8:43 PM Friday, August 27, 2010 Heading at 151 km/h on the trusty D5120 from Chengdu North Station to Chongqing Bei, also the north station. The approx 420km trip takes just over 2 hours, so our current speed is disappointingly lacadaisical. I have sent orders to the lower decks for the slaves to pedal harder but to no avail. The ‘over’ is either due to engineering works, or due to the fact that extra carriages have been added to this train, the last Friday evening departure to Chongqing.

This train has 16 modern carriages which European high-speed rail enthusiasts could mistake for their own, apart from the dominance of Asian clientele, the different signage, and the gleaming aluminium toilets sunk into the floor, as ‘squatties’ are still the lavatorial design of choice. Otherwise the lavs feature all mod cons, including taps activated by infrared-sensors, and a light-touch button to activate the flush, and paper supply is plentiful. Fortunately, I’ve just recovered from a 2-day bout of food poisoning, the theme of which was ‘Just passing through!’ , so I have not had to fine-tune my surfing or snowboarding skills by squatting at 200 km/h, trying to maintain accurate aim.

I write this at 165 km/h as I’ve been lucky enough to get 1st class tickets, which, at 117 RMB (about 11 pounds) are 20 RMB more than the second class tickets. For the extra couple of quid, you get a slightly wider chair (premium economy rather than full horizontal sleep-pod) and your very own AC power socket to enable anti-social engrossment in technological gadgets such as laptops or iPhones, iPads, and other iNotalktoyou devices. In this developing country, many of the passengers are reading e-books on handheld playstation gizmos, texting on the latest smartphones, devouring KFC, listening to the iPods. A couple of people are reading books. Different electronic sounds emanate every 15 seconds from principally from phones with irritating notification tones. However, overall, it’s pretty quiet on the train and it’s a very nice trip, as it is when one is demoted to mere second-classness, generally because the first class tickets sell out so quickly. The second class tickets see in much the same comfort as in 1st class, minus the electrical socket availability (for a 2-hour trip, not a major problem with some proper planning) and instead of 2 sets of widish seats on each side of the aisle, there are 2 and 3 slightly narrower seats.

China is developing thousands of km of high-speed train lines, and in the process will make some air routes redundant. The VIPs and top businessmen used to take the plane between Chengdu to Chongqing, but now it is slower to do so than taking the train. The Chengdu to Chongqing flight used to consist of: driving 30 mins to the airport in Chengdu, spending 45 mins at the Chengdu ShuangLiu airport (if there are no delays) (never a joy, since its superior catering option is KFC. Elsewhere in this institution of jealously controlled franchises, a cup of tea can set you back 5 pounds), a 45-minute flight (most likely with a princely repaste of a bottle of water and a packet of crackers), 10 minutes for Chongqing formalities, and then 45 minutes’ drive into the labyrinthine Chongqing. Now, for probably 20% of the total cost, the journey from city centre to city centre takes two hours, and by 2014, it will take just 50 minutes.

That express link will bring immense changes to the Chengdu and Chongqing. The daily commute to school will become feasible, for example. Anyone who has lived in Chengdu and Chongqing, will instantly see another popular life-work choice: live in Chengdu and work in Chongqing. Chengdu is known as relaxed and very ‘livable’ city, not least due to its climate, milder than Chongqing’s (one of China’s ‘furnace’ cities), and its flatness. Chongqing, city of hills and of an extended population of 30 million (Chengdu’s is a mere 11 million or so), is a metropolis which is, ahem, steeply on the rise, particularly after the powerful go-getter Bo Xi Lai took over as mayor, but is harder to ‘get into’ than Chengdu, and certainly harder to get around. Currently, businesses will most likely appoint a senior manager based in Chengdu, who either grudgingly attempts to manage the Chongqing branch from afar, or spends a lot of time staying in Chongqing.

The investment is pouring in and parts of the city are reminiscent of Hong Kong – think of skyscrapers, dominated by financial institutions, crowds of people pacing purposefully office-ward. – but Chongqing has a great deal more space to build than HK, and many of the buildings just a few hundred metres’ walk from the newer high-rises in the CBD (Commercial and Business District) are shabby and look like they are in need of rebuilding. It’s a paradise for cash-rich developers.