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| Earlier in 2018 life took me to Chengdu, in the Sichuan province of China. I had time for a quick ride out on Chengdu's modern metro system. First and foremost, everything was in [a variant of] Chinese, and English. |
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| Signage in Chengdu Airport. The Chinese like to give everything a number so suggests a routing that's rather more complicated than it is. |
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| Tourist orientated map of Chengdu Metro. Other than spicy, chilli laced foods, Chengdu is most famous for panda sanctiary and breeding: top right there is an extension shown to 'Panda Street' which I believe was actually open at the time of visiting - but the rate of construction of metros in China I forgive them for not keeping every map up to date! |
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| Ticker machine. Tickets are usually bought by selecting the destination station on the screen. Prices are just a few yuan, comfortably less than £1 for any journey. |
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| Tickets are issued on reusable plastic cards. Presumably this batch was specially issued when the airport line opened. |
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| Come on in! Nice clear signage. |
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| At the time of visiting this queuing system was not in operation, but looks like it's needed for the peaks. |
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| Security is taken seriously, with airport style checks on entering stations. However I have no idea what the perceived benefit of this poster is! |
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| Platform edge doors. This could be pretty much anywhere in China (or the Elizabeth line!) |
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| The red line |
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| Typical train interior. Again it could be any modern far eastern metro. |
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| LCD screens in trains show these very nifty diagrams of the next station, showing where you are relative to the lifts, escalators or stairs! |
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| More conventional interior display. |
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| Taking a page out of a Japanese (or LUL, late noughties) marketing campaign on behaviours. |
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| Chinese rolling stock. Alas neither time nor knowledge allowed any photos of the trains! |
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| Another station layout, this one also showing interchanges from the turquoise line to the red and blue lines. Brilliant! |
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| And finally this train has an interior all over advertisement. |