Jiangsu High-speed Train’s Future “Transfer King”, the Yancheng-Wuxi Railway, Starts Construction, Building a 2-Hour Transportation Circle
On December 27th, the construction of the Yantai-Taizhou-Wuxi-Yixing Railway (hereinafter referred to as the Yantai Railway), known as the “central axis” of the Yangtze River Delta, was started. This high-speed railway runs north and south through Jiangsu, linking Qingdao-Yantai Railway and Xuzhou-Huai’an-Yiyang Railway in the north, connecting the North Jiangpu High-speed Railway, the Shanghai-Nanjing High-speed Railway and Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway in the middle, and connecting to the Nanjing-Hangzhou High-speed Railway in the south. It will be a veritable “king of transfers” and will establish a “2-hour fast traffic circle” between cities in northern, central and southern Jiangsu, forming a new fast passenger transport route through southeast Shandong, Jiangsu and the coast of Zhejiang.
The Yantai Railway generally runs north to south, starting from Yancheng City in the north, passing through Taizhou City in the middle, crossing the Yangtze River in the form of a tunnel, and then running through Jiangyin, Hui Shan in Wuxi City, and Changzhou City to Yixing. The main line length of the Yantai High Speed Railway is about 311 kilometers, with a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour for some sections and a construction period of about five and a half years.
According to Duan Jichao, the director of Operation Management Department of Jiangsu Railway Group, the Yantai Railway will be the “king of transfers” for Jiangsu high-speed rail in the future. The stations along the line will be interconnected or interchanged with Xucheng-Huai’an-Yancheng Railway at Yancheng Station, North River Yangtze at Taizhou South Station, Shanghai-Nanjing Yangtze at Jiangyin Station, Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity at Hui Shan Station and NingHang high speed railway at Yixing Station.
As a backbone line of Jiangsu’s “six vertical and six horizontal” high-speed rail network and an important north-south link in China’s “eight vertical and eight horizontal” high-speed rail network, the Yantai Railway is of great significance for reinforcing China’s coastal high-speed rail passage, promoting integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region, and facilitating cross-river development in northern and southern Jiangsu.
It is reported that the bridge and tunnel ratio of the Yantai Railway reaches 98.47%. There are 314 bridges and tunnels such as continuous beams, rigid frames and T-shaped bridges that need to be built. The total construction period is 5.5 years. Among them, the 8130-meter Yan’yi Railway Tunnel that runs through the entire line is a key project for ensuring the passage function. It connects Jiangyin City and Jingjiang City at both ends, is located about 3.8 kilometers downstream of the Jiangyin Bridge, and uses shield tunneling method to cross the Yangtze River. It is a single-tube double-track tunnel with a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour.
According to Huang Qilei, general manager of Intercity Railway Company of Jiangsu Railway Group, this tunnel project is large in scale with long tunneling distance. It has high requirements for protecting surrounding buildings and faces high construction risks through water-rich sand layers and hazardous gases. The construction difficulty in areas with uneven soil rock formations is relatively large. The entire project follows procedures such as construction preparation, open excavation section construction, shield machine manufacturing, shield machine debugging under well conditions, shield tunneling launching, tunneling completion and dismantling extraction as well as internal structural construction. The construction period is about 50 months with an investment of about 4.4 billion yuan in tunnel engineering.
