China's cheapest train ticket

While new high-speed railway lines keep opening throughout China, and cheaper slower trains are replaced with faster and more expensive ones, it is nice to know that you can still go somewhere for just 1.5 yuan (about $0.25). This is the full fare from Shenyang to the nearby (16 km away) station Masanjia (马三家). According to Liao-Shen wan bao (辽沈晚报 a local newspaper in Shenyang), this is the fare class for the train no. 6366 (no letter in the name, which means it's the slowest and cheapest class), and the travel time is 42 minutes.

Admittedly, not everyone may want to travel to that particular travel destination. (Google Search is your friend...).

According to the published schedule, the train makes 3 intermediate stops between Shenyang and Masanjia; inquiring minds may want to know if the fare to some of them is even lower, but, according to Liao-Shen wan bao's fact checkers, the fare to all stations is the same 1.5 yuan.

Incidentally, this kind of local train service - 5 stations on a 10-mile section - is very rarely seen in today's China anymore. From a train, you see lots of small stations like this, with passenger platforms and everything, but when you look up a schedule web site, you see that there is no passenger service to them now. Presumably service existed years ago, but was abolished and replaced with buses. Short-distance, frequent-stop (commuter) train service, of the kind commonly seen in most European and some North American (New York, Chicago, Toronto) metropolitan areas is quite uncommon in China.