With the last pair of 500 meter long steel rails positioned at the entrance of the Yunlian Tunnel of the Chongqing Kunming High speed Railway, the track laying of the Yibin Kunming South section has been successfully completed, laying a solid foundation for the early opening of the railway. This high-speed railway that passes through the Wumeng mountainous area crosses mountains and valleys along the way. The builders, facing complex geological challenges, steadily advance track laying operations on high proportion bridge and tunnel lines, using hardcore technology to gnaw on the hard bones of road construction in high-altitude mountainous areas.

Traversing mountains and crossing ridges to lay tracks

The Chongqing Kunming high-speed railway is an important section of the Beijing Kunming corridor in China's eight vertical and eight horizontal high-speed railway network. The line starts from Chongqing West Station and passes through Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan to reach Kunming South Station, with a total length of about 700 kilometers and a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour. The project will be constructed in sections, with a 15 kilometer section from Yibin East to Yibin, and will be opened to traffic on December 26, 2023. The eastern section from Chongqing West to Yibin is 192 kilometers long and will be opened on September 29, 2024. The total length of the Yibin Kunming South section completed in this track laying project is 492 kilometers.

Overcoming complex geology

The line runs from the Sichuan Basin to the the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and passes through the hinterland of Wumeng Mountains. The bridge tunnel ratio is as high as 87.4%. There are 10 long tunnels of more than 10 kilometers. The terrain undulates violently and the construction is full of challenges. The construction team is tackling the supporting technology for long and steep slope track laying, equipped with an intelligent monitoring system, and relying on a dispatch platform to remotely control the track laying units and rail transport trains, achieving intelligent construction. All parties are continuously assessing security risks, dynamically optimizing solutions, and implementing full process security management. Keywords: Chongqing Kunming high-speed railway, track laying and connectivity, Southwest transportation

Waiting patiently for the opening of the road to empower

The main offline construction and new station building decoration of the Yibin Kunming South section have been completed, and the municipal supporting projects are being intensively constructed. Static acceptance and joint debugging will be carried out in the future. After the full line is opened to traffic, it will shorten the time and space distance in the southwest region, connect the Chengdu Chongqing economic circle and the central Yunnan urban agglomeration, drive passenger and freight circulation, facilitate people's travel, and promote the steady progress of the economy along the line.Editor/Min Jing