Courtesy: The following travel experience is published at
http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20081027_shanghai_to_beijing_train_is_better_than_air_.htm
kTonight, I am going to Beijing, and will be back on Wednesday night. Previously, my trip was all via flights. After I tried train the last time, I decided to switch all my trip to Beijing to train in the future. Why?
Time Efficiency
Although train takes much longer than flight - 12 hours vs 2 hours, the biggest advantage of train is, it wasted your time at night, especially deep night, instead of train.
Most fast trains between Shanghai and Beijing travel between something like 19:44 PM at night, and arrive at the other city at around 7:00 AM the other day. For busy business persons, it is ideal.
By Air
I, for example, have to plan for a night or morning to take flight. My typical schedule by air looks like:
1. Flight from PVG to PEK at 9:00 AM, arrives at 12:00 PM. Have a meeting in the afternoon, and night, and fly back the next afternoon at 7:00 PM, and arrive at around 10:00 PM (tired day).
- or -
2. Flight from PVG to PEK at 7:00 PM, arrives at late night (tired and taking taxi to hotel), spend the night at hotel and have meeting the other day.
For a 1 hour meeting in Beijing, typically you need to take two day off from work.
By Train
For train, it is different. My new schedule is:
1. Work full day on Monday, and have my last meeting at 6:00 PM. I even have dinner with others before I go to train station at 7:00 PM
2. Get on train before 7:44 PM, and sleep on the train - maybe talk a little bit on the train with travel partnres.
3. Wake up in the morning at 7:00 AM, and take metro to where my first meeting is.
4. If I don't have other things, I can travel back at around 7:00 PM in Beijing, and arrive in Shanghai the third day morning.
5. I can directly come to work on Wed morning (this trip has more things to do, so I stay two days, and get back to Shanghai on Thursday).
In that typical trip, it seems there is no travel cost - if you count in terms of work hours. It is just like three continous working day in the same city.
Besides that, you saved all your hotel cost.
I will try my first travel like this and report back about how well it works.
