Xinhua News Agency, Harbin, September 28. Title: Written on the occasion of the opening of the northernmost high-speed railway in my country
Xinhua News Agency reporters Li Jianping, Dong Baosen and Shen Yijin
On September 28, my country's highest latitude high-speed railway, the Harbin-Yichun high-speed railway, was officially opened to traffic. This "steel dragon" that travels through the forests of the Lesser Khingan Mountains and across the alpine tundra will continue to extend my country's high-speed rail territory to the north, connecting the northern Xinjiang forest areas to the national high-speed rail network, opening a revitalization road to high-quality development among the white mountains and black waters.
"All the way north" to expand the high-speed rail territory
Exiting Harbin Station, the train speeds north along the Harbin-Hai high-speed railway like a silver dragon. The city buildings gradually recede, the black soil and fertile fields spread to the sky, the vast forests of Xiaoxing'an Mountains rush towards the face, and the colorful mountains stretch endlessly...
As an important extension of my country's "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network "Beijing-Harbin-Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Corridor", the Ha-I high-speed railway has filled the gap in high-speed rail transportation in northern Heilongjiang Province and reshaped the time and space pattern of the northern border.
Ye Zhen, conductor of the Beijing-Harbin high-speed railway fleet of the Harbin passenger section of the State Railway Harbin Bureau, said that the Ha-Yi high-speed railway has a total length of 318 kilometers and a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour. It has ended the history of Yichun, the "Lindu of China", being blocked by high-speed rail, and reduced the travel time from Harbin to Yichun from about 7 hours to about 2 hours.
"The Haiyi High-speed Railway has greatly reduced the time cost of traveling between Harbin and Yichun. The radiation effect of the provincial capital city will go all the way north along this rail." Wu Xingping, a Harbin businessman who often travels to Yichun on business, commented.
Observed in the road network system of Heilongjiang Province and even Northeast China, the Haiyi High-speed Railway has promoted a new leap in the local railway layout. Previously, the Harbin-Daxing, Harbin-Mu, and Mu-Jia high-speed railways built the framework for rapid passenger transportation in the western and eastern parts of Heilongjiang Province, but the forest areas of northern Xinjiang lacked high-speed railway support. This time, the Haiyi High-speed Railway has made up for the shortcomings in the northbound direction, making the high-speed rail network in my country's northernmost province more complete.
This high-speed rail line extending to the north is a vivid practice of the national transportation strategy in northern Xinjiang. According to the relevant person in charge of the Harbin State Railway Bureau, my country's high-speed rail network extends all the way north to the Songnen Plain, and then continues northward into the Xiaoxing'anling forest area, indicating that national infrastructure construction continues to tilt toward border areas, forest areas, and underdeveloped areas, laying a solid foundation for modern transportation for the Northeast to prosper and enrich people in the border areas.
"China's Plan" to "Tame" Alpine Permafrost
Looking at the history of global railway construction, high-latitude permafrost areas have always been a "world-wide problem" for high-speed railway project construction. The Haiyi High-speed Railway is my country’s first high-speed railway that passes through high-latitude alpine island-shaped permafrost areas, and it also provides a “Chinese solution” for the construction of high-speed railways in alpine permafrost areas around the world.
The northern forest area of Heilongjiang Province is characterized by high cold, high humidity, and permafrost. The temperature difference throughout the year exceeds 70 degrees Celsius, and the extreme low temperature in winter reaches minus 40 degrees Celsius. There are 14 sections of island-shaped permafrost zone along the route, totaling 5.8 kilometers. Frozen soil melts when exposed to heat and expands when exposed to frost. Repeated deformation can easily lead to subgrade settlement and track deformation, seriously affecting the safety of high-speed rail operations.
Liu Libin, chief engineer of the Tieyi Project Department of the Haiyi High-speed Railway of the China Railway 22nd Bureau, said that permafrost is afraid of water and heat, and the bridge pile foundation penetrates the permafrost layer and goes deep into the ground. When drilling, water enters, and pouring concrete will release heat. Therefore, construction must not only minimize disturbance to the frozen soil, but also create suitable conditions for concrete pile formation. The solution that the builders came up with was to use a double-layer casing structure technology to overcome the construction problems of frozen soil pile foundations.
"The casing of ordinary pile foundations is generally only about 1.5 meters long. In areas with deep permafrost, the double-layer casing will extend below the permafrost layer, up to six or seven meters." Liu Libin said. As the drilling rig drills down, the casings follow up simultaneously; insulation materials are filled between the two layers of casings, which not only reduces the heat generated during concrete construction from being transferred to the surrounding frozen soil, but also reduces the impact of external low temperatures on the formation of concrete piles.
The impact of cold on high-speed rail construction does not stop at the underground level. Different seasons bring different challenges to builders.
When the river opened in spring, the ice sheets on the Hulan River swept down, and large pieces of ice directly impacted the bridge piers. The construction team optimized the bridge piers into acute-angle ice-breaking structures, which diverted the ice to both sides after impact, reducing the impact on the bridge piers. In winter, construction sites have to find ways to "keep" the temperature. Smart insulation sheds cover the construction site. Even if the outdoor temperature is as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius, the working environment inside the shed can still maintain a working environment above 10 degrees Celsius.
Today, these technologies and data for high-cold frozen soil, low-temperature construction, and ice and snow protection have accumulated valuable experience for my country's high-speed rail to advance to higher latitudes.
Heading towards the strategic artery of northern Xinjiang’s revitalization
The high-speed Haiyi High-speed Railway has opened up a fast channel to the outside world in northern Heilongjiang Province, accelerating the transformation of ecological, agricultural, cultural and tourism and other resource advantages "hidden" in the Songnen Plain and Xiaoxinan Mountains along the line into industrial advantages, and injecting new momentum into the transformation of the county economy and forest areas in northern Heilongjiang Province.
Yichun is surrounded by green waters, green mountains, and ice and snow. It has developed forest eco-tourism as a pillar industry for many years, but it has long been constrained by traffic bottlenecks. Wang Wei, director of the Yichun City Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau, said that after the opening of the Harbin-Harbin high-speed railway, Yichun has been included in Harbin's "two-hour economic circle", and ice and snow vacations, forest studies, forest health care, etc. have entered a window period for development, forming a good situation of "high-speed rail diversion and industrial undertaking".
A high-speed railway connects "urban corridors", directly benefiting millions of people in Suihua, Yichun and other cities along the route. It will be more convenient for Suihua residents to go to Harbin for medical treatment and study, and it will be easier for people in Yichun Forest District to go out of the mountainous areas. Business exchanges and industrial docking between cities will also become more frequent...
Sun Haojin, director of the Institute of Economics of the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, said that after the opening of the Harbin-Yi high-speed railway, Harbin's provincial capital radiation has been deeply released along this axis, and development factors such as talents, technology, and capital have accelerated the flow to northern counties and forest areas, helping the local area optimize its industrial structure and promote transformation and development.
The Hai-Yi high-speed railway crosses permafrost and mountains, and "includes" the Xiaoxing'an Mountains into the national high-speed rail network, bringing new hope for the transformation and development of the northern Xinjiang forest area.
