An all new Fengtai rail station underway in Beijing

Construction work began on Beijing's new Fengtai Railway Station - expected to be one of the largest stations in Asia - after the last scheduled train passed through the old station.

Trains on the Beijing-Guangzhou line, a major route through the capital's Fengtai district, were diverted to create space for construction to get started on Aug 14, according to the Beijing Railway Bureau.

The Fengtai station is being relocated 1.4 kilometers northeast of its original location to an area between the west Third Ring and Fourth Ring roads.

It is expected to be completed by the end of 2020. Once completed, the buildings of the new station will cover 398,000 square meters, which is 78,000 sq m larger than Beijing South Railway Station, currently one of Asia's largest.

The project is aimed at easing pressure on Beijing West Railway Station, which reached its capacity of 180,000 passengers a day in 2016.

The new Fengtai station is designed to have 12 platforms and 22 rail lines, with major high-speed routes, including lines from the capital to Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong, according to the Beijing Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

The new station will also make it more convenient for passengers in southern Beijing to take trains directly from Fengtai to Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou and Wuhan.

Beijing South served about 20,000 passengers per day in its first days of operation, but it reached its maximum capacity of 210,000 passengers during the May Day holiday this year, according to station authorities.

The new Fengtai station will be able to handle 14,000 passengers simultaneously, according to the construction unit of China Railway Construction Engineering Co.

Similar to Beijing South, passengers using the new Fengtai Station will be able to transfer directly to subway lines. Subway Line 10 and Line 16 - which is expected to come into service in 2019 - will connect within the station.

With four floors above ground and three underground, the Fengtai station will be a two-layer structure combining conventional train and bullet train routes, the construction company said.

Built in 1895, the old Fengtai station was the oldest in the capital. In June 2010, the station ceased passenger service, and trains just passed through.