Plan envisions plenty of tunnels on Sichuan-Tibet rail line

[cirr]

Plan envisions plenty of tunnels on Sichuan-Tibet rail line

By Palden Nyima | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2018-08-31 18:41

A worker drills a tunnel for the Lhasa-Nyingchi section of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway in March. [Photo/Xinhua]

A preliminary study on the Kangding-Nyingchi section of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway shows the section will include at least 10 rail tunnels each longer than 10 kilometers, Tibet Daily reported this week.

The newspaper quoted He Huawu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, as saying the current plan is that the total length of the rail tunnels in the Kangding-Nyingchi section would be 843 kilometers - which is longer than the Beijing-Zhengzhou high-speed railway.

The longest rail tunnel, extending 42.5 km, would be the longest in China, eclipsing one 32-km-long on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. According to the plan, there would be six rail tunnels in the Kangding-Nyingchi section longer than 30 km.

He made the remarks when attending an academic seminar on key technologies for building high-speed railways in complicated mountainous areas that was held in Chengdu, Sichuan province, last Sunday.

China Railway Corp said on Friday the design plan is "not final", but just part of preliminary research on the construction of the Kangding-Nyingchi section, and it has not been approved by the authorities.

The Sichuan-Tibet line will be the second railway line connecting the Tibet autonomous region with the rest of the country, following the 1,956-km Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which opened in 2006.

Since the new line will have to go through intricate and difficult geological conditions, and its construction will have to overcome frozen earth, landslides and rock slides, experts have dubbed the Sichuan-Tibet Railway China's most challenging rail project.

Some easier parts of the line have been built in the past few years, but construction of the Kangding-Nyingchi section has yet to start due to the difficulties involved.

Previous reports have said trains on the Sichuan-Tibet line will travel at between 160 and 200 kilometers per hour. When the line is completed, the travel time by rail between Chengdu and Lhasa will be cut from 48 hours to about 13 hours.

http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201808/31/WS5b891b4da310add14f388f30.html

 

[cirr]

China Pumped $550 Billion Into Transport, Utilities in Western Region Since 2012

Aug. 30, 2018, at 12:09 a.m.

FILE PHOTO: A China yuan note is seen in this illustration photo May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration/File Photo Reuters

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has approved 152 infrastructure projects worth a combined 3.75 trillion yuan ($549.39 billion) in its western regions since late 2012, a senior official at the state planning agency said on Thursday.

China has been investing heavily on transportation infrastructure in a bid to boost development, ease poverty and better integrate its remote and sometimes restive western regions into the national economy.

"Major projects have always been a powerful measure to promote development in the west," said Xiao Weiming, head of the western development office of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Fifty two major projects had already been completed with the remaining 100 set to be finished by 2023, Xiao told a briefing in Beijing.

The projects include 12 new airports at a total cost of 162.4 billion yuan, as well as roads and railways, water diversion facilities and hydroelectric power stations, Xiao said.

By 2023, China's western regions will have an additional 8,751 kilometers of highways, 3,219 kilometers of new high-speed rail and 187 gigawatts of new generation capacity, he added.

China's vast western regions include the politically sensitive regions of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia as well as the major hydropower and farming provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan in the southwest. They account for 20 percent of the country's total gross domestic product.

Xiao said economic growth in western regions slowed in the first half of this year, mostly due to a decline in fixed asset investment.

He said the regions were struggling to find new entry points into China's fiercely competitive manufacturing sector, and also faced increasing constraints on land and capital.


The regions needed to strengthen economic ties with neighboring countries in central or southeast Asia and work to ease their dependence on heavy industries, Xiao said.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

https://money.usnews.com/investing/...nsport-utilities-in-western-region-since-2012

 

[hiseen]

This is part of Tibet's high-speed rail, All cities will be connected in 2026.

30,000 km high-speed railway to cover 80% of urban areas by 2020 http://www.scio.gov.cn/32618/Document/1484768/1484768.htm

30,000 km high-speed railway to cover 80% of urban areas by 2020
国务院新闻办公室网站　www.scio.gov.cn　　 2016-07-22　　 来源：People's Daily Online
　　

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently announced that by 2020, China's railway network will cover 150,000 kilometers, including 30,000 kilometers of high-speed rail, to cover 80 percent of Chinese cities. By the end of 2015, operating segments of China's railways had already reached 121,000 kilometers, with 19,000 kilometers of high-speed rail.

An even longer-term construction goal for the railway network is around 200,000 kilometers, including 45,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. The network will radiate in all directions to connect every city with a population over 200,000. Meanwhile, high-speed railways will join every provincial capital and cities with populations above 500,000. Transport circles between adjacent cities will have travel times between one and four hours, while transport time within cities will be cut down to between 30 minutes and two hours.

The official report from NDRC, the top economic planner, titled "Medium and Long-Term Railway Network Plan", also stated that new high-speed railway projects would adopt a minimum standard of 250 kilometers per hour and above. For those routes crossing densely populated areas and very large cities, the speed may go up to 350 kilometers per hour. Intercity railways will mainly be 200 kilometers per hour or below.

China's current high-speed rail network is based on eight main lines, together called the "Four Vertical and Four Horizontal" system. In the future, however, that system will transform into an "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" railway network.

The eight verticals include passageways between Beijing and Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, Beijing and Harbin and more. The eight horizontals include passageways along the Yangtze River and the Europe-Asia Transport Passageway, as well routes between Beijing and Lanzhou, Qingdao and Yinchuan, Shanghai and Kunming and more.

China's ongoing successful railway construction has so far been accomplished with over 800 billion yuan in yearly investments.