Some 10 kilometres away from Zhouzhuang Ancient Town and surrounded by dense lakes, a huge steel structure is rising from the dense network of surrounding lakes. It’s a spectacular sight. For this is to be the all-new Suzhou South Railway Station.
Last Friday, 5 January, saw the final concrete poured for the roof section of Suzhou South, clearing the way for the Station to be opened as scheduled within the year.
Suzhou South is set to be a fascinating station, for it being where two major lines shall quite literally cross, namely the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou Railway and the Nantong-Suzhou-Jiaxing-Ningbo High-speed Railway.
And that makes for both an engineering challenge and an opportunity for aesthetic excellence.
The former, for the Station being an irregular shape as well as an interchange with two urban train lines which seeks to minimise transfer times, and the latter for a desire on the part of the end clients for it the reflect the visual characteristics of both Jiangnan water towns and the classical gardens for which Suzhou is so famed.
Viewed from the air, the entire station appears hexagonal, with the two 350 km/h-capable railway lines clearly crossing each other.
With a total construction area larger than 10 standard football fields, at 75,100 square metres, Suzhou South shall consist of four platforms and 12 lines.
Li Zuoli, Project Manager for Suzhou South Railway Station on behalf of the China Railway Construction Group, spoke with the Yangtze Evening News.
Li explained that part of the Station for the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou Railway on the lower level is scheduled to complete debugging and testing in July, while that for the Nantong-Suzhou-Jiaxing-Ningbo High-speed Railway on the Station’s upper level should see interior decoration realised in October.
The challenges don’t end there. Further downstairs at Suzhou South is also where two metro lines shall converge; the under-construction Suzhou Rail Transit 10 and the Watertown Tourist Intercity Railway. Here the designers have had their work cut out for them, given a requirement for the distance between the various modes of transportation and the railway lines to not exceed 200 metres.
When all said and done though, in the future, it will take 25 minutes to reach Shanghai Hongqiao Station from the new Suzhou South Railway Station.
