Aerial view of Xinjiang bullet train running across harsh landscape

[beijingwalker]

What passengers do on Xinjiang bullet trains, from boarding to disembarking

 

[beijingwalker]

People can't imagine how hard to build HSR across harsh Xinjiang terrains, going through snow mountains, massive deserts, construction workers very often have to stop their work and lie down close to the ground for hours to avoid being blown away by the regular standstorms in Xinjiang deserts.

 

[beijingwalker]

 

[beijingwalker]

Driving on Xinjiang desert highway meeting a bullet train zooming past overhead on a flyover

 

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New bullet train launched between Xinjiang and Shaanxi in NW China

 

[beijingwalker]

The difficulty terrain Xinjiang bullet trains have to travel through

 

[shanlung]

What?

No more hard seater train to ride on in China?

I full of nostalgic feelings for hard seater trains

I sat on one of them from Chengdu to Hongkong for 4 days and 4 nights.

Extract from Harry Potter // Rustaq // 1st overland into Lhasa
https://shanlung.livejournal.com/105488.html


In time, we got onto the hard seater train. In short while, I understood why it was called hard seater. No sleeping bunks, and the seat were really hard. The train was jammed to extent you folks would never have understood. People crawled into the space between the seat and the floor. You opened your legs to have two heads poking out in between. You shift your legs and the heads appeared next to your thigh. In space too small for bodies, they would stuff their live chickens.

It was terrible the first day and night. The 2nd day and night it became agony. The next day it was not that bad as the nerves in your legs and back already died. And the train rolled on and on and on.

That was the first time I was into China. I am an ethnic Cantonese with ancestral home in the province of Canton. I seen the map of the rail and noted the towns we passed. I looked forward to hearing the dialect of Cantonese spoken in the home province of my ancestors. That to me would be like a 'home coming'. I ticked off each station as day by day and hour by hour the train rolled closer and closer to the border of Canton. I was willing myself to remember into my heart the first phrase of Cantonese. I was wondering would it be 'Joe Sun' (good morning) 'lai hoe mah' (how are you).

The train rolled into Canton province and people there came up the train. I hear ' tieu lai ger mah chow hai' with a start and a shock. That was a vulgar expression very mildly translated to 'go f**k your mother'. I was a bit in distress and expressed my sorrow to HK what I hoped to hear and what they had said. He looked blanky at me at first and then roared out in laughter. He was also Cantonese as the same as 99.99 % of locals in Hongkong. He told me in his class, brothers would use the same expression to each other notwithstanding they have the same mother. That phrase was about as common as clearing throat.

Finally we reached Hongkong. He repaid me the money I loaned him. My plastic was back into action and I flew home.

That hard seater train I was on

Tibet first trip scans

Reprinted 2/11 from film negatives. Account of this trip in Harry Potter // Rustaq // 1st overland into Lhasa shanlung.livejournal.com/105488.html

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