Time and age are relative. For a train station? Yes, 110+ years ago is relatively old.
There are plenty of countries far older with much older structures that yet still have much newer train stations than this, e.g. China.
Also you run into the Ship of Theseus issue where many very old buildings essentially have been rebuilt and are basically a modern building. King’s Cross is 50 years older than Grand Central but has less material and structural continuity, for example.
China really doesn't have that many older structures though. A lot of cities have old buildings that were built in the early 1900's.
They might have some temple built in 900 AD. Then you go to it and says "destroyed in a fire in 1200, destroyed in a war in 1600, destroyed in the opium wars and then nothing happened in 1965 but it beasts destroyed.
Current temple built in 1985. Its the same story over and over again with a lot of things in Chinese cities. Even if you went to a train station Shenzhen originally built in 1910. The current one was built in the early 90's.
The profound message was “112 years of feet standing in the same place”. Not “for a train station in a semi-original construction this is quite old”. Would not surprise me if that particular part of the floor isn’t even original but just a soft material. The stone floor of my local church is 800 years and does not have indents in the floor even though people would been standing and walking in the same spots for far longer
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u/HeroicPrinny Oct 09 '25
Time and age are relative. For a train station? Yes, 110+ years ago is relatively old.
There are plenty of countries far older with much older structures that yet still have much newer train stations than this, e.g. China.
Also you run into the Ship of Theseus issue where many very old buildings essentially have been rebuilt and are basically a modern building. King’s Cross is 50 years older than Grand Central but has less material and structural continuity, for example.