Car transport on Beijing-Hangzhou line opens ahead of National Day

Faced with driving more than 1,300 kilometers for a view of one of China's scenic areas during the upcoming National Day holiday, car owners in Beijing will have a much easier option this year: taking a high-speed train while another train transports their cars.

Beijing Railway Bureau announced the high-speed train will depart from the South Railway Station on Sept 30 and arrive in Hangzhou, capital of Zhe-jiang province, the next morning. The train returns from Hangzhou on the night of Oct 6, arriving in Beijing eight hours later.

Before boarding the train for Hanghzou, the passengers will have to drop off their cars at the Dahongmen Railway Station, a cargo station in Beijing, on Sept 28. Once in Hangzhou, passengers can pick up their cars on Oct 1.

For the return trip, they should have their cars at the station in Hangzhou on Oct 6 and can pick up their cars in Beijing on Oct 9.

"We have had a lot of calls in the past two days," Sun Yongtang, the Beijing Railway Bureau's publicity director, told China Daily on Friday.

Sun said they will evaluate the response to the trial runs and may expand the service if it is good.

The National Day holiday, Oct 1 to 7, is one of the longest holidays in China, and highways can become gridlocked.

The starting price for transporting a car is 3,000 yuan ($490) in addition to the ticket for the high-speed train. Prices vary with different models and sizes of vehicles, and can reach 4,000 yuan, according to a bureau staff member surnamed Song.

He said the car train will have more than 600 slots, and by Friday more than half had been reserved.

Yuan Fei, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, welcomed the service, saying if it extends to faraway places like Chengdu, "I may apply".

Nie Xianzhong, at the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences, said the service might bring more visitors to scenic spots outside Hangzhou.

Ding Shuni, a Hangzhou resident, said she welcomes tourists in Hangzhou but not their cars.

"The streets are already crowded because construction projects for metros are almost everywhere," she said. "What is the point of inviting more nonlocal cars?"

Shao Wei, a public relations manager of eHi Car Services, a car rental company, wasn't worried about the new car train.

The service only carries a few hundred cars from Beijing, which is a fraction of the whole market, he said.

Contact the writers at wangxiaodong@chinadaily.com.cn and yanyiqi@chinadaily.com.cn