On the morning of October 29, 2026, the gate of North Square Station at Hankou Station slowly opened, and citizens waiting outside the station rushed in quickly. Some people came from other places just to board the first bus of this circular line. In the crowd, old passengers who live in Qingshan and work on the riverbank are planning a new route in their minds: to go to the other side, they can either drive around the Erqi Yangtze River Bridge or change several lines to pass through the city; Nowadays, it only takes 4 minutes for a train to cross the Yangtze River from Science Park Station to Danshui Lake Station.

On this day, the entire Wuhan Metro Line 12 was put into operation. Confirmed by the China Urban Rail Transit Association, this is currently the longest subway loop in China. The total length of the line is 59.9 kilometers, with 37 underground stations, connecting 7 central urban areas of Wuhan, and linking the two major railway hubs of Hankou Station and Wuchang Station. It can transfer with 18 existing and planned lines and takes about 96 minutes to complete the journey.

A circle was drawn for six years

The loop was not drawn in a day. On November 30, 2020, the entire Line 12 started construction; The first phase of the project covers 35.32 kilometers and 23 stations were put into operation on May 1st; The second phase of the project covers 24.64 kilometers and 14 stations have been opened, connecting with the first phase and truly closing this big circle. The synchronized opening of Line 12 connecting line and Yangluo Line enables Yangluo New City to be connected to the central urban ring network in one step. So far, the total operating mileage of Wuhan Metro has reached 581 kilometers, with 351 stations. There are a total of 13 transfer stations along the entire line, including both in station channel transfers and virtual transfers outside the station. The validity period of virtual transfers at Hankou Station North Square Station has been extended to 45 minutes.

Underneath the river, gnawing on hard bones

Wuhan is located by the river and lake, with complex hydrogeology. This circular line will pass through the Yangtze River twice and the Han River once, including the domestically long shield tunnel for the cross river subway. The total length of the cross river tunnel from Danshui Lake Station to Science Popularization Park Station is 4011 meters, with the lowest point located 71.4 meters underwater in the Yangtze River. It is the longest subway tunnel in China that crosses the Yangtze River. The Jiangcheng Pioneer shield tunneling machine tailored for it has an excavation diameter of 12.56 meters, equivalent to the height of a four story building. During the excavation process, sticky mudstone forms a cake on the cutterhead, and gravel repeatedly blocks the slag discharge pipeline. The builders optimize the cutting tools while installing auxiliary pipelines and setting up quarrying boxes to crush the large stones before transporting them out. With the help of the shield tunneling big data cloud platform and fiber optic monitoring, a series of technical challenges such as high water pressure, composite strata, and long-distance underwater shield tunneling have been overcome one by one, and surface millimeter level deformation control has been achieved by crossing the Beijing Guangzhou Railway and the Yangtze River embankment.

Three towns no longer take long detours

The value of the ring road lies in interception and diversion. In the past, most of the horizontal travel tended to transit at core stations such as Zhongnan Road and Hankou Railway Station, with a large number of passenger flows stacked in the city center. After the closure of the ring road, there is no need to cross the city to transfer from Houhu to Sixin, and from Qingshan to Hanyang. It can be completed on the ring road, reducing the pressure on the backbone lines. From Hangang Station to Hanxi Road South Station, crossing the Han River, it only takes 2 minutes between the two stations. Citizens bid farewell to the ground congestion of Yuehu Bridge and Zhiyin Bridge. After getting off the train and transferring to the circular line, you can directly reach the main business districts, hospitals, and schools in the three towns.keywords:Engineering infrastructure

From crossing the river on a single line to surrounding three towns, Wuhan Metro has entered a new stage of interconnected and interwoven networks. This ring road will further break the bottleneck of cross river commuting caused by the natural barriers of the Yangtze River and Han River, and support the construction of comprehensive transportation hubs in core cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.Editor/Yang Meiling