A Chinese woman named Wang recently revealed that she experienced a malfunction on a high-speed train journey from Hangzhou to Beijing, where the replacement train was missing a carriage. This resulted in her and over a hundred passengers having no seats, and they were forced to stand the entire way from Hangzhou to Beijing.
According to a report by The Paper on September 24, on the morning of September 21, Wang boarded the G32 “Rejuvenation” train from Hangzhou East Station to Beijing South Station. However, just before the train was set to depart, the train crew announced that there was a malfunction preventing the train from running and presented two solutions: either passengers could go to the ticket counter to get a refund, or they could wait for a new train, which would take about an hour.
“Most passengers chose the second option,” Wang said. In less than an hour, the new train arrived at the platform. However, upon boarding, passengers realized that the new train was the “Harmony” train, which only had 16 carriages. “Passengers who had purchased tickets for the 17th carriage had no seats and had to squeeze into the 16th carriage,” Wang explained.
In response, the train crew announced via the train’s broadcast system that after reaching Nanjing South Station, there would be another train change, and the new train would be the same model as the original one. Passengers without seats from Hangzhou East to Nanjing South were compensated 80 yuan for the fare difference.
However, after changing trains at Nanjing South Station for a second time, the train model was correct, but there were still only 16 carriages. Wang stated that around 100 ticketed passengers ended up cramming into one carriage and “had to stand all the way to Beijing.”
Upon arrival at Beijing Station, the station staff only refunded the fare difference between the first class and second class seats for Wang and other passengers. Wang expressed dissatisfaction with this and demanded an apology from the official railway service, 12306, as well as a full refund for the entire journey.
Wang mentioned that the first class ticket she purchased cost 1077 yuan. However, when Wang later called 12306 for a response, she did not receive a positive answer.
A netizen named “Lucao” also expressed discontent through a video. She said, “What was supposed to be the ‘fastest’ train turned into the slowest and most torturous one, and filing complaints with 12306 was quite useless.” Furthermore, there were no optimization or compensation plans, only verbal apologies.
“Lucao” questioned, “Shouldn’t the train have been inspected before departure?”