There were four main themes on Chinese TV while we were there: 2008 Olympics, 2012 World Fair, 80th Anniversary of the PLA, and the 1st Anniversary of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. We were able to score the tickets to ride this wonder of engineering achievement. And here we were, in our soft sleeper marveling at all the cool thingies inside – each cot had its own oxygen supply, flat screen TV, although there were only Chinese-language programs, there was a vase with flowers and a carafe with hot water on the table and pretty curtains on the window. The bathrooms were all very nice and clean and even had toilet paper (most of the time). Every other car is configured as a mirror image of the previous one, probably for even wait distribution, but it also made it easy to see what’s going on on both sides of the train (if you didn’t want to be in your compartment). On the hallway wall there was a display showing the speed, altitude, temperature, etc. We were going at about 100 km/h and the highest altitude was a little over 5,000 m.
There’re a lot more cool things about the train, but you’ll be better off reading an article, like this one in the WIRED magazine
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/chinarail.html.
