It’s on with the program. If you didn’t blink, you’ll know where we are — we just introduced Beijing’s Subway Line 10 last week. This shiny new Subway line will do an arc from Zhongguancun, Beijing’s tech hub, through to the CBD in eastern urban Beijing, when it opens in June 2008.
Last week, we went into painstaking detail about where Line 10 will run through. This week, we’ll dip into other topics — including how stations are designed, the new ticket barriers, and what the future holds for Line 10.
Yes, that’s right, ladies and gents. Please get ready for your arrival.
The Décor
The typical Line 10 station as it appears on the outside. Shown here: Mudanyuan station. When Line 1 became reality in 1969, those who designed the stations spared no bit of details on the décor. Every station appeared in a different livery at platform level, and some had wider platforms than others. When Line 5 opened late last year, it felt like we had underground palaces. We even had a Chinese chessboard engraved on the floor of Dongsi Station!
Line 10 is a bit different — still. Inside each station, at platform level, it’s pretty much white (except for the Line 8 part of Beitucheng station, which is full of porcelain, as well as Jintaixizhao station, with its crazy flying saucers on a black background). Upon closer examination, however, every station looks a bit different. While most Line 10 station may be white at platform level (in terms of the livery), there are minute differences. The poles may be white at Mudanyuan station (in a residential area in northern urban Beijing), but they appear “forked” and in an irregular semi-circle-cum-square-ish shape at Liangmaqiao station (right next to the Yansha shopping city). The roof at Shaoyaoju station (near the University of International Business and Economics in the northeast), where you can change to Line 13, appear a bit curvy, yet the ones at Shuangjing (just south of the CBD) appear striped. Columns, too, are different: the ones at Zhichunli (near Zhongguancun and the Jade Palace Hotel) may be thick and square, but the ones near Shuangjing are thinner and more rectangular. It’s those tiny variations in those details that make Line 10 all the more interesting to ride on.
The craziest décor has got to at Shuangjing station. From the pictures your Beijingologist has observed on the Internet, the poles head straight up into this curved orange “bit” (so to speak), giving you this impression that someone stuck this great big pole into — omelet.
Hence the David Feng or Beijingologist nickname: the “hanging omelet line”.
Creative underground stuff.
Integrated into a nearby building: Hujialou station. “The Door on the Right Side will be used…”
If there’s a wacky factor in Line 10, it’s most likely to do with just how the platforms are arranged. Line 10 has probably the craziest mix of side and central platforms, with one or two side platform stations mixed between a whole load of central island platform stations.
Let’s start out from the northwestern terminus, Bagou, which is not that far from Zhongguancun. Bagou uses a central platform, yet Suzhoujie station (the next stop going clockwise) uses side platforms, as does Haidian Huangzhuang. Zhichunli sees the return of the central platform, yet just one station further east, Zhichunlu, is where the side platforms return (and where you can change to Line 13 for destinations further north). Things get more regular further east (and along northern urban Beijing near the Olympic Green), with Xitucheng, Mudanyuan, Jiandemen and Beitucheng all using central platforms, yet when Line 10 mixes and matches with Line 5 at Huixinxijie Nankou, Line 10 has to do side platforms while Line 5 does central platforms. The situation is the other way around at Shaoyaoju station (where you get to change to Line 13 again close to the University of International Business and Economics), when Line 10 uses a central platform but Line 13 does side ones instead.
Moving further east — then south — Taiyanggong continues the central platform tradition, as do Sanyuanqiao (where you can hop on to the Airport Express), Liangmaqiao and the Agricultural Exhibition Center. But just head further south away from the hotels on the eastern 3rd Ring Road and head toward the CBD, and chaos returns, once again. Tuanjiehu (near the Sanlitun Bar Street) is in the form of two side platforms, and Hujialou appears to be a side platform biz, too. Further south, Jintaixizhao is a side platform matter, too.
Guomao is the oddball in all this. Line 10 has a tall order to go through at Guomao — it has to make do with poles from two overpasses (one decked on top of the other) and another Subway line (that’s Line 1). The Subway geniuses came up with this incredible idea of a split island platform, where the door opens on the left, but the whole station appears like it’s a side platform affair.
Finally, our beloved central platforms return further south, at Shuangjing and Jinsong stations, well south of the Beijing CBD.
Dip Twice: Introducing the New AFC System
Those of you travelling on Beijing’s Subway system will probably remember this: in late December (actually, on December 31, 2003), the Beijing Subway AFC (auto fare collection) system officially made that switch from fiction to fact. Back in those days, you had to dip your subway card twice over the ticket barriers — once upon getting in, and again upon getting out.
Then, in May 2006, The Powers That Be changed it for those travelling on Lines 1 and 2, as well as the Batong Line. You had to dip your card only once — upon entry. Meanwhile, Line 13, then a distance-based line, required two dips — once in and once out.
All of this dipping in, dipping out and dropping around the Subway system came to a unified stop on October 7, 2007, when a new, standardized fare of CNY 2 per ride — regardless of distance and with unlimited free transfers — became reality. Beginning on that date, you only had to dip in your card once. You’d pay the same fee for a 400 meter ride as you would for a 70 km ride.
Hold it here — it gets better. When the new AFC system is in operation (just before or around when Line 10 opens), you’ll need to dip in your card twice — once in, once out. However, the unified fare of CNY 2 per ride is still yours. It’s just that you’ll need to execute another nifty little hand gesture over the ticket barriers before you run into the hands of your waiting boyfriend/girlfriend/mom/dad/__fill in the blank__, who’s probably waiting for you at the station outside the ticket barriers.
Please get ready for your arrival. To continue, dip your card. Ah, life. Dipping from one thing to the next…
Zukunftsmusik: Forming Beijing’s Second Loop Line
Is Line 10 a bit short, going only from Bagou near Zhongguancun down south to Jinsong (just south of the CBD)? We think so, too. That’s why the Beijing Subway has decided to expand and build on Line 10, to ultimately make it the city’s second loop line.
Line 10 will leave Jinsong and continue along the eastern 3rd Ring Road in a clockwise manner, bypassing Panjiayuan (near the antique market) before reaching Fenzhongsi (the start of the Jingjintang Freeway) and turning west. It then continues through Songjiazhuang, which is where Line 5 ends (and the future Yizhuang Line to the Beijing Economic Tech Development Area begins) and continues further south (between the southern 3rd and 4th Ring Roads) until joins with Line 4 (which runs from the Summer Palace through the Beijing South Railway Station) at Jiaomen West. Line 10 next hits Sanhuan New City and Fengguan Road in southwestern Beijing before heading north, reaching Liuliqiao West (near the start of the Jingshi Freeway), Gongzhufen (where it links up with Line 1), and Wulu (where it links up with Line 6, Beijing’s mega west-east line in the planning, as well as the Datai Line, bringing people further west into the suburbs). Line 10 finally passes through Zizhuyuan, Yuanda Road and Huoqiying in northwestern Beijing before returning to Bagou (near Zhongguancun), where it finishes the loop.
When all is said and done — by 2012 — Line 10 will be 57.13 km in length, with 45 stops, 24 of which are interchanges.
Whew.
Line 10: In Standby Mode
So the big question is: when will the Hanging Omelet Line (with the “hanging omelet at Shuangjing station, this line now has an official Beijingologist moniker, too!) going to go live?
Let’s take a look at the line on the fast track. Every new Subway line needs at least three months of trial operations — without passengers. For that three months, the Subway company is being deliberately unproductive — but in the name of safety. Trial ops started February 28, 2008, so the absolute earliest we can expect for an opening would be on May 27, 2008.
Some time ago, they said that Line 8 (the Olympic Branch Line going into the Olympic Green) would open June 1, 2008. They also said that all three lines would open at the same time. So an optimistic opening would be on June 1, 2008.
But then, The Powers That Be changed their minds. Now we have reports of an opening coming “in mid-June 2008″. Two dates leap into view: June 15, 2008, or June 20, 2008 (the latter as suggested by a local Subway fan site — not run by your fellow Beijingologist).
In the absolute worst-case scenario, the line would have to open no later than June 30, 2008. It seems, then, that the month of June 2008 will be a sleepless one for your Beijingologist. Every night, he’ll probably be dreaming — nope, dying — for Line 10 to open. (He’ll more than need it!)
If Line 5 was any indication, though, it’s that the opening of the line will be pre-announced, modified, and then finally made official by means of “blue post-its” outside Subway stations, with the official date and time of the opening.
You can be sure that your Beijingologist won’t let slip the date of the official opening. It’s probably going to be Yet Another Big 2008 Story, a la Terminal 3.
