On December 26, 2022, the new Chengdu Kunming Railway with a total length of 915 km will be completed. Cheng Kun, old and new, reflects the spirit of striving to open up new roads and build bridges when faced with difficulties. China Railway Shanqiao, a subsidiary of China Railway Industry, has been involved in the construction of the new Chengdu Kunming Railway for half a century. China Railway Science and Engineering Corporation, a subsidiary of China Railway Industry, has successfully completed the track laying task by using the track laying machine with auto drive system.

The new Chengdu Kunming Railway and the Lugu Anning River Bridge of the old Chengdu Kunming Railway are in the same frame

Remembering the past and the eventful years

In 1964, Chairman Mao gave an instruction: "The Chengdu Kunming Railway must be repaired quickly!" Then 300000 road building troops quickly gathered in the southwest of China, taking 12 years to break the assertion of foreign experts that "ten years later, it will become a pile of scrap iron". Due to the urgent construction period and extremely difficult transportation conditions at that time, China Tieshan Bridge actively responded to the national call to form a "combat group of bolted and welded beams" with scientific research institutes to tackle key problems in bolted and welded steel bridge technology. From experiment, design, manufacturing to the completion of erection, it took less than one year to complete the development of bolted and welded steel bridges, laying a solid foundation for the massive adoption of new technologies of bolted and welded steel bridges in Chengdu Kunming Railway, It has created a new era for the development of bolted and welded steel bridge technology in China.

From 1966 to 1968, China Railway Shanqiao carried out a lot of technical transformation on the existing equipment, which improved the work efficiency by 2-3 times (before the transformation, the production capacity of welded steel beams was only 1500 tons/year). It took two years to complete 31 bolted welded steel bridges on the old Chengdu Kunming Railway, with a total of more than 10000 tons of manufacturing tasks. The construction project won the prize of the 1978 National Science Conference.

Yingshuihe Bridge, the first domestic 112m bolt welded rigid beam flexible arch structure

Sanduizi Jinshajiang River Bridge, a simply supported riveted steel truss railway bridge with the largest span in China at that time

Looking at the present, we are ambitious

The new Chengdu Kunming Railway starts from Chengdu South Railway Station, passes through Chengdu, Meishan, Leshan, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Panzhihua, Yunnan Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Kunming, and ends at Kunming Station. It is a national level I double track electrified railway with a total length of 915km and a set time speed of 160km. Since the official commencement of construction in 2007, China Railway Shanqiao has provided the turnout products required for the Yongren Guangtong section expansion and reconstruction project of the line by adopting the segmented construction and segmented operation mode.

Fuxing train runs on the new Chengdu Kunming line

In the Xichang section of the new Chengdu Kunming Railway, the track laying machine of China Railway Science and Engineering Group under China Railway Industry has adopted the auto drive system, which can provide all-weather and all road conditions navigation services for the track laying machine, enable the track laying machine to automatically turn and run along the preset track centerline, and can improve the track laying accuracy of ± 100mm under the traditional construction mode to ± 20mm, a full increase of four times, so as to better complete the track laying tasks of related lines.

After ten years of construction, the new Chengdu Kunming Railway was officially put into operation, further improving the road network structure in Southwest China and facilitating the travel of people along the line. The New Chengdu Kunming Railway is a key project of the Western Development of China and an important channel connecting South Asia and Southeast Asia international trade ports in the construction of the the Belt and Road, which plays an important role in promoting the high-quality economic development of the regions along the line. After the line is completed and put into operation, it will together with the Trans Asian Railway form an international railway corridor between China and Myanmar, China and Vietnam, and China Laos, which plays a very important role in strengthening China's trade exchanges with Southeast Asia and South Asia and promoting the construction of China ASEAN Free Trade Area. Editor/Zhao E