BEIJING: China will overhaul its train numbering system to accommodate the expansion of its railway network, changing the meaning of several familiar letter prefixes while keeping routes and schedules unchanged under the current timetable.
The changes, to be introduced in late November and late December, will increase the number of available train numbers for bullet train services by nearly 40 percent, China State Railway Group, the national railway operator, said on Friday.
For travelers, including international visitors, the key change is that letters long associated with one type of train will identify another.
T and K, previously used for regular speed express and fast trains, will identify high-speed services with top operating speeds of 300 kilometers per hour and 200 to 250 km/h, respectively. G will identify Fuxing trains with a maximum operating speed of 350 km/h.
The X prefix will be reserved for Fuxing trains operating above 350 km/h. However, no X series passenger services will begin operating in this round of changes, said Xu Yan, deputy director of the operator’s passenger transport center.
The overhaul follows substantial growth in railway services. Between 2014 and 2025, China’s railway network expanded from 112,000 kilometers to 165,000 km, while the average number of passenger trains operating daily rose from 4,894 to 11,796. “During peak travel periods such as the May Day and National Day holidays, G series services use more than 90 percent of the available train numbers for that prefix,” said Fan Mingxiang, deputy director of the operator’s transport department.
On July 30, 2024, the Chinese company purchased seedlings suspected of infringing the variety rights, with the transaction notarized to preserve evidence.
Sales staff at the planting base referred to the variety as “Spanish 42” and acknowledged that it was being cultivated alongside other varieties. Of the 120,000 seedlings at the base, 20,000 belonged to the disputed variety. The base was unable to provide legal documentation authorizing its propagation.
Subsequent testing confirmed that the seedlings were nearly identical to the variety protected by the Spanish company’s rights. The Chinese company then filed a lawsuit with the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court in Yunnan.
The court found that the planting base had willfully infringed the plant variety rights by producing, propagating and selling the seedlings without permission. It also found that the base had propagated another variety without authorization, with more than 67 percent of its seedlings lacking legal provenance.
The court therefore applied punitive damages and ordered the planting base to pay 144,000 yuan ($21,519) in compensation for economic losses, along with 10,000 yuan in enforcement costs.
The planting base appealed to the SPC, which rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
The SPC said the application of punitive damages demonstrated the judiciary’s firm stance against infringement and reflected Chinese courts’ commitment to providing equal protection to litigants, regardless of whether they are domestic or foreign.
The top court also stressed the need to establish a comprehensive judicial protection system covering the entire process, from breeding and seed production to propagation and sales. It called for continued improvements to the legal rules governing intellectual property rights in the seed industry, taking into account the seasonal nature of crop growth and differences in propagation methods.
The SPC urged courts nationwide to handle disputes involving new plant varieties fairly and efficiently, pledging to foster a fair and orderly legal environment that supports innovation and helps safeguard national food security.
Wei Yuguang, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, said train numbers serve purposes far beyond helping passengers find their trains.
“They are a common language for coordination across regions and departments,” he said, explaining that each train’s unique number is a basic unit for organizing transport, dispatching, passenger services and accounting.
Even the length of a number matters.
“Using three digits or four may mean just one extra word each time for a dispatcher, but repeated throughout the day, it adds considerably to the workload,” Wei said.
Pronunciation also needs to be considered. “If two train numbers sound very similar, that can cause problems in dispatching,” he said.
Wei said the new system builds on existing rules while making room for more trains and new services. It must accommodate both passenger and freight trains, including those operating across borders.
Cross-border passenger services will also have their train numbers adjusted on domestic sections of their routes under the revised rules, the operator said.
Regular speed passenger trains, tourist trains and some freight services will have their numbers changed in late November, followed by high-speed and other services in late December.
The new train numbers will appear on 12306, China’s official railway booking platform, when tickets go on sale, up to 15 days before departure. Onboard services, including quiet carriages and online meal ordering, will remain unchanged.
For international visitors who rely on travel guides to plan their trips, older explanations of train prefixes may no longer apply after the changes. The operator urged passengers to check train numbers, departure and arrival stations, and schedules carefully. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
