The sun shines over the Kongtong district of Pingliang City, Gansu province, on the morning of April 25, 2019, marking the start of construction of the Pingliang section of the Pingqing Railway. The landmark projects included the construction of drilled piles on the Baishui Bridge and the commencement of the Xinglin Village tunnel.

The 966.46m-long Baishui Bridge will span both the existing rural road and the main subgrade of the newly built Xiping upway. Because the bridge construction needs to be cross-constructed with these lines, the organization is extremely difficult, and the construction risk is correspondingly increased. For the 10-1# pile foundation, the pile diameter reaches 1.25 meters and the pile length is 50 meters. The construction team will use advanced rotary drilling rig for hole formation operation to ensure the construction quality and progress.

At the same time, the construction of Xinglin Village tunnel also started simultaneously. The tunnel, which is about 6478 meters long, is designed as a single hole with two lines, and its internal geological conditions are complex, with the Ⅴ grade surrounding rock accounting for 34.9% and the maximum buried depth of about 200 meters. Because the tunnel is located in loess area, the geology of the tunnel is soft, easy to landslide, and the topography is complex and changeable, which brings great challenges to the construction. In addition, the transportation is inconvenient, which increases the difficulty of construction. However, the builders are not afraid of difficulties, and they will use advanced construction technology and strict management measures to ensure the safety and smooth progress of tunnel construction.

Pingqing Railway, a railway line with a total length of about 92 kilometers, is not only an important traffic channel connecting Pingliang City to Qingyang City in Gansu Province, but also an important part of the national Class I double-line passenger and cargo common line electrified railway. It has been included in the national Medium - and long-term railway network planning, the 14th Five-Year Railway Development Plan, and the Yellow River Basin Ecological Protection and High-quality Development Planning Outline, highlighting its important position in the national strategy. At the same time, as a key link in Gansu Province's planned railway from Lanzhou to Dingxi to Pingliang to Qingyang to Yan 'an, the construction of Pingqing Railway will further improve the regional railway network structure and promote the economic and social development of the regions along the line.

The construction of the Pingliang section of the Pingqing Railway is not only a major event in the history of transportation construction in Gansu Province, but also a concrete action to promote ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin and promote regional coordinated development. We have every reason to believe that in the near future, the railway will become an important transportation artery connecting Gansu Province and beyond, bringing opportunities for greater prosperity and development to the regions along the line. Editor/Xu Shengpeng