Train Mess (Wednesday Night)

We left Changsha over an hour late...around 8:30pm. Approximately an hour later we stopped in Pianxing (I think), which was expected. After we were stopped for about 60 minutes it was obvious the other passengers were becoming very restless and agitated with the train crew. When an explanation was offered there was quite a commotion among the passengers. Something was clearly wrong and they were not happy about it. I called Helen, our Nanchang guide, to see if there was anything I could learn from her or if she could talk to someone on the train to find out what was going on. She spoke to a gentleman seated one row in front of us, who told her that due to flooding in the section of tracks we were about to enter, the train could not proceed safely and that there was no indication when the condition would improve enough for us to continue. Our options at that point were to wait on the train indefinitely or get off in Pianxing and try to arrange for other transportation, neither of which was particularly appealing. We told Helen we'd wait for awhile and see what happened. After about 2 hours stopped in Pianxing, the gentleman in front of us showed me a text message on his phone (I think he used a translation program) that said we should be underway in another 15 minutes. I called Helen to let her know, and she spoke to him, as well as one of the crew, and confirmed that we would be proceeding, but at a reduced speed due to the unknown condition of the tracks. Not real comforting. She told me to try and get some rest because we had a busy day ahead. Right. I'm on a train that is headed into a remote area of China that has recently flooded, it’s on suspect tracks, and I'm supposed to get some sleep. Not so much.

We spent the next 90 minutes or so crawling through the valley at 25 mph in a train that normally would have been going well over 100 mph. Once we passed Yichun station our speed increased and we proceeded to Nanchang. We finally arrived at our destination at 3:45am on a train that was originally supposed to arrive at 11:00pm. We met our guide outside the train station and after checking in and settling into our room made it to bed at 5:00am. The alarm was set for 8:00am.