China takes up an amazing and a challenging project.
It is going to build the deepest ever high-speed rail station under the Great Wall of China which connects Beijing with the city of Zhangjiakou in nearby Hebei province which will host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The line will be build 102 meters underground at Badaling – the famed tourist spot outside Beijing where thousands line up every day to climb the Great Wall of China.
"The Badaling station will be located 102 meters below the surface, with an underground construction area of 36,000 square meters, equal to five standard soccer fields, making it the deepest and largest high-speed railway station in the world," Chen Bin, director in charge of construction for China Railway No 5 Engineering Group, was quoted as saying by State media.
He also said that the underground station will have "three floors, separate levels for arriving and departing passengers-similar to airports-and two escalators with vertical heights of 62 meters, the highest in the country.
China’s High Budget Project
Billions were invested into building the network which is an investment that it will not recoup for some time.
However, its first longest bullet train network, the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train line which connects two cities is turning in record profits and has forced airlines to slash fares.
Project To Be Finished By End 2019
The new Beijing-Zhangjiakou line will be finished by end-2019. The line will have 10 stations and cut through mountains and sensitive sites such as the Great Wall.
"It will run through mountains where the Great Wall is winding, so we adopted some of the world's advanced explosion technologies to guarantee it would not affect the Great Wall," Luo Duhao, chief engineer of the railway group for the Badaling section, told State media.
Hope to see it soon.