Shuan Tunnel Breakthrough Clears All Tunnel Works on Chengdu-Chongqing Middle High-Speed Railway
Per Xinhua News Agency, the final breakthrough of Shuan Tunnel, a core controlling project funded in part by Shudao Railway Operation Group, marks full completion of all 41 tunnels along the Chengdu-Chongqing Middle High-Speed Railway, laying solid engineering groundwork for the line’s scheduled opening to traffic.
Sited between Jianzhou Station and Chengdu Station, Shuan Tunnel runs for a total length of 10,380 metres and falls into the urban shield-type high-speed rail tunnel category. Engineers adopt a combined construction scheme mixing shield tunnelling and open-cut excavation, with the shield-built stretch extending to 9,824 metres. Two tailor-made oversized earth pressure balance shield machines, named Shuan’an and Chengyu respectively, carry out the tunnelling work at an excavation diameter of 14.5 metres, making the finished tunnel the country’s largest-diameter operational earth pressure balance shield tunnel at present.
Construction crews steer the tunnel route beneath densely built-up urban zones of Chengdu, passing underneath more than fifty key infrastructure assets including Chengdu Ring Expressway, existing operational railway routes, urban metro lines, municipal carriageways and diverse underground utility pipelines. The tunnel reaches its deepest burial depth at 62 metres, with intricate underground surroundings bringing complicated construction conditions and stringent safety management requirements throughout the building phase.
Acting as Sichuan’s designated investment representative for the cross-provincial high-speed rail scheme, Shudao Railway Operation Group prioritises steady capital input and resource optimisation to expedite construction progress across the Sichuan section of the route. Cumulative investment channelled by the enterprise has hit 16.148 billion yuan so far, accounting for 88.28 per cent of its agreed total investment quota for the project. All core structural works including bridges and tunnels across the entire high-speed rail alignment have been wrapped up. Construction advancement on the Sichuan segment stands at 87.1 per cent of the overall planned workload; main frameworks for power supply, communication and signal equipment buildings as well as passenger station premises are fully finished, while 66.5 per cent of ballastless track base slabs have been laid. Track-laying operations are due to kick off across the full route in the subsequent construction phase.
Per China Railway official release, once fully commissioned, the new high-speed corridor will interconnect with multiple existing and under-construction trunk rail links. The network includes operational high-speed lines linking Xi’an with Chengdu and Zhengzhou with Chongqing, alongside ongoing projects such as Xining-Chengdu high-speed railway and Chengdu-Dazhou-Wanzhou high-speed railway. The upgraded rail network will optimise the overall passenger and freight rail layout within the Chengdu-Chongqing twin-city economic cluster, cutting travel duration between Chengdu and Chongqing down to fifty minutes. Reduced journey times will streamline daily commutes for residents living along the whole corridor. Further rail connectivity supports coordinated industrial and urban development across the Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone and facilitates systematic advancement of the western China development strategy in the coming years.
According to China Economic Net, relevant transport authorities keep refining follow-up construction coordination arrangements for remaining engineering segments. Regulatory teams coordinate with construction contractors to push ahead with subsequent track installation, system debugging and pre-operation inspections in line with preset timetables. Continuous optimisation of intercity rail schedules will proceed alongside the formal launch of passenger services after the completion of all remaining construction works.
