Recently, the reporter learned that the pre-station construction project of the provincial highway bridge section of the newly built Hefei-Anqing Railway has successfully completed bidding, marking the beginning of the Hefei-Anqing high-speed railway's entry into Hefei. It is reported that the Hefei-Anqing high-speed railway is expected to start full construction in the first half of this year and is scheduled to be completed and open to traffic in 2020.
After the Ning'an high-speed railway opened to traffic at the end of last year, citizens have an additional fast channel to Anqing. However, due to the need to detour via Tongling and a speed limit of only 200 kilometers per hour, the fastest journey from Hefei to Anqing takes 1 hour and 38 minutes.
The construction of the Hefei-Anqing high-speed railway will shorten the time and space distance between the two places. As the first high-speed railway invested and constructed under the leadership of provincial and municipal governments, the project has a total investment of 33.4 billion yuan, a main line length of 162.58 kilometers, and a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour. The line starts from the new Hefei West Station of the Hefei hub, passes through Feixi, Lujiang, Shucheng, Tongcheng, Huaining and other cities and counties, and ends at the new Anqing West Station. By then, it will take only about 40 minutes from Hefei to Anqing.
The Hefei-Anqing Railway itself is part of the Hefei-Anqing-Jiujiang passenger dedicated line. At present, the controlling project has already started construction at the end of last year and is about to start full construction. The remaining section is the Chizhou-Jiujiang section. It is understood that the preliminary design of the Hefei-Anqing-Jiujiang Railway has been completed, and the construction drawing design will be carried out next. It is expected that the entire line will start construction this year. As an important part of the Beijing-Kowloon high-speed railway, after the entire Hefei-Anqing-Jiujiang Railway is completed, it will take just over 1 hour from Hefei to Jiujiang, about 2 hours from Hefei to Nanchang, and as fast as about 6 hours from Hefei to Shenzhen.
The author learned that the main line of the Hefei-Anqing passenger dedicated line starts from the Bengfu connecting line of the Hefei hub, sets up the new Hefei West Station at Dongxinzhuang, goes south along the existing Hejiu line after leaving the station, continues south after merging with the existing Feixi Station, and sets up the new Anqing West Station on the northwest side of Chaling Town.
The new Hefei West Station, which is part of the Hefei-Anqing passenger dedicated line project, had its site basically settled in the area of the Third Water Plant last year. Currently, preliminary planning and design work is underway. It is expected that the station building area of the new Hefei West Station will be no less than 50,000 square meters, about half the size of Hefei South Station, exceeding the old Hefei Station and the original West Station.
According to relevant personnel from the railway department, the main line of the Hefei-Anqing passenger dedicated line has a total of 6 stations, including 5 newly built stations: New Hefei West, Shucheng East, Lujiang West, Tongcheng East, and Shuanggang, and 1 reconstructed station: the existing Feixi Station on the Hejiu line. The line also passes through the existing Hefei West Station and Zhuxi Station on the Hejiu line, but does not handle business, and the stations remain as they are. In addition, with the introduction of the Hefei-Anqing passenger dedicated line, the capacity of the existing double-track section of the Hejiu Railway within the Hefei railway hub is seriously insufficient. To this end, the Hefei West Ring Freight Bypass Line and the Hejiu Freight Connecting Line will be built to form a hub pattern of "passengers inside, freight outside", thereby achieving separate operation of passenger and freight trains, solving the insufficient capacity of the section within the hub, and at the same time reducing the noise, vibration, and air impact caused by freight train operations in the central urban area.