REAL LIFE NEWS: THE TRAIN THAT RUNS THROUGH AN APARTMENT BLOCK
by Hazed
When I first moved to London from a quiet country village, my new home had a high-speed railway line running behind it. The trains thundering along made the house shake, and the noise they made meant conversation had to pause while we waited for them to pass.
So imagine what it would be like if the trains actually ran right through your building! That’s what the residents of an apartment block in China have to put up with.
The Chongqing Rail Transit No 2 Line is a light railway that passes through the inside of a19-storey residential block. You can see a picture and a video of the train running through the building at the source link below.
Luckily, it’s a light railway rather than a high speed one, so the noise levels are much less than I had to put up with. In fact, it’s reported to be no noisier than a dishwasher.
It’s part of the transportation system in the city of Chongquing, which covers 31,000 square miles and has a population of about 49 million – so the inhabitants are crammed into a very small urban space. That’s why planners had to come up with this imaginative solution when designing the railway.
Residents of the block even have their own station, on the sixth to the eighth floors of the building – so they can hop from their home to the train without going outside. Very convenient.
