On May 15, 2026, the first box girder of the Hepu Zhanjiang high-speed railway was slowly lifted at the construction site of the Nankang Donggan Canal Extra Large Bridge in Guangxi. About half an hour later, the 32.6-meter-long and 760 ton concrete simply supported box girder landed precisely on the designated bridge pier, marking the official entry of the Hezhan high-speed railway into a new stage of beam erection construction and taking a crucial step towards the completion and opening of the entire line in 2028.

The first box girder was successfully erected

The total length of the Nankang Donggan Canal Grand Bridge is about 1270 meters, and 36 simply supported box girders need to be erected. The box girder erected this time is made of high-performance concrete poured as a whole, which can effectively adapt to the high salt and high humidity environment in coastal areas. The construction party adopts advanced domestic intelligent bridge building machines for high-precision control, and conducts full process simulation of the beam transportation route, installation process, etc. in advance to ensure successful one-time installation.

Two daily construction projects are being pushed forward

According to Zhao Yanguo, the person in charge of the Beihai Beam Making Yard of China Railway 16th Bureau Hezhan High speed Railway, the construction of the bridge foundation and piers has entered the final stage. The next step is to accelerate the installation of an average of 2 box girders per day, while simultaneously increasing the intensity of cast-in-place beam construction, striving to complete all construction tasks of the bridge by the end of July 2026. Keywords: Infrastructure Engineering News Network, High Speed Rail Infrastructure

The significance of opening in 2028 is significant

The Hezhan high-speed railway has a total length of about 139 kilometers and a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour. It is an important component of China's eight vertical and eight horizontal high-speed railway network, including the Baoyinhai and coastal passages. Wei Jie, Senior Engineer of Guangxi Company of Yunnan Guangxi Railway, stated that the project is expected to be completed and opened to traffic in 2028, which will enhance the transportation capacity of Guangxi's coastal railways and promote the construction of the Beibu Gulf urban agglomeration. As of the end of April 2026, the Guangxi section has completed 26.3% of the annual investment plan.Editor/Gao Xue