At 19:28 on January 3, the D996 overnight high-speed sleeper train departed from Chengdu East Railway Station bound for Beijing Fengtai Railway Station. On the same day, overnight sleeper trains to Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou also began operations successively, tightly linking the Chengdu-Chongqing region with China's four first-tier cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

At approximately 7:00 p.m. on January 3, the D996 sleeper train was parked at the platform of Chengdu East Railway Station

In 2025, Chengdu achieved a leap in its overnight inter-regional travel network, launching new high-speed sleeper services to Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai, thereby establishing an overnight transportation corridor that enables 'departing in the evening and arriving by morning' between the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. By December 31, 2025, these sleeper trains between Chengdu and the four major cities had transported over 515,000 passengers, of whom more than 30% were business travelers, while family travelers and senior tourists together accounted for over 45%.

Inside each sleeper compartment, upper and lower berths, small tables, power outlets, and reading lights are provided. Noise-canceling earplugs, bottled water, and four-color slippers—clearly differentiated for use—are neatly placed beside each pillow.

The train implements a 'quiet service' policy and offers point-to-point wake-up calls, with attendants communicating throughout the journey via noise-reducing walkie-talkies. The late-night dining car serves more than 20 Sichuan-style snacks, including cold rabbit meat and spicy beef; passengers can scan a QR code to have meals delivered directly to their berths.

At approximately 7:00 p.m. on January 3, the D996 sleeper train was parked at the platform of Chengdu East Railway Station

Li Na, a Chengdu resident traveling to Beijing with her parents, said, 'My parents are elderly. The sleeper train allows them to rest lying down and arrive refreshed after a night's sleep, sparing them the fatigue of long journeys.' Li Ling, a Beijing resident, remarked, 'Departing at night and arriving in the morning lets me catch a football match in Chengdu without disrupting my daytime schedule.'

Li Xiangyu, an entrepreneur based in Shenzhen and a frequent rider on the Chengdu-Shenzhen sleeper route, often spends the night aboard the train and arrives directly at his office early the next morning. He believes that Chengdu's software talent pool and Shenzhen's hardware industry chain are highly complementary, and the overnight sleeper service significantly enhances collaboration between the two cities.

The sustained popularity of these sleeper trains reflects the deepening ties between the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle and China's three major urban clusters. Since 2025, more than 120 major industrial projects originating from Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen have been established in Chengdu, accelerating the flow of talent, capital, and technology along railway corridors and driving cross-regional coordinated development.

Deng Zhimi, passenger service duty chief at Chengdu East Railway Station, stated that the next steps will involve precisely analyzing passenger flow patterns, optimizing sleeper train schedules, upgrading onboard service facilities, enriching cultural experiences, and deepening cooperation with local governments and tourism enterprises to unlock the economic potential of the railway hub.

【本文部分内容由AI辅助生成，特此声明。The author(s) generated part of the content in this work with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), which is hereby declared.】