China’s luxury rail market has a floor, and the Panda Express Shifang (熊猫专列·什邡号) is it. At RMB 8,480 per person it costs roughly an eighth of the Panda Express Chengdu and a sixteenth of Jinxiu Tianfu. Understanding the gap is the whole point of this train: seventeen cars, somewhere around 466 guests, four-berth compartments and shared shower rooms. It is not a lesser version of a luxury train — it is a different thing wearing similar livery, and for a large group of travellers it is exactly the right one.
What it is
The Shifang is a joint project between China Railway Chengdu Group and the Shifang municipal government, built to promote tourism integration. It entered service in 2024 and is explicitly positioned as a comfort-grade themed tourist train rather than a luxury product — the operator’s own language stresses comfort, functionality and smart systems. The design theme combines the Sichuan giant panda with local Shifang identity, woven through south-western cultural motifs inside and out.
It sits at the accessible end of the Panda fleet: below it in price there is nothing, above it sit the Anyi, the Chengdu and the flagship Jinxiu Tianfu. See how the whole field lines up in our 2027 price comparison.
The 17-car breakdown
This is one of the few trains in China where the formation is documented car by car:
| Car type | Cars | Capacity |
|---|---|---|
| Superior soft sleeper (Supreme Purple Gold 尊享紫金) | 3 | 6 compartments, 22 per car |
| Superior hard sleeper (Premium Platinum 臻享铂金) | 10 | 10 four-berth compartments, 40 per car |
| Dining car | 1 | — |
| Multi-function entertainment car | 1 | — |
| Staff car + power car | 2 | — |
Do the arithmetic and you land near 466 berths — which is why this train can put a price of RMB 8,480 on an eighteen-day Xinjiang journey. On winter programmes to the north-east, the operator has run a variation of the same formation with one accommodation car swapped for an extra power car to guarantee heating, carrying 464 guests. Same train, different season, slightly different numbers.
Compartments and bathrooms — read this part
This is the compromise, and it should not be discovered on board. The standard compartment is a four-berth sleeper with bunk-style beds, not a private cabin. Bathroom facilities are shared: each hard-sleeper car carries two shower rooms for its forty occupants. There is no en-suite option anywhere on this train.
Two upgrades exist. Moving to a two-berth compartment costs around RMB 6,000 extra per person. And the three superior soft-sleeper cars offer six-compartment, 22-berth accommodation — better, but still not en-suite. Compare that with the Hulunbuir Express, where all 22 compartments across the train have private bathrooms at 44 guests, and the difference in product becomes concrete rather than rhetorical.
Dining, and what the meal budget tells you
The dining car serves set regional menus, with a published meal budget of RMB 35 per head in northern Xinjiang and RMB 40 in southern Xinjiang. That figure is the single most revealing number on this page: the New Orient Express budgets RMB 150 per head for a single train meal. You will eat, and the food will be regional and plentiful — but the dining is not the point of the journey here, the way it is at the top of the market.
Routes and 2027 dates
The flagship is the Xinjiang programme — a full north-and-south Xinjiang circuit of roughly sixteen to eighteen days, with boarding possible at Chengdu, Lanzhou, Xining or Kashgar. Published 2027 departures run:
- 8 June · 24 June · 10 July · 27 July
- 13 August · 30 August · 16 September
Beyond Xinjiang, the Shifang runs a winter ice-and-snow programme to China’s north-east (the run where a power car replaces an accommodation car for heating) and shorter Sichuan-side itineraries built around Jiuzhaigou, Huanglong, Dujiangyan, Mount Emei and the Chengdu panda base. These short breaks are a genuinely different use of the same asset — worth asking about if a two-week journey is more than you want.
What it costs
| Tier | Compartment | From |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Platinum 优享铂金 | Standard four-berth | RMB 8,480 |
| Premium Platinum 臻享铂金 | Standard four-berth | RMB 15,780 |
| Supreme Purple Gold 尊享紫金 | Superior four-berth | RMB 27,880 |
Published 2026 fares for the same Xinjiang programme ran RMB 8,480 (upper berth) / 9,280 (lower berth) for the entry tier, with under-12s at RMB 3,980 and a land single-supplement of RMB 1,200. The gap between the 2026 upper-berth figure and the three-tier 2027 list reflects different seller conventions rather than a price change — another reason to confirm the exact fare for your date before paying a deposit.
Who it suits — and who should look elsewhere
Choose the Shifang if you want the Xinjiang circuit and the rail experience at the lowest possible entry cost, you are comfortable in shared accommodation, you are travelling as a family or group that would fill a four-berth anyway, or you are a senior traveller for whom price and pace matter more than privacy. The train’s short Sichuan breaks are also a low-commitment way to try rail touring.
Look further up the market if a private bathroom matters to you, if you want a quiet cabin for two rather than a shared four-berth, or if dining is a central part of why you travel. In those cases the step up to Panda Express Chengdu — 108 guests, 54 en-suite cabins, from RMB 66,999 — is not a marginal upgrade but a change of category.
How to book
Like every Chinese luxury train except one, the Shifang is sold as an all-inclusive rail package through authorised channels, not as a ticket — you will not find it on 12306. Expect the standard sequence: enquiry, confirm date and boarding city, pay a deposit to hold the berth, then sign the regulated e-contract. Our booking guide walks through the process and the red flags to watch for.
Compare All Trains →Ask About the Shifang
Sources: authorised-agent product pages (Dec 2025 and Aug 2026) for the formation, compartment configuration, meal budgets and 2026 fares; channel 2027 schedule summaries for departure dates and 2027 tiers. Fares are channel-published reference rates, per person twin-share — confirm the fare for your date and tier directly before paying a deposit.