Stepping off a Nanjing Metro train that has come into Nanjing South Railway Station from Lukou International Airport, there is immediately noticeable the several individuals who sprint the 15 metres or so across the platform to board an awaiting Line S3 train that will take them to our City’s southwesterly suburbs. It’s a transfer which took them just 5 seconds.
The contrast couldn’t be greater; the daggers in their direction from the eyes of other passengers plainer.
For them, a 10 minute walk is in store, simply to get on a Line 1 or Line 3 train.
Welcome to the wackiness of interchanges on the Nanjing Metro.
It was to be a colourful journey. The modus operandi was not particularly sophisticated; spend a Sunday afternoon on the Nanjing Metro to take in as many of the network’s interchanges as possible. There are surely some worse ways to spend a good chunk of a weekend.
I chose to start at Nanjing Railway Station, as if a bus had just dropped me off at the Station’s South Square, where I sought a train on Line 3. And this is where the phooey begins. For Line 1 and Line 3 here intersect at a 90 degree angle. Nothing unusual about that, but the former sits under the South Square and the latter under the North Square and built almost a decade after the first.
That’s where simply getting to Line 3 first involves a walk down the actual platform of Line 1. In places, it’s rather narrow and, as is to be repeated later, this is one place not to be during rush hour.
After a somewhat monotonous transfer to Line 2 at Daxinggong, it was time for one of the highlights of this trip; Xinjiekou.
While there have long been theories as to how humanity might survive any likely coming apocalypse by building a new world for ourselves underground, in Nanjing we actually did it.
And that world is called Xinjiekou Metro Station.
24 entrances/exits. Four city blocks. Every conceivable convenience, it would seem, other than the trains themselves. The situation is, in fact, so ludicrous that, during the writing of this article, an alert reader made the comment that they had once worked in Xinjiekou and had lunch down there every day for almost a year before becoming aware there are actually trains running back and forth beneath.
From there, a turn southward was next, to board a Line 1 train where the next interchange to be encountered, at present, is that at Ande Men. And that is an exercise in lunacy itself.
There, Line 1 is upstairs and outside in the open air, Line 10 downstairs and in the depths. Three levels downstairs to be precise, with each descent interrupted by a minute-long walk.
The absurdity of the situation was not lost on a senior in front of The Nanjinger going down the escalator, one who had just finished berating a member of Nanjing Metro staff as to the insanity of the entire operation.
Then things started getting psychedelic. The back story to this is that as Nanjing’s metro network expanded, some bright spark eventually thought there was perhaps no need to keep to the colour coding of both lines and stations, which by definition, was a little restrictive from a design standpoint.
Hence the interchange at Yongchu Lu Station with Line S3 and Line 7. Gold is the watchword here, with its ceiling textures a little reminiscent of those at the dreaded Nanjing South Railway Station.
Here too, travellers may want to look out for the orange transfer to/from the green and purple lines in the golden station. Go figure.
Whilst on Line 7, worthy of mention is surely our Metro network’s fictitious interchanges. For travellers on Line 7, after inspecting the official map of the Metro, might be tempted to head to Caochang Men Station where they could transfer to Line 4 or pop into Nanjing University of the Arts.
That’s not going to happen, not for the next year or so at least, as hastily assembled signs on every station’s protective platform barrier remind. “Zhongfu Lu Station to Nanhu Station is temporarily not open. Thank you for your understanding.”
That’s Nanjing Metro’s internal wording for, “We haven’t built it yet”. Why not just ditch the map and the signage and be done with it?
The nonsense doesn’t stop there. Back at Nanjing South Railway Station is where we also find Line 1 and Line 3, the busiest and third busiest on the network, respectively. But the masses who have finished their walk from afar are then herded, single file, into a makeshift walkway to guide them in the direction of the platform below, which in an effort for yet more confusion, is shared by both lines.
