Recently, the Taihe Tunnel, the first long tunnel on the northeast freight outer bypass of the Guangzhou railway hub constructed by the China Railway Tunnel Group, achieved a smooth breakthrough between its exit and the large chainage of Xiajing inclined shaft. This is also the first long tunnel on the entire line to achieve a milestone breakthrough.
The Taihe Tunnel has a total length of 12.936 kilometers. The breakthrough between the tunnel exit and Xiajing inclined shaft covers 2.778 kilometers, 45 days ahead of the construction organization plan. It is a control project for the Baiyun District section of the Guangzhou railway outer bypass line.
The tunnel is located in Taihe Town in the northeastern part of Guangzhou City in the Pearl River Delta region and is a single-tube double-track tunnel. The average burial depth of the tunnel is 39 meters, mainly consisting of Class IV and V weak surrounding rock. The geological structure is complex, groundwater is abundant, and the self-stability is poor, making it prone to risks such as water and mud inrush, landslides, and collapses. At the same time, there are technical construction challenges such as passing beneath the Jinkeng River channel and Dengsui Highway, with burial depths of 1 to 5 meters.
During construction, the project strictly followed the requirements for standardized, normalized, and systematic railway construction and implemented a “field army” style of management. Employees upheld the spirit of model workers and craftsmen, ensured quality and safety, solved numerous technical challenges, overcame construction difficulties such as land acquisition and demolition, high temperatures and extreme heat, typhoons and rainstorms, and achieved the smooth breakthrough of the first long tunnel milestone on the entire line.
The northeast freight outer bypass of the Guangzhou railway hub has a total length of 68.893 kilometers, passing through Huadu District and Huangpu District and ending in Zengcheng District. The construction of the project meets the needs of urban planning and development. It not only helps improve the railway network in the Guangzhou area, developing it into a ring-shaped hub pattern with freight outside and passengers inside, enhancing the railway's transport capacity and the flexibility of transport organization, and greatly improving hub transport efficiency and quality, but also helps the Pearl River Delta actively lead the national “Belt and Road” initiative and boost the connectivity of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.