Beijing-Shanghai train schedules/tix

Hi,


Does anyone know if there is an 'official' schedule available online for the trains going from Beijing to Shanghai? Also, would be a good idea to buy the tickets in advance or simply wait until a day or so before you want to travel? Or could these tickets be purchased in Hong Kong a week or so before?

Some friends of mine from Canada (who speak no Chinese) want to take the train from Beijing to Shanghai around Aug 20 and are not sure if the schedules they are seeing online are reliable (I guess there are a few different schedules?) and if they should be buying their tickets from Hong Kong before departing for China, or if it would be ok to wait until they get to Beijing. I have never taken this train, so have no idea.

Thanks for any advice.

Please note www.12306.cn is the official website for train tickets. Maybe you have known the high speed train launched since July 1st, 2011, and there are plenty trains available everyday, the tickets are seem easy to get, so you don't have to buy the tickets too early. I'm based in beijing, please let me know if you need any help. I'm the webmaster of hereisbeijing.com.