A little girl exits and her parents the first train from Wuhanthat arrives Shanghai after the hard-hit city ended its 76-day lockdown on Wednesday.

The first high-speed train carrying passengers from Wuhan to Shanghai departed on Wednesday morning as the epidemic-wracked city ended its 76-day lockdown.

Zhou Kaifu was one of the 681 people who took the train. The 42-year-old Wuhan native, who works for China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co, Ltd (MBEC), headquartered in Wuhan, was sent by his company to take a job in Shanghai as cities across China resume business and production.

Wednesday was also the first day for him to register himself at the company's Shanghai branch in Fengxian District.

Zhou arrived at Wuhan Railway Station at around 7:20am, 40 minutes before the train's departure time. The station was not as crowded as before the coronavirus breakout. On a normal day previously, Wuhan's three train stations would handle between 300,000 and 400,000 passengers; but today only about 50,000 were expected.

After the G1719 train pulled into Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, Zhou and other passengers were seen wheeling their luggage out of it. Most of them wore masks and some were dressed in protective clothing and goggles.

Recalling his 78 days at home, Zhou told Shanghai Daily that at the beginning, he felt alarmed by the rising number of COVID-19 patients in Wuhan.

"What I could do was to take measures to protect myself from the virus and follow the government's guidelines and instructions," he said. "Later the situation got better and I had more confidence in our success to defeat the virus. At last, I expected Wuhan to lift the lockdown and looked forward to my new job in Shanghai."

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Observers watch as G1719, the first high-speed train carrying passengers from Wuhanto Shanghai, pulls into Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Wednesday.

In the same carriage as Zhou, a man named Wang wore a full set of protective clothing. Wang was traveling to his residence in Baoshan District to prepare for his return to work.

Wang, who is responsible for the finances at a local wedding photography company, hails from Anhui Province and is married to a woman from Wuhan. He arrived in Wuhan on January 22, one day before the lockdown, to celebrate the Chinese New Year with his wife. Like many others, the lockdown forced Wang to change his travel and work schedule.

"My company resumed business this month. The service industry was hugely affected by the epidemic," he said.

On April 6, he did a nucleic acid test for coronavirus infection and got a negative result, which he believes would be useful on his return to Shanghai. Along with the green health QR code required for boarding the train in Wuhan, Wang also applied in Shanghai for his "Sui Shen Ma," a QR code to record residents' health condition and whereabouts on a real-name online platform.

Hu, a young lady who wore two masks, was also coming back to Shanghai for work.

"I've contacted the community where I live in Shanghai and decided to have a home-bound quarantine for 14 days for the sake of public health," she said.

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A man in protective clothing wheels his luggage out of the carriage.

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

Wang, dressed in a full set of protective clothing, checks his phone on the arrival platform in Shanghai.

Every passenger leaving the railway station in Shanghai has to undergo infrared temperature screening three times, said Chen Chang'an, a doctor working at the station.

"If their temperature is higher than 37.3 Celsius degrees, we will require them to take a temperature measurement another three times," he said.

"Some are nervous or take a lot of luggage, which may trigger a temperature rise," he said. "We ask them to take a rest for a couple of minutes, or even an hour, before measuring their temperature again."

"If their temperature is still abnormal, we will call 120 and transfer them to a designated hospital for further testing," he said. "The aim is to avoid missing any coronavirus case."

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Passengers line up and receive temperature screening.

Chen, a doctor with the anesthesiology department at Shanghai Huatai Hospital, has been at his post since February 10. He has not returned home since that day for fear of infecting others.

"I miss my family very much, but it is my duty to safeguard the station from allowing any single case into the city, as this is a 'gate' of Shanghai," he said.

"I am not scared of passengers from Wuhan because I am confident in our nation's prevention and control measures," he said.

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A railway station worker guides passengers to receive temperature screening.

Seventeen trains left Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, for Shanghai on Wednesday as railway services resumed on the day the capital of Hubei Province lifted its travel restrictions, China Railway Shanghai Group said on Tuesday.

About 2,300 tickets for these trains have been sold, the group said.

The trains leaving three railway stations in Wuhan on Wednesday include 13 high-speed trains that would arrive in Shanghai the same day, the group said. Other trains will arrive on Thursday.

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

A man calls his friend in Shanghai to pick him up from the railway station.

Meanwhile, local residential communities are gearing up to receive people from Wuhan as well.

The Jinxiu Jiangnan neighborhood in Hongqiao Town in Minhang District saw one man return from Wuhan on Wednesday, according to neighborhood Party secretary Chen Qinghua.

“The man was on a business trip in Wuhan before the Spring Festival and was stuck there due to the coronavirus,” Chen told Shanghai Daily. “He contacted us on Tuesday afternoon immediately after he bought a ticket for the first train to Shanghai after the lockdown.”

Chen said the man had planned to quarantine himself in a designated hotel as his wife and child were living at home. But after learning that he didn’t have to serve the quarantine because of his green health QR code, which proves he is not a coronavirus patient, a suspected case or a close contact of any patient, he headed to the community directly after getting off the train.

“We told him to register at the entrance of the residential compound, check his temperature every day and contact us if he feels uncomfortable,” said Chen Qinghua. “So he returned home without incident. We will contact him regularly to make sure he is well and to help him seek medical attention as soon as possible, if necessary.”

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Passengers wearing masks and protective clothing exit the train in Shanghai.