To Buy train tickets leaving from a different station

Is it possible to purchase a ticket for train departing from different city in China? I may need to buy a ticket in Shenzhen for train travel Guangzhou-Shenyang in case the Shenzhen-Shenyang train sold out. I found the information (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1601441) saying yes but it was posted more than two years ago (May 7, 2008). Could someone verify this information still valid?

Thanks.

Hi,

probably you did not search the correct key words, try yidi piao 异地票

Cheers!

More so than before. Try.

This may not be true of all stations, but Shenzhen Station certainly sells tickets for travel from Guangzhou; sometimes there's a special window for these tickets.

Thanks John555 & 889.

889, is there a website that shows which train stations sells tickets for travel from different cities? For example, buy tickets in Harbin for travel from Changchun to Yanji.

Thanks again.

This has been discussed in the past and the answer leaned toward no. Having said that. Is there a technical reason they can't? Not from my experience. Many, most, agents don't want to do it. I've done so in the past and it wasn't easy. I would just start at one end of the ticket windows and work my way over until I found one who would be willing to do it. Sometimes I would be out of luck for the day and come back another day.

Train travel in China has gotten bad. I remember when you could show up at the last minute and get a ticket with a seat. Now I've been shut out trying to book a week in advance. I've resorted to buses which always seem to have at least one seat left.

Train travel in China has gotten bad. I remember when you could show up at the last minute and get a ticket with a seat. Now I've been shut out trying to book a week in advance. I've resorted to buses which always seem to have at least one seat left.

Couple of reasons. The government is concentrating more on high speed trains. Ever more people travel as richer and the mafias buy up big in some places.

As to technical reasons, there have been reports that stations need to upgrade to the latest version of the ticket-selling software to offer this feature, and not all stations have done this.

The answer to this is definitely yes. I was just down at the train station. There are automatic ticket machines now. I don't remember them being there before. You can book a ticket from anywhere to anywhere else up to 5 days in advance. I did end up booking by the machine though. It said the train I wanted was sold out so I went up to a ticket counter. I told the CSR what train I wanted on which date and she gave me a ticket. So even though the machine said it was sold out, I was able to get a ticket. I was thinking it might be one of those standing tickets but it has a car and a seat number.