While 1950s America fell in love with private automobiles, communist China embraced trains. Mao Zedong’s rail journeys were combination mini-Politburo meetings and clandestine love fests–replete with electronic bugging devices designed to eavesdrop on both sorts of encounters. In the years since, China’s state-run rail system has never been eager to improve service or lower prices. Many city dwellers choose air travel instead. Since 1993, for example, the Beijing-Shanghai train route has seen its market share of passenger traffic fall by nearly half.
But now that China is a World Trade Organization member, foreign companies will be allowed full ownership of transport firms by 2006. That’s got China’s rail commissars scrambling to upgrade their service. The new Beijing-Shanghai express is at the forefront of a more passenger-friendly rail campaign. Before boarding, I still had to walk past a gantlet of beggars and pickpockets at Beijing’s bewildering train station. But once inside the train, the mood was civilized. The flimsy curtains kept falling off my compartment window, and the chip-encoded door keys didn’t work, but the meals were tasty and the attendants were quick to refill the thermos of hot water for tea.
Today, Beijing is the world’s most prolific rail builder, laying track at rates surpassing those in the United States during America’s 19th-century rail boom. Beijing is planning a $24 billion high-speed rail link between Beijing and southern Guangzhou, which would cut train travel between those two cities from 23 hours to 10. Prime Minister Zhu Rongji’s State Council and the Ministry for Science and Technology have even drafted a 50-year plan, which envisions the Middle Kingdom crisscrossed with superspeedy rail lines. That’s a long time to wait for a good ride–unless you’re going between Beijing and Shanghai.
