Guangzhou North Railway Station, located in Huadu District, was built in 1908 and is the first high-speed rail station open for operation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. New life has been breathed into this century-old station. As the first stop from Northern Guangdong to the Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou North Railway Station is the high-speed railway station that is closest to the airport, and is also a large-scale comprehensive transportation hub integrating "four networks" of high-speed rail, general rail, intercity and subway.

　　On August 14, the high-quality development media research tour organized by the Publicity Department of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee visited Guangzhou North Railway Station, and their focus was on the hot topic of strengthen the function of central cities as the gateway hubs.

　　In order to accelerate the construction of the "Greater Bay Area on rail tracks", Huadu District seizes the third-phase expansion of Baiyun Airport as an opportunity to make overall plans for the construction of a comprehensive and integrated air and rail transportation hub consisting of Baiyun International Airport and Guangzhou North Railway Station, as part of the effort to plan and construct with high quality the northern growth pole of Guangzhou, to build a comprehensive gateway and a new power house for high-quality development in northern Guangzhou, so that the District may contribute to Guangzhou's accelerated achievement of new vitality in an ancient city and to the "Four New Highlights" campaign.

　　Plan the expansion 

　　Stimulate new vitality out of the old city of Huadu

　　As a travel gateway, Guangzhou North Railway Station recorded a new high in railway passenger traffic in 2023, demonstrating huge potential.

　　From January to July 2023, 5,371,300 railway (national railway + intercity) passengers left or arrived at Guangzhou North Railway Station, an increase of 1,864,000 passengers over the whole year of 2022. With the arrival of summer transportation season, the Station currently sees off more than 20,000 passengers (national railway + intercity) every day.

　　Guangzhou North Railway Station now has 6 railway routes, including Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway (Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway), Guangzhou-Qingyuan intercity (section between Guangzhou North and Qingyuan ), Xintange-Baiyun Airport-Guangzhou intercity (Guangzhou East Ring Intercity), Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, Changgang Link-up Line, Guangzhou-Shitan Railway and Metro Line 9; the planned "integration of four networks" of high-speed rail, intercity, general railway and subway is taking shape. The future Guangzhou North Railway Station will continue to be connected to various transportation facilities, extending to the deep hinterland of China on the one hand, and leading to the forefront of opening up on the other hand.

　　The near future will see Guangzhou North Railway Station connected to more rail transit "veins" and radiate its influence to a larger space. Guangzhou-Qingyuan intercity (section between Guangzhou North and Qingyuan), Xintange-Baiyun Airport-Guangzhou intercity are scheduled for completion in 2023, Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-speed Railway in 2025, Guangzhou-Foshan West Intercity (Guangzhou North-Foshan West Section) in 2027, and the North Extension of Metro Line 8 (Jiaoxin-Guangzhou North Railway Station) in 2028. In particular, the northern extension of Line 8 and its branch line will cut the subway commute time from Guangzhou North Railway Station to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall to 40 minutes. This will promote "north extension" of Guangzhou's traditional central axis and strengthen the connection between downtown city and Huadu District.

　　When it comes to high-speed rail, the most notable is the second Guangzhou-Shenzhen high-speed railway, the "eye-catching high-speed railway" in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, connecting Guangzhou North Railway Station, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, Yuzhu, Gedi of Dongguan, Bao'an Airport of Shenzhen, and according to future plan, Hong Kong Airport. Guangzhou North Railway Station will be further integrated into the development of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and set in motion the high-quality development for a new future in the Greater Bay Area.

　　In addition, early stage preparation has been accelerated for high-speed rail projects such as Guangzhou-Zhuhai (Macao) high-speed railway, Guangzhou-Qingyuan-Yongzhou high-speed railway, Guangning Link-up Line of Guizhou-Guangzhou railway, Guangzhou-Heyuan high-speed railway, so that they may start construction during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Upon their completion, the rail transit network will be more complete to enable reaching from Guangzhou North Railway Station to Guangzhou downtown in half an hour, to the central cities of the Greater Bay Area in an hour, and to the Pan-Pearl River Delta region in four hours.

　　Upgrade the supporting facilities 

　　Build a high-quality and efficient service system

　　From January to July 2023, Guangzhou North Railway Station saw off 2,677,300 passengers, which has exceeded that of the whole 2022.

　　It is expected that the outgoing railway passenger volume of Guangzhou North Railway Station will exceed 50 million in 2035 when all planned lines are completed and put into operation. Centering the North Railway Station, the North Railway Station New Town is emerging.

　　Following the principle of "overall planning and step-by-step implementation", Guangzhou North Railway Station is planned to have 18 platforms and 36 lines, and the construction of station buildings is planned into three phases: the first phase, the intercity station building of Guangzhou North Railway Station (Intercity Huadu Station, 4 platforms and 6 lines), has been completed and put into use, and on November 30, 2020 Guangzhou-Qingyuan Intercity and Guangzhou East Ring Intercity were opened for traffic. The second phase is the renovation of the existing national railway station building on the east side, and the third phase is station building for planned high-speed rail lines. The construction of the second and third phases will be synchronized with the implementation of related high-speed rail projects; effort will be made to ensure they start construction during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Guangzhou North Railway Station will be built into a modern comprehensive transportation hub that "integrates air and rail transport, connects four networks, and blends in the city".

　　What's more, Guangzhou North Railway Station, Baiyun Airport, Datian Station, Huadu Port and other passenger and cargo hubs in the north of Greater Bay Area will achieve high-quality interconnectivity in the future, helping the development of advanced logistics industry in Huadu District. With the increase of routes and hubs of cargo transport, enterprises can freely choose more suitable cargo transportation methods according to timeliness, accessibility, price and other factors of different modes of transportation, so as to avoid adverse effect arising from monopoly of single logistics service and effectively reduce logistics costs; while different modes of transportation can also explore the possibility of an interaction system to complement each other's shortcomings, increase the coverage of cargo delivery, and help achieve higher transportation efficiency with lower prices.

　　Endowed with multiple transportation advantages and favorable policies, and based on the design concept of urban transit-oriented development (TOD), the West Square of Guangzhou North Railway Station will be built into a TOD commercial and residential complex. Covering an area of 26.85 acres, with a total investment of 10 billion yuan, the project will be a new urban highlight for its livable, business friendly, and well accessible neighborhood of large-scale commercial complexes, high-quality office buildings, and high-end residences, among others. The project started in June 2021, is currently constructing its main structure, and will be officially open in 2025.

　　The plan for the East Square of the Station is to build a duty-free commercial complex, which with duty-free business as the engine, supplemented with catering and entertainment, culture and leisure, children and parent-child experience and other industries, will be an "urban fashion & duty-free commercial complex". The project, covering an area of 24.7 acres, with a total investment of 13.6 billion yuan, started in December 2021 and is scheduled to officially open in 2025. Great effort will be put to vigorously develop the supporting economy, build a hub-type international business circle, give play to influence sphere of agglomeration and radiation at home and abroad to form a converging point of consumer passenger flow, and make the District a new international high-quality metropolis.

　　Air-rail combined transport 

　　Helps build an international integrated transportation hub

　　With the mentality of "starting the business anew" Huadu is building a growth pole in the north of Guangzhou, in which it will further give full play to the advantages as an international air and railway hub, and covert the transportation hub into an economic hub, and further into a hub of opening up.

　　Guangzhou North Railway Station is 28 kilometers away from the city center and only 10 kilometers away from Baiyun Airport, making it the high-speed railway station that is closest to Baiyun Airport, and highly accessible through intercity, subway, urban expressway and other ways. Between the two major transportation hubs of Guangzhou North Railway Station and Baiyun Airport, a giant flow pool will be formed to gather influx of people, capital, information and technology, infusing more energy to the entire northern part of Guangzhou.

　　In order to achieve high-quality air-rail integration, Huadu is making a big push for progress in the construction of the airside special railway from Guangzhou North Railway Station to Baiyun International Airport, actively moving to build T4 Terminal at Guangzhou North Railway Station, and promoting the "integrated" operation of air-rail intermodal transportation and the "single document system" service mode. In the future, passengers can have check-in, security check, luggage check-in and other procedures processed directly after exit of high-speed railway station, and they can arrive at T2 Terminal of the airport in 8 minutes through the special rail transit, realizing the goal of "air-rail intermodal transportation" with zero transfer.

　　At present, early stage preparation for the civil engineering work of the airside rail transit within the scope of Baiyun Airport is being intensively carried out; and efforts are being made to promote the launch of the reserved project in 2023, and good planning for the rest parts. At the same time, the first phase of Kongtie Avenue connecting Guangzhou North Railway Station and Baiyun Airport has been completed and opened to traffic, and the construction of the second phase of the Avenue (railway not involved) is approaching 50% of the total progress.

　　The construction of an air-rail combined transportation system to deeply bound and integrate Guangzhou North Railway Station and Baiyun Airport, and the extensive expanding of the service scope of Baiyun Airport jointly help build an international comprehensive transportation hub.

　　The centuried Guangzhou North Railway Station will join in the future with Baiyun Airport and Huadu Port to form a "four-port network", in which airport, seaport, railway port and digital port interact with each other, and will improve its capacity in global resource allocation, going all out to build an international comprehensive transportation hub. Huadu will also play well the role of "air-rail hub" to transform the advantages of transportation hub to produce agglomeration and radiation effect, accelerating the ignition of the powerful urban development engine.