With the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics fast approaching, the world’s first self-driving high-speed train is already in action, transporting athletes and officials between the two main cities hosting the games on the historic Beijing-Zhangjiakou intercity railway.
The fact that this bullet train can drive itself is remarkable enough. But partway through the 56-minute ride, it passes through another engineering marvel: the Badaling Great Wall Station.
Completed in 2019, the station is a stone’s throw away from the entrance to Badaling, the most popular section of the centuries-old wall. To protect the iconic monument from structural damage, the railway line and its accompanying station were built deep underground.