China Travel Forum

[Oliver]

I'll be arriving in Hong Kong shortly, and plan to take a few days stay
in Beijing before going back to Hong Kong.
I want to travel cheaply and have found that a train going between the
two cities (taking approx 26 hours) is the way to go.
It would be nice to book ahead, but I can't seem to find any booking
site, or even site for the railway company on the web. All I can find is
several sites arranging train tickets for you, but I'd rather do it
myself and save money.
Are these trains usually very busy? Is it hard to buy a ticket from the
station itself in Hong Kong (Hung Hom in Kowloon?) when i get to Hong
Kong, or should I really book several days ahead?
By the way, if someone tells me the name of the railway company I might
eb able to figure out some of this myself (it's not
Kowloon-Canton-Railway as I thought -they don't even operate that far
into China).

[Gordon]

You can buy a ticket at the station without difficulty, Only at Chinese holiday periods is the train very heavily booked. I've never yet been turned away, however. The ticket is issued on the spot. You can find ticket prices on the KCR site already given (as well as details of what days the train runs from Hung Hom), and on CTS' web site you can find a contact email address. You
might be able to make a reservation by email prior to your departure for
Hong Kong.