Beijing West railway station

Beijingxi (Beijing West) railway station (), colloquially referred to as West Station (), is located in western Beijing's Fengtai District. Opened in early 1996 after three years of construction, it was the largest railway station in Asia with an area of ,Rough Guide to China – fifth edition, page 83 before being surpassed by Shanghai Hongqiao railway station in platform capacity. The station serves in average 150,000–180,000 passengers per day with a maximum of 400,000 people per day. It was expanded during the 2000s decade, during which several platforms were added. It also has a fairly large number of car-parking spaces.

Overview

The construction concept of Beijing West railway station began as early as 1959. It was planned and researched three times in history, but the first two were put on hold for political and economic reasons. For the third time, in 1989, the preparatory work, adjustment planning, and re-reporting were resumed and finally approved by the state. Beijing West railway station project was jointly funded by the Beijing Municipal Government and the Ministry of Railways. It was a key project in China's eighth five-year plan with a total investment of 6.5 billion yuan.

After the completion of the Beijing West railway station, the passenger pressure at the Beijing railway station was greatly alleviated. Beijing West station is the passenger train departure station of Beijing–Guangzhou high-speed railway, the two main railway lines in China: Beijing–Guangzhou railway (connected via the Beijing-Guangzhou railway west long link) and the Beijing–Kowloon railway, and a high-speed railway line. Most passenger trains in China's Central South, South China, Southwest, and Northwest China depart from Beijing West Railway Station. As of May 2011, Beijing West railway station had received more than 110 trains per day, of which about 100 departed. The Beijing underground cross-city railway, which passes through the urban area of Beijing and connects to Beijing railway station, was opened to traffic on 20 March 2015.

Beijing railway station is one of the transportation hubs in Beijing. There are bus hubs in North Square and South Square. A large number of buses depart from there; a taxi rank is also built underground; and the subway station reserved for construction has been completed by the end of 2011, a transfer station between Line 7 and Line 9.

Beijing West railway station's architectural style, building quality, design and planning have been criticised and controversial since its opening, but despite this, the station is still one of Beijing's most eye-catching buildings. At the end of 2007, the "Beijing New Landmarks Selection" event sponsored by the Beijing News announced the top ten new landmarks in Beijing after the public vote in January 2008. Beijing West railway station unexpectedly took 51,335 votes, second only to the National Stadium, becoming the new landmark in Beijing with the second most votes.

History

Background As early as the 1950s, the concept of building the second passenger-railway station for Beijing and the underground diameter line had already taken shape. In the autumn of 1959, when the Beijing railway station, one of the "Ten Great Buildings" erected in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the National Day of the People's Republic of China, was just completed, the then Premier of the State Council, Zhou Enlai, during the process of reviewing the planning of Beijing's railway, affirmed the suggestion of a west passenger station in Beijing. In the general layout of the master plan revised in September 1960, the idea at the time was to use Beijing West Railway Station and Beijing Railway Station as the main passenger terminal of the hub, and may connect the two major stations through the center of Beijing through four parallel underground tunnels. The site of the West Railway Station is directly opposite the Gongzhufen (Tomb of the Princess). The Beijing Municipal Government has correspondingly reserved land for the lotus pond that was still in the suburbs in the urban master plan. Therefore, for a long period of time thereafter, the lotus pond area has been a warehouse area dominated by simple bungalows, and no permanent building had been constructed. However, due to the impact of the reduction in construction scale during the three-year difficult period, the planning has not made much progress. The subsequent start of the Cultural Revolution led to the suspension of Beijing's overall urban master plan and the abolition of the planning agency.

Planning The first plan (1975–76) In January 1975, the first session of the 4th National People's Congress was convened. Deng Xiaoping was elected as Vice Premier of the State Council and began to preside over the daily work of the Central Committee and the State Council; Wan Li was then appointed as the Minister of Railways, and was responsible for rectifying the chaotic railway transportation system at that time. In March of the same year, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party issued as a mobilization order for a comprehensive rectification of the railway, which soon achieved results and then proposed to build Beijing West Railway Station again. At that time, the railway department and the planning department were still very vague about the site selection and construction plan of Beijing West Railway Station. There was no detailed design before, and the planned underground diameter line was not retained or the technical plan was not finalized. As a result, the design of Beijing West Railway Station, such as whether to choose a through-type or end-type, was also difficult to decide. After consultation between the Ministry of Railways and the Beijing Municipal Government, it was decided to jointly establish a planning working group to be responsible for studying and proposing the site selection and construction plan of the West Railway Station, while the Third Design Institute of the Ministry of Railways (now China Railway Design Group Co., Ltd.) and Beijing Architectural Design Institute (Now Beijing Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd.) were responsible for specific technical work.

After some investigation, comparison and discussion, the planning working group came up with the preliminary plan for Beijing West railway station in November 1975 and determined that the Beijing West station was a pass-through station. The station's site is located at the southwest corner of Lianhua Bridge. The road runs northwest–southeast, adopts a triangular square, and the station faces the center of the overpass. However, the political situation changed again soon after, affected by the "Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend" in 1976, and the site plan was shelved without approval.

The second plan (1981–85) Entering the 1980s, with the gradual implementation of the reform and opening up policy, the pressure of China's railway transportation infrastructure has increased greatly, and transportation capacity was tight. By 1981, Beijing's railway passenger volume increased sharply. The hub station operated a total of 108 pairs of passenger trains every day, with an average daily passenger volume of 352,000. As the largest railway passenger station in Beijing at the time, Beijing Station was already overloaded. In 1981, Beijing Station's annual passenger flow was 27.72 million, equivalent to a daily passenger flow of 78,000. On 3 October 1981, the then Mayor of Beijing Jiao Ruoyu and Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee Duan Junyi reported on Beijing's railway transport situation to Vice Premier Wan Li and talked about the design and planning of the Beijing West Railway Station. This was the third such occurrence in the history of Beijing's Municipal Government. It is proposed to construct the Beijing West station as soon as possible. In early December 1981, the Beijing Railway Bureau issued a letter to the Ministry of Railways and the Beijing Municipal Government to apply for the construction of the Beijing West Railway Station, and the preliminary design was officially launched. Subsequently, the planning team headed by former Minister of Railways Lu Zhengcao, together with personnel from the Ministry of Railways, Beijing Railway Bureau, and the Ministry of Railways Third Design Institute, conducted an on-site survey to select a site for the station. The team members once climbed a small hill on the north bank of the Lotus Pond to overlook the entire area. Because it was the dry season at the time and the groundwater in the Lotus Pond area had been over-extracted for many years, the pond of more than 20 hectares had dried up, was overgrown with weeds, and was empty and desolate. The design team believed that this place did not occupy arable land, required less demolition, was in line with the plan, and saved money. On the spot, they instructed the Ministry of Railways Third Design Institute to arrange the West Station according to this location and submit the design drawings within three months. After the meeting, the team conveyed the site selection opinion to the Beijing Municipal Government for comment.

The third plan (1989–1993) By the end of the 1980s, the problem of insufficient passenger transport capacity at the Beijing hub railway had become increasingly serious. It was even more difficult for Beijing Railway Station, the only main passenger station, and two auxiliary passenger stations (Beijing North and Beijing South) with insufficient equipment and capacity to cope with the demand. These three stations had not been expanded on a large scale for more than 30 years, while the railway passenger volume in Beijing had increased fourfold between 1970 and 1988. The construction of Beijing West Railway Station had become an urgent need. In February 1989, the Beijing Municipal Government formally proposed the construction of Beijing West Railway Station again. In March of the same year, the Beijing Municipal Government took the lead in establishing the "Beijing West Railway Station Preliminary Working Group" and convened a number of design institutes with certain strength across the country to participate in the architectural design competition. At the same time, with the approval of the State Council, the preliminary relocation task for the construction of Beijing West Railway Station was launched in 1989. The area around Beijing West Railway Station was the Xibianmen freight yard of Guang'anmen Railway Station and many factories and residential areas. The large amount of demolition work, high difficulty and high cost became a prominent problem in the construction of the project. At that time, the total national investment in the project was 2.3 billion yuan, and the demolition alone cost more than one billion yuan.

In March 1990, the working group compiled the "Beijing West Railway Station Planning and Task Book", and the Yangfangdian Road plan that had been agreed upon as early as 1983 was officially "thawed". Starting from August 1990, seven design units were selected for architectural plans. After several rounds of argumentation and selection of multiple design plans, the implementation design plan was determined. On 30 September 1990, the Beijing Municipal Government, the Ministry of Railways, and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications submitted the "Basis for Modifying the Planning and Task Book of Beijing West Railway Station" to the State Planning Commission, proposing an investment of RMB 2 billion, construction to start in 1991, opening in 1993, and finishing work to be completed in 1994. In March 1991, the State Council formally approved the design task book of Beijing West Railway Station.

Construction