Rail Hub · Chongqing East
1.22 million m², 15 platforms, 29 tracks, $7.8 billion and 38 months — Chongqing East opened in June 2025 as the largest high-speed hub in western China, and instantly the city’s second front door.
The waiting hall wears a 130,000-m² double-curved tubular ceiling, dripping skylights into columns modeled on the city’s huangjue trees; air-conditioning islands are shaped like camellias, the city flower. It opened on 27 June 2025 and was photogenic by sunset — the golden hall is now a check-in spot in its own right.
Functionally it folds the map: the Chongqing–Xiamen and Chongqing–Changsha corridors, the East Ring line, and the under-construction Zhengzhou–Chongqing and Kunming corridors. Metro Line 6 arrived the same day; Lines 24 and 27 follow. When the build-out completes: one hour to Wanzhou, Qianjiang, Chengdu and Guiyang; three to Wuhan, Kunming and Changsha; six to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Chongqing now runs a three-hub system: North (the Chengdu corridor and metro Lines 3/10/Loop), West (Sichuan and Yunnan flows), and East (the southeast, the karst country, the Xiamen coast). The Loop metro line ties all three together.
For travelers the rule is: read your ticket. Stations here are 20–30 km apart across mountain and river — the wrong one costs you an hour. But the right one, especially East, now means boarding the newest station on the continent before the crowds have learned its name.
Use Chongqing East for anything southeast — Wulong’s karst, Pengshui, Zhangjiajie — and treat the station itself as an opening-day attraction that still hasn’t worn off. The “one hour to Chengdu” promise makes the classic two-city southwest itinerary a day-trip decision now.
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