raid building expertise - bring on china :-)

7 years to build a train line - 159 tunnels, 253 bridges and one mountain that took 6 years to drill through ... the flat plains of Cameroon should be a breeze ... toot toot ... :-) Merry Xmas to all happy holders!

Most expensive railway line opens


A RAILWAY line, which is considered to be China's most difficult and expensive to build, started operations yesterday.

The maiden journey began at 10:18am, when a train carrying more than 900 passengers left Enshi City of Hubei Province for a two-hour journey to Yichang City.

"We used to pay 100 yuan (US$15) for a one-day bus trip to Yichang before. Now, 30 yuan can get us there in two hours," said Zeng Mingquan, 58, who took his grandson to the launch ceremony.

Yesterday's maiden trip covered more than half the 377-kilometer route linking Yichang to Wanzhou District in neighboring Chongqing Municipality.

Five trains will run the full length of the line today and more trains will be added on January 11 to bring the railway service up to its full operational capacity.

It took a staggering figure of approximately 50,000 workers across the whole project seven years to dig and complete 159 tunnels and build 253 bridges through a stretch of mountains on the edge of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.

The length of track that runs over bridges and through tunnels accounts for about 74 percent of the railway line's total.

In the most extreme case, it took almost six years to drill a tunnel through Qiyue Mountain due to complex and dangerous conditions.

The line, which involved 22.7 billion yuan in total investment, is also China's most expensive railway in terms of the cost per kilometer.

It cost about 60 million yuan for each kilometer, compared with 29 million yuan pre kilometer for the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, said Zhu Pengfei, a senior project official, who also worked on the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

The railway will cut trips between Chongqing and Wuhan, capital of Hubei, from 22 hours to just five hours.



Read more: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201012/20101223/article_458045.htm#ixzz18upf11Xc