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火车频繁取消，奥克兰市长怒斥交通部门大佬：都是借口！_我的网站
A | Sophie 编译 奥克兰市长Wayne Brown对交通部门的负责人提出了质疑，对于频繁出现的火车取消问题，他要求就混乱的处理方式给予解释，并制止推卸责任的行为。 Editor's Note:
With China's population of seniors over 60 surpassing 300 million, ensuring a happy and fulfilling life for all seniors has become a pressing issue for both families and the nation. How can the new generation of seniors in China break away from traditional norms and embrace a different lifestyle, supported by AI technology, multiculturalism and an elder-friendly society?
The series "Old Age, New Trends" explores emerging trends in the silver economy, creative social norms among senior citizens and innovative eldercare services. It examines the opportunities and challenges presented by an aging society, highlighting the diverse lifestyles of seniors and the booming eldercare industry in China. Beneath these new trends lies a reflection of Chinese modernization, which aims to provide more secure systems and dignified lives for its senior population.
Polar journeys require money, good health and patience for long flights and itineraries that may change with the weather. Yet on ships bound for Antarctica, and tours reaching into the Arctic, retired teachers, doctors, researchers and business managers are becoming easier to find.
After decades scheduled around work and family, they now possess something that was once just as scarce as money: uninterrupted time.
By the end of 2025, China had 323.38 million people aged 60 or above, accounting for 23 percent of its population, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Their incomes, health and family circumstances vary enormously, and polar travelers remain a small, relatively affluent group. Still, their choices bring one change into sharp focus: For some among this new generation of retirees, growing older no longer means simply drawing the boundaries of life inward. It may also be a chance to return to journeys postponed for decades.
Behind every such journey lies a practical calculation: Is the body ready? Is the expense manageable? Can family responsibilities be set aside long enough? The answers are reshaping both travel products and ideas about life after work. At the farthest reaches of the map, some Chinese retirees are asking a new question: With their careers behind them and years still ahead, where do they want to go next?
No longer waiting
In early 2025, 63-year-old He Man stood on a snow-covered slope at Port Charcot in Antarctica and looked back toward the sea.
The Silver Endeavour, the ship that had brought her there, had shrunk to a white speck against the blue water. Penguins wandered nearby. "Standing there, I suddenly realized how small I was - and how small my problems were," she told the Global Times.
It was a journey He Man had postponed for most of her adult life. Before retiring, she was a deputy chief physician at the dental center of Shenzhen People's Hospital in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province. During her 38-year medical career, most days she got up at 6 am, arrived at the hospital around 7 and began seeing patients at 8. On busy days, patients queued up outside her consulting room and she could barely stop for a drink of water.
During the last 20 years of her career, she had no more than 15 days of annual leave each year. Once time was set aside for caring for elderly relatives and looking after her child, what remained was enough only for short trips. She had visited several countries in Europe and North America, but Antarctica remained beyond reach.
"Antarctica had always been a dream, but I never really dared to imagine going," she said. The possibility became real only after friends from university made the journey in 2023 and 2024 and encouraged her to follow. By then, she had retired at 60. More important than anything else, she said, was that her time was finally her own.
In October 2024, she booked a place on an expedition ship carrying about 200 passengers. She went with her husband, a neighboring couple and another couple with whom they often traveled, forming a group of six.
The early-booking cruise fare exceeded 150,000 yuan ($22,250) per person. She and her husband later paid another 40,000 yuan each to upgrade their flights to business class.
"On a journey this long, at our age, we should treat ourselves well," she said. The flights between China and South America alone took more than 30 hours. The entire journey eventually lasted 41 days, combining an 11-day Antarctic cruise with visits to Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Chile. "Since we had flown so far, we wanted to see it all in one go."
The journey began with a lesson in polar uncertainty. To catch a period of calmer weather across the Drake Passage, the ship moved its scheduled departure from noon to 6 am.
The couple reached the port in Chile before dawn after barely sleeping, only to learn that replenishment and repairs had taken longer than expected. The weather window closed, and the captain diverted through the Beagle Channel while waiting two days for conditions to improve.
The retired doctor did not regard the delay as time lost. Marine biologists, ornithologists, geologists and polar historians delivered lectures on board throughout the day, while passengers watched the fjords outside. "There were many older people on the ship. We had time, and nobody was really in a hurry," she said.
When she finally stepped onto the Antarctic snow, she said she was so overwhelmed that she wanted to cry. The trip did not remove the pressures waiting for her at home, but it changed the scale on which she viewed them.
"When I feel stressed or upset now, I think of Antarctica," she said. "Life is only so long. Don't hold yourself too tightly. Let go when you should."
According to He Man, people aged 60 or above accounted for more than half of the passengers on board, while Chinese travelers also made up more than half. After returning home, some of the travelers from Shenzhen created a WeChat group, while others had already begun discussing their next destination.
Travel agencies specializing in expedition cruises have noticed the same pattern. Zhang Xinyuan, founder and CEO of Newayer Cruises, told the Global Times that the company entered the Antarctic market in 2008 and sent its first group the following year. It has since served approximately 6,000 travelers on trips to the Arctic and Antarctica.
Among its customers, more than 65 percent are aged over 50, with those between 55 and 65 forming the largest group.
The makeup of that group has changed. Before 2020, Zhang said, most of the agency's polar customers were private business owners, senior executives and their family members. In recent years, the professional backgrounds of its customers have become more varied, with retired teachers, doctors, researchers and managers from public institutions increasingly represented. Retired women traveling alone have also become more visible.
Their journeys do not necessarily end after one polar voyage. Zhang once regarded Antarctica as a once-in-a-lifetime destination, but found that some customers continued on to the Arctic, the Galapagos Islands or wildlife reserves in Africa.
She cited a recently retired couple who booked trips to both Antarctica and the Arctic. While still aboard the Arctic cruise, they asked to reserve places on a southern Africa itinerary planned for the following year.
Industry data suggest that this is a growing, though still expensive, segment of the travel market. During the 2024-25 Antarctic season, Chinese nationals accounted for 10 percent of passengers traveling with operators belonging to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, or IAATO, the second-largest share after the US.
In the 2025-26 season, IAATO operators recorded 85,195 visitors who landed in Antarctica and another 27,217 cruise-only passengers. The association said China had seen the greatest post-pandemic increase among the main sources of Antarctic travelers.
Data released by Tongcheng Travel offer a closer view of the high-end market. From January to September 2025, travelers aged between 50 and 70 accounted for more than 70 percent of users booking outbound luxury cruises on the platform. Among customers purchasing polar cruise products priced above 100,000 yuan, more than 90 percent were classified by the company as silver travelers.
As the customer base changes, the product is changing with it. Zhang said the longest flights, rather than the cruise itself, often present the greatest physical challenge. On board, travelers can decide whether to join shore landings, hikes or Zodiac cruises according to their physical fitness and health condition.
At Newayer Cruises, travelers aged between 75 and 80 are generally asked to provide medical documentation and travel with a family member. Its group products include emergency medical and evacuation insurance, while tour leaders accompany passengers from departure.
The agency has also added Chinese-language services and meals familiar to Chinese passengers, while leaving more space in itineraries rather than packing each day with activities. Flexibility is needed for reasons beyond the traveler's own health.
Polar travel occupies the expensive outer edge of a much broader change in how older Chinese people spend their time. By the end of 2025, China had 323.38 million people aged 60 or above, accounting for 23 percent of the population. Those aged 65 or above numbered 223.65 million, or 15.9 percent.
The National Bureau of Statistics noted that people aged between 60 and 64 made up a relatively large part of the older population, and that many were still healthy and participated in social activities.
Travel is becoming one outlet for this age group. Data cited by the National Development and Reform Commission show that older travelers account for more than 20 percent of China's total tourist numbers.
Du Peng, dean of the School of Population and Health and director of the Institute of Gerontology at Renmin University of China, noted in a CCTV interview that more than 20 million people would enter old age each year over the following decade. Compared with earlier generations, he said, many would be better educated, assess their own health more positively and use the internet with greater ease.
Policy is beginning to respond to this more varied picture of old age. A State Council document on developing the silver economy calls for replacing rigid age restrictions on travel with assessments based more closely on health, while expanding travel insurance and strengthening consumer protection.
Still, the retirees boarding polar ships should not be treated as a portrait of all 323 million older Chinese people. They are a relatively small group able to meet three demanding conditions at once: sufficient savings, good health and control over their time.
Therefore, what these polar travelers demonstrate is not that every retirement should become an expensive adventure. Rather, they show that later life is becoming less uniform: rest and care remain essential, but for some people, retirement may also contain study, creative work, new friendships and journeys once postponed by jobs and family obligations.
Back in Shenzhen, He Man now divides her Xiaohongshu (RedNote) posts between dental-health advice and notes from her travels. Antarctica has been crossed off the list, but the list itself continues to grow.
She is considering a trip to see the animal migration in Africa and another to watch the aurora in Iceland. The Arctic is lower down on her list.
The Arctic can wait. This time, the delay is hers to decide.
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B | 他昨天怒斥：“奥克兰铁路网的频繁中断已经令人无法接受。
C | ” Advertise with us 在一封致奥克兰交通局（AT）首席执行官Dean Kimpton、KiwiRail首席执行官Peter Reidy、One Rail首席执行官Martin Kearney的信中，Brown要求召开会议，解释为什么会不断发生交通中断，以及正在采取哪些措施来解决这个问题，并如何迅速恢复公众信心。 “奥克兰人已经对因天气、信号故障、人员问题或其他借口导致的火车取消失去了耐心。
D | ” “（昨天）说是因为天气。奥克兰在二月份气温高，这对你们任何人来说都不应该感到惊讶……奥克兰人需要对他们的公共交通系统有信心，相信它能够应对夏日的气温。” Brown还抨击了三位交通部门的负责人沟通混乱。 “（你们）经常互相指责，在我看来，这‘太混乱了’。
E | ” 市长办公室正在安排本周的会议时间，Brown还邀请了交通部长Simeon Brown或他的代表参加。 AT的公共交通主管Stacey van der Putten昨天表示，由于“高温”问题，KiwiRail对铁路网实施了速度限制，导致一些火车服务不得不取消，这“非常令人失望”。 “如果奥克兰铁路网不是因为许多已知的故障而脆弱的话，这些速度限制今天就不太可能需要。” KiwiRail表示，昨天下午奥克兰火车班次被取消不是他们的错，除了一小段轨道外，整个铁路网很强大。 昨天下午，取消的火车班次包括3点起由Britomart至Papakura的南线8趟、Manukau至Britomart的东线5趟、Swanson至Britomart的西线4趟。 当Newstalk ZB的Mike Hosking今天早上询问总理Christopher Luxon关于火车的问题时，他说情况“显然相当不理想”。 “嗯，我的意思是，我认为我们听到的借口，比如轨道高温和很多沟通错误，都是完全不能接受的。” 然而，KiwiRail首席规划和资产开发官David Gordon告诉Hosking，他们并没有关闭这些线路，只是对4公里长的铁路设置了速度限制。
F | “我们在Otahuhu和Papakura之间的4公里铁路段上设置了限制，这只是200公里中的4公里，并且告诉他们必须以40公里/小时的速度通过那段铁轨。不是要求火车停运，而只是要求缓慢行驶。” “正常情况下，（火车）在直道上的时速为70公里或80公里。” “这确实对时间表产生了影响。
G | 我们估计每列火车大约需要6分钟。
H | 这确实会对时刻表产生复合影响，为此可能需要取消一些火车。
I | 我们并没有关闭线路。
J | ” “实施限制的地区的铁轨有一些潜在的问题，我们在努力重建铁路网时会一并解决。” “其他地方经历了同样的高温，我们对其稳定性有信心，因此，尽管气温很高，它们仍能以正常速度运行。” Gordon说，他不会评论“AT或奥克兰One Rail做了什么或没有做什么，我认为通勤者并不真正关心责任的分配。
K | 我们之间有共同的责任，我们、One Rail和AT面对高温限制都应做得更好。
L | ” 他说，他们正在做出改变，以确保如果类似事件再次发生，能更好地应对。 Gordon表示，这对每个人来说都不好。 “我今天早上要坐火车，我很依赖火车。乘客应该得到更好的服务。
M | ” “即将发生的几件事将产生重大影响：今年4月，我们在奥克兰的新控制中心将运营。这是新西兰铁路历史上的第一次，所有的运营者、我们自己、AT和机车维修人员都将在同一栋楼、同一层、同一个控制室里。” “当我们遇到这种问题时，我们将直接坐在一起开会，迅速采取联合应对措施。” 相关阅读： 下午奥克兰火车将大面积取消，因为天气太热？！ 奥克兰人下班回家难：海港大桥有强风，火车服务严重中断 奥克兰东部铁路线重新开放，但西线和南线马上要开始施工了 12月起奥克兰将大规模重建铁路网，火车服务中断会持续到2025年 注：本文为编译/原创，欢迎转发分享；但严禁复制等未经授权的非法使用。违反上述声明者，本网将追究其相关法律责任。使用授权请联系[email protected]。
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