Builders from China Railway No.4 Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CREC4) have begun to dig two tunnels for a major high-speed railway in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Constructors from CREC4 Fifth Engineering Co Ltd entered the Xincun (New Village) Tunnel and the Gulou (Ancient Tower) Tunnel on January 3 to start their digging work, launching comprehensive engineering for Yulin-Cenxi Railway, which runs between prefecture-level Yulin City and Cenxi County under prefecture-level Wuzhou City in Guangxi.
The Gulou Tunnel, with a total length of 1,168.65 meters, has a minimum burial depth of about 12 meters and a maximum burial depth of about 75.2 meters for its tunnel body. Meanwhile, the Xincun Tunnel, which is 1,074.66 meters long, has a maximum burial depth of about 66.6 meters and a minimum burial depth of 16.1 meters for its tunnel body.
It is learned that the surrounding rocks of the two tunnels are mainly strongly-weathered sandstone, while the surrounding rocks of some shallow-buried sections is completely-weathered sandstone, with broken rock mass.
The Yulin-Cenxi Railway is part of the Nanning-Shenzhen High-speed Railway. It is a key project invested and constructed by Guangxi in a bid to to comprehensively integrate itself into the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Cenxi sits at the border with Guangdong Province.
With a total length of some 111 kilometers and a designed speed of 350 km per hour, the Yuxi-Cenxi Railway has three stations — Yulin North Station, Rongxian South Station and Cenxi East Station. Starting its construction on a trial basis on December 26, 2020, Yuxi-Cenxi Railway officially kicked off its construction on September 30, 2022.
Upon completion, the Yulin-Cenxi Railway will help boost the joint development of the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.