China builds railway arch bridge with world's longest span

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With a grand arch bridge erected on Monday morning across the Nujiang River in southwestern China's Yunnan Province, Chinese constructors have built the world's longest-spanning railway arch bridge.

The bridge measures 1,024 meters long and nearly 25 meters wide. With a single span of 490 meters, it can accommodate the parking of four trains at the same time, said Yu Changbin, a project manager with China Railway Construction Corporation.

"As the bridge is situated in the gorge of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, which is on a high-intensity seismic belt, it was much more demanding in both breadth and bearing capacity than ordinary railway bridges," said Yu, adding that "There is no precedent for building such a huge bridge station."

The railway arch bridge across the Nujiang River in southwest China's Yunnan Province. /Xinhua Photo

To complete the bridge, constructors had to assemble 800,000 bolts, and 922 steel poles of various models weighing 100 tons each in the air, about 230 meters above the Nujiang River. "The technical difficulties and risks were both very rare," Yu said.

The bridge is a key project of the 220-kilometer-long Dali-Ruili railway line, a key section of the China-Myanmar international railway corridor linking Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, with Yangon in Myanmar.

Upon completion, the railway line will cut travel time between the two cities from six hours to just two hours.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency