October 26-29, 2020. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. In accordance with the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, in the face of high-level opening up and the new situation of win-win cooperation, we must implement a deeper level of opening up and ultimately achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

On November 9, 2020, it was learned at the 2020 Railway Bridge Annual Conference hosted by China Railway Fourth Survey and Design Institute Group Co., Ltd. that the number of high-speed railway bridges in my country has exceeded 30,000, and the total length has exceeded 16,000 kilometers. China has become the world's railway bridge operating mileage The longest and the largest country under construction.

Bridges are the links connecting roads. Bridges are built on water and valleys. The development of China's high-speed rail requires not only advanced powered locomotives, but also to overcome China's different geological features. Mountains, hills, deserts, and plateaus are all challenges to China's high-speed rail. The number of bridges exceeded 30,000, which not only shows the proud technological level of bridge construction in our country, but also promotes the courage of bridge scientists and technicians to climb technological peaks and the courage to create "heavy weapons of the great power".

From “catch up” in the 1980s, “tracking and improving” in the 1990s, and “innovative breakthroughs” in the 21st century, my country’s railway bridges have achieved systematic innovations, breakthroughs in a series of key technologies, and formed an independent knowledge of my country. High-speed rail bridge construction technology system with property rights.

Take the Beijing-Kowloon Railway built in the 1990s as an example. At that time, the bridge mileage accounted for only 2% of the entire line, and only 40 kilometers of the bridge was more than 2,000 kilometers long.

In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, my country’s railways, especially high-speed railways, have developed rapidly. The railway operating mileage has grown from 49,000 kilometers at the end of 1980 to more than 139,000 kilometers at the end of 2019, of which high-speed railways exceeded 35,000 kilometers.

The high speed of high-speed railways, the high standards for infrastructure construction, and the large radius of the line curve will inevitably lead to a large number of bridge and tunnel projects.

When the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail opened in 2011, more than half of the 1,300-kilometer line was bridges. Among them, the Dankun Bridge, designed and constructed by China Railway Construction Survey, was 165 kilometers long, the longest bridge in the world.

Over the past 40 years, China's railway bridges have made significant progress in span, structural type, new materials, construction technology and equipment. Through the unremitting efforts of bridge builders, railway bridges have gone from overcoming obstacles and satisfying the basic functional requirements of train traffic to fully solving a series of problems such as dynamic performance of high-speed railway bridges, post-construction settlement and deformation control, driving safety and comfort, etc. And built a number of world-leading large-span railway bridges.

Nowadays, railway bridges can not only cross over natural environmental obstacles such as rivers and canyons, but also support the track structure via elevated means in order to save valuable land resources.

With regard to long-span railway suspension bridges, the construction of the Wufengshan Yangtze River Bridge on the Lianzhen Railway indicates that my country has entered the era of long-span railway suspension bridges. As the world's first high-speed railway suspension bridge, it has a symbolic significance in the history of the world's suspension bridge development.

According to my country's new medium and long-term railway plan, by 2030, my country's total railway operating mileage will exceed 200,000 kilometers, and more and more complex bridge projects will be put into construction and operation.

Countless large-span railway bridges are colorful, attracting worldwide attention; a large number of planned, designed, and under construction bridges have outstanding innovation and promising results. With the completion of bridges, the road network and the railway network have become a unified "national roaming network" from the isolated and separated "local area network", thus helping people to overcome barriers and reach a more beautiful and happy world.

Chinese railway bridges are becoming practitioners and pioneers of "Made in China 2025". Editor/Xing Wentao