high speed train

Now You Can Take the Beijing-Shanghai “Red-Eye”… Train

Starts May 15

After years of customer demand, China will soon begin providing night time passenger service on high-speed trains between Beijing and Shanghai.

The G8 train will begin service on May 15 departing from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station at 7pm and arrive in Beijing less than five hours later at Beijing South Railway Station at 11:48pm. Tickets will cost 933 yuan ($143.68) for first class and 553 yuan for coach, the same as for daytime trains.

Police say they will maintain a presence on night trains in order to preserve passenger safety.

China Daily reports the G8 will be the first high-speed between Beijing and Shanghai to run after 6pm. However, limited night time service, like the D312 which was in operation during the Spring Festival, has been provided before. The D312 will also now go into normal service, departing Shanghai at 7:10pm and arriving in Beijing the following day at 7:07am.

Elsewhere, a high-speed red-eye train route between Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou has been in operation since the beginning of 2015.

The night trains were first announced back in March. Caixin reported the CNR as saying that even though high-speed red-eye trains weren’t previously available “due to lack of operating experience”, they are now “well capable of guaranteeing the safety of the nighttime operations” after having “accumulated rich experience after operating high speed trains for nearly a decade”.

Charles Liu

The Nanfang's Senior Editor