Livin' In The Chonx

The following was provided by Matt S., Peace Corps volunteer, Chongqing from 2006-2008.  Click here for more information about Chongqing train travel.

“Many of you are planning your winter travels and want to save money and travel by train, but don’t know much about the intimidating process of buying tickets. Yeah, you could get your counterpart/tutor/student to buy them for you, but isn’t independence the goal? Here is the website where you can check train information. Don’t be intimidated by the Chinese: just put your starting city (in characters) in the first blank, the arrival city in the second blank, then press the button “站站查询.” For example, here’s the info from Chongqing North (重庆北) to Chengdu (成都). The resulting information is, in column order, Train Number, Departure Time, Arrival Time, Total Time on Train, Speed of Train, Distance Covered (km), and the last column is a link to the pricing where you can find out exactly how much it will be for a hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, or soft sleeper. NOTE: There are English versions, here and here, but I find them cumbersome, slow, and often wrong.”