High-speed sleeper train tickets for Hong Kong to Beijing sell out fast online, as elderly wait hours before counters open
- New overnight trains with sleeper carriages to take 12½ hours to Beijing and 11 hours to Shanghai
- Services also met with excitement from mainland tourists, with some on social media app Xiaohongshu saying they are planning frequent weekend trips to Hong Kong
The new train services from Hong Kong to Beijing and Shanghai were announced on Tuesday, with online and in-person sales starting from 12pm the next day.
A check of the main sales channel, the 12306 China Railway website and app, showed all Beijing-bound tickets departing on June 15 to 17 had sold out.
There were five lower deck sleeper tickets available on Shanghai-bound trains on June 15 and two for June 16 at 8.40pm on Wednesday. The website showed some tickets were also still available for June 17.
Each train has about 600 seats, but the Post has learned that some tickets on the first trains have been reserved for stakeholders to trial the service.
The sleeper train option is more expensive than flights. There were at least 20 non-stop, return flights between Hong Kong and Shanghai on June 15, costing between HK$1,125 (US$144) and HK$2,700 including taxes and other charges.
There were at least 24 choices of direct, return tickets to Beijing on the same day, with about 10 flights costing between HK$1,555 and HK$3,000.
