Yours truly is a frequent business traveller to Beijing and I do like to take the night ("T? train which leaves around 8 pm and arrives in Beijing the next morning at about 9:30 am.

This means that at the end of a business day I can leave Shanghai at my leisure; have plenty of time on the train to peruse my files, work on my computer or simply read. Sleep on the way and arrive refreshed at my destination. And all at about half the price of an air ticket and from city centre to city centre to boot.

After the introduction of the two hours faster luxury (and almost double the price) "Z?trains, mysteriously, sleepers on the "T?trains have proven as scarce as hens?teeth.

The inconvenient booking time of six days prior to departure means that my staff has to be dispatched to the railway station booking office at 8 am on the first day that bookings are open, only to call me exasperated with the message that "all sleepers have been sold out.?

Huh?? All 15 or so sleeper carriages with about 90 beds, meaning about 1,350 people have queued up so early in the morning to snap them all up?

Unlikely!

Then I requested a seat in the middle of the carriage, on a three-person bench, near the window.

"Sorry,?a sullen faced and decidedly unco-operative booking clerk replied. "We have no idea which seat is a window seat.?

So I finished up with a centre seat close to the door.

Compartments with seating only are usually situated at the very end of the train and as I was racing past the sleeping carriages, I noticed that most of the 10 sleeper units I passed had no one inside with only minutes to go before departure time.

The reception clerk at carriage 11 informed me that most sleepers had been reserved for Wuxi passengers.

I know that Wuxi is growing in status but I also know that it is several times smaller than Shanghai. So why this generous apportioning of more than half the beds to Wuxi and denying Shanghai travellers with cash in hand a comfy bed?

Besides, shouldn't the first that come be first served?

Anyway, I was resigned to my fate in the allocated seat and proceeded to hoist my heavy suitcase up to the carriage floor level, which is, unlike in Beijing, some 50 centimetres elevated above platform level.

About an hour after we left Wuxi, I decided to go for a stroll to the sleeper section and, to my dismay and chagrin, found that about two thirds of the sleepers were unoccupied and remained unoccupied for the remainder of the journey.

The internal doors between "T?train carriages are not of the self-closing types as on most European trains and the rule for most Chinese seems to be that a door through which one passes is to be left open.

Railway attendants as well as police officers on board also seem to subscribe to this rule as I have experienced none who actually shut the door behind them.

As it happens, I am severely allergic to cigarette smoke and smokers tend to aggregate in the non-ventilated section of the train between connecting compartments and with doors usually in the open position, big clouds of smoke waft into the nostrils of hapless and defenseless non-smokers.

Trying to close the doors is useless; soon it will be left open again and shouting at recidivists might draw a polite but insincere "duibuqi? followed by the "open door policy?

So, what needs to be done?

Well... since we have affordable personal computers with something like 120 and more gigabytes disk memory, it should be easy for a railway computer network to allow half a year in advance seat and bed reservations as per the passengers?requirements on a "first come first served?basis.

Bookings should be in name via the identity card (scannable) and/or passport, to short circuit the ticket scalps.

Then, all trains should be retrofitted with self-closing, pushbutton controlled internal doors.

The smokers?pads between carriages should be independent section ventilated if passengers are to smoke in that part of the train.

Then, at the Shanghai Railway Station, platform-height should be increased to level with the rail carriage. And electric stairs up and down should be installed at all places in the railway station wherever there are elevations.