High-speed train, symbol and pillar of mobility in China

Jiangsu. If it weren’t for a screen in the middle of the car that witnesses the speed, one wouldn’t notice it. The train is going at 348 kilometers per hour, as if to compete with a professional Formula 1-style racing car. Outside the buildings jump one after another without the vertigo or the rattling of the tracks being perceived inside; Only a slight deceleration in corners notices any change in gear.

Opened on June 30, 2011, the world’s longest high-speed railway built in a single phase connects Beijing with Shanghai. The route between the Chinese capital and the most important economic center on the eastern coast extends over 1,318 kilometers, which are traveled in 4 hours 28 minutes and are part of the most extensive high-speed rail network in the world.

In total, China has more than 45 thousand kilometers of railway tracks where trains can run up to 350 kilometers per hour. In addition to the goals to extend the high-speed network in the next decade, the country has the immediate objective that next year 95 percent of its large and medium-sized cities will be connected through this means of transportation.

The high-speed train has not only become a pillar of how China – the fourth largest country in the world and the second largest population – moves, it also strengthens its position as a symbol of technological development in the Asian power. The new leap in innovation points to magnetic levitation vehicles that do not reach, but pursue, the speed of sound, reaching a thousand kilometers per hour.

For now, there are high-speed routes, which have no demerit compared to the closest option: taking a plane. Unlike a trip on a normal train – where a seat is not guaranteed and some passengers can be found sitting or standing between cars – on a high-speed train all users have a place. Of course, this changes depending on the cost of the ticket, which ranges from “business, first and second class”.

On a daytime trip through Beijing-Shanghai, most passengers are in their seats, seated; some hang around the bathrooms, visit the food wagon or cling to the sink-turned-kitchen where the specialty is instant soups. Still others, nicotine addicts, get ready at the doors to be the first to jump onto the platform and inhale as much smoke as possible.

The pause at each station averages two minutes. Time when smokers are seen struggling to exploit their lung capacity. “Uuuh, uuuh, uuuh, uuuh, uuuh”; up to five suctions per second. Some end up throwing away their half-finished cigarette to return to the train, which is now leaving and is strictly smoke-free.

The price to address this medium varies; It depends on the distance traveled, the time it is done, the date the tickets are purchased. Through the Alipay payment platform you can purchase tickets that for the same day can reach 662 yuan (1,858.14 pesos) in second class. To access the train station and platform – which have security measures similar to those of an airport – it is not necessary to present a ticket or boarding pass, except for identification (in the case of foreigners, a passport).

China’s high-speed rail has its own identity. It is not the pioneering Japanese bullet train that made that name one of its main symbols, nor is it the Spanish AVE that moves on the longest railway line in Europe. The Chinese high-speed train has been part of China’s rise as a global power, while at the same time it has been inserted into people’s daily lives; and as part of that daily life it has managed to be profitable.

According to information provided by agencies, the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed ​​Railway Company (BSHSR) reported that this route has been profitable since 2014, just three years after it was inaugurated. The net profits of the company that controls the Beijing-Shanghai increased at an annual average of 39.4 percent between 2014 and 2019, even in 2020 the profits were maintained.