Translations: Train Incident Becomes Metaphor for Principled Disobedience – “Smash That Window, and Take a Breath of Freedom!”
A man who used an onboard emergency hammer to smash a hole in the window of a stalled train to...
Jul 23, 2025
A man who used an onboard emergency hammer to smash a hole in the window of a stalled train to...
Apr 22, 2024
After a decades-long infrastructure spending spree, many of China’s local governments now find themselves saddled with unsustainable levels of debt and a surplus of vastly ambitious but often underutilized infrastructure...
Jul 21, 2021
Anyone who has boarded an airplane in the last 20 years knows what stands between arrival at the terminal and waiting at the gate: shoes off, laptops out, water bottles emptied …. In China, similar checkpoints also await railway...
Jun 15, 2018
Hong Kong’s Legislative Council yesterday approved a controversial bill that will allow...
Nov 7, 2014
After a consortium led by state-owned China Railway Construction won an uncontested contract to...
Mar 14, 2014
At Foreign Policy, author of Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World — From...
Jan 28, 2014
As the Chinese New Year (January 31) quickly approaches, an expected 3.6 billion trips will be...
Jan 16, 2014
With the Year of the Snake reaching its tail end, China has now officially...
Sep 24, 2013
The New York Times’ Keith Bradsher reports that high-speed rail has, “without a doubt,...
Mar 31, 2013
In nearly 9,000 words at The Globe and Mail, Mark MacKinnon recounts his recent 22-day train journey around China, loosely following the course of Mao’s Long March. He met officials and protesters, nailhouse residents and...
Jan 8, 2013
As China continues to work on its high-speed railways amid concerns over corruption, a subway train derailed during a test run in Kunming leaving a driver dead and injuring another, from AFP: The first carriage of the train ran...
Jan 21, 2012
The Chinese New Year sees hundreds of millions return to their hometowns, placing an enormous strain on transport networks that are frequently already stretched. Many will take home partners to meet the parents, but the...
Nov 22, 2010
Following is the latest installment in a series of posts by journalist Rachel Beitarie*, who will be sharing with us dispatches from her journey across rural China. In this post, Rachel describes her train journey across Henan,...
Dec 26, 2009
From AFP: China on Saturday unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world — a train connecting the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 350 kilometres (217 miles) an hour. The...
Oct 24, 2009
Duncan Hewitt of Newsweek writes on how an expanding rail system is having an impact on China: For decades, rail travel in China meant an arduous overnighter in a crowded East German–designed train, riding along a rickety old...
Oct 24, 2008
Cam MacMurchy of the Zhongnanhai blog reports on the online furor caused by a train conductor’s decision to make a special, unscheduled stop by the Dalian airport for his Japanese passengers. On August 22nd a train in the...
Apr 21, 2008
From the Los Angeles Times: We arrived at the north train station in Chongqing, this central Chinese city at 12:25 p.m. on a Thursday, five minutes before our scheduled departure. The ticket lines were so long they spilled out...
Jan 14, 2008
From Xinhua via People.com.cn: Jan. 13 was the first day China’s passengers were able to buy train tickets for the Spring Festival, the nation’s most important traditional holiday. By the time tickets began selling at 7 p.m. on Sunday, many people had already lined up before the ticket windows. Metropolis like Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and […]