The high speed bullet trains (hereafter refer to as "CRH train") have been popularized in China. As of November 2017, the whole country has more than 7,000 passenger trains in operation, of which, around 60% are CRH trains.
Before boarding the CRH train, you may curious to know where your seat is, is it a window seat or aisle seat and etc.
In this article, we will provide essential seat arrangement guide on the advanced CRH trains of China to help you find you seat location quickly using the seat number.
Passenger trains in China can be classified into two big categories: the regular train and the high speed bullet train (CRH train). The CRH train has three sub-categories which include C train, D train and G train. Even though C train, D train and G train have various train series respectively, they have similar seat arrangements inside the coach. So the following knowledge we shared applies to all kinds of CRH trains.
On September 15, 2012, the former Ministry of Railway issued a regulation that required uniform seat coding policy to be adopted on all kinds of CRH trains. According to the regulation, all CRH train seats should be numbered in the formulation of number and letter combination. That is, on the seat number, the Arabic numbers are used to indicate the row number of the seat and the English letters are used to indicate positions of seats in the specified row . Among the five English letters, A and F are assigned on window seats while C and D are assigned on aisle seats. The English letter B is assigned on the middle seat.
You may doubt why the Chinese CRH trains don't use English letter E in its seat numbering system. Well, it's said they are learning from the aircraft seat numbering system. To make seat numbers ended with A and F window seats, the letter E will have to be skipped.
Well, that's all knowledge concerned on CRH train seat numbering. Could you please put theory into practice now and judge the seat location with the ticket number given below?
☝ A 2nd class seat ticket on the Chinese CRH Train. What the orange circle marked is the seat number. 03 is the row number and A indicates its closness to the train window. So you can now go to number 3 row of the coach and find your seat that is close to the window.
Inside the 2nd class seat coach, five seats are arranged in a row. That's is, three on one side and two on the other side of the aisle. Seats are numbered under the uniform seat numbering policy. A and F are assigned to window seats while C and D are assigned to aisle seats. B is assigned in the middle of A seat and C seat.
Let's demonstrate it using a photo.
☝ Are you traveling the CRH train with a 2nd class seat? If yes, please check your seat number and see in which English letter it is ending with so that you can find its location quickly. As said, the Arabic number before the English letter is used to indicate the row number of the seat.
☝ Seating Chart for 2nd class seat on the No. 2 coach of CR400AF China Fuxing bullet train.
Inside the first class seat coach, there are 2 seats on each side of the aisle. First class seat numbers begin with two Arabic numbers and end with English letter A, C, D and F. For same purpose, A and F are assigned on window seats while C and D are attributed to aisle seats.
Let's use another photo to show the first class seat layout.
☝ This is an inside photo of the first class carriage on China CRH train. As you can see, first class seats have the letter designations ACDF, skipping the letter B and E.
Premium class seat and business class seat represent the top 2 luxurious services on China CRH trains. Seating structures inside such kinds of coach can be varied from 2+1, 1+2 to 1+1.
Premium and business class seats follows the uniform CRH train seat numbering convention and use Arabic number + English letter combination for seat number: the number indicates the seat row and the letters including A, C and F to differentiate window seat with aisle seat.
Again we'd like to use the photo to tell the layout of premium or business class seats.
☝ This is an 1+2 seating structure for business class seats.
☝ This is a 2+1 seating structure for business class seats.
☝ This is an 1+1 seating structure for business class seats.
☝ Seating map on the No. 1 coach of Fuxing bullet train. The coach has both business class seats and first class seats inside.
By now, you must have well understood how seats on China's high speed bullet trains are arranged and how the seat numbers are formulated with photo maps we provided. If you find this article useful, please share it.
