I take a taxi to the train station planning to arive an hour and a
half early wondering if that's enough time to figure things out, buy a
ticket, find the right gate and so on.
It took me 10 minutes. Really 10 minutes.
Buying the ticket took a whole minute, and that includes 30 seconds of
hesitation because everything seemed too easy. All over the train
station are these automatic kiosks. You flip the thing into English
mode, select your date (today is the default), select your city,
select your class, and pay.
Selecting the city and paying are the best parts. To select a city,
you're presented with a tabbed screen, with each tab a picturing one
line leaving your starting point and all the connecting lines off that
line. The cities are dots on that line and the transfer cities are red
dots. All you have to do is find your grid and press your destination
dot.
To pay you just stick your money in the slot. You don't have to orient
it in any way. It figures it all out.
A few weeks ago I tried to buy a movie ticket from an automated kiosk
in Canada and it took me 10 times as long before I gave up and stood
in line.
Your ticket isn't a multiple page incompressible thing like in Europe,
it credit card sized. It just lists your destination, train number,
car number, and seat number.
You go to the heated, modern waiting area and on the way in a cute
girl inspects your ticket to make sure you've not made any mistakes.
There is free hot water for drinking or if you want to make noodles.
Signs tell you all the trains and how much time left to wait for each.
20 minutes befor departure time your sign lights up, and a door opens
for you to go to your platform.
Boarding takes five minutes. No pushing and shoving. Everything just works.
The train left exactly on time.
The train thing looks like it's from the Star Trek set. The LED
display says we're moving at 200 km/hr right now (and we're still in
built up areas).
I've checked, and these trains are built in China. These guys are
going to run th world! And it's going to be a better place for it!
--
– GL
Gregory Levonian – gregory@levonian.org, gregory.levonian.org






