Riding the World's Longest High-Speed Train Line

January 1, 2024

A frequent oversight foreign travelers make is underestimating the size of a country they are visiting. I once overheard travel plans from tourists visiting the American West that involved visiting the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles confined to the space of 2 days with a car as transportation. For those unfamiliar with the area, this is insanity. I respect the ambition and ruthless efficiency that would fit as much sight-seeing as possible in a travel itinerary both limited by time and money. But this aggressively paced eyeballing gets away from the point of leisure travel and succumbs to the existential drive of FOMO.

Is there a way to balance a relaxed vacation and sight-seeing together? I arrogantly thought it would be possible when my wife and I decided to book a trip on the longest bullet train line in the world. The 2,760 kilometer Beijing-Kunming high-speed train line (京昆高速动车组列车) is the longest¹ of China’s vast network of high-speed rail. For a loose baseline, in my home country of the United States, it has 735 kilometers of high-speed train lines in operation and another 275 under construction. Comparatively, China has built 40,474 kilometers² and has another 13,063 under construction.³ China is rapidly out pacing all other nations in the world for high-speed train line infrastructure.

There was a simple requirement to get from Beijing to Kunming in the span of a day. The easiest method would have been a commercial flight lasting about 3 hours and 45 minutes. While quick and easy, we would get a limited and abstractly distant view of China’s heartland. Further down the trade-off scale was the high-speed train. It would be zipping along on the ground at 350km/h but would provide a somewhat closer view along the several thousand kilometer route.

Two nights before departing we purchased our first class tickets for approximately ¥1,911 ($273). There were business seats available but at double the price of first class, it made little trade-off sense. In retrospect, it would have been worth it because each seat was an enclosed pod with a lay flat feature. That feature would have been invaluable later after I became progressively sicker.

Early Start

The day began brutally early at 04:15 to get packed before leaving the hotel at 05:10. Everything was done in a bleary haze as a consequence of staying up the night before for New Year’s Eve and fresh jet lag. Arriving at the Beijing West railway station (北京西站) at around 05:35 left us with time to find our platform and look around the station.

Our first stop was to speak with an employee about getting our reserved seats placed together. Booking 2 nights prior had given no options for selecting our seats and they were instead assign on check-in. For much of the journey this wouldn’t have been a problem since people trading assigned seats in order to sit together was common.

The last task we wanted to accomplish before boarding was getting hot coffee. While we had been able to gather enough food and snacks for our trip the night before, the frozen haze outside and fresh jet lag required an antidote. But paying for it was tricky.

A thing to note for buying things in China is that it always requires WeChat Pay or Alipay.⁴ My wife had anticipated this and was on the last steps of finally getting WeChat Pay working. After a few more submissions to WeChat support it started working and we frantically rushed to buy coffee before our 07:00 departure.

Rolling out of the Beijing West railway station was smooth and dark at 07:05. The sun hadn’t risen yet and the glare of the interior cabin lights prevented a lot of visibility. But in a city as large as Beijing there were a variety of lit buildings to see on the way out.

From about 07:30 to 10:00 was the best part of the train ride. Not due to anything about the train, geography, or weather. But because the flu or cold I didn’t know I had started fiercely and promptly at 10:00. You’ll then have to forgive me for a front loaded account of the train route since the last half was exclusively a useless attempt at miserable sleep.

Cell Towers

There was a frozen winter haze lingering as we left metropolitan Beijing. With the rising sun to the east it made for an ethereal view of the transitioning landscape. By the time things were visible we were in an area with clusters of houses surrounded by farm land. The rapid change from a nation’s capital to rural agrarian fields was jarring. But after watching the landscape zoom by I noticed technology was keeping up with us. At any given time there were about 3 to 5 cell towers visible along the train route spread out across the empty fields.

I had noticed the benefits of this infrastructure in Beijing. 5G reception had been solid while at any train station, airport, or other popular area. I noticed a local we were traveling with hadn’t hesitated to make several calls while underground in the Beijing metro. But in all these urban situations the 5G antennas are better blended into the environment. You can’t hide much in an empty field.

This is another area of infrastructure China has been intensely investing in over the past few years. From April to June in 2023 there were 600,000 5G base stations built, bringing the nation’s total to 3 million.⁵ The rapid build out is meant to provide the foundation for adding $290 billion to the Chinese economy by 2030.⁶

The proliferation of these cell towers kept up along the entire route. Wi-Fi was available from the train but it would drop in and out periodically. After about 30 minutes of trying to use it I turned it off and stayed on the rock solid 5G. Even as we dove into underground tunnels last for several minutes the 5G connection never dropped.

Empty High-Rises

Another landscape feature I noticed as we progressed across China was the distribution of high density residential buildings. I’ve played my share of Sim City and Cities: Skylines and I know you can’t go straight to high-rises for residential housing. You first require a suburban sprawl until demand gets high enough to transition to denser buildings. What I saw instead from the train was isolated groups of 3-5 high-rise buildings surrounded by miles and miles of empty farm land.

If a comparable number of residents were housed in the United States they would be spread out in single family homes and encompass the entirety of the surrounding square mileage. While the advantages and disadvantages of either setup are the concern of civil engineering post-doctoral researches, I found the different approach fascinating.

Many of these high-rises showed signs of being inhabited but occasionally there were a few that were objectively empty or unfinished. The presence of laundry, decorations, chairs, or other items on balconies isn’t the most scientific method to determine total occupancy. But it’s something. However, in many cases, the buildings were bare skeletons and lay unfinished. Sure, construction might have been ongoing, yet the lack of activity and the fatigued age of concrete is recognizable if you’re close enough.

Subsequent reading about these empty buildings showed that China’s real-estate sector has been contracting after years of aggressive growth. Real-estate accounts for 29% of the country’s total GDP but 20% of total urban housing properties (65 million) were vacant in 2021.⁷ The National Bureau of Statistics shared a more modest value of 7.2 million in 2023 but coupled it with a rare public critique stating there weren’t enough people in China to fill them all.⁸

This staggering amount of vacant properties will be a huge drag on the future growth of the Chinese economy. But certain people have rapidly adapted to the economic reality. Farmers near Shenyang have re-purposed a nearby abandoned neighborhood of palatial homes. They started plowing land between homes for crops with other areas setup as livestock corrals and formerly empty garages are now used for hay storage.⁹

Tunnels in the South

The geography was flat from Beijing to Wuhan with the occasional cropping of gentle hills. As we dove southward the terrain became much more rugged. Subsequently, the duration of tunnels began to extend longer and longer with diminishing views above ground. In many cases, the duration exceeded several minutes with a brief flash above ground before going into another round of darkness. The tunnels are pragmatic but frustrating. To keep the trajectory of a high-speed train you need to adapt construction to the harsh accommodations of the terrain. Blasting through hills and mountains to maintain a smooth and comfortable 300km/h.¹⁰

The frustrating part is the chronic air pressure adjustment for passengers. As we entered and left each tunnel the air pressure would change enough to be uncomfortable. Similar to how you would experience taking off or landing in a commercial airline. However, with a marathon of tunnels it quickly became fatiguing and made me realize my oncoming sickness was sinus related. I struggled to keep a consistent air pressure equilibrium for my ears with the rapid entry and exit from the endless tunnels. This made the last third of the train line the most uncomfortable and battered me into attempting to nap for the rest of the ride.

Missing out on the last section of the train line was a shame but there is a limit to how much you can power through illness. The setting sun combined with the impressive mountains and hills covered in solar panels was a step up from the flat emptiness of the northern portion of the train line.

We arrived in Kunming at approximately 18:30, making the trip about 11 hours and 25 minutes long. To get to our final destination we had to take another 35 minute regional train ride to downtown Kunming.

While my experience was flawed by getting progressively sicker during the trip I would wholeheartedly recommend experiencing the currently longest high-speed train line yourself. Zooming across the entirety of a nation from the comfort of a big chair is as amazing as flying. It would be helpful to be more responsible and get a good night’s rest before setting out on the journey. Despite being miserable for the last part of the trip I thoroughly enjoyed seeing everything across China. From the changing terrain to the variety of people at each station getting off and on it was a rewarding exposure. While not as intimate as walking the full 2,760 kilometers, it got us from Beijing to Kunming in a day.