Is there a list of legal agencies in Beijing and Shanghai, who can book train tickets for foreigners?
We are arriving in Beijing on 5th November and want to travel to Shanghai Central station on 8th by T109 train.
Will I get ticket at rail counter on 5th if I try immediately on arrival?
We will arrive in Shanghai on 9th and want to travel from Shanghai Central to Hongkong (Hung Hom/Kowloon). Will I get tickets at rail counter on 9th for the travel on 13th Nov?
China travelers, please help.

Agencies selling Chinese train tickets online: www.chinatripadvisor.com ... chinatripadvisor.com has been recommended by a number of seat61 ...
www.seat61.com/China.htm

Official sites (in Chinese): www.chinamor.cn.net & www.tielu.org. Agencies selling Chinese train tickets online: www.chinatripadvisor.com, www.chinatraintickets.net, www.china-train-ticket.com. www.train-ticket.net sells train tickets for Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Hong Kong & Shanghai-Hong Kong. Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (local trains in Hong Kong plus through trains HK to Beijing & Shanghai): www.mtr.com.hk.

Agencies are all over the place. You do not need to go online. The easiest is to ask at your hotel reception where you should be able to explain in English what you want. They will send a runner around the corner for your tickets. Takes little time and they will only charge a dollar or two.

You cannot buy Shanghai - Hong Kong tickets online from www.mtr.com.hk. Those trains are usually not very full, so shouldn't be a problem getting tickets for them once you get to SH.

Also, very importantly, the Shanghai->HK runs only on even-number days in November 2011. So, not on Nov 13th. If you have to train from Shanghai to Hong Kong on the 13th, you have to take a regular train to Guangzhou or Shenzhen, and transfer.

Thank you all.
rkkwan, we will then travel on 12th to HK. I think 9th to 12, 4 days are enough in Shanghai. And I will buy the ticket to HK on arrival in Shanghai.
I now only have to worry about Beijing Shanghai train ticket.

If you buy tickets for the fast train between Beijing and Shanghai have your passport with you or give your name and passport number to whoever is buying them for you.

Thank you all for valuable tips.
We are almost set to go.

Agency, which were shown doesn't work with online booking

You can only buy online tickets on the fast trains. Also, this being a fairly new service, you can only do it on Chinese website at the moment. The others mentioned above are travel agents who will do it for a hefty commission. Understand that tickets usually go on sale 10 days prior to travel date. any website offering you tickets earlier is selling you something they don't have and HOPE to buy later.

I could not do any online booking as the site is in Chinese language. From Tianjin to Beijing, I travelled with fast train and tickets could be bought at the counter no.1 where the person could speak English. For Beijing to Shanghai and Shanghai to Hongkong, we availed online services of chinatripadvisor.com. The price is almost 25% high than the actual ticket, but the service is good and reliable. We got the tickets promptly on the hotel counter when arrived in the respective cities. The ticket from Shanghai to Hunghom was not available, so we had to change it to Shenzhen and then travelled to Hung Hom by MTR. The MTR ticket is 36 HKD per person.