Builders from China Railway No.4 Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CREC4) have successfully erected the first beam for the Dalong (Big Dragon) Cave Bridge on a parallel expressway linking Chongqing Municipality and Hunan Province.
The first T-shaped beam of Dalong Cave Bridge, located on the Banan-Pengshui section of the Chongqing-Hunan Parallel Expressway, was erected on September 15 by builders from CREC4 Sixth Engineering Co., Ltd, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent construction.
With a total length of 280 kilometers, the Chongqing-Hunan Parallel Expressway is composed of three sections —Banan-Pengshui, Pengshui-Youyang and Wulong-Daozhen — and runs through five districts and counties of Banan, Nanchuan, Pengshui, Youyang and Wulong. With an investment of 64.6 billion yuan ($9.64 billion), it started construction in 2020, with a construction schedule of four to six years.
The Dalong Cave Bridge, located in Shuihe Village under Shuijiang Township of Chongqing’s Nanchuan District, is 309 meters long and has a total of 8 spans. The CREC4 project department formulated detailed work safety construction plan, effectively ensuring the safe and orderly construction in erecting the first beam.
It has been learned that 80 percent of the Chongqing-Hunan Parallel Expressway are bridges and tunnels, making it one of the most difficult comprehensive undertakings in the history of Chongqing’s expressway construction.
Upon completion and operation to traffic, the parallel expressway will help effectively alleviate the congestion of the current Chongqing-Hunan Expressway, open up local tourism resources along the route and boost the diversity and mutual exchanges of the local economies.