China plans world’s largest high-speed railway station

CHINA would build the world’s deepest and largest high-speed railway station at a popular section of the country’s Great Wall, as part of its preparations for the 2022 Winter Olympics, state media reported yesterday.

The station will be at Badaling, the most visited section of the Great Wall, which lies about 80km north-west of Beijing.

The site received 30000 tourists in just one day during the Chinese New Year holiday week, according to the China National Tourism Administration.

“The Badaling station will be located 102m below the surface, with an underground construction area of 36 000m², equal to five standard soccer fields, making it the deepest and largest high-speed railway station in the world,” the director in charge of construction for China Railway Number 5 Engineering Group, Chen Bin, told the People’s Daily newspaper. The station will sit along a railway network linking the cities of Beijing and Zhangjiakou, which will host the Winter Olympics.

The Badaling station would run through mountains under the Great Wall, and would require the use of advanced explosion technologies to ensure that the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage Site would not be affected, the railway group also said.