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[NATO]

On the evening of July 23, 2011, two high-speed bulletin trains collided in Wenzhou, killing 40 people and injuring at least 192 others.

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/07/wenzhou-train-burying-continues/ (you have to leapfrog a certain large fence to get to the link.)

A day to remember this man-made catastrophe and those afflicted by it. Also a time to reflect on the fact that it's unlikely the families of the dead and injured will ever get an honest picture about what happened. The slated report about the crash has still not been released and it's months overdue.

If this should be upstairs then I'm sure one of the mods could fling it up there.

[wOZfromOZ]

Happy holidays for all

I wonder how many people who use this site have traveled on the fast speed 'harmony' trains?
Our family just went from Shanghai to Beijing and back a couple of weeks ago.
The efficiency and civilized nature of the trip left me with a very good impression.  (Mind you, I tried to not think of Wenzhou too much!)
Cheers
wOZfromOZ - Just 8 days to go!! haha.

[The Local Dialect]

I took the high speed train from Taiyuan to Beijing last year. It wasn't bad. Definitely better than the overnighter we took on the way there.

[MK]

I use them a lot (2-3 times a month) becasue I have friends in nearbye cities and I also often travel for work.  They are fantastic, speedy and comfortable.  I can get to Hangzhou and Suzhou in under an hour from Shanghai.  Nanjing is about 90 minutes.    It takes longer than that to get some places within Shanghai by subway!  It's actually a more appealing option than flying now in many cases.

They did cut the top speed of the new 'G-Train' after the accident though, and it seems some of the extensions to the 'Gao Tie' network have been postponed coming online since then too  (we were supposed to get a Shanghai-Hefei link ages ago).

I also try not to think about the Wenzhou incident when travelling, but with the huge amount of trains running I think China probably actually has a pretty good saftey record overall, even compared woth most other countries...though who actually knows, right?

[Some guy]

I think they're great. I use them regularly and IMO they're the most comfortable way to travel.I recently found a ticket agent close to where I live so now I don't need to deal with the crowds at the train station ticket place I like the whole experience that much more.

I do admit to being a bit nervous about the safety aspect of anything that goes that fast but I reckon it's like flying,the law of numbers is on my side. The chances of the train I'm on crashing are probably quite slim.

[piglet]

Went from Shanghai to Qingdao and it was fantastic,albeit very bloody expensive. More legroom than flying and less hassle getting out to airport and back etc .
I love trains anyway.