On the other hand, the first section of Suzhou metro line 2 is expected to open this summer and connect Suzhou Main station with the downtown area. And in the summer of 2014 the rest of line 2 is supposed to begin operating all the way to Suzhou North station on the Jinghu HSR line.

After that everyday work commutes from many parts of Suzhou to Shanghai will be a reality for lots more people than today. Or vice versa.

Suzhou already contains high speed rail stations:
Suzhou New Area
Suzhou
Suzhou Industrial Park
Yangcheng Lake
Kunshan South

Shanghai contains stations:
Anting North
Nanxing North
Shanghai West.

Consider schedules
Suzhou-Shanghai: 148 trains
but
Suzhou New District-Shanghai: 2 trains
Suzhou Industrial Park-Shanghai: 17 trains
Yancheng Lake-Shanghai: 1 train
Kunshan South-Shanghai - 73 trains
Huaqiao-Shanghai - 1 train.

What is getting done to improve rail services to Suzhou New District, Yancheng Lake, Huaqiao and Weiting West?

The Nanjing Airport Bus is fine, just doesn't work for where I'm usually going. For reference, west Jiangning will run you about 85Y, downtown Nanjing about 120-130Y. Add about 10-15Y if late at night. This includes the 10Y Airport Expressway toll and 2Y fuel surcharge.

Thanks for the info. ^

I do think the mainline Shanghai - Nanjing is rather saturated with scheduled trains to really do anything much. A few commuter trains to Shanghai in the morning and back in the afternoon will probably be the modus operandi also in the future.

A Chinese friend with some business operations in Liyang told me last week this train connection would already exist at least between Nanjing and Hangzhou? Can this be confirmed?

Can be confirmed

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/chin...u&d=2013-09-19

For example..

1 hour 41 minutes between Nanjing South and Hangzhou.

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/chin...t&d=2013-09-19

1 hour 22 minutes between Nanjing South and Hangzhou east.

Even with quite some China experience, the speed of China developing new "grand projects" still surprises me..

Thanks, Yuropflyer.

Actually these connections look perfect for myself as I have things to attend to at least in Lishui, Liyang, Huzhou and Taizhou. Oh, gone are those awful car trips from the Yangtze delta or Nanjing to Zhejiang. ^

Also gives incentive to fly to NKG instead of SHA and catch a train to the final destination there. Just waiting for that NKG - Nanjing South rail connection to open now...

They are kind of slow down here, reportedly due to budget issues.

The thing is, once you have one HSR link, the economic benefit is generally enough to justify fast tracking additional links.

In the Nanning case, the Guangzhou line is going to be a game changer because it will enable people there to take advantage of lower operational costs in Guangxi and simultaneously tie the people here into the PRD more intimately. This is very exciting for me because I've had a chance to live in isolated Nanning, and I therefore understand its enormous potential as a connected city.

A case in point - G55.
There were direct trains between Nanjing and Fuzhou before, via high speed railway Nanjing-Shanghai-Hangzhou, slow speed railway Hangzhou-Ningbo, again high speed Ningbo-Hangzhou-Fuzhou.
There still is. Train D3135, Nanjing-Fuzhou-Nanjing-Longyan still travels via Shanghai, though now on high speed railway Hangzhou-Ningbo. It takes 12:30 to cover its route of 1566 km, with 35 intermediate stops. Of that distance, 1184 km Nanjing-Fuzhou takes 9:43 with 27 intermediate stops.

But two other D trains Nanjing-Xiamen now travel via Nanjing-Huzhou-Hangzhou high speed railway, with just 980 km Nanjing-Fuzhou South, and manage the trip in 7:48 and 8:18, with 20 and 18 intermediate stops respectively.
And there is now the train G55, which covers the 988 km to Fuzhou station in just 6:12, with 11 intermediate stops.

Is Nanjing thereby convenient to reach from Fujian?

I fully understand what you mean, my example is Xuzhou on the Jinghu line. The transformation from a provincial mining city into a high tech hub has been nothing but amazing since the HSR linkage.

Can't understand what the UK and US are afraid of with HSR?

Reading The Telegraph in the UK or a similar conservative paper in the US, train and railroad bashing seems to be the norm and I'd like to think of myself as rather conservative at least in economic terms. ;)

Looking forward to the day when getting from my US based family location near Orlando to my friends holiday home in Tampa is as easy as Shanghai to Nanjing. Where did that pioneer spirit go?

Don't know about the UK, but in the US the obsession is with Projects that Must pay for Themselves. And with high-speed rail, that is impossible. There seems to be no way that an HSR system can be capitalized, operated, and maintained without massive taxpayer subsidies and guarantees. The Chinese government has rationalized this by not viewing the HSR rail system as merely transportation, but as a key factor in economic development of the country. They do have a point there and have been willing to spend billions on this system. But they have 1.3 billion people to move and air travel cannot ever be the primary method for this. I can't quite recall if there are any HSR systems in the world that are solvent or nearly so, as stand-alone ventures. Maybe the Japanese system, but definitely not the European.

Another issue for the USA that is different from China, Japan, Europe is the pattern of population density. Except for certain corridors in the far west and far east of the US, the overall volume of people is lower and more scattered. And a huge subset of the population would have no use for rail travel.

Much as I am a fan of HSR, I'm afraid the economic and political climate in the USA now and in the foreseeable future will not support its development. Sadly, I don't see much upside contribution that an HSR system would have, and I see a lot of potential downsides that the US and local taxpayers cannot afford. There was a window of opportunity to get this off the ground maybe in the 1990's and early 2000's but I think that window has shut economically and politically, and won't be coming around again for awhile, short of a miracle.

I guess I've done my part to "derail" this thread from the original subject, so I'll shut up now. Conclusion: visitors to China who don't have HSR in their own countries, should take advantage and experience China's on one of these routes. It's quite a pleasant and convenient way to travel.

I was just about to post something similar. Los Angeles-San Francisco is probably the most viable candidate for HSR in the US, but instead of connecting two population centers with 20+ million people and 5 cities in the middle with 2+ million, we're looking at a total of 20 million potential riders. Furthermore, I can't foresee Fresno or Bakersfield doing great things anytime soon.

The Florida and Las Vegas, both of which offer Disney a "free ride", cases are even sillier.

I'm willing to bet that there will be (Chinese built) HSR in place between Beijing and Paris before we see LA-SF.

Which Chinese built HSR shall be opened first:
Beijing-Paris
Beijing-Singapore-Jakarta-Denpasar
Beijing-Pyongyang-Seoul-Pusan-Tsushima-Fukuoka
Beijing-Harbin-Jiamusi-Khabarovsk-Komsomolsk pod Amurom-De Kastri-Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk-Wakkanai-Sapporo-Hakkodate
Beijing-Magadan
or Beijing-Yakutsk?

On a more serious not and considering both political and economic ambitions, I'd bet my puny money on Xinjiang to Central Asia rail connections.

Russia, and about this I'm rather sure, does not want Chinese built HSR in it's Far East or Siberia for obvious reasons. They will turn to trusted partner Germany as happened when constructing the Moscow - St.Petersburg HSR connection.

Southwards doesn't look too promising for political reasons either and I don't think Gwadar port in Pakistan needs HSR tracks from China. Would also be a sitting duck for local extremists.