On November 17, 2021, the construction mobilization site for the new Shanxi section of Jining-Datong-Yuanping Railway will be held in Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province, which means that the construction of the Shanxi section of Ji-Dayuan Railway has officially started.

Jidaiyuan Railway

The newly-built Jining Railway to Yuanping via Datong leads from Wulanchabu Station in Inner Mongolia, passing through Shanxi Datong, Shuozhou, and Xinzhou along the way, with the end linking to the Daxi High-speed Railway. The total length of the line is about 269.6 kilometers, of which the Shanxi section is 197.1 kilometers long, and the Datong South Railway Station to Xiamizhuang uses the Da-Zhang high-speed rail line to be 21.6 kilometers long. There are 6 stations in Datong South Station, Huairen East Station, Yingxian Station, Shanyin Station South, Shuozhou East Station, and Daixian West Station, with a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour and a reserved infrastructure speed of 300 kilometers per hour. The total investment of the project is about 23.754 billion yuan, and the construction period is 4.5 years. Among them, the Hengshan tunnel project of Ji-Dayuan Railway has started in June 2020.

According to Su Yong, chief engineer of the China Railway Engineering Corporation, since the project was launched, China Railway Engineering Corporation has actively responded to the requirements of Shanxi Province and fully promoted the design work. Within two years, the design work from the establishment of the project to the feasibility study, preliminary approval and construction drawings was completed, which laid a solid foundation for the start of the project. The China Railway Engineering Design Team carefully studied the key and difficult points of project survey and design, combined with the characteristics of the project, paid attention to geological route selection and environmental protection route selection in the survey and design process, and carried out special research across active fault zones. The project and engineering measures of the high-risk Hengshan Tunnel crossing the mountain with complex geological conditions were in-depth demonstrated.

It is reported that the project adopts the 300km/h ballast standard, and there is no relevant design and operation experience in China. The design team conducted special research and demonstration on the track, bridge, subgrade and post-station standards, and put forward reasonable technical standards.

As the backbone of the regional comprehensive transportation infrastructure, the railway project is an important component of the "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" of the national medium and long-term railway network plan. In the future, after the completion and opening to traffic, the travel time between Hohhot and Taiyuan will be shortened from the current 5 hours to 3 hours, which will greatly enhance the efficient interconnection between Shanxi, Mengxi and Central South, East China, and North China. Editor/He Yuting