High-speed railway bridge girders completed, preparing for track-laying

By Chen Si, Yichang International Communication Studio

Railway builders recently completed building the girders for the elevated bridges on the Yichang section of a new East-West national trunk high-speed rail on April 20. They will move onto building the ballast-less foundation on top of these girders, literally laying the foundation for track-laying.

At 10:58 am, the last 900-tonne box girder was lifted into place at a construction site in Yuxi Town, Dangyang, along the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway. This marked the completion of the girder installation work for the railway’s Yichang section.

This is an important milestone in the railway’s construction, with the next step involving  workers constructing the ballast-less foundation. The traditional elastic combination of ties/sleepers and ballast will be replaced by a rigid construction of concrete and asphalt. This will help it to better support high-speed trains.

The construction of the Wuhan-Yichang section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway began in September 2021 and it is scheduled to open to the public sometime in 2025.

The Wuhan-Yichang section, designed for speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour, will greatly decrease travel times. This will enhance the high-quality development of Hubei province and the Yangtze River Economic Belt.