Recently, the Lingbei Tunnel of the Ruimei Railway, a national key project undertaken by China Railway No. 5 Engineering Group, was holed through, marking important progress in the construction of the Ruimei Railway and laying a solid foundation for keeping the girder-erection corridor open along the entire line.

The newly built Ruimei Railway is a key project of the national 14th Five-Year Plan. It starts in the north at Ruijin City, Jiangxi Province, the "cradle of the Republic," runs south through Huichang County and Anyuan County to Xunwu County in Ganzhou City, then through Pingyuan County and Meijiang District in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, and connects to Meizhou Station on the Zhangping-Longchuan Railway. The main line is 240.3 km long with a design speed of 160 km/h, and is a national Class I single-track electrified mixed passenger and freight railway.

It is understood that the Lingbei Tunnel, as the first tunnel in the direction of the line's first girder erection, directly constrains the progress of girder erection. As one of the first tunnels to start construction, the project team fully recognized the importance of the Lingbei Tunnel and used advanced techniques and tooling, adopted an intelligent gas detection system, and implemented comprehensive safeguard measures for safety and quality. Relying on technical means such as advanced geological forecasting and monitoring measurement, and in light of the geological conditions, they carefully compared and selected various construction schemes; flexibly adjusted the construction scheme, optimized support parameters, and dynamically adjusted the reserved deformation, effectively overcoming complex geological conditions such as strongly developed karst caves, fractured rock masses, bedding-parallel eccentric pressure, and high in-situ stress, ensuring smooth progress of construction.

It is reported that once the Ruimei Railway is completed, it will further improve the road network structure in southern Jiangxi and northeastern Guangdong, strengthen transport links between the old revolutionary base areas and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and between eastern Guangdong and the central region, and facilitate travel for people along the line. It will also end the history of no railway access in Xunwu and Anyuan counties in Jiangxi Province, and is of great significance for implementing the Revitalization and Development Plan for the Former Central Soviet Area in Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong, promoting rural revitalization, advancing coordinated regional development, and boosting the rapid economic development of the old revolutionary base areas.