Today, the Lijiang-Shangri-La Railway was officially completed and opened to traffic!
The Lijiang-Shangri-La Railway connects Lijiang City and Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, with a total length of 139.7 kilometers. The opening to traffic also means that Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, with an average elevation of 3,380 meters, has completely ended the history of no railways.
From Lijiang to Shangri-La, from Yulong Snow Mountain to Meili Snow Mountain, through meadows, forests and lakes, connecting cities, villages and fields, Xintian Road spreads on the snowy plateau. Let’s go to Shangri-La by train!
The fastest train from Lijiang Station to Shangri-La Station is 1 hour and 18 minutes. However, the railway started construction in 2014, but more than 20,000 builders fought day and night among the mountains for nine years.
Lijiang-Shangri-La Railway is located in the northwest of Yunnan Province, the southeast edge of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the middle section of Hengduan Mountains. It is connected by bridges and tunnels all the way-34 new bridges and 20 tunnels are built, and the bridge-tunnel ratio is as high as 73.4%. The route leads from Lijiang Station, passes through Hutiaoxia and Xiaozhongdian Town to Shangri-La in the north, and the route is located at the front of the contact zone between India plate and Eurasia plate, which is one of the regions with the strongest crustal tectonic movement in China.
The mountains along the line are high and deep, and the maximum slope reaches 28.5‰, which is equivalent to a distance of 1000 meters. The height difference between the starting point and the end point reaches 28.5 meters, which is similar to the height of a 10-story building. The terrain and geological conditions are extremely complicated, and the construction difficulty is rare in China.
According to reports, during the construction of the entire Lijiang-Shangri-La Railway, the technical difficulties such as Yulong Snow Mountain Tunnel, Haba Snow Mountain Tunnel, large deformation of soft rock with high ground stress, long tunnel at high altitude, long rail transportation and pushing on large slopes have been overcome, and the Hutiaoxia Jinshajiang Railway Bridge built has set three world records. A total of 18 national invention patents, 34 national utility model patents and 39 provincial and ministerial construction methods have been applied for.
Large deformation of soft rock, high ground stress, high temperature and rich water … The geological conditions along the line are complex, which brings great challenges to the construction. In order to build this railway, it is necessary to open two extra-long tunnels buried deep in the hinterland of Yulong Snow Mountain and Haba Snow Mountain.
Yulong Snow Mountain Tunnel, the key control project of the whole line, has a total length of 14.7 kilometers, which is the longest tunnel in the whole line. It is located in the longitudinal valley of Hengduan Mountains and crosses six faults. Affected by high-risk adverse geological conditions, such as fault fracture zone, high temperature and abundant water, high ground stress, etc., since the construction started in 2014, the tunnel has experienced mud outburst, water gushing and collapse for 238 times, with the maximum water inflow of a single working face of 37,000 cubic meters, the large deformation section of surrounding rock of 7,719 meters long and the maximum unilateral deformation of 2.3 meters. The deformation almost intrudes at the speed visible to the naked eye, which is extremely rare at home and abroad, and every step forward is extremely difficult.
Haba Snow Mountain Tunnel, with a total length of 9.5 kilometers, is a Class I high-risk tunnel. For tunnels less than 10 kilometers, it takes only 3 minutes for the bullet train to pass through, but since the construction started in 2014, the builders have struggled for 9 years. Generally, the tunnel only needs one layer of initial support, while the Haba Snow Mountain Tunnel adopts three layers of initial support. "A tunnel with super-deep buried depth, high geostress and large deformation of soft rock like this is rare in China." Huo Erlun, head of the Lijiang-Shangri-La Railway Project Management Department of China Railway 16th Bureau, which built the Haba Snow Mountain Tunnel, said.
It should be especially mentioned that the Jinsha River Bridge, the world’s first long-span railway suspension bridge, is located at the junction of Lijiang City and Shangri-La City of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, with a total length of 882.5 meters and a main span of 660 meters. The vertical distance between the bridge deck and the river surface is about 250 meters, which is equivalent to the height of more than 80 floors. The erection of mid-span steel truss girder is "the first in three worlds": it is a precedent in the world to hoist 640 tons of large-tonnage steel truss girder with cable crane; The intelligent cable crane used for hoisting is independently developed and designed in China, with a maximum hoisting weight of 800 tons, which is the heaviest cable crane in the world at present. The height difference between the top of the cable tower and the steel beam assembly yard is 330 meters, which is the largest cable crane in the world at present.
Diqing has many world-class tourism brands such as Shangri-La, Three Rivers Parallel, Meili Snow Mountain and Ancient Tea-Horse Road. It runs through the National Highway 214 in Shangri-La City and Deqin County of Diqing Prefecture from south to north, and is known as "the most beautiful and lowest-key landscape avenue in China", which gathers Tiger Leaping Gorge, Little Zhongdian Flower Sea, Songzanlin Temple and balague Sect. Lijiang, Yunnan has three world heritages: Old Town of Lijiang World Cultural Heritage, Three Parallel Rivers World Natural Heritage and Naxi Dongba Ancient Books and Documents World Memory Heritage.
The bullet train will drive from Lijiang to Shangri-La, and the train will cross the Jinsha River to the north, pass through Xiaozhongdian to Shangri-La, and pass through famous scenic spots such as Yulong Snow Mountain and Tiger Leaping Gorge. The crossing area is a gathering place for ethnic minorities such as Tibetans, Yi and Bai, which will connect these world-class tourist attractions in series.
Get on the bullet train, Shangri-La of the world, waiting for you!
Transferred from People’s Daily
Source: Morning News