The Chinese Rail Briefing by Trains Plus – Details, episodes & analysis

In probably the most personal show yet, David Feng shares with listeners about his plans for improving the railways — from his set of 100 suggestions for the railways in 2013 (realised to significant extents) to a new list of 100 suggestions as Beijing focuses on high-quality development. (Being Swiss, this is almost like home turf!)

The Beijing Subway is now the world's largest urban rail (city metro) network, and it's still expanding! In this show — a genuine smorgasbord of new lines and developments to come. Dongdaqiao station is becoming 4-line interchange — huge, only to be overpowered by a 5-line Lize Business Hub station! Get ready for Line 28, the CBD Line, then hop right on up to the planned Line 101 in City Hall East... as well as other new projects. Did you know Line 1 is getting a branch line, or Line 13 is being split up into two?...
NOTE: Starting from this episode, updates are 10 days apart, but on fixed dates: the 4th, 14, and 24th of every month.

In this show, after a quick look at Chunyun (Spring Festival peak travel season) stats, it's all the way back to the Classics — Classic Rail — and its two categories of seated travel, Soft Seat (rare) and Hard Seat (more often seen), as well as the rather rare(-by-now) Premier Class. Although Hard Seat (and High Speed Second Class) remain the most frequently-encountered classes of travel, it's the special, and less seen, travel classes that keep it special. Finally, a brief look at two new rail hubs being made — Hefei West and a new hub in Tongzhou, far eastern Beijing...

Happy Spring Festival! In this show, we take a look at what's next for China in this new Year of the Chinese Dragon.
Spring Festival rush doesn't always mean 12+ million a day... numbers drop close to New Year, and we go behind the stats on why...
High Speed at 350 km/h between Wuhan and Guangzhou... it's happening later this year.
Also: a new HSR line in western China promises to be a "safer" way through rugged terrain...

In this show, there’s first some number crunching as China’s Spring Festival Peak Travel Season, or Chunyun, gets off to a solid start. With eight-figure digit passengers carried, day in, day out, for almost a week, people are heading back to the rails, once again.
We then delve into new Beijing Subway projects less known to people... Wangjing South getting an airport express link to Capital Airport... breaking apart Line 13... and even a Subway Line 101!

In this show, we go underground — and discover the long-awaited Beijing Subway Line 3 is ready to open later this year! We also take a look at Line 12, less mysterious than "the 3", but equally as important for the Chinese capital — taking off loads of traffic from the North 3rd Ringway, as well as the northern part of Subway Line 10!
There is also a brief look at some other bits and bobs of the Beijing Subway line which could open later in 2024 — or a bit later still...
(You'll want to tune in JUST for Beijing Subway Line 3!...)

Apologies, due to technical issues, this show has been released with a one-day (UTC) delay.
In this second show, we take a look at the evolution of the network, and especially what powers it — new timetables and new plans for the railways of China in the most recent national rail work conference.
The new timetables pack a lot — new lines, new extensions, new routings, and new destinations — all ready for the upcoming Spring Festival Peak Travel Season.
As for the work conference of the Chinese railways, we're seeing incredibly good figures released — records broken time and again in 2023 as China dumped Zero Covid. 2024 should be quite a year to watch as well...

For the first show, we start with a look back at 2023 for the Chinese railway network. The network continues to expand with a second, and at that, faster HSR line opened between Fuzhou and Xiamen by the coast in southeastern China. A third High Speed route has opened between Shanghai and Nanjing. The eastern Chinese province of Shandong has its HSR network extended both east and west, connecting it better into the regions. Air-to-rail links are now reality, more and more, at Beijing Daxing Airport, with a new link to Tianjin West. Less developed parts of China, too, hop on the fast train, with a new 350 km/h line from Guiyang to Nanning, and faster trains between Guiyang and Guangzhou. The mythical land and real-life city of Shangri-La has a rail link, and borders unlock as Mainland China resumes or begins cross-border journeys by rail into Hong Kong and Laos.