12306 MCP

Searches China Railway 12306 for trains, seats, stops and transfers.

Started in our test
★ 2.4K GitHub stars
4.3K downloads a week
Last commit 31 Jul 2026

At a glance

12306 is the official booking site for China Railway. This server by Joooook lets an assistant look up trains between two stations on a date, filter them by train type or departure time, see which seats are left, list every stop a train makes, and find journeys with a change of train. It reads the same public data the 12306 website shows, so no account or key is needed.

It only searches. It cannot book or pay for tickets, so you still buy them on 12306 or its app. The author describes it as a learning project, and the tool descriptions and station names are in Chinese.

Made by: Joooook (community project)
Licence: MIT
Latest version: 0.3.10 (30 Jul 2026)
npm package: 12306-mcp
GitHub stars: 2.4K
Downloads: 4.3K a week
Last commit: 31 Jul 2026
Tools: 8
Runs on: Your computer

Our check: We ran this exact config on 22 Oct 2026: it started and answered with 8 tools.

What's in the pod: its tools

We found 8 tools in its source code on 27 Oct 2026. Every one of them only reads, so nothing changes unless you act on what it finds.

How we tested it: Tool list read from the source of 12306-mcp 0.3.10. The server downloads its station list from 12306.cn as it starts, which our current sandbox cannot reach.

Only reads8 tools · Looks things up and changes nothing.

Tool	What it is for
`get-current-date`	Returns today's date in China time, so the model can work out dates such as tomorrow or next Wednesday.
`get-interline-tickets`	Finds journeys with one change of train, returning the first ten.
`get-station-by-telecode`	Returns the details of a station from its three-letter code.
`get-station-code-by-names`	Looks up station codes from exact Chinese station names, such as 北京南.
`get-station-code-of-citys`	Returns the main station code for one or more cities.
`get-stations-code-in-city`	Lists every station in a city, by its Chinese name, with their station codes.
`get-tickets`	Searches trains between two stations on a date, with seats left, filters by train type and departure time, and sorting.
`get-train-route-stations`	Lists every stop on a train's route with arrival, departure and stop times.

Grouped and described by us. The README on GitHub lists the inputs each tool takes.

Set it up

Pick your app for the exact snippet and where it goes.

Where it goes: claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config)

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "12306": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "12306-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Where it goes: Your terminal, in the project folder

Claude Code

claude mcp add-json 12306 '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","12306-mcp"]}'

Where it goes: ~/.cursor/mcp.json, or .cursor/mcp.json in a project

Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "12306": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "12306-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Where it goes: .vscode/mcp.json in your project

VS Code

{
  "servers": {
    "12306": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "12306-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Where it goes: ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json

Windsurf

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "12306": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "12306-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Add "--port", "8080" to the args to serve it over HTTP instead of stdio.

New to this? See the setup guides for Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop and ChatGPT.

Settings

Names are exactly as the project spells them. Required ones are marked.

Setting	What it does
`--port`Command line flag	Serves it over HTTP (streamable HTTP and SSE) on this port instead of stdio.`--port 8080`
`--host`Command line flag	The address to listen on in HTTP mode. Defaults to localhost.`--host 0.0.0.0`

What it can touch

It can read

Public timetable and seat availability data from 12306.cn

It can change

Safer setup: It only reads public data. It cannot log in, book or pay.

Before you start

Node.js 18 or newer

If it does not work

It quits as soon as it starts: It downloads the station list from 12306.cn on start. Check that the machine can reach 12306.cn, which can be slow or blocked from some networks.
A station is not found: Use the Chinese station name, such as 上海虹桥, or look up the code with get-station-code-by-names first.
Dates come out wrong: Ask the model to call get-current-date first; it works in China time.

Peas in a pod: similar servers

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