High-speed rail to link cities in Northwest, Central China
As part of the nation's push to expand its high-speed rail network, a key railway project has recently begun laying tracks, in a bid to slash travel time between cities in Northwest China and Central China.
Chinese railway builders began laying tracks on Sept 8 on the Xi'an-Shiyan HSR, a 255.7-kilometer rail allowing trains to run 350 km per hour between five stations — Xi'an East, Lantian, Shangluo West, Shanyang and Manchuan Pass.
While the new line links Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province in Northwest China, and Shiyan, a prefecture-level city in Central China's Hubei province, it also connects Wuhan-Shiyan HSR, reducing travel time between Xi'an and Wuhan — provincial capital of Hubei — from five hours to two and a half hours.
China National Railway Group, the nation's railway operator, said currently, the country's high-speed rail network spans about 48,000 km, accounting for 70 percent of the world's total, and linking nearly every Chinese city with a population of over 500,000. To better support Chinese modernization, the HSR network will continue to expand.
Constructors from State builder China Railway No 4 Engineering Group (CREC4), which is helping build the Xi'an-Shiyan HSR, began laying 500-meter-long steel rails on the ballastless track slabs in the section from Xi'an East to Lantian on Sept 8, marking the official start of full track-laying on the whole line.
By crossing the Qinling Mountains, the Xi'an-Shiyan HSR faces complex geological conditions, with bridges and tunnels making up to 95 percent of the route.
CREC4 builders said that a total of 512 km of track will be laid in both directions, with the Shaanxi section covering 337 km and the Hubei section reaching 175 km.
Song Ying, commander of the CREC4's headquarters for the HSR, noted: "We will carry out large-scale track laying construction from September to November, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent joint debugging and testing."
To ensure safe and efficient track-laying, the HSR's owner adhered to a "quality, intelligence, green and people-centered" concept, instructing the construction units to use an advanced intelligent engineering-line scheduling platform to remotely monitor key tasks.
It has been learned that the welding of the 500-meter seamless steel rails for the entire HSR is being undertaken by the Maoling Welding Base of Xi'an Engineering Machinery Section under China Railway Xi'an Bureau Group Co Ltd.
Ren Lixin, director of the Maoling Rail Welding Base, said: "We have actively raised our testing standard and strengthened the structural strength of the rail welding, ensuring that the product's qualification rate reaches 100 percent."
Wang Yi, the on-site construction manager of CREC4, stressed: "In order to efficiently promote the track laying operation, we will use the WZ500 track-laying facilities and our independently designed and developed dual-purpose tractor, ensuring a maximum daily track-laying mileage of 12 kilometers in a bid to complete the entire track-laying on time."
Once operational, the Xi'an-Shiyan HSR will reduce travel time between the two cities to under one hour. Besides further improving the national high-speed rail network, it will also link Shaanxi with the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta regions, driving socioeconomic development along the route.
