With a 500-meter-long steel rail being safely laid on the ballasted tracks on March 27, builders from China Railway No.4 Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CREC4) have started track laying for the Hanzhong-Bazhong-Nanchong High-speed Railway, the first HSR solely funded by Sichuan Province in Southwest China.
Constructors from CREC4 Eighth Engineering Co., Ltd are undertaking track laying for the Nanchong-Bazhong section of the entire 148.04-kilometer-long HSR line.
The HSR, which started its official construction on December 25, 2019, is expected to be put into operation prior to October 1, 2024, with six stations and a designed speed of 250 kilometers for the trains. The line can link Hanzhong City in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province with Bazhong and Nanchong cities in Sichuan.
In their construction work this time, the CREC4 constructors used the domestically advanced CPG500-type seamless long-rail track-laying unit and the integrated long-rail tractor for laying ballasted and ballastless tracks, allowing them to lay ballasted tracks for 1.5 to 2 kilometers per day and ballastless tracks for 4.5 to 6 kilometers each day.
It has been learned that upon operation, the running time from Bazhong to Nanchong will be slashed to 35 minutes while the shortest running time from Bazhong to Chengdu will be about 145 minutes. Meanwhile, the shortest running time from Bazhong to Chongqing will be some 105 minutes. It will be of vital significance in promoting the integration of northeastern Sichuan into the national HSR network, further speeding up the region’s economic and social development and improving the intercity railway network in the Chengdu-Chongqing region.