Twa-ts'uk-men Station

Tjo-ts'jakw-men Railway Station 朱雀門車站
NRC, Metro, IRRR, THSR
Concourse of the newly-completed station, c. 1919
Location	№s 1~2 South Blvd. E., Kien-k'ang, Inner Region, 10190 Themiclesia
Elevation	51 m
Owned by	NRC Kien-k'ang Metro Inner Region Regional Railway
Operated by	NRC Kien-k'ang Metro Inner Region Regional Railway
Line(s)	NRC Traverse Main Line NRC Inland Main Line Metro Blue Line Metro Red Line Metro Green Line Metro Orange Line Metro Purple Line Metro Aqua Line Metro Inner Circle Line IRRR Line 1 IRRR Line 2 IRRR Line 5 HSR Inland Main Line HSR Traverse Main Line Airport Railway
Platforms	25 island 2 side
Tracks	123
Connections	Metropolitan Omnibus & Tram taxicabs
Construction
Structure type	mixed
Depth	92 m
Platform levels	7
Parking	3232
Bicycle facilities	2329
Disabled access	Yes
Other information
Station code	382
History
Opened	3 May 1893 (1893-05-03)
Rebuilt	1915
Electrified	1912
Traffic
Passengers (2015)	avg. 822,000 per diem

The Tjo-ts′jawk-men Station (朱雀門車站, tjo-ts′jawk-men-tl′ja-tramh) is a passenger and freight railway station situated in Kien-k'ang, Inner Region, Themiclesia. Established on the junction of the Inland Main Line and the Traverse Main Line, the station now hosts the National Railway, two lines of the Inner Region Regional Railway, four lines of the Kien-k'ang Metropolitan Rail, the Themiclesian High Speed Rail, the Airport Metro, the Metropolitan Omnibus Terminal, and a taxicab hub; furthermore, it is connected to four hotels, three underground shopping malls, six shopping centres, the Kien-k'ang Financial Centre, amongst other local edifices. It is the largest station in Themiclesia by passenger volume and floor area (but not land area), serving over 700,000 people a day on average (est. 2015). Across its six station buildings, it possesses three storeys above ground and five below.

The station is a cultural landmark, transportation hub, and commercial centre for the capital city Kien-k'ang. Much of this prosperity sprang up around the station due to its passenger traffic.

History

19th century

Tjo-ts′jakw-men was originally the eastern terminus of the Kien-k'ang to P′a′ Line that became operational in 1857. It was named for the Tjo-ts′jakw-men, the city's main southern gate, roughly 500 meters to its south. The line ended there as it was an important marketplace and entrepot for the entire southern interior of Themiclesia. The station's several tracks ran roughly in the east-west direction. To the east was the Kien-k'ang Marshalling Yard, which was established in 1873 when the station's internal yard proved insufficient and expanded in 1905 to extend some 800 metres northeast from the eastern edge of the station. The yard was placed there as it was near one of the busiest docks of the Kronh Canal, through which most of the city's freight and merchandise moved before the advent of motor vehicles. South of the yard and east of the passenger platforms was a roundhouse completed in 1890.  

The first major expansion of the station occurred in the mid-1880s when the Kien-k′ang to P′a′ Line was connected to the Inland Line, which ran across the city's eastern fringes, several kilometers away. As there was insufficient space east of the yard to build the connecting line, it was built on the west and connected to the northern sidings of the station, which meant the main lines were now opposite the station. This introduced a great deal of inconvenience when passengers had to cross the station at track level.

20th century

Originally, both passengers and freight entered the station through a small building on the south and flatter side of the station. The north side of the station yard was originally higher than the south and had to be excavated slightly to provide a level yard. However, as passenger volume outgrew the small building, a new and larger passenger terminal was erected in 1902 on the station's north and higher side, providing a view of the whole station and yard through its enormous glass windows. The original building was then dedicated to freight traffic, only burning down in 1940, due to the Pan-Septentrion War.

The new building also provided transit to the Metro, which now included the Red Line, connecting the city's prosperous southern suburbs to the station. Rather than expanding the station northwards, which would eat into the road immediately before it, or shifting the tracks southwards, the NRC elected to build over the existing platforms, which were several meters beneath ground level already. The new structure included a mezzanine level above the platforms and a grand concourse above that level. Reinforced steel beams were imported to span almost the entire width of the concourse. This technique prevented the concourse from overloading its foundations, which were fortified beforehand. While the resulting superstructure enjoyed much sunlight from glass roof and windows, it also prevented the lower levels from receiving it. As early as 1920, the lack of both natural and artificial light has inspired Gothic novels set in the station.

If in 1915 Kien-k'ang was a predominantly pedestrian city, then in 1930 it possessed the most vehicles of any city in Themiclesia. That the railway crossed the entire southern limit of the city created a great disruption for vehicular traffic crossing it. Moreover, decades of infrastructure expansions along that corridor made it unfeasible to open level crossings more than a mile in either direction of the railway, centred on the station. Pedestrians, however, could cross to the south side via a breezeway built into the station. In 1932, the city government ordered the construction of two vehicular overpasses to cross the station's 300-meter depth. Engineers responded to this challenge by placing pillars in a slightly oblique direction, so the supports would not infringe the tracks' loading gauge. Seeing overwhelmingly positive reception, six more overpasses were erected in like manner, connecting roads that were severed by the railway decades ago.

In 1951, the city decided to roof the track layer, so that traffic could pass unimpeded in all directions. During the Pan-Septentrion War, the city asked the central government to allocate resources for this project, but funding was not forthcoming until 1949. The NRC simply extended the mezzanine level across the frontage of the station to cover its flanks. Due to lack of iron, engineers used brick vaults to support the new ground above the tracks, with each span corresponding to one or two tracks. Lighting in the track layer considerably worsened, as the covering blocked off whatever little light it received from the south side. Columbian traveller A. S. Sandman called it, "one of the eeriest places in the world".

Expansion

During the 50s, Kien-k'ang Metro again expanded, utilizing tunnel-boring machines (TBM), reducing disturbance to traffic and structures on the surface. In 1947, another two lines entered construction, today known as the Orange and Green Lines; they ran perpendicular to the existing tracks, thus needing to be situated on a deeper level to avoid current tracks. The depth of the new tunnels meant the tracks above were not adversely affected; however, giving them access to the interior of the station posed a new challenge. After survey, the NRC turned the space above the Orange and Green Lines into a new sub-level providing easy transfers between the two lines, which are only 200 meters apart under the station. The level connected to the mezzanine via escelators that bore through the track layer without landing, taking advantage of an opening over which no tracks ran. Amidst public suspicion, the sub-level was completed in 1955, billed the "Civil Engineering Feat of the Decade".

In the 1960s, similar challenges confronted the station. In total, four new services made the Tjo-ts′jawk-men Station its home between 1963 and 1970. The NRC reprised its previous solution, creating a "sub-sub-mezzanine" accessed from the sub-mezzanine level. This made it possible to add entrances from street level, without passing through the interior of the station, which increasingly congested to commercial leasing . At the same time, the station experimented with underground shopping malls to lure shoppers away from the areas most frequented by travellers. In 1962, 65, 67, and 69, subsequent underground malls with exits leading directly to street level were added. After 1969, the basic structure of the Tjo-ts′iawk-men Station has not changed at scale.

Structure

Above ground

The main station building houses a 800-meter long, 20-meter wide concourse spanned by a glass roof suspended 15 meters above floor level, roughly in the east-west direction. The main entrance is situated on the north side, roughly at its centre. Behind the concourse and to the left and right of the main entrance are buildings that flank the concourse, divided into three stories; the two higher stories house the NRC's headquarters, while the first, which opens into the concourse, is occupied by restaurants, bookstalls, and other retailers. At the centre of the concourse, there are stairwells and ramps that provide access to the mezzanine below.

Mezzanine

The mezzanine level's ceiling is above current ground level, and its floor below. The open area of the level is not as long as the concourse, but it extends further south. Beyond its two sides on the east and west, there is parking space. The northern half of the mazzanine houses the ticketing windows of all services that share the station. The southern half of the level houses bus stops and taxicab queues.

Ground level

Though called the "ground level", it is under the Mezzanine, which is already partly underground when viewed from the north. There are six island platforms and one side platform, for a total of 13 tracks, accessed by escelators from the mezzanine level. South of these platforms, there are 32 tracks that compose of the switching yard, where trains are assembled, disassembled, and inspected; further south, two island platforms and one side platform allow freight loading and unloading. Cargo lifts provide access to these platforms, in addition to personnel lifts.

• Platform 1:
  • Not usually in use; formerly used for limited expresses via the Trans-Hemithean Railway
• Platform 2
  • North side: ordinary trains westbound (north) via TML & CML
  • South side: ordinary trains westbound (south) via TML & CML
• Platform 3
  • North side: express trains westbound (north) via TML & CML
  • South side: express trains westbound (south) via TML & CML
• Platform 4
  • North side: ordinary trains eastbound (north) via TML & IML
  • South side: express express trains eastbound (north) via TML & IML
• Platform 5
  • North side: express trains eastbound (north) via TML & IML
  • South side: ordinary trains eastbound (north) via TML & IML
• Platform 6
  • North side: trains bound for reversal
  • South side: trains bound for reversal, connection to subway
• Platform 7
  • North side: employee, postal, military, and charter trains
  • South side: employee, postal, military, and charter trains

To the north of the NRC tracks and directly beneath the road above, Underground Mall №1 is situated on this level. This mall is most noted for its selection of restaurants providing casual dining. Opposite the freight station, Underground Mall №2 is found, parallel to №1. As the south side of the station has been rejuvenated from a largely industrial area into one of leisure and fashion, №2 hosts a variety of fashion apparel stores.

B1

Kien-k'ang Metro's Blue and Red Lines are found on this level.

B2

Kien-k'ang Metro's Orange Line, Green Line, and the Operational Control Centre are fond on this level.

Lower Mezzanine

This level offers access to the THSR, Lines 1 and 5 of the IRRR, and the Airport Metro.

B3

This level is shared by the Themiclesian High Speed Rail, Lines 1 and 5 of the Inner Region Regional Railway, and the Airport Metro. Technically, Line 5 of the IRRR is around ten meters deeper than the three others, but they are accessed from the same lower mezzanine level.

Closed areas

• The TTM Station has long been criticized for its confusing layout and repressive atmosphere. Much of this is attributable to the desity of pillars and low ceilings, which is a product of digging successively deeper levels under existing structures.
• The Station has long been suspected to harbour criminals hiding in secret rooms or abandoned passageways not regularly patrolled. The most popular urban legends relay that the Triads regularly hold meetings in the old infirmary dating to before the construction of the current station building in 1915. This has been shown to be false, as the place that the old infirmary occupied is now part of the Underground Mall. While a number of similar locales do exist, staying at length in one of these places could be hazardous to human health, since there is no ventilation to keep noxious gasses from accumulating in these areas. There are also no operational toilets in their vicinity (having been sealed off to prevent leakage).
  • One such area is the ramp leading from the façade of the Station to the Metro Blue Line; that ramp was closed in the 1960s and superceded by escelators and stairs going through the Underground Mall.
  • Another area is the small landing of escelators that went through the ground level and then u-turned to lead further down to B1. This area was closed off after two tracks were redirected, allowing a new escelator to connect to its destination uninterrupted. While significant quantites of opium and smoking pipes were found there in 2001, the Station Master has told the public that there is no evidence the opium was ever intended for anything but medical use and was "probably left there by a forgetful doctor in the 1950s".
  • Amateur explorers' scans of the Station's geography reveals a structure far more complex than official plans reveal, to which the Station has stated that, for safety reasons, not all places in the Station can be made available or even konwn to the public; this statement, made in 1970, has been cited as evidence for extra-terrestrial activities by some individuals.

2003 attacks

The TTM Station was the site of an violent incident between the Grjek-N-lu′ Cult and the Kien-k'ang Metropolitan Police, possibly the largest-scale terrorist attack in Septentrion up to that point. The cult attempted to barricade themselves in the building, haveing disseminated sarin gas in several other stations on the Kien-k'ang Metro. The cultists, who number over a thousand, arrived with firearms and other weapons close to 9:00 AM on December 30th, 2003, and began to open fire on the public, while closing off all entrances of the station. There are approximately 132 civilian casalties, and the police were notified promptly but not enough to prevent the cultists from exploding the main doorways, barring police entry. It is believed that the cult thought the Third World War was approaching, and the only place safe from its nuclear arsenals was the TTM Station. This is probably an extension of the popular saying that the Station was so deep that not even radiation could penetrate it. As a result, the Traverse Main Line was sealed off, and the Kien-k'ang Metro was suspended, as the Operational Control Centre was seized.

After the cultists secured the station, the police began to probe other access points, which included all the railway tunnels that led to the station in all directions; however, the cultists had anticipated this tactic and proceeded to drive locomotives into the tunnels to ward off police approaching from them. The police cut power, but there was an extensive source of backup electricity available in the station, as required by law. Since the station had more than 200 access points, a number of them were either unknown to the cultists or left unguarded. The police strove for entry in these points, but in every case they were expelled by cultist fire. Security forces additionally faced the challenge of distinguishing, in the complete darkness, between civilians trapped in the station and cultists, since the latter wore no distinctive clothing. The situation tended towards a stalemate by the middle of January 2014. The Themiclesian government appealed for assistance from foreign states, and many governments were forthcoming to send specialist teams.

The option of destroying the station was quickly dismissed due to the presence of large numbers of civilians trapped in the station, who were effectively hostages. The cultists did not attempt to establish communication with the outside world. In February, over 4,000 policemen were assembled in the capital city for a major offensive from all known points of entry. The idea behind this strategy is that the rebels had access to a working network of CCTV, which revealed the direction of the police's advance, allowing it to concentrate defences in that area; attacking in every direction at once would, theoretically, stretch the cult's manpower so thin that breaching it should be easy. Yet when the attack began, the police faced severe resistance in every front, sometimes receiving casualties from shots fired from rooms leading off a corridor. Many of these rooms did not appear on the building's floorplan, and additional hallways, alcoves, and hidden pipework entirely wide enough to allow humans to pass were discovered frequently.

Nevertheless, the police managed to make steady advances, if only room-by-room. By the beginning of March, they managed to compress the cult-held areas to a limited number of platforms and hallways, as well as the NRC level. Making headway, the remaining cultists were coralled into the NRC level, which was particularly poorly lit; even with floodlights brought in, pillars were staggered in such a way that blocked off all light in any direction. The police barricaded themselves with the platforms that laid before the switching yard. A fierce shoot-out ensued between the cultists and policemen for the next five days, claiming the lives of over 100 cultists and 89 policemen. Just as the shoot-out seemed to be over, the cultists broke for the secret stairwell that led to the level below, allowing some of them to attack the police's rear on the NRC level. Another 1,000 policemen from nearly regions were summoned to reinforce the police currently trapped inside; the new arrivals approached through emergency tunnels that connected the tracks between levels, which surprised the cultists. Eventually, in what could be described as a six-way shoot-out, the cultists surrendered. Yet their leader and dozens of his favourites escaped through the sewerage, to the exasperation of the nation's government.

The TTM Station was restored to normal operation at the beginning of April. Yet when asked what has the Station done to prevent a similar event in the future, its director replied that it was an "unfortunate event that could not be anticipated, and there is no reason to believe that it would ever happen again." The government stationed a few more policemen in the station in the aftermath of the incident.

See also

• Themiclesia