There are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou, just stopping and accelerating at each station wastes both time and energy e.g. A mere 5 min stop per station will result in a total loss of 5 min x 30 stations = 2.5 hours of train journey time!
So the Chinese seemed to have developed this amazing concept of getting on and off a bullet train without having to actually stop the train! 😎
How is that possible?
The below video shows you how it works…but in mandarin. So before you see it you can read a quick summary of the same:
Boarding the train: The passengers at the station embark onto a connector cabin way before the train even arrives at the station. When the train arrives, it does not stop at all but just slows down to pick up the connector cabin…which moves with the roof of the train. The passengers then climb down into the train from the connector cabin mounted on the train’s roof.
Getting off the train: After unloading its passengers, the connector cabin is moved to the back of the train so that the passengers who want to disembark at the next station can move into the connector cabin at the rear end of the train’s roof.
When the train arrives at the next station, it simply leaves the whole connector cabin behind. The disembarking passengers then take their own time to leave the cabin while the train has already left for it’s next destination.
While this is happening at the back, the front part of the train picks up the embarking passengers on another connector cabin that is placed in the front part of the train’s roof. So this way the train always drops one connector cabin at the rear and picks up a new one in the front.