A bridge train installed the first girder on July 26 on the No 2 bid at the Wuhan-Yichang section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-speed Railway, marking a new milestone in building the HSR, which is to link a number of city clusters along the Yangtze River and directly benefits some 600 million people.
The 32.6-meter-long girder, weighing 900 tons, was installed on the bridge pier of the Xiaotian Super Bridge, which is the longest railway bridge for the HSR’s Wuhan-Yichang section, laying a solid foundation for the scheduled operation of the HSR.
The Wuhan-Yichang section, which starts at Hankou Station and runs westward through Hanchuan, Tiamen, Zhongxiang before ending at Yichang, is 315.571 kilometers long. Allowing trains to run at 350 km an hour, it will have eight stations — Hankou, Hanchuan East, Tiamen North, Jingshan South, Zhongxiang South, Jingmen West, Dangyang West and Yichang North. On the line, Xiaotian Super Bridge will extend for 60 km, traversing Minle Canal, Hanmei and Donghe rivers, and is a key undertaking for the No 2 Bid.
The project, undertaken by theEighth Engineering Co., Ltd of China Railway No.4 Engineering Group Co., Ltd., covers track laying for 553.797 km on the main line, track laying for 66.074 km at railway stations, erecting 610 box beams, laying 218 sets of switches and crossings, and building ballast beds of 210,000 cubic meters.
Through detailed arrangement and construction plans, builders from CREC4 Eighth Engineering completed the task 37 days ahead of schedule.
It has been learned that the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu HSR will bring many cities along China’s longest river into an HSR era. Upon operation, it can allow travelers from Wuhan to reach Shanghai or Chongqing within three hours, fully boosting the transport of passengers and cargo along the line.