On November 9, 2022, workers at the construction site of Hongyuan Tunnel 2 exit of Xining Chengdu Railway (hereinafter referred to as Xi'an-Chengdu Railway), located in Baozuo Township, Ruoergai County, Aba Prefecture, Sichuan Province, were constructing the guide wall and pipe shed at the tunnel exit. The first tunnel of Xi'an-Chengdu Railway entered the actual construction stage.

The newly-built Xining Chengdu Railway is a part of the eight vertical and eight horizontal high-speed railway corridor between China, Lanzhou, West and Guangzhou in the medium and long term railway network planning. It is located at the junction of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan provinces. The total length of the line is 832.9km. The project uses 307.7km of Chengdu Lanzhou Railway under construction, 26.3km of Lanzhou Xinjiang High speed Railway, and 498.9km of the main line from Haixi to Huangshengguan, of which 172.6km is newly built in Sichuan Province, with a design speed of 200km/h, and the construction period is 5 years.

Hongyuan Tunnel 2, constructed by China Railway 19th Bureau, is located in the middle and high mountain area of Minshan Mountain, between 3703 and 4104m above sea level. It is a control project along the whole line, with a total length of 5536m and a maximum buried depth of 314m. The main unfavorable geology is extremely high ground stress and large deformation of soft rock mass.

It is understood that after the completion of the Xi'an-Chengdu Railway, the communication between the Lanzhou Xi'an-Chengdu Urban Agglomeration and the Chengdu Chongqing Urban Agglomeration will be strengthened, the connectivity between the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Yangtze River Economic Belt will be promoted, the travel of the Tibetan, Hui, Qiang and other ethnic minority people along the railway will be greatly facilitated, and the economic and social exhibitions along the railway will be promoted, which is of great significance to the rural revitalization.Editor/Ma Xue