The article presents main design and structure principles of pumping stations. It specifies basic requirements for the favorable hydraulic operation conditions of the pumping units. The article also describes the designing cases, when computational modeling is necessary to analyse activity of pumping station and provide its reliable operation. A specific example of the large pumping station with submersible pumps describes the process of computational modeling of its operation. As the object of simulation was selected the underground pumping station with a diameter of 26 m and a depth of 13 m, divided into two independent branches, equipped with 8 submersible pumps. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effectiveness of the design solution by CFD methods, to analyze the design of the inlet chamber, to identify possible difficulties with the operation of the facility. In details are described the structure of the considered pumping station and applied computational models of physical processes. The article gives the detailed formulation of the task of simulation and the methods of its solving and presents the initial and boundary conditions. It describes the basic operation modes of the pumping station. The obtained results were presented as the flow patterns for each operation mode with detailed explanations. Data obtained as a result of CFD, prove the correctness of the general design solutions of the project. The submersible pump operation at the minimum water level was verified, was confirmed a lack of vortex formation as well as were proposed measures to improve the operating conditions of the facility. In the inlet chamber there are shown the stagnant zones, requiring separate schedule of cleaning. The measure against floating debris and foam was proposed. It justifies the use of computational modeling (CFD) for the verifying and adjusting of the projects of large pumping stations as a much more precise tool that takes into account all the features of the object compared to the empirical formulas.