The Different Types of Chinese Trains by Number
With such a huge amount of trains departing each day it is not surprising that the classification of all these rail services has to be organised carefully. The first character of the train number indicates the class of the passenger train, often determined by the speed and the relative number of stops the train makes along the way. There are five alphabetic prefixes as below:
- C - "Chengji"; Intercity Trains
This is a recent addition starting with the August 2008 opening of the Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Rail - the fastest service in China with a top speed of 350 km/h.
- D - "Dongche"; Express Trains
Introduced in April 2007 these trains have only soft sleeper (or soft seat on shorter routes) carriages. The top speed is an impressive 250 km/h.
- Z - "Zhida"; Direct Express
Though its name in Chinese technically implies a "non-stop" train, some of these trains have several stops between the two stations. The majority have only soft sleeper, while very few have hard sleeper.
As of 2008, Z-series trains are operating along the Yangtze Valley providing overnight services from Wuhan to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo. Prior to this, these trains only departed from Beijing.
- T - "Te"; Express
This series of trains have a limited number of stops along their routes and only in major cities.
- K - "Kuai"; Fast
This series of trains stop at more stations than T-series, and normally have a slower travel speed than the T-series in the same corridor. All K-series trains travel on lines operated by more than one railway bureau.
- N - "Nei"; Fast Train within One Railway Bureau
Similar to a K train, but this series of trains travel exclusively within one railway bureau.
- 1-5 General Fast Train
General fast trains (known as Pukuai in Chinese) are slower passenger trains that stop at around half of the stations along the way, resulting in a longer travel time than the fast trains. Route numbers are always four numeric digits - a numeric prefix from 1-5 followed by a 3-digit route number.
- 6-9 General Train
The general train, often simply referred to as Puke (general passenger) has as many stops as possible, and is often the preferred choice for rural workers to visit their home villages. This is the slowest type of train and has the lowest priority along the track often arriving very late at it's destination.
Route identifiers for general trains are always 4 digits - a numeric prefix from 6-9 followed by a 3-digit route number.
|
|
|
|
