Asia’s Second Largest Railway Station

 

Asia's second largest railway station can be found in Beijing – Beijing South.

1- Shinjuku Station Japan, is the busiest train station in the world in terms of number of passengers and Nagoya Station in Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, Japan is one of the world's largest train stations by floor area (410,000 m²)

2- In terms of platform capacity, the world's largest station is Grand Central Terminal in New York City, USA

3- Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, is now the largest railway station in Asia

The extraordinary scale of Beijing South Railway Station can only be rivaled by the incredible speed at which its expulsions will travel, with trains leaving the Station reaching record speeds of 350kph. And the impecible timing of the completion of the Station means that trains can now depart on schedule to take spectators from Beijing to Tianjin Olympic Center, which will host the football preliminaries for the games, in just 30 minutes.

Beijing South Railway Station, designed by Terry Farrell and Partners (TFP), is a station of monolithic proportions covering 940,000 sq m. The roof area is the size of 20 football pitches and includes a 30,000 sq m skylight to maximise natural light within the station. With 24 platforms Beijing South is bigger than the city's Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium. 

47 journeys per day will be made from Beijing South to Tianjin during the games and with a peak hour flow of 30,800 passengers, the station is set to reach an annual turnover of 105 million by 2030. In the mean time it is the visitors to Beijing who will reap the benefits of this architectural giant.

Beijing South Railway Station Investment: 6.3 billion 

Project duration: 2006 - 2008 

The central hall of the railway station is big enough -

1. to fit a Boeing 747

2. to have a roof area equal to 24 football pitches

3. to have a waiting area that can hold 10,000 people and sit half of them

4. can hold the Olympic Bird's Nest and its 50 meter pool and stands

5. to send 30,000 passengers on their way per hour!

6. to have departures and arrivals on different levels

7. to have a glass ceiling with 3,246 solar panels to supply the station's needs

8. to have 800 basement car parking spaces

9. to have 40 taxi bays

10. to park 30 buses

11. to need just 150 staff to operate the facility

China has a plan to spend $735 billion over the next 11 years to build a railway system reaching 120,000km (70,000 miles)

China has 150 railway projects under construction and eight new projects were announced in Sep/Oct of last year.