Graphical Timetables for China Rail Lines

China has one of the fastest growing high speed rail networks in the world. As of 2015 there are 19 000 km of high speed line in operation. There is only little knowledge about the network in the western hemisphere.

This page presents information about the chinese high-speed traffic, especially graphical timetables for selected high-speed lines. These graphics show the traffic density and speed. You can see how much trains are using the lines and learn something about the operational concept.

There are different types of high-speed trains in China. Beside the technological background, there are different marketing types representing the speed and main purpose.

• G trains are the fastest, running at 300 km/h. The trains could be faster, but the speed is limited.
• D trains are little slower, but high-speed trains as well. They are designed to run 250 km/h, but often use a lower speed. D trains have more stops. Some D trains are overnight high-speed trains.
• C trains are Intercity high-speed trains. They run short distances, e.g. Beijing-Tianjin. The speed varies from 300 down to 160 km/h.

Conventional trains have the following letters:

• K trains are the most common long-distance trains in China. They are running across the country. Most runs take more than 24 hours, some also more than 48 hours. Therefore these trains convey also sleeping accomodation. This includes the so-called "hard sleeper". K trains run at a maximum of 120 km/h.
• T trains are faster and run up to 160 km/h. They are also running long distances.
• Z trains are "non-stop express" trains, which are running long-distances, but not only between two stops. Many of these trains are also stopping more than 2 times.

Graphical Timetables show the train movements in a time-distance diagrams. The time is moving from up to down and the line is increasing its kilometers from left to right.

• The number of the train is shown at the beginning and the end of every train run. If the train is commencing its journey the origin and the final distination is shown too.
• The average speed between two planned stops is shown at the end of the section.
• A train is stopping, when a line is moving straight downward. Then the train covers no distance, but the time moves on.
• A thick grey horizontal line shows the beginning of a new hour of the day and thin line represents the quarters of the hour.
• Every train type has its own color.
  
• G trains are shown in red colors.
  
• D and C trains are shown in green colors.
  
• K trains are shown in blue colors.
  
• T trains are shown in magenta.
  
• Z trains are shown in yellow.
  
• Ordinary trains with only a number are shown with a thin solid line.

Unfortunately the data source doesn't allow to allocate the trains to lines, but if a train is using two stations of the timetable and stops at unknown stations in between, it is shown with dotted lines. This means that the train runs with high probability on another line.

• The conventional trains are still running twice the distance as the high-speed trains.
• But there are more high-speed trains runs than conventional ones.
• The average travel distance of conventional trains is twice as long as of the high-speed trains.
• K trains have more running time than all other trains together.
• The average travel time of K trains is one day.
• High-speed trains have 5 intermediate stops in average.
• High-speed trains have a lower average stopping distance than the conventional trains.
• Fastest train category is G with an average speed of 194 km/h.

• The longest train run: T38/T35 going from Guangzhou to Urumqi has a running distance of 4684 km.
  
• The most time-consuming train run: K2288/K2285 going from Changchun to Kunming, which takes 2 days, 20 hours and  33 minutes.
  
• Most intermediate stops: Ordinary train 6245 going from Qiqihar to Gulian has 61 intermediate stops on its 923 km journey.
  
• The longest train run without intermediate stop: Z66 going from Nanchang to Beijing West does not stop for 1449 km.
  
• The longest stopping time sum: Again K2288/K2285, stopping for 7 hours and 43 minutes at the stations.
  
• The longest average stopping time: T5001 stopping for 1 hour and 36 minutes during its 4 hour and 38 minute journey from Harbin East to Qiqihar.
  
• The fastest train: G94 from Guangzhou South to Zhengzhou East has an average speed of 293 km/h with two intermediate stops.
  

An analysis of the timetable January 2014 shows the most important stations:

• Shanghai Hongqiao (339 trains/day)
• Guangzhou South (321)
• Beijing South (291)
• Suzhou (279)
  
• Beijing West (270)
  
• Tianjin (264)
  
• Nanjing (264)
  
• Zhengzhou (261)
  
• Wuxi (259)
  
• Shijiazhuang (256)
  
• Hangzhou East (255)
  
• Nanjing South (240)
  

These are graphical timetables of some classic railway lines that got their parallel high speed lines. Some of these lines are already rebuilt and not in the original state anymore. As you can see, there are still lots of classic trains running across China at medium speed. It isn't slow (120 - 160 km/h), but if you have high-speed trains overhauling every 5 minutes you probably feel like a passenger of 4th class. In the classical trains (K, T, Z) you can choose between "hard" and "soft" seat (or "hard-" and "soft-sleeper").