Baoding railway station () is a railway station located on Beijing–Guangzhou railway and

Tianjin–Baoding intercity railway Tianjin–Baoding intercity railway, also known as Tianjin-Baoding Passenger Line, is a high-speed railway line connecting Tianjin with Baoding in Hebei province. Starting from Tianjin West railway station and ending at Baoding railway station, th ...

in Baoding,

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The station is a Class 1 station administered and operated by

China Railway Beijing Group China Railway Beijing Group, officially abbreviated as CR Beijing or CR-Beijing, formerly, Beijing Railway Administration is a subsidiaries company under the jurisdiction of the China Railway (formerly the Ministry of Railway). It supervises the ...

. About 120 trains, of both non-high-speed and high speed, stop at this station every day.

History

In April 1897, construction of the

Lugou Bridge The Marco Polo Bridge or Lugou Bridge () is a stone bridge located 15 km southwest of Beijing's city center in the Fengtai District. It bridges the Yongding River, a major tributary of Hai River. Situated at the eastern end of the bridge ...

– Baoding section of the Luhan Railway (also known as Jinghan Railway, now the northern section of Beijing–Guangzhou railway) began. Lugou Bridge, precisely 20 km away from the City of Beijing, was chosen as the starting point of the railway because the Empress Dowager Cixi forbid the construction of railroads within 20 km from the City of Beijing. This section of the railway, called the Lubao section, was 132.7 km long, and was the first section of the Luhan Railway. Track-laying was completed in January 1899. On 22 January 1899, Baodingfu Station () was opened, and the section of the railway began operation on 1 February. At its opening, the station consisted of a waiting hall, a ticket office and a simple footbridge for passenger service. It also had a freight yard, which consisted of a storeroom, platform and tracks for freight service. Notably, in the early days of the station, passenger trains ran only during the day and would stop for the night. Passengers would unload, and then board the train the next morning to continue the journey. Day-and-night train service was introduced to the station in 1913. Because China's railway construction heavily relied on money loaned from foreign countries at that time, funds were often insufficient. The tracks for the station were imported from countries including

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, and

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. The locomotives that ran the section were all imported

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s, and models were inconsistent. The average speed on the railway was about 20–30 km/h, thus rendering the journey time from Baoding to Beijing nearly five hours. After the

Marco Polo Bridge incident The Marco Polo Bridge Incident, also known as the Lugou Bridge Incident () or the July 7 Incident (), was a July 1937 battle between China's National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army. Since the Japanese invasion of Manchuria ...

of 1937, Baodingfu Station was renamed Qingyuan County Station (). After victory of the

War of Resistance against Japan The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Thea ...

, the station was renamed to the current name. On 22 November 1948, the city of Baoding was changed to under the communist rule, after the communist victory in the Pingjin Campaign of the Chinese Civil War. Railways from Beijing (then Peiping) to Baoding and from Baoding to

Shijiazhuang Shijiazhuang (; ; Mandarin: ), formerly known as Shimen and romanized as Shihkiachwang, is the capital and most populous city of China’s North China's Hebei Province. Administratively a prefecture-level city, it is about southwest of Beijin ...

were repaired. Workers labored over the reparation effort for about half a year. After 1 year and 7 months' stoppage in service, the Lubao Railway was completely and successfully repaired, 37 days ahead of schedule. A total number of 991,000 passengers and 2,790 freight trains with 73,000 tonnes of goods were transported in that year. In 1972, the east station building was opened. On 29 December 2012, the west station building was opened, and the east station building was closed for renovation. The former east station building was demolished in 2013 to make room for the new east station building. On October 1, 2018, the east square of Baoding Railway Station was officially put into use, and the east station building of the railway station was also opened at the same time.

References

{{Hebei transit Railway stations in Hebei Stations on the Beijing–Guangzhou Railway Railway stations in China opened in 1899