Chinese Snow Dragon brings Chinese skiing to a new level

On a frosty morning in November 2025, the “Snow Dragon” or CR400BF-GZ Fuxing to use its official name, a beautiful train in white and silver, pulled away from Changchun Station in northeastern China. It accelerated, hitting its designed 350 km/h even with the weather outside at -25 degrees Celsius. But this was not just any fast train. It’s the world’s first, actually, built to handle the Siberian-scale cold while still being fully operational. And it’s for a pretty special crowd: skiers and snowboarders.

3 Hours to 50 Minutes: A Game Changer for Chinese Skiing

Snow Dragon’s main trail seriously shortens the trip. Getting to Baidaho Ski Resort in Jilin Province from the center of Changchun? It will take three hours. Now, it’s down to a quick 50 minutes. Instead of a long, often aborted drive on icy roads, it’s now faster than your average commute, practically speaking.

Bidahu, already a top Chinese skiing destination, near the Wanqi Lake Songhua and Wanda Changbeishan resorts, now sits inside a “one-hour high-speed circle”, serving cities with more than 30 million people. Now, a Beijing family can, for example, easily go out after breakfast, ski all day and return home in time for dinner.

Built for the deep cold

To operate at 350 km/h when the temperature drops to −40 °C calls for a major change in design:

• Cars are pressurized like airplanes and sealed tightly to prevent ice from forming on the windows and doors.
• The water tanks are heated and there are anti-freeze systems under each door. Alloy and rubber seals are special, flexible even when it is -45°C. Pantographs, brakes and bogies all have cooling heaters.
• A series of hot air blowers are placed along the tracks at key locations to keep the switches free of frost.
• Each train has five mechanics, who check it 15 minutes before departure. This includes using thermal cameras to scan wheels and braking systems—something you don’t normally see on regular high-speed lines.
• Inside, the train feels like a ski lodge. Each vehicle has large luggage racks for skis and snowboards (up to 1.9 m long). You’ll also find padded hooks and drip trays to catch melted snow. The seats are wider than what you find on standard fixed-gear trains, Wi-Fi is 5G enabled in the mountain parts of the trip, and USB-C and 220 V sockets are everywhere – because no one wants their GoPro to die on the slopes.

Below is the invisible mega project

To achieve all this in a harsh, geologically challenging region of China, a large part of the 180km line – 77% – passes either via viaducts or tunnels. Some sections of the route are suspended 50 meters across frozen valleys; Other parts go under granite massifs. Construction teams must work in temperatures that often reach -35°C, using a special low-temperature concrete set at -15°C.

The result? A railway line that can easily handle snow storms. So while roads are closed and regular trains are slow, the Snow Dragon is built to stick to its schedule, even in Jilin’s worst winter storms.

To more than 170 million winter viewers

During the 2024-2025 season (November to March), Jilin Province has already seen around 170 million tourist trips, a huge number driven mostly by people from within China. Local authorities and the China Tourism Group now offer it Snow Dragon will reach 200 million annual winter visits over the next three years, typically.

Ski resorts are expanding rapidly. For example, Beidahu is adding 40 new slopes and three gondolas for the 2026-2027 season. Also, Club Med and Hyatt have both announced new properties with 400+ rooms along the high-speed rail line, it should be noted.

Asia’s new ski superpower flexes its muscles

A decade ago, China as a competitor to Japan or South Korea for skiing? It seemed a long time. Yet today, with more than 800 ski resorts, the largest indoor snow center in the world (the Harbin Wanda Indoor Skiing Paradise), and now making it easy to get to the powder at the bottom of Snow Dragon… well, things are changing. Now, everything is different. Bedahoe resort executives observed, as the first train of skiers arrived, that their business had changed radically. According to him, the concern was no more snow; It was the train schedule.

The advent of this mode of transportation sends a clear message to China’s growing middle class and international tourists who realize the cost benefits: the tourism landscape has fundamentally changed. The powder is now at their door.