Example sentences
huǒ火chē车zhàn站zài在nǎ哪ér儿？
Where is the train station?
wǒ我sòng送nǐ你qù去huǒ火chē车zhàn站。
I'll take you to the train station.
About this word
火 is "fire", 车 is "vehicle" and 站 is "station", so 火车站 is literally "fire vehicle station", the place where the fire-powered carriage stops. 火车, the train, was named after its steam engine, and the name stayed long after trains stopped burning coal. 站 began as the verb "to stand" and turned into a place where you stand and wait, which is why it names stops along a line: 汽车站, 地铁站, 公交站. Places that are open ground use 场 instead, as in 机场 and 操场. On its own, 车站 usually means a bus stop.
The story behind the character
火
A few flames shooting upward. Pure picture. Xu Shen didn't sugarcoat it: 火, 毁也: "fire, that which destroys."
车
The earliest 车 is a war chariot: two wheels, a body in the middle, a shaft out front. The traditional 車 still shows the outline; the simplified 车 lost the wheels. Xu Shen called it "the general name for cart and wheel."
站
站 is 立 (to stand) plus 占, which gives the sound. It is a late character, so Xu Shen's dictionary never saw it. At first it meant standing on your feet, plain and physical. Then the standing places took the name: the spot where you wait for a horse or a bus. 火车站 is a fire-cart standing place, which is to say a train station.