极端旅行

Visiting One of the Largest Train Stations in the World

There are ten minutes left before the express train to Beijing leaves the station when a young woman rushes up to Zhu Hongyan. The train is scheduled to leave from platform eight and the enormous hall has disoriented the woman. Zhu explains where she needs to go and accompanies her a few metres in the right direction. With her suitcase in hand, the woman races off towards the ticket barrier and only just makes it before the doors close.

朱宏艳实际上是上海虹桥火车站清洁团队的副主任。但她的工作经常要求她即兴创作。她展示了乘客去哪里。当他们丢失手机时，她甚至需要医疗注意力时，她会帮助他们。她的职称可能会说她是一个经理，但她对大多数人都不看不见。然而与此同时，在一辆被认为是世界上最大的火车站，她是不可或缺的。

45小时的交易in

Every day, the Shanghai Hongqiao train station welcomes around 400,000 travellers. They come from all over China and speak 300 different languages, as well as local dialects. From here, passengers travel all over the country. A train journey to Kunming, which is roughly 2,500 kilometres away, takes up to 36 hours. A trip to Ürümqi, 4,000 kilometres away, takes 45 hours. For this reason, many travellers bring enough food for several days with them, packed in plastic bags. Stands offer local delicacies: tofu marinated in tea, roasted chilli peanuts and dried plums. Plus sweetened green tea and cola. Sometimes train tickets are sold out days in advance. Passengers arrive early so they don’t miss their train and then like to sleep for a few hours before heading off, often with their heads resting on suitcases amidst the bustle.

清洁是一个优先权

“这总是满在这里，”朱说。这位40岁的衬衫和蓝色裤子戴着一件白衬衫。她的头发精确地固定起来。她一直在马上的火车站工作了五年。开始，她只是另一份工作。今天，她认为它是一个特殊的特权。虽然许多旅行者几乎没有注意到她或她的同事，但朱镕基认为这是一个她正在做的工作的标志。“如果它很干净，乘客感觉很好，”她说。这是一个纯洁度是一个优先权的另一个原因。

The train station is a complex system, the rhythm of which Zhu understands. She moves through the chaos with purpose. In her team, which is responsible for the second and third floors of the three-storey building, there are 30 colleagues per shift. In the past, Zhu might have walked up to 50,000 steps a day. This year, her employer Huatie Lüfu started using cleaning machines from Kärcher. This has made work significantly easier for Zhu and her team. Thus, the step count has gone down to only 10,000 a day. She spends the rest of the time on the B 250 R, a ride-on scrubber drier, and does her rounds through the endless train station.

Machines ensure safety

Almost all travellers carry flasks for tea, which they can fill up with hot water in the toilets and on trains. Many passengers with long journeys ahead of them also have a quick bite to eat before they get going. If there are spillages, Zhu and her team used to have to drag out a bucket and mop. “But the surfaces dry too slowly,” she says. Passengers had to be kept away from the area to minimise the risk of accidents. Now they can drive over dirty areas with their machines, leaving them dry and safe to walk on straight away.

The team communicate via walkie-talkies to coordinate where they are needed. As of this year, more than 50 Kärcher machines are in use here. They are stored at various assembly points around the building. The small machines are manufactured in China; the large ones are imported from Germany. Zhu has never been there, but she is familiar with the country now that she uses its many high-quality products. Germany isn’t known as the “land of virtue” in Chinese for nothing.

只有朱镕基知道的另一个秘密是她的办公室。唤起了哈利波特小说感的方式，其中奇才只知道隐藏的平台9¾。为了进入朱的办公室，游客需要通过一个玩具商店，中国童年英雄在货架上堆积高。在直到后，有一个与小银色钥匙孔的几乎看不见的门。右键打开一个房间的门，从外面判断，你永远不会想到。内部有沙发，书桌，冰箱和微波炉。这是一个平静的有点平静的绿洲，工作人员可以享用午餐，讨论工作计划并休息。

世界上最大的人民迁移

The most stressful time of year comprises the days around the Spring Festival. The Chinese New Year is celebrated in late January or February every year. For the celebration, up to 700 million people travel to their home towns – and most of them take the train. The Festival involves the largest mass human migration in the world. Travellers are laden with presents. Those who can afford it bring their parents a mobile phone from the city. Farmers bring their families their juiciest fruit. Whole pigs are packaged up and swung onto shoulders.

对于朱，这次可能是艰难的。这位40岁的孩子在上海住了十多年。她和她的丈夫一起工作，为国有企业工作。她的家乡位于安徽，距离省省几千公里。对于未在上海出生的人来说，难以在城市学校注册他们的孩子。

出于这个原因,与她的大女儿生活parents. “She often used to ask me why all the other parents came to the Spring Festival but not me,” she tells us. Zhu’s voice trembles slightly at the memory. “But I was able to help other children see their parents,” she says today. That this also makes her proud is clear from the way her posture straightens. She nods decisively. This too is simply part of her job. She can also take time off once the Spring Festival is over and things have calmed down again. Then Zhu boards the train home with her husband – from the Shanghai Hongqiao train station, of course.

5 FACTS ABOUT SHANGHAI

• With more than 23 million inhabitants, Shanghai is the third-largest city in the world.
• 众多大学，博物馆和研究机构使大都市成为一个重要的文化和教育中心。
• As a direct-controlled municipality, Shanghai has the status of a province directly subordinate to the Chinese central government.
• 它的港口是世界上最大的集装箱处理港口。
• The city’s excellent transport links have significantly contributed to its great economic success.