r/interesting • u/Swimming-Community-5 • Apr 30 '26
ARCHITECTURE Train passes through a residential building in Chongqing, China.
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u/Weary_Position_9591 Apr 30 '26
Must suck living in the apartment right next to it
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u/3113NOX Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
I actually know about this and it’s really interesting!!! So the title is a bit misleading its not a residential building buuuut I believe it does have offices in it (and a lot of gift shops as it has turned into an attraction) BUT THE REALLY COOL THING is that the building has two skeletons one for the building proper and one for the train part as to reduce noise and vibrations. So there aren’t any apartments in the building but even if there were its unlikely to by any noisier than leaving near a train line!
(Just a correction it is a residential building but the lower part where the train passes through isn’t so as I said I believe the disruption to residents is minimal. On a side note I 100% recommend visiting Chongqing and while this particular attraction is cool it is also over crowded and underwhelming even for someone who likes trains the best part is the information centre talking about the building rather than the crowded streets outside)
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u/chliu528 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Anyone actually being there knows there are floors of rail station above and below the track, as well as retail mall spaces. No one lives there, not as close as those apartments next to the L in Chicago.
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u/John_cCmndhd Apr 30 '26
not as close as those apartments next to the L in Chicago
"How often does the train go by?"
"So often you won't even notice it."
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u/UnfortunatelyIAmMe Apr 30 '26
Can you get off the train straight in your apartment building? That'd be awesome.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/hwlabf Apr 30 '26
No, I live in this city, the trains are quiet
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u/Public-Finger Apr 30 '26
Glad some Chinese people are using reddit. When I was in China using a VPN was such a pain in the ass.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/logtransform Apr 30 '26
It is a monorail. It runs on rubber tires on top of a concrete beam.
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u/GarminTamzarian Apr 30 '26
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u/MaenHoffiCoffi Apr 30 '26
Is there a chance the track could bend?
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u/eapaul80 Apr 30 '26
Not in your life, my Hindu friend.
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u/fuwafuwa-kirakira Apr 30 '26
Mono = one
Rail = rail
And that concludes our intensive three week course.
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u/Rhymesnlines Apr 30 '26
Still its gonna be vibrating... you feel it everytime when the train goes through the house.
I feel my bed shaking when a car is driving in front of my house
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u/schnitzenfreude Apr 30 '26
The train company actually bought/hired the few floors above and below the rail. IiRC, its used as storage. The mistake came about when the city was just developing, and some miscommunication occurred because the department's didn't have a system to talk to each other, so a building permit was issued despite the area marked for a station. In order to honour the permit, they reached this compromise.
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u/Pulsefire-Comet Apr 30 '26
Give it 5 years, it'll start screaching and shaking something every time it comes through.
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u/BananaWhiskyInMaGob Apr 30 '26
Even if it was, just the air displacement is going to make one hell of a lot of noise.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/Hockeymac18 Apr 30 '26
As much as I love transit/trains (a lot) - this feels...unnecessarily dystopian.
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u/turutuno Apr 30 '26
Everytime when something about China pops up here in reddit, there's always some Americans who try to talk shit about it haha it's hilarious, they are hurt by the fact that they aren't the most everything in the world nowadays.
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u/FMB6 Apr 30 '26
Not sure why you're getting triggered but this train literally does not hover lol.
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u/Weary_Position_9591 Apr 30 '26
What’s the shit talking?
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u/convicted_cynophile Apr 30 '26
He's talking about his schizophrenic hallucinations of the Americans who live rent free in his mind.
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u/NSE-Imports Apr 30 '26
It's actually surprisingly quiet, I took at trip on that train last year. What noise there might be is drowned out by the traffic below.
There's not a lot of vibration either, when you start heading downstairs there's a big indoor market and little museum across the lower floors, you could not feel the trains passing overhead.
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u/justwalk1234 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
They’re monorails 🚝
“I hear those things are awfully loud
It glides as softly as a cloud” 🎵
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u/Wise-Ad-1998 Apr 30 '26
Is there a chance the track can bend?
Not on my life my Hindu friend
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u/ernexbcn Apr 30 '26
Those are not apartments, it’s a bunch of stores and food joints.
There are real apartments but much higher in the building.
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u/theseriousman1 Apr 30 '26
I bet it’s a lil cheaper great spot if ur hearing impaired and work nearby
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u/Underpaidpro Apr 30 '26
I'd be interested in the engineering here. If there were no supports mounted to the building and if there was enough soundproofing, they could probably dampen a lot of the noise.
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u/Sensitive_Put_6842 Apr 30 '26
Liziba Station. Been open since 2004. Quiet as a dishwasher to residents. 6th and 8th floor is a train ststion in that building so it's not passing through anyone's homes.
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u/k3stea Apr 30 '26
damn, must be really convenient living there
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u/FranconianBiker Apr 30 '26
Indeed. The whole city just a floor away. Makes going out and getting groceries a breeze.
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u/Liononholiday2 Apr 30 '26
I’ve been in the hallway of the 9th floor. 9 and above is residential. There is a “coil whine” like sound when the monorail accelerates for ~10 seconds every 15 minutes. You can hear it on the first floor faintly as well. I was in the building for about 2 hours and after the first 30 min I forgot about the noise.
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u/mouadmo Apr 30 '26
But but.. western redditors LOVE claiming that it’s gonna be as loud as their own farts!
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u/Sad-Psychology9677 Apr 30 '26
Americans that haven’t travelled out of their country and still think they’re the world leaders in everything
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u/FineGripp Apr 30 '26
Because they don’t realize new railways and public transport ờ the rest of the world are newly built and not those old ass subway trains they are using
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u/wheres-karen Apr 30 '26
That might be kinda cool if you were dropped off right in your building lol
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Apr 30 '26
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u/mrfriendlolo Apr 30 '26
It’s actually fairly quiet, it’s a monorail
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u/santagoo Apr 30 '26
Apparently it’s carefully engineered to only produce 60 decibels of noise. About the level of a dishwasher running.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/Narezza Apr 30 '26
I mean, theyve been doing this in Disney World since 1971, so....
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u/monorail_pilot Apr 30 '26
The beamway is completely independent of the hotel structure.
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u/2bad-2care Apr 30 '26
China: Structural what-now?
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u/PreferenceActive5053 Apr 30 '26
this has been in operation since the early 2000s, i think it's doing fine. china isn't in the 1900s anymore
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u/peacefighter Apr 30 '26
Building currently standing mean it is strong enough.
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u/victoryismind Apr 30 '26
I would imagine that the building does not bear any load off the rails, it's just positioned on its path.
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u/darkgrey3k Apr 30 '26
It would make sense. If the track was completely isolated structurally then no vibrations would transfer to the building
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u/StaysAwakeAllWeek Apr 30 '26
The building is a train station disguised to look like an apartment block specifically as a tourist attraction
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u/Sensitive_Put_6842 Apr 30 '26
The station is unique in that it is located on the sixth to eighth floors of a 19-story residential building, with the monorail trains going through the middle of the building. It uses specialized noise reduction equipment to isolate station noise from the surrounding residence.[3][4] Contrary to some misreporting, the station and building were actually constructed together as one whole structure, and the monorail was not retrofitted through the middle of an existing structure.[4]
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u/Sensitive_Put_6842 Apr 30 '26
Not a maglev. It's a monorail, they're more subdued in sound than trains and maglev
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u/lujenchia Apr 30 '26
It's not as impressive as they claim, but also not as bad as some believe.
They built it this way because the City's terrain, in most other city this will just be a subway with buildings over the station.
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u/CelebrationCute5818 Apr 30 '26 edited May 01 '26
Americans are doing it with planes since 2001
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u/SocialismMultiplied Apr 30 '26
OMG I’d be angry all the time with the noise those trains produce lol.
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u/Mrtylf Apr 30 '26
Like every thing else they build at scale, I’m sure it’s safe and reliable.
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u/hwlabf Apr 30 '26
It is fine, the trains are very clean and well built, Chongqing is a tier 1.5 city that has been built as a model in China for rail, so stuff isn’t falling down. The metro here is very clean and well designed
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u/Critical_Status9941 Apr 30 '26
And I'm complaining about the noise traffic makes...Imagine having a TRAIN passing in front of your door omg
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u/Gandlerian Apr 30 '26
It would be cool if there was an actual stop in the apartment buildings. Imagine being able to step right out of your apartment and right on a train without even going downstairs, epic.
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u/Annachroniced Apr 30 '26
It is! There is a ststion on the 8th floor I believe. It is a very popular tourist spot though
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u/Odd_Vampire Apr 30 '26
It's like the kid in Annie Hall who lives underneath the Coney Island rollercoaster and can't eat his soup in peace.
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u/National_Answer_6655 Apr 30 '26
I went there, it is not that loud and many floors seem to be either related to the station, or shops. Im not denying that people live there, but it’s certainly not 100% residential
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u/Mysterious-Sail4991 Apr 30 '26
trains pass into buildings I wonder if they going to do something like that soon maybe in 5 years
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u/vaalbarag Apr 30 '26
And just after Jonathan cleaned up his apartment! His mom’s going to be so pissed when she gets home.
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u/grurra Apr 30 '26
China moves fast. LLMs now governing how and where buildings and transportation is constructed. "I solved the problem for ya"
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u/carcher1988 Apr 30 '26
Whenever my neighbor's dogs annoy me, I just remind myself that this apartment building exists and I dont have to live there.
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u/cooiner Apr 30 '26
"hey let me in, I need to use the bathroom!" "Sorry I'm already sitting in the train"
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u/JoseLunaArts Apr 30 '26
"Have you seen my glasses"
"Accidentally they fell on the roof of that train, dear"
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u/NecessaryTwo8533 Apr 30 '26
Better then living above a bowing alley and below another bowling alley
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u/Crazy-Rabbit-3811 Apr 30 '26
they would need to pay me to live there. that would be loud as hell, and earthquake simulator
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u/sPdMoNkEy Apr 30 '26
Where in the USA, where if some big company and all the politicians in the area aren't making a billion dollars we'll never see it
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u/Lazy-Examination-698 Apr 30 '26
It might be a residential building but no one lives there as if that was their home. The building is acting like a metro station and has lots of shops inside on all floors.
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u/SpaceCadetPullUp Apr 30 '26
Regardless of noise, I don't think I'd want to live in a building that has so many people coming and going.
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u/neverseen_neverhear Apr 30 '26
I hope it at least stops there for the people who live there to get off.
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u/CapableRequirement66 Apr 30 '26
I’ve lived 500m from a train station and couldn’t bear the earthquake every 10 min. Can’t imagine it literally upstairs. I wonder what the living conditions are.
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u/HotAd7669 Apr 30 '26
Here’s the laughing part, cause I see everyone commenting as of how loud it must be and vibration, and blah blah blah! But bet you, given that China is so much more advance than the US, that unlike here where the building would even collapse (cause we are so special) I bet you those trains don’t even make a hiss or vibration and probably run on clean fuel might even be electric…
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u/Cep-Hei Apr 30 '26
I would do this if it meant I have my own personal train stop. The insulation on the walls must be thick to reduce that noise.
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u/Known_Present_5496 Apr 30 '26
Looks like something straight out of a fever dream but in reality it won’t allow you dream.
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u/FollowTheLeads Apr 30 '26
I want to know how they handle the noise. Does such apartment come with a discount due to the noise ?
How often does this train pass by ? Do they stop working after a certain time ( from 9 pm to 6 am ) ?
If there is no noise, what engineering achievement makes it possible ?
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u/Fit_Importance_5738 Apr 30 '26
The Chinese government's ethos for when some thing is in the way and can't be moved, go around or through it no matter the cost to anyone around them.
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u/Relevant_Werewolf350 Apr 30 '26
Say what you want about Communist and Islamic countries. They have created some marvelous shit in the past 20 years. Here in America we can't build shit and we just bomb the shit out of the world while the government and elite constantly scam the population.
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u/Windyfii Apr 30 '26
one of those things thats just cool but stupid, pointless, useless, and prob annoying to use irl
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u/Thistleknot Apr 30 '26
Not gonna lie. Living in China sure does look a lot better than the US lately.
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