[alisonatwork]

In my experience (primarily in the south), high speed rail in China is fast if you only consider station to station time, but the amount of bureaucracy at either end is comparable to flying. You can't buy tickets without ID, you can rarely find same day tickets, there's no option for standing carriage, there's numerous security checkpoints and lots of lining up. It's best to arrive at the station an hour plus beforehand with prebooked tickets. Meanwhile the stations themselves are often way outside the urban centers you probably wanted to visit and there's not much nearby to do that isn't overpriced shopping mall/chain store stuff. You also can't leave and reenter the stations at will, you have to pass through security each time, just like an airport.

I found traveling by slow train or long distance bus much more pleasant in China because you can just walk in, buy a ticket to wherever and head out the same day. They take ages and there are all the usual delays, but the experience is much less stressful and more comparable to the train experience people from other countries might expect.

All that said, I'd still pick Chinese high speed rail over flying just for emissions reasons if nothing else.

[mykowebhn]

Thank you for all of that useful information, and especially for thinking about our planet. Cheers to you!

[alismayilov]

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience!