Shanghai Bus and Rail
Long Haul Trains
Shanghai has several train stations.
* Shanghai Railway Station. Shanghai’s largest and oldest, located in Zhabei district, on the intersection of Metro Lines 1, 3 and 4. Practically all trains used to terminate here, including trains to Hong Kong. However southern services are being shifted out to the new South Station.
* Shanghai South Railway Station . A new, greatly expanded terminal opened in July 2006 and and is set to take over all services towards the south. On Metro lines 1 and 3.
Train tickets are also conveniently booked in advance at one of the many travel service agencies. If urgent, they could also be directly booked at the train stations and the Shanghai Railway Station even has an English counter. Unfortunately be prepared that almost all information even in Shanghai Railway Station will be only in Chinese characters and even at the English counter you will face problems to communicate. It is advisable to prepare the paper with your destination displayed in Chinese characters. Unfortunately, this is further complicated by the fact that some tickets aren’t sold at the main ticket office, this includes tickets to Hong Kong (Jiu Long), for that you need to go to a similar ticket office near the main ticket office. To get there, exit the main ticket office and go left (towards one of the metro exits and parallel to the train station), the ticket office is just across the road after the metro exit. You have to pass through a security check to get to the ticket office.
* Beijing – There are a number of brand new night sleep trains running daily from Shanghai to Beijing, starting at 7PM in 10 minute intervals to 8PM and arriving at 7-8AM in Beijing. Fare is around ¥500 for a softsleeper, but they are very clean and the four-person cabins are quite comfortable. In the same new train, normal hardseaters are available for around ¥250. Food is now served when traveling in both directions, and there is a drinks and snacks trolley that comes past occasionally that you can purchase snacks from. For a regular normal sleeper in a standard train, which takes 13 hours from Shanghai to Beijing, expect to pay ¥200-300 with no food either.
* Hong Kong – The T99/T100 train to and from Hong Kong runs every other day (alternating between Shanghai->Hong Kong and Hong Kong->Shanghai) from Shanghai Railway Station (T99 leaves here at 5:15PM, T100 arrives here around noon), arriving at Hung Hom station in Kowloon(T99 arrives here around noon, T100 leaves here at 3:15PM). If traveling alone, expect to pay ¥800 each way for the soft sleeper, but discounts are given for group purchases (¥364 each way per person in a soft sleeper if purchased in a group of 4, for instance). Unless you are on a very tight budget, try to get the ‘Deluxe Soft Sleeper’ which fascilitates compartments of 2 beds and a private mainland-style mains socket (but with the introduction of new train cars, the regular soft sleeper also has a private mains socket for each room as well as one in the corridor of each car). Spaces are limited, so book well in advance. Keep in mind that you will still have to go through Customs and thus need a new visa for reentry into mainland China (unless you have a multiple-entry visa). However, going through Customs at the train station is much quicker than Customs at the airport; also, many restrictions present on air travel (liquid restrictions, baggage, etc) are not present on the train.
The new fast (200+ km/hr) CRH trains go South from Shanghai to Hangzhou, West to Suzhou and Nanjing, and North to Qingdao. These are very comfortable and convenient. Look for the separate “CRH” ticket counters.
Additionally, tickets for some sleeper trains are now being officially discounted (discount varies by distance, maximum discount is 50%) up to July 1 so for now there is more incentive for taking the train for some trips.
Shanghai Metro Subway
The fast-growing Shanghai Metro [7] network now has 8 lines with another 4 under construction. The trains are fast, cheap, air conditioned and fairly user-friendly with most signs also in English, but the trains can get very packed during rush hour. Fares range from ¥3 to ¥9 depending on distance. Automatic ticket vending machines take ¥1 or ¥0.5 coins and notes. Most stations on lines 1-3 will also have staff selling tickets, but on the newly-completed lines 6, 8, and 9 ticket puchasing is all done by machine (in both Chinese and English) with staff there only to assist in adding credit to cards or if something goes wrong.
You can now transfer between lines freely with a single ticket (except at Shanghai Railway Station, Hongkou Football Stadium, and Yishan Rd where a subway pass/Shanghai Public Transportation Card is required for transfer). The metro can use Shanghai’s public transportation card (non-contact). Be careful; certain stations exist on two different lines with the same name but are located in different places (Yishan Rd- Line 3/9 and line 4 are separate stations- transfer between these stations is only possible with a subway pass; Pudian Rd- line 4 and line 6; go to either Century Ave. or Lancun Rd. to transfer between these lines; Hongkou Football Stadium, Line 3 and Line 8- transfer is only possible with a subway pass).
If there are seats available but more passengers boarding than seats, be prepared to see a mad dash (literally) for the available seats. It’s no use scolding anyone as everybody behaves like that, so just go with the flow. Pickpockets are likely to strike at this moment, so be careful.
Shanghai Metro Bus
If your Chinese is good enough and you’re trying to go somewhere the metro doesn’t without resorting to taxis you can use the public bus system. The bus system is much more extensive (and always cheaper) than the metro, and some routes even run past the closing of the Metro (well, more like “start running past the closing of the Metro”- route numbers beginning with 3 are the night buses that run past 11PM).
Buses that charge by distance have a conductor selling tickets; tell them your destination and they will tell you the price for that distance. Hand your money to the conductor and you’ll get a little paper ticket (and change, if any). Other buses do not have a conductor; they have a fixed price for the route, usually 2 RMB as the buses are air-conditioned(1.5RMB on some routes running on old buses without air-con- you can tell by the singpost at the bus stop; it will show the fare system for a given route and whether it is air-conditioned or not).
Prepare exact change beforehand as the fare is dropped into a container next to the driver; if you need a bill broken up the unofficial solution is to state your situation to the driver, who will ask the next few people to hand you their fare as you drop your bill into the container (example- you have a 10 and you’re riding a bus with a fare of 2RMB- you would kindly explain your situation and have the next 4 people hand you their fare as you drop the 10 into the farebox). If you change buses with an SPTC you will get a 1RMB discount on your second bus fare (and all subsequent transfers; there is a 90-minute window to do this on so if you’re not spending too much time at the destination your transfer discount will apply to the start of your return journey too).
