Answer to One China Travel Question
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Q: I understand to go from Hong Kong to Shantou by train I must go HK-Guangzou then Guangzou-Shantou. Do you know how long that takes, & would you have a schedule of the times that train comes & goes? Also is it available in first class service as well, & cost?
| | A: You can first travel from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and then go from Guangzhou to Shantou. If you do not have other plan in Guangzhou, you can also travel from Hong Kong to Shenzhen and catch a train bound for Shantou there. Shenzhen is next door to Hong Kong, and Shenzhen railway station is near Luohu (Lo Wu) border cross. There is a train that departs in the afternoon and arrive in Shantou before midnight. Train travel time is eight hours.
You can also catch a train bound for Shantou in Dongguan, which is a little north of Shenzhen but south of Guangzhou. There are two trains bound for Shantou that make their stops here (actually the train that departs from Shenzhen mentioned above also stops here). The station where the trains stop is Dongguan Dong Zhan (Dongguan East Railway Station). Both of the two trains are passing-through trains (Dongguan Dong is not their original departing station - this may affect how easily you can get a ticket as most tickets are sold at the original departing station). One of the trains leaves Dongguan Dong roughly at the same time the Shenzhen train departs the same station. The other train leaves Dongguan Dong around 9:00 in the morning and arrive in Shantou about 5:00 in the afternoon. So the only advantage - compared to taking the Shenzhen train - is the fact that you arrive in Shantou during the day. On the other hand, it is not clear if you can easily get a ticket since it is a passing-through train.
The two trains that pass through Dongguan Dong mentioned above come from Guangzhou. One of them, the one that leaves in the morning, originates in Guangzhou (it departs from Guangzhou around 8:00 am and arrives in and leaves Dongguan around 9:00 am).
In short, there are three cities where you can make train connection to Shantou, and by their closeness to Hong Kong they're respectively Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou. The farthest city, Guangzhou, is about two hours fromm Hong Kong.
While trains from Hong Kong has first class, etc., trains in China use a different system. There are hard seats, soft seats, hard sleeping berth, and soft sleeping berth. Hard sleeping berths are found a in car with an open setting whereas soft sleeping berths are found in self-enclosed cabins, with four passengers in one of them.
A soft seat on a train from Shenzhen to Shantou costs about one hundred Chinese dollars; a soft sleeping berth costs about 200 Chinese dollars.
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