This is my first decision: subway (station pictured above) or cab? 20 kuai or 50 kuai? 1 hour to the station or 30 minutes? I chose the cab this time since pictures of the inside of the subway car would get old fast.
The cab heads south on the expressway into Beijing.
We pass the gleaming oval towers of Xizhimen subway station / Beijing North railway station. If only this station had trains to Tianjin :(
The second ring road brings us into the "people who have money" section of west Beijing.
We pass one of the remaining fragments of the Beijing city wall and after a turn keep heading south.
When I pass this pagoda top I know that I'm almost to our exit. Still haven't visited this place on foot but I think it's the Tianning Temple.
Approaching the Beijing South Station, which doesn't look like much from the outside.
The inside is large and spacious, with a lot of capacity for traveler volume to grow. I'm sure it will, especially when this place gets hooked to the subway network.
Everyone boards in a civilized manner.
On the platform. I like how the awning looks like draped fabric.
The business end(s) of the Harmony series high-speed trains. These can run at up to 350+ kilometers/hour (218 mph), and on the way to Tianjin they cruise at 340 kph. 210 mph at ground level is fast.
The interior is nice and bright with a decent amount of space.
Thank goodness for in-flight entertainment (ty Sarah!).
The scene as we accelerate out through the southern suburbs of Beijing towards Tianjin.
Around halfway through the 30 minute trip we pass this large church in the absolute middle of nowhere. Would be curious to know its story. The majority of the landscape looks like this without the church.
For awhile we follow the newly built Beijing-Tianjin (Jingjin) expressway. More unused transport capacity that will probably be one solid traffic jam by 2012 or so. A blurry picture but not much I can do about that.
Ah, back on the platform in good ol' Tianjin again.
We exit the station through the open-air courtyard in early evening.
Looking south over the Hai River. Tianjin's crane index is fairly high.
One of the nice relief depictions of Tianjin's history on the light poles around the station.
So, that's the story. Here are some of the data: the rail line connects Beijing, a city of about 20 million people, to Tianjin's approximately 10 million. It's one of the first truly high-speed legs in China and runs around every 15 minutes on the dot. You can buy tickets up to ten minutes before the trains leave so it's quite convenient to just show up and go. And finally, this is the first leg of the currently-under-construction Beijing to Shanghai line, which will have trains every 15 minutes during peak hours and a total travel time of under five hours. To give you a sense of comparison, that's like leaving Kalamazoo MI at 7am and getting to Atlanta GA before noon, on a train. Not too bad if the ticket prices stay down - they cost a whopping $9 between Beijing and Tianjin.
