There’s been a lot of speculation. And stuff which wasn’t true. But now we know for sure. Nanjing North Railway Station, our City’s biggest transportation-infrastructure construction project since its southerly sister 15 years ago, should be welcoming its first travellers by 2028.
It’s all beginning to look a bit like a decade or more ago in Nanjing, at least in terms of the construction of rail links. A plethora of metro lines are racing to be completed, new high-speed lines linking Nanjing with other cities hitherto underserved are underway and now, work is finally about to begin on Nanjing North Railway Station.
Before going in to detail, the basics are that Nanjing North Railway Station is to reportedly form the core of the new Economic Zone that shall also comprise a residential, conference, catering and entertainment complex. One can look to the area around Nanjing South which has sprung up of late for an idea of how that will pan out.
As to the specifics, PSA Nanjing (南京发布) reported yesterday, 6 March, that the “Preliminary Design of the Nanjing North Railway Station Station Building & Related Projects” was jointly approved by the China Railway Group and the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Government recently, after being submitted for review last November.
Supposedly shaped like the head of the Yangtze River and the flowers blooming in Nanjing, the Station is touted as being unique in terms of optimised-transfer efficiency, integrating the station and the city, and its interior environment. That translates to shorter transfer times between high-speed trains and urbane public transport, five metro lines and a station hall that is green and well lit.
Nanjing North Railway Station is to measure 710 by 637 metres, comprising a total of six floors, four above ground and two below. While less tall, less deep and smaller overall than its counterpart down south, the Station is to employ a model not indistinct from many other such stations in China.
The ground floor is to be largely given over to road transportation, including parking, bus links and passenger drop-off points. Above this shall be arrivals, departures and the waiting hall.
But underground is where it starts getting by interesting. For Nanjing North shall be where five metro lines intersect, namely Lines 3, 4, 15, 18 and S4. Of these, Line 3 shall be located on the first basement level, accompanied by ride hailing points, while the level below shall be the meeting point of the remaining four lines.
As for other rail links, it shall be possible to take trains between Nanjing North and the Nanjing Railway Station, thanks to the Shangyuan Men Railway Crossing which traverses the Yangtze at present under construction. Nanjing North is also planned to be opened for operation simultaneously with the North Riverside High Speed Railway.
The Nanjinger first reported on progress as to this giant undertaking in October of 2019, a time when it was envisaged that Nanjing North would begin operations in 2025. Then the world went pear shaped, putting the project 3 years behind schedule. More recently, construction of the Station building itself was tentatively planned to commence during the fourth quarter of 2023.
So there may be, on the face of it, much about which to be skeptical. But time is running out. If the newly revealed and revised timeline can be more or less adhered to, meaning shovels in the ground by July, we have a shot at having Nanjing North up and running by 2028.
Nanjing North Railway Station shall be 10 kilometres from Jiangbei New Area’s city centre, some 18 kilometres distant from Xinjiekou and 50 kilometres from Nanjing Lukou International Airport. A long-term annual passenger volume of 36.5 million is predicted.
