Briefing 29: More Trains, More Planes, Trains, Planes, the Links, and More...

More and more airports are having rail links. Flying into China from abroad? We'll forgive you for flying in from the likes of London, Sydney, and New York, but once you're in China? Take the Train!

You might be thinking that we've been taken hostage by the air people — nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth. As you might be aware, competition is relatively fierce in China between the planes and the trains. The planes are getting slightly better at the game, heinous delays now being slightly less of a thing. However, with the railways, the trains continue to be predictably ontime nearly all the time.

You can witness the ultimate stand-off, then, between the duo, at airports with a rail connection — or vice versa, railway stations with an air connection. And they are no longer limited to places that happened to be next to one another, for example Shanghai Hongqiao. In fact, as you may well see from this briefing, the planes and the trains are going to be meeting one other at one more places across China going into the future…

I'm still very much a Trains person. Of course, onboard trains, there's even an occasional opportunity to do a video rail briefing to you — nobody else other than me, holding my microphone with the trademark massive foam cover… Other benefits of doing the train — not the plane — include the ability to go online or make phone calls at any time for any purpose, as well as the total lack of a ridiculous 15 minutes "no toilets or laptops" policy to start and end journeys, as unfortunately those travelling by plane will have to suffer with every flight…

But for now, we're going to put the transport mode in-fighting (amplified no less by that massive microphone) to the side, and see where the two will connect in future across the Middle Kingdom…

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