Shanghai Railway Station — Attraction in Shanghai

This is the old station smack in the middle of Shanghai that has been in operation way before the new Hongqiao station was built. Connected to Subway Line 1, it is most convenient to board your High Speed Rail trains from here rather than Hongqiao which is so far away.

We took a High Speed Rail to Suzhou and since we bought Business Class tickets, we could avoid the hordes of passengers by entering through the Business Class Lounge entrance reserved for business class passengers.

After checking your passport / ID (ticket is embedded in your identification documents), you go through security checks and get invited into the lounge. At the entrance to the lounge, they may “punch” your “tickets” and will issue a numbered plaque to identify which train service you will be boarding, which you place on the table you are seating.

The lounge itself was quite spacious but the food and drinks were sub par vs airline lounges. Mostly snacks and can drinks, there’s also coffee and tea.

Upon boarding time, a staff comes to you and lead you to your train’s scheduled platform. At the platform’s entrance barriers, you smoothly enter before the rest of the passengers seated in 1st Class and 2nd Class (Yes. For China’s High Speed Rail system, Business Class is tops followed by 1st Class and then 2nd Class).

Board your train and enjoy the comfort of your Business Class seat. I kid you not, these seats are fully reclining and are more comfortable than most 1st Class seats in air planes.

An attendant will come to ascertain your destination and number in your group. Amenities like slippers and newspapers are provided free. You also get choice of drinks (no alcohol) and a bag of snacks. Meals can be ordered separately via QR code on the seat.

When you are near to your station, the attendant will come over to remind you it’s time to disembark.

A lot more expensive than 1st Class and 2nd Class tickets but I strongly recommend Business Class tickets for foreigners travelling on China’s High Speed Rail to avoid unhappy situations over usurped seats and luggage space that tends to happen in the coach...

During our recent trip to Shanghai, which we also took the highspeed train from Shanghai to Suzhou and we came by this station to catch the train.

The station was already full of people when we arrived slightly before 7am (we took the metro from People's Park station to here and that took about 10mins). The station was huge, covering several storeys with eateries, convenience stores and fast food restaurants around.

As usual, before entering, all passengers needed to have their carrierbags scanned (same as those in the metro stations too). As we have booked our train tickets in advance, we just needed to have our passports scanned, quite convenient.

Thereafter, we proceeded to the respective gate to board the train. But there's no use arriving early because the staff would only open the gate about 10~15mins before the train departure time. But passengers started queuing prior to that.

Imagine the massive number of passengers queuing and entering the gate via scanning of identity cards or passports, one will need to run after passing the gate to go down to the platform and enter the right compartment of the train. This is important as some train compartments are not "interlinked" (because the train heads are facing each other), so do make sure you enter the right one. Luckily for us, reading Chinese words is a breeze for us and so it's quite straightforward.

And the gate closed 3 mins before the train departure (and it leaves on time) and so it's quite a rush kind of thing. But once you sat down at the seat, it's quite ok.

It's good to skip the morning/evening peak hours and you...

Out of Shanghai's 3 main railway stations this is by far my least favorite to travel out of. If you're not a Chinese national, you can't use the machines. Even if you purchased tickets online you need to head to the ticket office counter. This involves going through an underpass to a separate building then waiting in a LONG line.

The building itself also feels quite dated, although not nearly as the north Americans ones. Amenities are a bit lacking, and the multiple waiting rooms can be quite confusing. It also always seems to feel really hot in the station.

If possible, go through Shanghai Hongqiao or South Station instead - they offer a much more...