can’t afford it. It costs 40 or 50 yuan a box of lunch. It can’t afford it. It costs 5 yuan to buy a bottle of water. Maybe a piece of pork liver can be sold at the price of French foie gras after being on the high-speed rail. Do you think the high-speed rail will make a lot of money by selling it doubled? Actually, it doesn't.
Why is high-speed rail lunch box so expensive? Compared with foreign countries, are we really expensive? Can you choose not to eat boxed lunches?
First of all, what would you do if you sell lunch boxes for 15 yuan on the high-speed rail? Buy without hesitation, right? If it is forty or fifty yuan, grit your teeth and buy it! Or not to buy it?
Many people probably plan ahead, prepare instant noodles snacks or simply endure until they get off the bus and have a meal. Since it is sold for 15 yuan, everyone comes to eat it. Can you make money from the high-speed rail? You might say that small profits are high and quick turnover? Wrong!
high-speed rail is not Pinduoduo. The fact is, if you sell it for 15 yuan, the more you sell it, the more you lose. The current high-speed rail ticket price is no longer cheap. If you sell a box lunch of 15 yuan, it is estimated that in order to make up for the losses of the box lunch, the high-speed rail ticket price has to surpass the air ticket. Why does
sell more and more? Because the cost of high-speed rail lunches is not just the cost of food. For example, the fried beef rice with rosy mushrooms you often see, vegetables are 2 yuan per pound, rosy mushrooms are 24 yuan per pound, beef is 35 yuan per pound, and rice is 3 yuan per pound, which is only 44 yuan. You can make at least 6 servings of the same lunch. In this way, the cost of the lunch box for 40 yuan per serving will not exceed 8 yuan.
But you should know that this is just the cost of food. The cost on the high-speed rail is much higher than the cost of catering on the roadside. For example, on the high-speed rail, the food requires cold chain transportation . This is a matter of space and energy-intensive. From the price of the high-speed rail fare you buy, you should also know that the space on the high-speed rail is really "every inch of land is valuable."
We know that there must be a dining car for cold chain storage on high-speed rail and heating ingredients. You cannot buy tickets in this workshop. There is a word in economics called opportunity cost, which means that you have to give up the benefits brought by choosing A and having to give up the benefits brought by B. For example, if you take the civil service exam, you will inevitably give up the high annual salary you may get when you enter the company.
Use the fare to calculate the opportunity cost of a high-speed rail dining workshop. It is at least tens of millions a year, which is equivalent to a restaurant with a rent of tens of millions. How can the food you make be less expensive?
Speaking of this, we have to mention the expensive high-speed rail fares. It is really expensive, but this price is still a "conscience price" that can only be obtained by nearly half of the state subsidies.
Speaking of this, we have to dig into the cost of high-speed rail, which includes the construction cost, maintenance cost and operation cost of high-speed rail. Each item is not on the same order of magnitude as a train.
In my country, the cost per kilometer is nearly 200 million yuan. Nowadays, my country has more than 100,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. This amount can be imagined. There are still many funds coming from loans, and interest alone is enough.
In addition to a few small numbers of Guangzhou-Shenzhen High-speed Railway, Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway , etc., which can make profits, most high-speed railways not only do not make money, but also suffer huge losses. For example, China's high-speed rail suffered a heavy loss of 55.5 billion yuan in 2020, which is equivalent to 150 million yuan evaporating from the railway every day.
Of course, "to get rich, build roads first." In the long run, high-speed rail is not the old road, but putting "get rich" on the fast lane. The huge pull of high-speed rail on economic and social benefits has made China's high-speed rail more and more construction, and the more it is built, the more it is built, and this cycle is like this.
high-speed rail really sacrifices itself and fulfills the economies of various regions. From the perspective of national strategy, even if this money is lost, it still has to be invested.
When you go back to the high-speed rail meal, it is not difficult for you to understand that the high-speed rail is obviously losing so much. Even if everyone complains constantly, there is no need to take another knife to bleed yourself.
dared to sell it at a sky-high price to arouse public outrage. Providing optional catering services is a loss-making business that can be added to the high-speed rail. It is already good to be able to provide it, not to mention that it is difficult to adjust.
Although some people attribute the high price to monopoly, it is estimated that not many companies are willing to do the opening of outsourcing just by looking at the rent.
After talking about the embarrassment of China's high-speed rail meals, let's take a look at how high-speed rail meals in other countries are like.
Take the famous Japanese Shinkansen as an example. The bento of the Shinkansen looks very consistent with the exquisite Japanese tone. The Shinkansen will mainly promote rich and distinctive delicacies along the route. The price of bento is about 1,000 yen, equivalent to RMB 60. In fact, this price is not expensive compared to Japan's per capita wage, but if you don't talk about the ticket price, you just talk about the price of lunch boxes, you are just a hooligan.
Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway is 1318km long and the ticket price is 553 yuan. The Shinkansen mileage from Tokyo to Hakata is about the same, with a total length of 1175km, equivalent to RMB 1205 yuan, which is equivalent to the ticket price per kilometer of Japan being at least 2.5 times that of us.
No matter how delicious Japanese bento is, there is more seafood or great value, you still have to get in the car first. Moreover, there is really no comparison between catering in different countries. Even if you go to Shinkansen, you may not think that those bentoes that seem to be of high appearance are delicious.
doesn't believe it, and you will know when you are full of expectations, but what you are waiting for is a cool bento.
Because Japanese people have the habit of eating cold food, all bentoes are cold. It does not have the varied smell when they arrive at mealtime in Chinese trains, but I guess they still miss our steaming instant noodles in China.
However, in addition to takeout, China's high-speed rail, which has been dealing with complaints for a long time, has been trying. For example, if you dislike the small amount of high-speed rail dishes, you can also order takeaway.
As long as you download 12306, you can choose the route and site you want to order. The ordering range includes KFC , McDonald's , Yonghe King , Dico and other catering in the high-speed rail service area. When the train arrives, the crew will personally take the takeaway you ordered to deliver to your seat.
This is equivalent to telling you that we really can’t do anything expensive, but you can choose to eat other things. We don’t force buying and selling, it’s already very humane.
China High-speed Railway has also been letting railway groups in various regions to innovate and think of ways. For example, at the end of last year, China Railway Kunming Bureau Group and Starbucks jointly cooperated to launch fresh brewed coffee on the Fuxing Intercity High-speed Railway. You can book on the "Kunming Tie+" mini program, and the price is equivalent to the price of Starbucks stores.
China Railway Chengdu Bureau simply established a subsidiary specializing in high-speed rail catering, and launched sets with southwest characteristics, such as cooked pork, spicy chicken diced , Maocai , ginger and fried duck, etc. In addition to providing high-speed rail packages, this subsidiary, called "Shuowei", has also opened offline stores at some high-speed rail stations. Similar to
, more and more special restaurants such as Japanese eel rice, table-type braised pork rice , Yangzhou fried rice , etc., are beginning to appear on high-speed rail.
Of course, after reading today's article, you still have to compare the boxed lunch on the high-speed rail with the fast food restaurant in front of your house. The editor has no choice. After all, although the price is expensive, it still requires most of us to grit our teeth and decide whether to eat it.
We can only hope that when the high-speed rail is connected to all the high-speed rail, our passengers' pockets can also be bulging under the pull of the high-speed rail, and no longer need to sit on the high-speed rail costing hundreds of millions. In order to fill the meal, we need to hesitate and "make up our minds" after hesitation.
Author: Watermark
