Beijing Railway Station (Chinese: 北京站; pinyin: Běijīng Zhàn) is one of Beijing's railway stations, opened in the 1950s, as can be seen from its architecture (which merges traditional architecture with 50s-design). It is located in the city's central location, just next to Jianguomen, and is within the confines of the city's 2nd Ring Road. Trains enter and leave to the scenery of a former Beijing city gate at Dongbianmen.
The traffic load of Beijing Railway Station has decreased somewhat with the opening of the Beijing West Railway Station in 1996. Still, it remains a busy railway station. Generally, trains for Manchuria (including Harbin, Shenyang and Dalian), Shandong (including Qingdao, Jinan), Eastern Seaboard (including Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou) as well as for Inner and Outer Mongolia depart from this station. The remainder depart from Beijing West. Some international lines (notably the railway line linking Beijing to Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK), amongst others), also depart from this station.
The Beijing Subway system used to terminate at Beijing Railway Station back in the 1960s and 1970s. This underground station still exists to this day, and forms part of the Line 2 underground line.
Numerous bus and trolleybus lines pass through the railway station.
The order at the railway station has been complicated recently through roadworks on the eastern road. The western road leading to the station has already been completed in full.
Read more about Beijing Railway Station: History, Station Platform Layout, Local Transit, Sister Stations
Famous quotes containing the words railway and/or station:
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)