NINGBO: In line with the national deployment in building new infrastructure, Ningbo – a semi-provincial-level coastal city in Zhejiang province – has opened a new urban rail transit line to promote its intracity integrated development.
The Ningbo-Xiangshan intracity line, a 61.45km subway with 10 stations – two underground and eight above ground –links the city proper with Xiangshan county, with trains running at a maximum speed of 160km per hour.
Ningbo Rail Transit Group Co Ltd, owner of the line, said that by traversing the East China Sea and Xiangshan Port, the rail can quickly link the towns, industries and cultural tourism resources along the route into the Ningbo metropolitan area.
The line’s most eye-catching project is the Xiangshan Port cross-sea bridge traversing East China Sea, which extends for 8.276km, including a main bridge length of 1,376m and a main span of 688m.
“It is the first cross-sea bridge on an urban railway in China and currently the world’s largest ballastless-track cable-stayed railway bridge,” said Zhang Chuanbo, manager of the construction project from the China Railway No 4 Engineering Group (CREC4), which helped lay the rail tracks on the entire bridge.
“The railway bridge and the existing cross-sea highway bridge traverse Xiangshan Port in parallel, forming a unique landscape,” Zhang said.
The whole line, starting from Xiaoyangjiang Station in Yinzhou district in the north and crossing the Xiangshan Port, enters Xiangshan county before finally reaching Damuwan Station.
Ningbo Rail Transit stressed that the fastest travel time from Ningbo’s urban area to Xiangshan county is half an hour, greatly bolstering the convenience of travel.
CREC4 undertook the construction tasks of the main line and wiring between Xiaoyangjiang Station and the starting point of Zhuangxi Dashan Tunnel, Yunlong rolling stock depot entrance and exit lines, as well as related elevated bridge deck waterproofing.
Bai Lin, chief engineer of the CREC4 project in laying rail tracks on the bridge and a staffer of CREC4 Eighth Engineering, said they began to lay tracks on the bridge on Oct 6, 2025.
“The most difficult and dangerous task along the whole line was laying tracks on the Xiangshan Port cross-sea bridge, as it is only 50m away from the existing cross-sea highway bridge as well as a semi-floating system,” said Hu Jiaman, director of the engineering division of the CREC4 project department.
“Under temperature and wind loads, the deformation is complex, and strict millimetre-level requirements are needed for the smoothness of the ballastless tracks,” Hu said, adding that laying ballastless tracks on such a bridge is like drawing a straight line on shaking paper. — China Daily/ANN
