Project: Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway Cost: $11.3 billion Construction Period: 2008-14
Lanzhou is a city of heavy industry and petrochemicals, located on the south bank of the Yellow River in northwest China. With a population of 2.2 million, it is the capital and largest city in Gansu Province. About 800 kilometers to the south, Chongqing, a manufacturing center on the Yangtze River in Sichuan Province, is one of the largest municipalities in China, with a population of 30 million. The Qinling Mountains sit between the two.
The Lanzhou-Chongqing Railway project will link these two economic hubs with an 832-km double-track rail line. The hilly route through the Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces will require 285 bridges, totaling 104 km, or 13% of the route, and 178 tunnels, covering 506 km, or 63% of the route. Twelve of the tunnels will exceed 10 km in length, with the longest measuring 29 km.
Tunneling crews from two contractors are making steady progress on the 16.6-km-long West Qinling twin tunnels. China Railway Tunnel Group Co. Ltd.’s 18th Bureau is managing the Left Line Tunnel, while China Railway Construction Co. Ltd. is managing the Right Line Tunnel. The contractors did some of the initial tunneling by the drill-and-blast method. Both contractors are using 10.2-meter-dia tunnel-boring machines supplied by The Robbins Co., Solon, Ohio.