The Chengdu–Kunming Railway

The Chengdu–Kunming railway — 成昆铁路, Chéngkūn Tiělù — opened on 1 July 1970 after twelve years of stop-start work, 1,083 kilometres through the gorges of the Dadu and Anning rivers and across a major fault zone. When it opened, its 427 tunnels and 991 bridges made up 41.6 per cent of the line. Since 26 December 2022 a new double-track railway has carried the through traffic in about six hours, and the old line south of Emei is left mostly to freight.

Two passenger trains still use it. The 5619 runs from Emei to Puxiong, and the 5633 from Puxiong to Panzhihua South. Both stop at every station and take most of a day, and their passengers are mostly the Yi people of the Liangshan mountains, travelling to school, to market or to see family. The whole 616 kilometres costs ¥45 in hard seat, and the shortest hop costs ¥2.

This page rides both trains, with a night in Puxiong in between, and comes back by high-speed train in about four and a half hours.

Day one: Emei to Puxiong on the 5619

The 5619 leaves Emei at 09:08 and within an hour is in the valley of the Dadu River, running along its left bank past Shawan and Ebian. After Jinkouhe the valley closes into a gorge, and the line runs from tunnel to tunnel along the cliffs. Guancunba, at 12:12, is the first station in China built partly inside a tunnel, and it is where the 5619 meets the 5620 coming the other way. A few kilometres on, the Yixiantian Bridge crosses a side gorge so narrow that from the bottom you see only a strip of sky.

Past Hanyuan the line turns up the Niuri River, a short, steep valley where debris flows have cut the railway more than once, most recently in 2019 and 2020. Beyond Baiguo it climbs the Naituo spiral, three levels of track that gain 196 metres to Naituo station, and then crosses the valley on the high Tiema Bridge. The train reaches Puxiong at 16:42.

Day two: over the watershed on the 5633

The 5633 leaves Puxiong at 07:15 and climbs to the Shamalada Tunnel, 6,379 metres long and 2,280 metres up. It was the longest railway tunnel in China when it was holed through in 1966, and it carries the line under the watershed between the Dadu and the Anning. On the far side the line runs down the Sunshui River to Xide and into the broad Anning valley, among fields and wind turbines, to Xichang at 11:10. After a 24-minute stop at Xichang South it carries on down the Anning, past Dechang and Miyi, to Panzhihua South at 16:33. Xinhua puts the average speed at under 40 km/h.

The train

The two trains share one set of hard-seat coaches, types 25B and 25G, in green with a yellow stripe. In recent years they have usually run behind an SS3 or SS3B electric locomotive, and an HXD3C was photographed on the 5633 in January 2026. Since early 2023 the coaches have carried the name Yixiangqing — 彝乡情, feeling for the Yi homeland — and include a study carriage with desks and bookshelves for children going to school, and a carriage for large luggage, where passengers travel with baskets of produce and live poultry.

Both slow trains run daily and stop at every station; the tables give departure times. Times are from 12306 for Thursday 15 and Sunday 18 October 2026, and were the same on both days — as of October 2026.

The other way, the 5634 leaves Panzhihua South at 08:30 and reaches Puxiong at 17:33, and the 5620 leaves Puxiong at 08:00 and reaches Emei at 15:49. The 5620 does not set down or pick up at Guancunba, where it waits for the 5619.

Getting there and back. The D251 leaves Chengdu South at 07:05 and calls at Emei at 08:24, in time for the 5619. From Panzhihua South nineteen high-speed trains a day run to Chengdu, the first, C60, at 06:01, arriving at Chengdu East at 10:31.

12306 sells only about two weeks ahead, so later dates could not be checked. Times are published by the operator: China Railway · 12306 (opens in a new tab).

The slow trains are hard seat only, and every ticket is sold on 12306 against your passport, with a standing ticket at the same price once the seats are gone. Emei to Puxiong is ¥18.5 and Puxiong to Panzhihua South ¥26.5; the shortest hop, Jinkouhe to Guancunba, is ¥2.

The high-speed run back from Panzhihua South to Chengdu East on the C60 is ¥199 in second class and ¥320 in first.

No rail pass covers this line. Interrail and Eurail are European passes and do not reach China, and China Railway sells its seats one journey at a time on 12306. At ¥45 for both slow trains there would be nothing for a pass to save.

Checked in October 2026.

Mount Emei is above the town where the first train starts, and the Jinkou canyon is on the line itself, at Guancunba. Qionghai Lake is seven kilometres from the centre of Xichang, where the second train calls at two stations, and Panzhihua is where it ends.

The 5619 reaches Puxiong in the late afternoon and the 5633 leaves early the next morning, so the night in between is spent in Puxiong, a small market town; arrange a room there before you travel. The hotels below are at either end, for a night before Mount Emei and a night in Panzhihua before the high-speed train back.

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