China-Laos railway achieves tech breakthrough

Lonely at the top of the high-speed lane

After reaching the south bank of the Honghe River and climbing the steel truss complex of the enormous underconstruction Yuanjiang Railway Bridge, I looked down to the valley more than 100 meters away and was a bit scared.

"Afraid?" Asked Xi Ming, 46 and a native of Shidian county, Yunnan province, who accompanied me on the trip. "Yes," I admitted, clinging to the steel safety bars around the steel truss.

"Look at them," he said, pointing to the two young workers, who were sitting on a steel truss and taking a rest after fastening some high-strength bolts onto it.

With safety belts around them and safety nets underneath, they seemed accustomed to working at such heights and showed little fear.

Chen Siyuan, 35, who is from Wuhan city of Central China's Hubei province, said after all these years of working on railway construction projects, he has got used to working at heights.

Earning some 8,000 yuan ($1,270) a month, he said he can support his family: his wife, his 13-year-old daughter and 9-year old son.

"Once the railway bridge is completed, and I pass it on a train, imagine how proud I will be," Chen said, pointing to the bridge, which is part of the Chinese section of the 925.5-kilometer China-Laos railway.

According to Ding He, a deputy project manager for the railway project who is from the China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd (CREC4), at busy times, some 200 workers participated in building the 832.2-meter-long Yuanjiang Railway Bridge, work on which started on April 16, 2016.

Ding said there will be 56 steel truss complexes linking the Yuanjiang Railway Bridge, which spans the V-shaped Honghe River Canyon in Southwest China's Yunnan, and needs 420,940 sets of high-strength bolts.

"Every set of bolts needs to be fastened to the perfect state to ensure the complete safety of the railway bridge," he said, adding "we need the responsibility and dedication of our workers."

Huang Yukun, a deputy project manager for the railway project, and his wife Shen Jiliang are the only couple working on the Yuanjiang Railway Bridge, which is scheduled to finish at the end of June 2020.

"We began to work here when the construction work started, and I love my job," said Huang, who is from the Fifth Division of CREC4.

Wan Weiguo, Huang's colleague, who joined the Fifth Division of CREC4 at the age of 17 and is turning 51 this year, said building railways for 34 years has left an indelible impression on him. "You just see how fast our high-speed trains run today, and then you can comment on our job," he said.