Here you can find useful information on Beijing Train travel, including Beijing Railway Stations Guide, Railway Station opening hours, ticket booking notes, train schedules for main itineraries, luggage rules on China train, requirements for child tickets and etc.
☝ Beijing Railway Station
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There are five passenger railway stations in the capital city of Beijing, naming Beijing (Central) Railway Station, Beijing West Railway Station, Beijing South Railway Station, Beijing North Railway Station and Beijing East Railway Station respectively.
Beijing South Railway Station is the city's main station with the largest passenger traffic while Beijing (Central) Railway Station has the longest history. Beijing North Railway Station is also known as Beijing Xizhimen Station. Trains from Beijing North Railway Station are mainly for Inner Mongolia, Liaoning Province as well as for Badaling Great Wall in Yanqing county.
Beijing East Railway Station serves a few trains only. Passengers to take International trains to Pyongyang, Ulaanbaatar and Moscow should depart from Beijing (Central) Railway Station. Passengers to take bullet trains to Tianjin, Shanghai Hongqiao should depart from Beijing South Railway Station. Passenger taking trains for Hong Kong should depart from Beijing West Railway Station.
We suggest passengers double check the exact departure station on their ticket carefully before you leave for the railway station to catch the train.
Beijing Railway Station is an important rail transportation hub of Jingbao (Beijing-Baotou) Railway, Jingqin (Beijing-Qinhuangdao) Railway, Jingha(Beijing-Harbin) Railway, Jinghu(Beijing-Shanghai) Railway as well as Jingcheng (Beijing-Chengde) Railway.
Beijing Station covers an area of 250,000 square meters including building area of about 80,000 square meters. It has a tandem map layout which is listed in order as arrival and departure yard, handover yard as well as switchyard. The station building facing north has total construction area of 71,054 square meters with width of 124 meters east to west.The front square has an area of 40,000 square maters.
inside the station, it has VIP rooms, waiting room for soft sleeper ticket holders, standard waiting room, as well ticketing hall for both domestic trains and international trains.
Beijing Station now has 8 platforms and 16 tracks.
Passenger can get to Beijing Station by using Beijing Metro line 2 as well as the following buses including No. 9, No. 10, No. 20, No. 24, No. 25, No. 29, No.39, No. 59, No. 52, No. 403, No. 420, No. 434, No. 637, No. 638, No. 639, No. 640, No.668, No. 692, No. 673, No. 674, No. 729, No. 120, No. 122, No. 126, No. 204 No. 938, No. 957, No. 805, No. 103, No. 104 and etc.
Passengers can take airport shuttle line 3 to travel from Beijing International Airport to Beijing Railway Station directly. The bus operates from 5:00 am to 11:00 pm Monday to Sunday. Journey time is 60 minutes if the traffic is good and ticket fare is CNY 30 Yuan.
Passengers can take the airport express train to travel to Dongzhimen station firstly and then change to Beijing subway loop line 2 to travel to Beijing Railway Station. Total journey time is about one hour and total ticket cost is CNY 28 Yuan. It's a fast and cost-saving way. Operation hours for airport express train are from 6: 20am to 11:00 pm and operation hours for subway line 2 are from 5:2 0am to 11:30 pm Monday to Sunday.
Attention please: It's not a good idea to take Beijing subway during its busiest hours from 7 am to 9 am as well as from 5 pm to 7 pm , especially if you are traveling with luggage.
Passengers can purchase ticket from the railway station at anytime. Some ticket windows open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Advance ticket reservation period is 30 days maximum. Travelers can reserve tickets online through www.12306.cn, www.chinatrainguide.com or reserve tickets offline from ticket window of the railway station or from the ticket agency. No. 10 ticket window of Beijing Railway Station provides booking service for English speakers.
China has world's busiest railway network. If you buy the ticket on the date of journey, you may get disappointed as tickets might have been sold out already. We recommend you book your ticket in advance to make sure your journey will not be delayed.
The Chinese website www.12306.cn provides online train ticket booking services mainly for local people as it doesn't accept payment by overseas credit card or bank account from overseas banks. To book ticket through this website, overseas clients are required to submit their passport information. The website accepts daily online booking request from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm in China time every day.
China railway rules and regulations are different with any other country in the world. Getting familiar with these rules will make your rail travel in China more easily and successfully.
Instead of age, China railway has special requirments on height to buy child ticket. Requirments on child ticket can be summarized as the follows:
Have you ever traveled to Beijing Station? China Train Guide encourage you to share your travel experience and review their service by leaving your comment here to help other visitors to travel smartly. You can also leave a question here or send inquiry directly to our email service at chinatrainguide.com.