Booking a high-speed train in English

The official site works in English and takes a foreign passport. The hard part is not the booking, it is knowing which of the city's stations you just chose.

Verified 11 NOV 20268 min readCh6 of the handbook

Three high-speed trains lined up beneath the steel roof of Beijing South railway station — Beijing South railway stationThree high-speed trains wait beneath the station’s vaulted roof.

Two Fuxing high-speed trains pass on parallel tracks near Beijing South railway station — Near Beijing South railway stationTwo Fuxing trains pass on parallel tracks.

China's high-speed network is the easiest long-distance transport in the country, and the official booking site has an English interface. The friction is almost entirely in three places: passport names, station names, and the 30-minute cutoff.

Before you search

Your name on the ticket must match your passport exactly, including middle names and the order they appear. A mismatch is not correctable at the gate.

The three things that go wrong

You picked the wrong station. Most big cities have two to four. Read the station name, not the city name.
You arrived 10 minutes before departure. Gates close around 5 minutes before, and stations are large.
Your passport was not scanned at the gate. Foreign passports usually need a staffed lane, not the automatic one.