China opens 1813km heavy-haul railway

China’s 1813.5km Haoji Railway – a north-south heavy-haul coal line – was officially opened on September 28. The electrified line runs from Ordos City in Inner Mongolia south through the provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi to Ji’an. The section between Taoli Temple and Pingtian is double-track, while the rest of the line is single track with provision to lay a second track if necessary. The line has a maximum speed of 120km/h.

Construction started in 2015. The project, which was formerly known as the Menghua Railway, faced some major challenges as the line crosses the both the Yangtze and Yellow rivers twice. It also passes through the Mu Us desert, the Loess Plateau, and three mountain ranges. There are 770 bridges with a total length of 381km and 229 tunnels totalling 468.5km.

Innovation

According to China State Railway Group (CR), “during construction a total of 119 construction methods were innovated, 165 patents were obtained, 60 science and technology awards were won, and 85 scientific research projects were established. The world’s first large-section profiled earth pressure balance shield machine was developed.”

The Haoji Railway also uses the latest technology and has what CR describes as intelligent integrated dispatching, intelligent traction power supply, and infrastructure intelligent operation and maintenance.

A new company model was established for the project. In 2012, led by the former Ministry of Railways and local governments, 16 companies, as project sponsors, set up China’s largest mixed-ownership joint-venture railway company. The number of shareholders has since increased to 21. The Haoji Railway has 21 terminals and has a design capacity of more than 200 million tonnes a year.

Source: railjournal.com