Patrol man at station eager to be passenger

Zhang Xinyue has worked as a patrol man at the Xiong’an Railway Station for half a month, walking around the newly built station each day to make sure work was progressing in an orderly fashion as preparations for its opening accelerated.

The station in Xiongxian, Xiong’an New Area, Hebei province, was put into operation on Sunday, along with an intercity highspeed railway linking the new area with Beijing.

Zhang, 59, lives in Dongzhao, a village about 1 kilometer northwest of the station.

He’s looking forward to using the station as a passenger one day and hopes to ride a bullet train to visit his elder sister, who lives in Beijing’s Haidian district.

“I’ve never seen such a big station in my whole life,” said Zhang, who has little education and has been a farmer for most of his life.

Wearing a helmet and a green coat long enough to cover his ankles, Zhang walks around all day, exploring the giant structure.

The Xiong’an Railway Station is one of the terminals on the BeijingXiong’an intercity high-speed railway line.

It has a construction area of 475,200 square meters — about 66 soccer pitches — according to China Railway Construction Engineering Group, one of its builders.

The station has five floors for different functions, including passenger waiting rooms, platforms and transfer facilities. Its construction started in December 2018.

“It will be a model for smart and environmentally friendly stations in the future,” said Wang Yan, the chief engineer of the Xiong’an Railway Station project at China Railway Construction Engineering Group.

For example, pillars supporting the station are made with fair-faced concrete, Wang said, adding they don’t need decoration and will not emit unwelcome smells. “Its appearance is more simple but stunning,” he said.

With 192 fair-faced concrete pillars, the station is the first in China to use the technique on such a large scale, Wang said.

More importantly, passengers will find it convenient to transfer to other forms of public transportation, said Zhou Tiezheng, chief architect at China Railway Design Corp.

“The station is well integrated with the city, because all kinds of transportation means, including subways, buses and taxis, will be covered under this big oval-shaped water drop, so that residents can transfer easily,” Zhou said. Seen from above, the station looks like a huge dewdrop on a lotus leaf.

On the first floor, there are 24 waiting rooms, each equipped with 5G signal amplifiers, fire alarms, air purifiers and monitors, Wang said. Its many smart systems can ensure efficient and accurate management via modern technology including big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, he said.

It will be a junction for four north-south railway lines and two east-west lines in the future, said Kang Xuedong, deputy chief engineer at China Railway Design Corp, including the BeijingGuangzhou line, Tianjin-Baoding line and Tianjin-Xiong’an intercity line.

“The lines meet at Xiong’an Railway Station, connecting Xiong’an efficiently with places all across the country by high-speed trains,” Kang said, adding it will play an important role in promoting the development of the Xiong’an New Area and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

The other stations on the BeijingXiong’an intercity line are Beijing Daxing, Daxing International Airport, Gu’an East and Bazhou North, he said.

PAN ZHIWANG / FOR CHINA DAILY Passengers gather at the Xiong’an Railway Station in Xiongxian, Hebei province, on Sunday, as the station begins service.