On the morning of September 27, 2021, at the construction site of Xinjiang’s Heruo Railway, as the last pair of long steel rails reached the junction and accurately settled, it was designed by the First Railway Institute and the China Railway 11th Bureau and China Railway 14th Bureau were responsible for the entire line. The track laying task of Xinjiang He (Tian) Ruo (Qiang) Railway was completed, and the world's first ring-desert railway was officially closed.

Heruo Railway Project

The Heruo Railway is located in the Hetian area and Bazhou in southern Xinjiang. It is a single-track railway with a total length of 825 kilometers and a design speed of 120 kilometers per hour. The east-west traffic main line and the international major channel, and are connected with the Geku Railway and the South Xinjiang Railway, forming the world's first circular railway network around the desert around the Tarim Basin.

The Heruo railway has arid climate, lack of resources, inconvenient transportation, severe cold in winter, high temperature in summer, frequent sandstorms, and large temperature difference between day and night. The line traverses 460 kilometers of desert areas without water, electricity, roads, smoke, and signals. Traffic dispatch And construction organization is very difficult.

According to Lin Zhengdong, head of the Heruo Railway Project of China Railway Eleventh Bureau Group, the project department used the CPG500 track laying unit with high automation, high quality of laying lines and simple operation in the track laying construction, which can realize the laying of 500 long rails and sleepers. The laying is carried out synchronously, and the track is laid for more than 2 kilometers in a single shift every day. In the rail welding construction, the builders used electric induction normalizing equipment to carry out the normalizing operation of seamless rail welding, which overcomes the influence of uncontrollable factors such as the state of the fire hole of the flame heating, gas quality, gas flow, etc., and effectively improves The quality of rail welding.

According to Zhang Gang, head of the China Railway 14th Bureau and Ruo Railway Project Department, since entering the site in June 2019, they have mobilized management and construction personnel with rich desert construction experience, optimized construction organization, increased scientific and technological research, and high standards. The only desert beam field on the whole line-the Qiemo beam field was built, which solved the problem of "building a house on flour", and introduced the advanced driving monitoring system into the desert railway construction for the first time in China, and took the lead in laying tracks and taking the lead in the whole line. The task of making beams has been completed, creating a new speed of laying and erecting in the desert with 7 highest beams per day and an average daily track laying of 2 kilometers.

There are more than 200 days of windy and sandy weather throughout the year. In order to make the railway open to traffic as soon as possible, during the peak period of construction, 1,200 builders gave up the opportunity to reunite with their families and stood by their posts in the severe cold of minus 20°C to ensure the continuity of construction.

At the same time, the Heruo Railway runs from west to east along the southern edge of the world’s second largest mobile desert, and it has created the highest number of desert railway constructions during the construction: the first railway to implement wind-sand protection and the main project simultaneously, using bridges instead of roads The plan is to treat the railway with the longest wind and sand, and adopt a combination of plant protection and engineering protection to control the railway with the longest sandstorm, and to lay the longest cross-section seamless track railway in Xinjiang at one time.

In particular, in order to reduce the impact of sand and dust on construction, the Heruo Railway has built a total of 50 million square meters of grass grids on the sections of the entire line that have the conditions for sand control, and the straw and reeds are firmly tied in the shape of small grids. In the sand, wind-proof and sand-fixing created a model for building a road and controlling sand.

Tuersun, a Uyghur laborer at work, Mai Mai Timin (left)

Seeing the continuous extension of the railway in front of my house, Yusunjiang, a Uyghur college student funded by the China Railway 14th Bureau Group, said excitedly: "It is the construction of this railway that made me fill in the form without hesitation when I entered the university gate. As a driver major, I now look forward to the opening of the railway as soon as possible. After graduation, I will drive the train to take the people of my hometown to see the outside world."

“Before doing farm work at home, the income from growing red dates was the only source of income for the whole family. Now I work on a construction site and my unit covers food and housing. I also increase my income and live a much better life.” Uyghur laborer Tursun. Mai Mai Timin is full of expectations for the opening of the railway: "By the end of the day, red dates can be sold to all parts of the country by train, and our days will definitely become more and more prosperous."

It is reported that the Heruo Railway leads from the Hetian Station of the South Xinjiang Railway, passing through Luopu, Cele, Yutian, Minfeng, Qiemo, Ruoqiang and other counties and cities, and finally connects to the Ge (Ermu)-Ku (Erle) Railway in Ruopu, Cele, Yutian, Minfeng, Qiemo, and Ruoqiang. Qiang Stations meet and form a railway loop around the Tarim Basin. By then, the history of no trains in five counties including Luopu, Cele, Yutian, Minfeng, and Qiemo will end, and the journey of Hetian people will be shortened by more than 1,000 kilometers, which is conducive to promoting high-quality economic and social development in southern Xinjiang. Editor/He Yuting