of vital importance to urban development, and the incident involving over 3,000 passengers being left overnight at the station could be perceived as poor planning by transportation authorities.

"The media has been neglecting the fact that the reduced traveling time of some 70 minutes provided by the new direct high-speed trains between both cities does not include the time needed to travel to and from the new station," he said.

He added that the investments put into Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station have not proven their worth, at least not yet.

"If you take into consideration the additional time passengers need to travel to and from Hongqiao, it takes them roughly the same time as those taking the normal speed trains to Shanghai Railway Station," he said.

Authorities from both Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station and Shanghai Railway Bureau, which oversees train stations in the city, could not be reached for interview Sunday by the Global Times.

Meanwhile, officials plan on using the new Hongqiao station to launch more high-speed train routes in the future, including one linking Shanghai to Beijing by the end of next year, and another connecting the city to Chengdu by 2012.