On Nov. 12, the Zhangjiakou South Station in Hebei Province closed its passenger transportation after 60 years of service. The service was transferred to the Shalingzi West Station in the city. On Nov. 15, construction will start on the New Zhangjiakou South Station, the terminal station of a high-speed railway between Beijing and Zhangjiakou, which is expected to complete in 2019.
The old Zhangjiakou South Station has been a hub for passenger and cargo transportation in the region since 1957 when it was first put into service. With the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the volume of passenger flow in Zhangjiakou has been on the rise. The number of outbound passengers per year increased from 2.22 million in 2013 to 3.08 million in 2016, and for the first 10 months of 2017 the number had reached 2.73 million. The daily record of 27,580 outbound passengers was made on Oct. 8 this year.
The 2022 Winter Olympic Games and the construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway have brought about new opportunities to the Zhangjiakou South Station. According to the Beijing Railway Bureau, by the end of 2019, the newly built station will become the intersection of the Datong-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, the Hohhot-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, and the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway. The station will serve to connect the northwestern China and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei high-speed railway network. By that time, the trip from Datong, Hohhot, and Zhangjiakou to Beijing will take 100 minutes, three hours, and 50 minutes respectively.
The new station will be constructed on the same spot as the old. The building design of station will take inspirations from the innovative spirit of the pioneering Chinese railroad engineer Zhan Tianyou, pay homage to the patterns of the old Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway, and present the station as the gate to the "snowy country" of Northern China.
Inside the station there will be separate sections for the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway and the Beijing-Baotou standard railway. Besides being equipped with taxi stations and parking lots, the new station will also connect with subway lines and coach stations.