China’s high-speed rail given the thumbs up

How does it feel to take the high-speed trains in China? How advanced is the high-speed rail in China? How successful has China’s high-speed railway system been?

These questions have received hundreds of replies from global Internet users, applauding China’s high-speed railways on the world’s top question-and-answer site Quora. The ratings were based on ticketing, speed, comfort, catering, price, technology and safety.

For example, @tillman Huett-Lassman said, “The train was amazing. I had traveled on an Amtrak train before in the US, and hated how slow it was and how many stops there were. Chinese high-speed trains are on a different level.”

He goes on to say that the train was traveling smoothly at 300 km/h, and that the trains are clean and the seats are huge. He concluded with “The high-speed trains are incredible.”

The post has been up-voted 7,500 times, and has been viewed almost 250,000 times.

User @sthitapragnya Deshpande explains why he finds traveling on high-speed railway in China “far more comfortable than travelling by flight, and continues to use them as much as possible.”

“The ride was smooth - I could easily write with my pen and paper. It was smoother than my earlier ride in the Eurostar from London to Paris and as smooth as my Bullet train ride in Osaka. We passed small villages, lots of fields, lots of untouched greenery as well as a few cities and stations."

"The train had a canteen, plus the attendants kept bringing food in their trolleys about every 20 minutes. The windows are huge so you don't feel claustrophobic at all,” He wrote.

At the same time, world traveler @robin Daverman wrote, “The Chinese high-speed rails have a quality all on its own, because it’s so massive. There are more than twice as many high-speed trains in China as the rest of the world combined. ”

Another user @ Adam Richards says “When you realize that your North American infrastructure is light years behind China’s, you feel ashamed.”



The high-speed railway is regarded as one of “China’s four great new inventions” in recent times, together with shared bicycles, Alipay and e-commerce.