They chose to do it on a Sunday. For it has been 8 long years since a spade was first stuck in the ground for Line 5. Hence choose a time when the maximum number of people possible would be free to come and see it weld into reality.
The first trains for fare-paying passengers on Nanjing Metro Line 5 began running today, 31 March 2024, a little ahead of the announced commencement, 12:00.
Yet, the news first comes with an important, massive disclaimer. The section of the line opened today is only that in Jiangning District. That’s a 12.9-kilometre stretch of track comprising nine stations; Wenjing Lu, Dongshan, Xinting Lu, Zhushan Lu, Kening Lu, Qianzhuang, Chenxin Da Dao, Jiulong Hu Nan and Jiyin Da Dao.
It’s also a line that takes surprising little time to traverse; a journey taking in all nine stations lasts just 18 minutes, with trains taking all but 1 minute to shuttle between Wenjing Lu and Dong Shan.
During its trip on Line 5 today, The Nanjinger spotted a baby-care room at Jiulong Hu Nan station. The locked door was marked with signage providing a phone number to call for gaining access.
On the trains themselves, the front and rear carriages feature warmer air conditioning, mindful of those who wear little during Nanjing’s summer and would prefer not to freeze to death.
So who was to be found boarding those first trains today? A handful of nerds; smartphone and tablet-toting train spotters who let out a gasp of excitement as the doors of that first train closed before it exited the terminus at Jiyin Da Dao.
On The Nanjinger’s return journey, their numbers had swelled, with them then crowding the platform and joined by the plain curious and a number of media outlets.
Yet, there remain contentions, not least how many more years it may be until the rest of the Line is opened; could Nanjing Metro Line 5 take a decade of construction, all in?
Then there is that termed an “interchange” with Line 1 at Zhushan Lu which is somewhat of a laughing stock. It is in fact such a farce that Nanjing Metro took it upon themselves to make a video by way of guidance.
The crux of the convoluted, time-consuming process is to complete the leg of a journey, pay, exit the station into the open air, walk down the street a ways, enter the station on the line to which one is transferring, buy a ticket for the next leg of the journey and eventually board a train. Might be good to write that one down.
Line 5 also came in for criticism even as the days were counting down to its opening, on account of its extremely early cut off time. The last trains operate at 21:00, fully 2 hours before the rest of the network starts winding down for the day. While this is supposedly to aid in the overnight engineering necessary to complete the rest of the line, cynics elsewhere in Nanjing are at this moment commenting that nothing happens in Jiangning at night.
But there is also much about which to be positive. The many, many thousands who reside in the former village of Dongshan now finally have a metro line, and one which puts them within arm’s reach of Lukou Airport, thanks to that which is likely the shortest interchange on the entire mass transit network, at Jiyin Da Dao, to transfer to Line S1.
Most of all, however, Line 5’s opening today in Jiangning was an exciting glimpse of the future, one which with a bit of luck is not another near decade off. We’re betting this time next year.
