China Exclusive: Shanghai to have Asia's largest railway station

China's economic hub Shanghai will have built Asia's largest railway station by May 2010, local government sources revealed on Friday afternoon.

Construction work will start within this year, the sources added.

Hongqiao Railway Hub, the new station, will be the world's first transport hub connecting maglev rail lines with traditional rail tracks, subways and airport.

The five-storey structure will be located in the west of downtown Shanghai, and covers an area of 1.33 million square meters, said Liu Lianqing, director of the Shanghai Railway Bureau.

But Liu said no estimate is available now about how many people will use the new rail hub every day.

The operational Shanghai Railway Station daily accommodates an average of 100,000 people.

Currently, the largest passenger transport railway station in Asia is Beijing West Railway Station, covering 510,000 square meters, which began operation in 1996.

The new station will take a total investment between 13 billion and 15 billion yuan (1.6 billion and 1.8 billion U.S. dollars), Liu said.

The design of the new station has been made jointly by the prestigious Beijing-based Tsinghua University and a foreign architecture design firm, which Liu declined to give the name.

The station will provide terminals for four high-speed lines, including high-speed trains between Beijing and Shanghai, and between Shanghai and Ningbo, and the Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev railway, according to Liu.

Liu said the rail hub will allow seamless connection among the four high-speed rail links.

Meanwhile, the planned station will also ensure a convenient transfer between air and rail services, as it will be only 370 meters away from Shanghai's Hongqiao International Airport, which is under expansion.

The station and the high-speed rail links are part of an ambitious plan to modernize China's huge rail network. Government sources said last year the nation planned to spend 250 billion dollars by 2020 to renovate and expand the network.

Now passenger trains in China travel at an average speed of 65.7 kilometers per hour, with expresses' speed at only 119.2 kilometers per hour.

Under the plan of the Ministry of Railways, 12,000 kilometers of railroads will be built to have a speed of at least 200 kilometers per hour.

They included the above-mentioned four high-speed rail links.

The 1,320-km-long Beijing-Shanghai project will take a total estimated investment of 140 billion yuan (17.3 billion U.S. dollars), which will be the biggest investment project in China's middle- and long-term railway network plan, according to the railway ministry. Designed to allow a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, it is scheduled for completion in 2010. Upon completion, the travel time between the two metropolises will be shortened to five hours from the current 14 hours.

The 175-km-long maglev track, linking Shanghai with the famous tourist attraction of Hangzhou, is designed to allow a maximum speed of 450 kilometers per hour. It will cost 35 billion yuan (4.4 billion U.S.dollars), due to go into operation before 2010 when Shanghai will host the World Expo.

As the world's second commercial high-speed maglev track, the Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev train line will take pasengers only 30 minutes to travel from Shanghai to Hangzhou, much shorter from the current 140-minute travel time.

The world's first commercially-operated maglev track is a 30-km-long line linking one of Shanghai airports with the city's financial district. It can travel up to 430 kilometers per hour.

Source: Xinhua