At 11:00 on September 6, as the last 32-meter-long, 399-tonne box girder was precisely set in place, the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway connecting line of the Guangzhou Baiyun Station hub was fully completed, and is expected to meet the conditions for opening to traffic by the end of this year, in step with Guangzhou Baiyun Station.

The Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway connecting line supporting the Guangzhou Baiyun Station hub has a total length of about 23.1 kilometers. It is a key project for bringing the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway into Baiyun Station and directly affects the opening and operation of Baiyun Station.

According to Zhang Dudu, head of the girder erection work area of the Baiyun Station project of China Railway 25th Bureau Group, the girder erection process faced operations on a steep 28‰ gradient and crossed over the existing Beijing-Guangzhou railway with heavy traffic, posing great construction difficulty and high safety risks. To this end, the project builders, in view of the construction characteristics of crossing over existing lines, formulated special construction plans and strictly implemented the hard measures of "one blockade, one inspection and two protections"—blockade construction requirements, investigation of hidden risks, protection of existing line operations and protection of catenary systems—to ensure train operation safety. In addition, the project team combined intelligent high-precision sensors with a jib leveling mechanism to ensure that the jib always remains level and the support columns are loaded vertically, taking multiple measures to ensure the safe construction of the bridge erection machine.

At present, the Guangzhou Baiyun Station hub project is in the midst of an intensive construction drive. The completion of girder erection on the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway connecting line has also laid the foundation for track construction. In mid-September, the connecting line will enter the track-laying construction stage, strongly promoting the accelerated construction of the Guangzhou Baiyun Station hub.

It is learned that Guangzhou Baiyun Station is the first extra-large hub project under construction in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to be built according to the planning and construction concept of a modern comprehensive transportation hub. Externally, it will create a "composite passenger station for conventional, high-speed and intercity rail"; internally, it will build a "mass public transport" system, creating a new railway hub passenger station that is "smooth and integrated, green and warm, economical and artistic, intelligent and convenient." After the project is completed, it will become the largest TOD large-scale comprehensive transportation hub in the country, gradually taking over conventional-speed passenger trains from Guangzhou Station and Guangzhou East Station. It is a precondition for the future renewal and reconstruction of Guangzhou Station and Guangzhou East Station, and is also a demonstration project for Guangzhou's "high-speed rail into the urban area."