On March 27, accompanied by the roar of rotary drilling rigs, the first pile foundation of the entire Hunan section of the Yichang–Changde High-Speed Railway—built by Hunan Company of Shanghai–Kunming Passenger Dedicated Line and constructed by China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group—officially began drilling, marking the transition of the Yichang–Changde High-Speed Railway from the preliminary preparation stage to a new stage of substantive construction of the main works.

　　The newly built Yichang–Changde Railway starts from Yichang North Station in the north, passes through Yidu City and Songzi City in Hubei Province, enters Hunan Province to the south, passes through Li County and Linli County, and connects to Changde Station. The newly built main line in the Hunan section is 98.466 km long, with a design speed of 350 km/h. Among this, the Yichang–Changde Railway Section 3, constructed by China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group, has a total length of 36.893 km, and its main construction content includes subgrade, bridges, prefabrication and erection of box girders, track laying, and so on.

　　The first pile foundation drilled this time is located at the extra-large bridge on the left line crossing the Qianjiang–Zhangjiajie–Changde Railway. It has a designed pile diameter of 1 m and a pile length of 31 m, and is constructed using the rotary drilling process. The extra-large bridge crossing the Qianjiang–Zhangjiajie–Changde Railway has a total length of 4,492.24 m, crosses the existing Qianjiang–Zhangjiajie–Changde connecting line, Shaohua River, and Taiyang Avenue, and has 769 designed pile foundations. To ensure the smooth implementation of the first pile, the builders of China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group planned ahead and made meticulous arrangements, organized technical briefings and scheme reviews multiple times, and strictly implemented safety training and equipment acceptance. During construction, they adhered to the full-process presence of technical personnel, precisely controlled key links such as pile position positioning, drilling parameters, and hole shape quality, strictly observed the safety red line and quality standards, and achieved a high-standard start and efficient advancement of the first pile construction.

　　As a key component of the Hohhot–Nanning Corridor in the "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network, the Yichang–Changde High-Speed Railway connects to the Zhengzhou–Wanzhou and Wuhan–Yichang high-speed railways in the north and to the Changde–Yiyang–Changsha high-speed railway in the south, filling the high-speed railway gap between western Hubei and northwestern Hunan and further strengthening the connectivity and integrity of the national high-speed railway network. After completion, the travel time from Yichang to Changde will be shortened from about 3.5 hours to about 1.5 hours, greatly compressing the space-time distance between cities along the line, strengthening the connections among cities within the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and having far-reaching significance for promoting the rise of central China, improving the national transportation network, and promoting coordinated regional development.

Source: Changsha Evening News on Pocket Changsha