Originally Posted by
YuropFlyer
How is 78 Euro for a first class ride (or 49 Euro for a 2nd class) for a high-speed train running 1000km overpriced for you? And please, don't come with the argument that many Chinese can't afford it. 490 RMB isn't that much of a sum for a growing middle class in China. And I wonder where you can find 56 RMB tickets for that ride... will that be in the luggage car?
The premium asked for this trully high-speed service seems very reasonable for me, I was expecting it to be higher. Don't forget, they built new tracks all the way along, new stations, new material (trains), they don't want to fight the current train system for those who can't afford the highspeed train, but rather offer an alternative to taking the aircraft for those with money. 1000km in 3 hours from city center to city center beats aircraft hands down. They price it around the same as airfares as they can do this. Why shouldn't they not? China isn't a Communist country anymore (well, it is by definition, but we all know what I mean) they're about making cash with this line. Not building a stupid prestige object.
A lot of very solid arguments, but I think that you are really missing the point regarding affordability. While the prices might not be "overpriced" for many of us here, or even the initial target market, both constitute such a small minority of Chinese train travel, that such thinking is unrealistic. While gov't officials and business travellers can and will make use of such a service, the pricing is hardly suitable for ordinary folks in China.
With mean (not median - I suspect this is lower) per capita income of about $3200 (~$270/month) on a nominal (not PPP) basis (hey nothing's perfect), such an expenditure (49 Euros or over $70) for a 1 way ticket on a per person basis is quite an expenditure. Or let's play with some more numbers.
Let's use PPP GDP per capita (once again ignoring median income and using mean rather than median). On a PPP basis GDP per capita in China is about $6100 (~$508/month). The cost of a one way ticket, per person is much more attractive than in the case above, but most certainly not cheap or very attractively priced for someone with an "average" or "middle class" income.
The 56 RMB ticket would be a hard seater (and maybe standing up), and having never done it myself, I am sure it would be like the luggage car (or worse), though I feel this will remain the option of choice for most train travellers in China, given the price and availability. However, for a small premium one could do the hard sleeper (numerous threads on how to try and get them here - which shows it can be quite a challenge), which does the trick.
I am sure tickets for these lines will not be too hard to get initially, since getting soft sleeper (a much cheaper option on slow trains even when they were the only show in town) never seemed difficult at all. I think I just found a reason to go to Guangzhou though...
A number of solid comments in the previous posts above though ^