Bike on a Train?

[jape]

Except in the case of accidental spillage, it is probably safer with fuel in, than 'empty' which is usually explosive fumes of course. A friend of mine used to demonstrate this by putting a cigarette out in petrol. Mind you I was never close enough to verify it ... I found I can run really fast when necessary.

I have just started using trains again after twenty odd years. I can get into the nearest large town 100 km away for about $5 return, do some shopping at much cheaper prices and the saving there and the petrol saving add up to at least $100 a month which is great news on a pension. The trains are never full, I wish more people would use them but they prefer to pay $25+ in petrol and drive alone just for the door-to-door convenience. Oh yeah, the train is actually 15 minutes faster than driving to the same place!

[fahni]

I recently had my bike (JH 150GY-3) shipped from Beijing to Chengdu and from Xi'an back to Beijing. Euphonius asked me to share some of my experiences here to keep the thread up to date.

Shipping from Beijing west railway station was easy: drain the tank, put it on the scale and fill out the paperwork. The bike weighted in at 138kg (including top box with helmet and some other light stuff). There was a faster, more expensive option (2-3 days) and a slower (4-5 days) and cheaper option. I choose the faster one and paid around 780 RMB. I checked the bike in on Saturday and received a phone call on Monday that the bike had already arrived in Chenggdu and was waiting to be picked up.

Pickup in Chengdu without any problems at the CD North Railway Station.

When checking in the bike in Xi'an, not the weight but the displacement was taken to calculate the shipping costs with one CC equaling one kg. This time there was no choosing between slower or faster and I paid something like 630 RMB. I could not pick up the bike at the train station in BJ but had to go down to the southern 5th ring road where it was stored at the warehouse of a private shipping company. Bike was ok, only the mirrors had been removed and taped onto the saddle...

[euphonius]

Thanks Fahni,

Very interesting how differently your bike was treated in Beijing and Xi'an.

Here in Shanghai, I've approached different logistics offices of the railway administration and gotten hugely different quotes. The key was to go right to the train station and ride right into the checked baggage department. They are friendly and ship motorbikes all the time. The only significant hurdle there was a 200kg restriction on total bike weight, but they let me through at 205kg and charged 3.069 rmb/kg for Shanghai-Guiyang plus a bit more for insurance, or 695 rmb total.

The fact that your bike wound up in a logistics yard in Beijing makes me think you got corraled into some logistics arm of the railways administration, rather than the checked baggage department. I'm guessing that all major railway stations have both.

He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that when Motokai shipped his JH600 to Beijing, he fetched it from the baggage department right there at Beijing station.

After my getoff in Kunming in 2010, a friend who shipped my bike back also got sidetracked into the logistics sector, and my bike pitched up in Shanghai in a freight yard far out in the suburbs. I think it might have come by truck from Kunming, rather than by train.

So it seems the key is to go right into the heart of the railway station and find the 托运行李 office.

cheers

[MotoKai]

I've shipped my JH600 around China 8 times via train: CRE (China Rail Express).

- On a couple of occasions they quoted me by displacement....600cc's can be 2x or 3x the price compared to price by weight. But if you ask they'll usually make a call and re-quote you by weight.

- Another issue is maximum weight (200kg). Sometimes they care about this, sometimes they don't. For the JH600 it weighs in at just under max weight (with an empty tank). But with panniers/top box it'll surely put you over. In the instances they are militant about the max weight, then you'll have to pull the panniers off and ship them in separate boxes along with the bike (which ends up jacking up the price by about RMB 50-75 for packaging and depending on how much stuff is in your boxes).

- Always good to keep your previous CRE receipts. Can use them as evidence of how they should be calculating by weight and also if you have a receipt that exceeds the max weight, can be used during your attempt at negotiating your 220kg bike onto the train without having to separate panniers into separate boxes.

- Out of the 8 times shipping, I only had 2 instances of bike damage: 1) Broken mirror 2) Broken windshield + blinker

- Can buy insurance for any damages that is quite inexpensive (RMB 5000 of coverage will cost you RMB50). Note that you'll need bike sales fapiao and replacement parts fapiao to collect on your damage claims.

- Refueling can be a nuisance as I've had to push my bike around looking for nearby gas stations on several occasions. If you're unable to bring your own small bottle of petrol, my advice is to buy gas off another motorcyclist. Give them RMB 10 for a liter and they'll be happy to help. [When shipping back from Urumuqi last month, a motorcycle taxi gave me a small amount and refused to take my RMB 10 - even after I tried stuffing the bill in his shirt pocket!]

[tombaxers]

Encouraging Post, thanks for this!

On 20th September I am hopefully going to go and pick up my brand spanking new JH600 sidecar outfit from the Jialing factory and then get it shipped up to Dunhuang or as close to Dunhuang as possible (probably Jiuquan by the looks of Google maps - can anyone confirm this?) to then begin a trip on the 29th. So the question I have is does anyone have any experience loading bikes on to trains in Chongqing? If so, any details you can give me about the process etc... would be massively appreciated. I'm not even entirely sure there are direct trains from Chongqing to Dunhuang/ Jiuquan, I am hoping there are trains that go Chongqing-Lanzhou-Urumqi. Can anyone shed any light on this or give me the contact details for Chain Rail Express or anyone that could answer this?

Incidentally, if anyone besides Pikey Tom (futianshenzhen) is planning on riding around that area (Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Ningxia) during October week then pm me to potentially plan a meet.

Cheers

[milton]

I'm not even entirely sure there are direct trains from Chongqing to Dunhuang/ Jiuquan, I am hoping there are trains that go Chongqing-Lanzhou-Urumqi. Can anyone shed any light on this or give me the contact details for Chain Rail Express or anyone that could answer this?

Railroad schedule is easy to find online. For example, the shipping destinations are provided below:
http://www.cre.cn/html/main/col48/column_48_1.html
There indeed is a train from Chongqing to Jiuquan detailed below:
http://train.qunar.com/stationToStat...ate=2012-08-26
By the information provided there, it takes over 18 hours though. The time may be better utilized by taking advantage of your sidecar. From Chongqing going west/north there are plenty of nice routes. It's difficult to go wrong there.

As far as training the sidecar goes, not all train stations are capable of being the destination. You can only ship to the "terminal" station, for the simple reason that only the terminal stations allow the time for unloading the bike. Call up CRE to find out.

Motokai and I made a trip in the general area you are referring to a little while ago. To me that was definitely a trip of a lifetime. We are yet to complete our RR, but the routes are available as follows (I am quoting Motokai here):

Part-1:Changsha-Xining (9 Days)
Part-2 Xining-Urumuqi (7 Days), includes one rest day in Turpan for relaxing/sightseeing

The total distance was about 5,200km. These above links closely map the route we took, with the exception of some actual dirt roads/tracks and mountain passes which we took but are not on Google Maps (in these cases I "mapped around" these areas to create a continuous map route).


Cheers!

Milton

[euphonius]

If those stations are serious about the purported 200kg limit, the bucket on your JH600B will push you way over the permitted weight. That's got to add 40kg or more to a bike that already tips the scales at just under 200kg.

Best to follow Milton's advice and ride Chongqing-Jiuquan, but if you do manage to get it on the train, a lot of folks will be wanting to read details.

The Black Bats, a Changjiang club in Shanghai, seems always to be shipping their sidecar bikes by truck, not train. If you'd like to contact them, let me know.

cheers!

[TB-Racing]

If those stations are serious about the purported 200kg limit, the bucket on your JH600B will push you way over the permitted weight. That's got to add 40kg or more to a bike that already tips the scales at just under 200kg.

my JH600B-A blue book shows = measurements 2280x1580x1325mm / weight 363kg

[fons]

I always think to ship my JH600A by train service. Have contacted the baggage departement of shanghai railway station once. they confirmed me that i can ship my bike on the baggage car. but they can't confirm you the shipping schedule. Let's say i know there is a train leave here 1600h this afternoon. and i send the bike to the station in the morning. but they can't be sure if your bike will be shipped out with this train service today. all depends on their dispatcher's plan. Therefore it's not 100% guaranteed that you could go with the same train which carry your bike. maybe you will arrive at same time. or maybe the cargo will be arrived 1 or 2 days later.

[NZBrakelathes]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1405826525.321742.jpg
Shipped from Zibo Shandong to Nanning Guangxi 500¥! Depot to depot local firm