China to build rail bridge across Yangtze
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Construction began Tuesday on a bridge across the Yangtze River, with a designed load capacity of 20,000 tons, making it the world's greatest capacity bridge of the kind.
At a cost of 11.06 billion yuan (US$1.33 billion), the Tianxingzhou bridge, in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, will be the sixth and also the most expensive bridge across the river.
The double-decked bridge, expected to be completed by 2008, is the second local bridge for trains. The first train bridge was built in 1958, and can no longer handle rapidly growing rail transport demand across the river.
It is also the first cable-stayed bridge in China for high- speed trains with a speed limit of 200 km per hour, and the world' s first of its kind with a span of 504 meters.
The bridge, with four rail lines, will be a key part of China's major rail transport networks and will make Wuhan China's a leading railway transport hub following Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province.
Construction of a railway station for high-speed trains running between Beijing and Guangzhou will start soon.
english.eastday.com |
