Pingxiang city, which borders Vietnam under the prefecture-level city of Chongzuo in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, will see the opening of high-speed railway services within this year, boosting passenger flow and border trade.
Workers from the Eighth Engineering Co Ltd of China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd (CREC4) complete laying tracks on the Chongzuo-Pingxiang High-Speed Railway, on March 20. [Photo by WU HUAIQIU/for chinadaily.com.cn]
The Chongzuo-Pingxiang HSR, part of the railway linking Pingxiang with Nanning, the regional capital, completed the process of laying tracks on all its line on March 20, said Lu Shen, manager of the track-laying project from CREC4.
The Chongzuo-Pingxiang railway, which is expected to begin services by the end of 2025, will enter its joint debugging and testing phase in August.
As the third self-invested HSR in Guangxi, the Chongzuo-Pingxiang HSR starts in the east from Jiangzhou district under Chongzuo, traverses Chongzuo's Ningming and Longzhou counties in the west, and ends at Pingxiang.
Workers from CREC4 Eighth Engineering Co Ltd lay tracks on the Chongzuo-Pingxiang High-Speed Railway, on March 20. [Photo by ZHAO MENGTING/for chinadaily.com.cn]
With four stations — Chongzuo South, Ningming East, Longzhou, and Pingxiang East — on the 81.52-kilometer line, the Chongzuo-Pingxiang HSR is witnessing 85.63 percent of its lines constructed as railway bridges and tunnels, Lu said.
Earlier, the Nanning-Chongzuo section of the Nanning-Pingxiang HSR started operations in December 2022.
Upon operation of the Chongzuo-Pingxiang section, Nanning and Pingxiang can be fully connected by high-speed railway and can be reached within one hour, said Yu Zuxin, deputy director of the Engineering Department of Guangxi Nanning-Chongzuo Railway Co.
Meanwhile, the western end of the line links Vietnam's Dong Dang-Hanoi Railway via the Hunan-Guangxi Railway and connects Hunan's Hengyang with the Friendship Pass in Pingxiang, providing travelers with travel ease to as far as Vientiane in Laos, Bangkok in Thailand, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and Singapore, said Wu Huaiqiu, publicity chief of CREC4 Eighth Engineering Co Ltd.
Via the Nanning hub, the eastern end of Chongzuo-Pingxiang HSR joins the existing Nanning-Guangzhou HSR, Liuzhou-Nanning Intercity Railway, Nanning-Kunming HSR and the Guiyang-Nanning HSR which is still under construction.
All of these rail links will largely elevate the three-dimensional transport capacity of Guangxi in connecting the country's eastern and western regions with ASEAN markets, Wu said.
Workers from CREC4 Eighth Engineering Co Ltd lay tracks on the Chongzuo-Pingxiang High-Speed Railway, on March 20. [Photo by WU HUAIQIU/for chinadaily.com.cn]
Lu noted that CREC4 builders only spent 144 days in completing all the track-laying work, ensuring that the average track-laying was not less than 3 kilometers per day, safeguarding the full completion on time, in quality and quantity.
The Guangxi Communications Investment Group Corp Ltd, which invested in the Chongzuo-Pingxiang section, stressed that the section boasts 165.75 kilometers of tracks laid, including 159.51 kilometers of tracks on the main line, and 6.24 kilometers of tracks within the railway stations.
