On March 10, 2008  the following article appeared in the China Daily: Five-star Beijing-Tibet train to run after Games.

Luxury passenger train service from Beijing to the southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region will be launched on Sept. 1 [2008].

The tickets were gaggingly expensive – $5600 USD per person – and the projected departure schedule was brisk, to say the least – three trains leaving Beijing every 8 days, beginning on September 1, 2008.  On August 21, 2008, nearly two weeks into the Olympics, the AFP reported that

… an official at the Qinghai Tibet Railway Company, who also asked to remain anonymous, told AFP Thursday there was no timetable yet for the train’s maiden voyage.

With a schedule like that and the cost of the tickets, someone was dreaming monster dreams. For a variety of reasons, no train of this stripe has ever left the post-Olympic station. I have continued wondering about this train touted as the “world most luxurious” for some time now. By chance, while reading through a Danwei feed recently, an ad popped up for the New Oriental Express, leaving Beijing on March 30, 2009 (the tour begins on March 27, but the first three days are all-Beijing: Peking duck, King Wing Hot Spring International Hotel, and a dizzying whirl through traffic to the normal tourist venues, including the colossally empty Olympic venues.)

I had mistakenly assumed that this was the same ride as the one hailed as the “five-star train … decorated according to the standards of a five-star hotel,” the one that was scheduled prior to last year’s troubles in Lhasa. But this new train, leaving in just three weeks is not that train. This one is much less expensive and not nearly as luxurious. The train accommodations are normal soft sleeper – four people to a berthing compartment – and instead of the 40,000 RMB price tag on the 5-star ride, this one is only 25,500 RMB, with most nights, with the exception of four or five, being spent in hotels along the way.

But still I pressed on. There is a ban on foreigners in much of Qinghai and Xizang through the end of March, I was told. Yes, I knew that, but the train was not scheduled to leave Xining until April 4, heading into the heart of the Tibetan cultural region after the March ban. Still, there was a problem; the travel company could not guarantee that, as a foreigner, I would be able to get the necessary travel permits to be a part of this tour in April either, since travel permits in April are still questionable, no matter how much I wanted to experience what it is like to travel in the style “normally reserved for celebrities and government officials.”

So, it looks as if the New Oriental Express will be very oriental. Or, more specifically, totally Chinese, since the travel company cannot guarantee that they will be able to get permits for anyone with a foreign passport. Oh, well, I guess I’ll just have to wait. It will give me more time to stumble upon that bag full of money I’d need to purchase a ticket w/permits. I’m betting I probably won’t get to go. Sigh.

But a side-thought to all of this has to do with the reported investors of the original, most expensive train in the world, the one that never left the station and, as best I can tell, has not set the date for their maiden voyage. Last year it was reported to have been backed by Hong Kong’s Wing On Travel (Holdings) Limited to the tune of US $52.9 million. That’s a chunk of change. I wonder what the status of that bag full of money is? If I stumble upon that I might really see what life is like for the celebrities and officials. My nose is to the ground.

An official at the tourism office of northwestern Gansu province’s Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, home to a major monastery and large Tibetan communities, said the region was closed to foreigners and would not be open until late March. The official, who did not identify himself as is customary in China, did not say when the restrictions were put in place.

In Sichuan province, many areas open just two weeks ago are now closed to foreign tourists until April, according to officials at the Ganzi prefecture tourist bureau. Only three counties in that prefecture will remain open to foreigners. Qinghai province’s tourism bureau also said that many areas remain closed to foreigners.

No specific projected date for lifting the ban in Qinghai, though there’s that New Oriental Express blowing its whistle about leaving Beijing station on March 27, 2009, heading right through the heart of Qinghai. But I guess if you’re paying that much money you can go just about anywhere.

Another bit of news that keeps capturing the headlines is the new high speed train between Beijing and Tianjin, set to make its initial commercial run on August 1. The last I heard is that it will take 27 minutes and cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 RMB. No one is spending much time dawdling over the fact that the new Beijing terminal station is in the southeast part of the city. From what I’ve been able to learn, it will take two further train rides to get from the new station to Tian’anmen Square. Depending on where you plan to go in the city, the better deal and faster trip still may be to ride the current train and catch the subway at Beijing station. The much-advertised flash train route is akin to riding a bullet from Philadelphia to New York with the New York end-of-the-line somewhere in Newark. But 27 minutes looks good in the papers, even though it will be more than 20 RMB higher than the current ride. Twenty-six days to go and the machine is cranking.

And while we’re on the subject of trains, does anyone know the current status of the once-ballyhoo-ed luxury train to Lhasa? I’m still looking for a place to drop 5,600 bucks.