Beijing's southern railway station will close in mid-May when work begins to turn it into a terminus serving high-speed trains.

All the trains to and from the Beijing South Railway Station will be allocated to three other stations in the city from May 8, officials from the Beijing Railway Bureau told the Beijing News on Thursday.

The city will invest 6.3 billion yuan (US$787.5 million) in the reconstruction project that is due to be completed in 2007.

The station will cover an area of 26,000 square meters, the second largest in Beijing after the Beijing West Railway Station, when the project concludes in 2007.

It will have 13 platforms and 24 rails, and function as the starting station of the inner-city line between Beijing and Tianjin and the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway.

The new station will be 500 meters from its original location.

The Beijing South Railway Station was built in 1958. It currently runs mainly slow trains on the Beijing-Guangdong line.

(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2006)