Talking Travel: No Skis on the Train to Zhangjiakou, New Vending Machines at Subway Stations
High-speed train to the slopes bans skis
Earlier this week, Weibo blogger Billy Blanc had tried to purchase his high-speed train tickets to Zhangjiakou only to notice an alert in the ticketing app informing travelers that skis and snowboards will now be prohibited aboard the Beijing-Zhangjiakou route. This might seem like a reasonable restriction for a train route to make until you realize that skiing and snowboarding are pretty much the only reason anyone goes to Zhangjiakou, the city in which most snow events will be held for the 2022 Olympics.
The only exception to the rule is for skis and boards shorter than 130 centimeters. (A typical adult snowboard is longer than 140 centimeters.)
What exactly could prompt the route to implement such a rule just as the mountains begin their winter beckoning? While we can’t say for sure that Big Ski Rental didn’t have a hand in the matter, Blanc has his own theory about the ban. According to his research, the trains had actually installed free-to-use cabins for skis and snowboards in December 2019, but in his experience, the cabins were too small and not plentiful enough to meet demand. As a result, the route has reversed its plan to accommodate snow-sport equipment, leaving the cabins to be used for nothing more than children’s snowboards.
Consequently, skiers who plan on making the trip this year will either have to leave their own equipment behind or find another means of hauling it to Zhangjiakou.
Subway vending machines now carry masks
It’s taken a global pandemic, but Beijing is finally upgrading its subway vending machines. A total of ten stations on Lines 6, 7, 9, 10, and 15 have had brand new touch-screen vending machines bestowed upon them, and while the press has mainly focused on the fact that the machines carry KN95 face masks (in case you somehow got into the station without one?) in addition to thermometers and sanitary wipes, the machines will not just carry anti-pandemic products, but a whole host of non-edibles, including earphones, batteries, power strips, and other daily-use items.
Beijing’s Subway the most ridden in the world
Beijing daily subway commuters may take their new vending machines as compensation for enduring sardine-like trains every rush hour. After all, as a recent report revealed, Beijing is the busiest subway in the world by rider volume with nearly four billion trips recorded in 2019, and an average of more than ten million rides per day.
To be fair, Beijing also has a lot more track to accommodate those riders, and of course, more is on the way as the basic infrastructure of the soon-to-come Worker’s Stadium station on Line 3 wraps up its construction.
Images: billyblanc (via Weibo), Beijing Daily (via Weibo)
