On the morning of October 14, 2026, a track laying machine slowly started on the two kilometer route from Nantong West Station to Zhangjiagang. Two 500 meter long steel rails were smoothly pulled out, creating an arc in the air, and then precisely landed into the rail groove with an error of less than 5 millimeters. With the first pair of long steel rails in place, the laying of tracks for the entire Nantong Ningbo high-speed railway line has officially begun. This cross sea artery has completed the days of building bridge piers and main towers, and is now connecting the railway tracks one by one to Ningbo.

The first steel rail lands on the ground

Track laying may seem simple, but it actually involves twisting prefabrication, transportation, laying, and locking into a rope. China Railway Fifth Bureau undertakes the task of laying tracks for approximately 461 kilometers from Nantong West Station to the northern end of the Hangzhou Bay Cross Sea Railway Bridge. The project department has switched to a complete set of intelligent processes using long rail cars and traction cars, with forward pushing and backward pulling collaborative operations. Multiple processes can be completed in one go, with track laying errors within 5 millimeters, and the overall construction efficiency has been improved by more than 30%. The site is also equipped with an advanced domestic safety dispatch management system, which can monitor the operation status of track laying machines and long rail transport vehicles in real-time and remotely. The management is visual and the warning is automatic, ensuring both accuracy and safety.

Cross sea bridge advances

Moving forward on the track, the hardest part is the bridge over the sea. As a key control project of the entire line, the Hangzhou Bay Cross Sea Railway Bridge has a total length of 29.2 kilometers and is constructed according to the double track ballastless track and design speed standard of 350 kilometers per hour. It is currently the world's longest cross sea high-speed railway bridge under construction. In September of this year, all 7 main towers of the North, Central, and South waterway bridges were capped, and 656 bridge piers were completed. Construction has fully shifted to steel beam installation, cable-stayed installation, and ballastless track laying. The onshore construction is also in progress: the Cixi station building has shifted to the construction of the main structure above ground, and the foundation pit and enclosure structure of the Suzhou North Station comprehensive hub have been completed, entering the main construction phase; The roadbed, bridges, tunnels and other offline projects of the Tongyong High speed Railway have been basically completed. The station building and four electrical engineering are progressing in an orderly manner according to the nodes, and the entire line is striving towards the goal of being ready for operation by the end of 2027.keywords:Engineering infrastructure

One hour living circle

The Tongyong High speed Railway is an important part of the coastal corridor of China's eight vertical and eight horizontal high-speed railway network. It runs from Yancheng to Nantong West High speed Railway Station, passes through Suzhou, Jiaxing, and Ningbo to the south, and enters Ningbo Hub Ningbo Station. The newly built line is 301 kilometers long with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour. The entire line has 11 stations including Nantong West, Zhangjiagang, Changshu West, Suzhou North, Suzhou East, Suzhou South, Jiashan North, Jiaxing South, Haiyan, Cixi, and Zhuangqiao. After completion and operation, it will be connected to multiple railways such as Yantong High speed Railway and Yongtaiwen Railway, and efficiently interconnected with main lines such as Beijing Shanghai and Shanghai Kunming, ending the history of Ningbo circumnavigating Hangzhou in the north. Ningbo will achieve direct access to Shanghai and Suzhou in about an hour, and Jiaxing, Ningbo, and Suzhou will enter a half-hour transportation circle. For the people along the route, it is a daily routine of eating noodles in Cixi in the morning and going to Suzhou to discuss business at noon; For the Yangtze River Delta, it is a remeasured road network - the Yangtze River Delta on the track, with an additional north-south backbone.Editor/Yang Meiling