China News Service, Lanzhou, September 7 (Yang Rui) In the Loess Plateau in September, at the Zhaozhuang No. 3 Bridge on National Highway 211, the cutting machine "bited" into the concrete, causing sparks to fly and pieces to fall. Geng Li, a technician at the Huanxian Highway Section of Qingyang Highway Development Center in Gansu Province, half-knelt beside the newly cut expansion joint slot, led the workers to replace the unit-type comb plate expansion joints of ten bridges with Maurer-type expansion joints one by one.
This highway bridge connecting three surrounding towns is undergoing a "seam replacement operation" that is not noticed by outsiders but has been long-awaited by car owners along the route.
In early September, technician Geng Lili (second from left) and workers at the Huanxian Highway Section of the Qingyang Highway Development Center in Gansu Province were injecting glue to seal cracks in the beam body. Photo by Yang Rui
"The old seams have been running for a long time, and the comb plates have become loose and fallen off. There is a 'clang' sound when the vehicle passes. It is not only bumpy, but also a safety hazard." Geng Li said that the repair and maintenance project includes the sealing of cracks in the beam body and the anti-corrosion coating of the guardrails. The new seams have strong integrity and good load-bearing capacity. The vehicle passes smoothly and noiselessly, and safety is more guaranteed.
Maintenance and quality improvement: the "embroidery skills" of 4,000 kilometers of rural roads
Huan County is located at the intersection of the three provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, with rolling mountains and deep ravines. The county's 529 rural roads with a total length of 4,519 kilometers extend like capillaries on the Loess Plateau. There are many roads, long lines and wide areas, so maintenance is never an easy job.
This year, Huan County has implemented 7 rural road maintenance projects of 165 kilometers, among which the X066 line, which rings the town from Shibali to Tianchi Highway (Shibali to Yuanyanggou section), is 7.35 kilometers long and is the "main artery" for surrounding people to travel.
The subgrade of this road is 6.5 meters wide and the road surface is 4.5 meters wide. At the construction site, the supervisor He Jingzheng squatted next to the newly poured base layer with a testing instrument to check the data one by one. "This road was converted from white to black, and asphalt was paved on the old road." He Jing said that the construction involved multiple processes such as milling of the old road, excavation of old slabs, base pouring, and asphalt surface paving.
"We adhere to the principle of quality and safety first. From the on-site inspection of raw materials to the acceptance of concealed projects, we supervise the whole process and supervise rectifications immediately when problems are found." He Jing said that safety warning signs are laid out in all operating sections, closed operating areas are scientifically demarcated, the extreme weather shutdown system is strictly implemented, and illegal construction and risky operations are strictly prohibited.
Since the beginning of this year, Huanxian County has also made every effort to promote the construction of four 15-kilometer rural road safety and life protection projects. All of them have been completed, effectively filling the security shortcomings of key road sections. From road cleaning and ditch clearing to guardrail repair and sign updating, the dual mechanism of daily inspections and post-rain inspections allows every hidden danger to be recorded, dealt with, and closed-loop.
Smooth road network: mountainous goods “going out of the circle” and industrial acceleration
The roads are well maintained and the changes are visible. In Huanxian County, lamb meat and small grains were once "hidden in the boudoir and unknown to people." Saying goodbye to the past seven or eight hours of detouring cold chain vehicles on ordinary highways to Xi'an, now the G69 Yinbai Expressway runs through the north and south, county and township roads have been fully upgraded, and the 48-hour cold chain of lamb meat around the county reaches most cities across the country. In 2025, the online retail sales of agricultural products in the county will increase by 20.37% year-on-year.
Huanxian lamb is being loaded onto trucks and shipped to all parts of the country. (Information photo) Photo by Yang Rui
"Improvement of transportation and logistics conditions is the key to development." Zhang Jinbo, director of the Huanxian E-commerce Public Service Center, said in a recent interview that in the past, e-commerce companies were limited by logistics time and did not dare to vigorously promote it; now delivery is available the next day in the province and the next day in most parts of the country, and the competitiveness of Huanxian's agricultural products has been greatly improved.
The road network is encrypted, and mountain goods are "out of the circle". Dai Shijun, a villager in Xiezhuang Village, Shancheng Township, felt deeply about this: "In the past, the roads were not easy to navigate, and it was difficult to sell anything. The trucks that collected grain did not want to enter the village, so we had to use tricycles to get out. Now that all villages have asphalt roads, the countryside A processing factory has been built here, and the buckwheat and flax grown by my family can be collected directly by the processing factory, saving time and effort. With the roads in place, everything is ready. "The smooth and smooth rural roads are becoming a "fast lane" for industrial prosperity.
Long-term management and care: from "temporary repair" to "long-term safety"
"We arrange on-site safety officers to be on duty throughout the entire process, and technicians to follow the work and keep an eye on key processes." Geng Li said that through "detection to find problems and maintenance to solve problems," daily inspections and regular inspections are carried out on highway sections on a regular basis. Next, they will continue to follow the work, strictly control the quality, and ensure that every hidden danger is rectified in place.
The picture shows that after the construction of the water stabilization layer of the rural road in Huanxian County is completed, water is being sprayed for maintenance. Photo by Yang Rui
The X066 line maintenance project has completed the soil roadbed construction and is expected to be fully completed by the end of October. He Jing said that as a supervisory unit, they will continue to strictly control the quality and safety of the project, urge all parties involved in the construction to standardize the construction, strictly implement the raw material inspection, concealed project acceptance, on-site station supervision and other systems, track and inspect the entire process of sub-projects such as roadbed, road surface, drainage, traffic safety facilities, etc., and make every effort to ensure that the project is completed with quality and quantity.
As the sun sets, the sound of cutting, hammering, and the roar of machinery can be heard at the construction site on the Zhaozhuang No. 3 Bridge. From the "refinement" of a bridge to the daily maintenance of more than 4,000 kilometers of roads, from the "wrangling" over expansion joints to the "fast lane" of rural revitalization, this small town that was once troubled by traffic is outpacing the acceleration of rural revitalization on carefully maintained roads. (over)
