At 10:30 on July 6, at the construction site in Guanting Town, Hefei City, Anhui Province, a precast box girder measuring 32.6 meters in length and weighing 811.7 tons was precisely positioned. This marked the successful erection of the first box girder for the Hefei Hub Connection Project of the newly built Hefei-Wuhan High-speed Railway (hereinafter referred to as the Hefei-Wuhan HSR), kicking off the full-scale girder erection phase of the project.

Lying within Hefei City, Anhui Province, the Hefei Hub Connection Project of the Hefei-Wuhan HSR covers a total new and reconstructed track length of 75.772 kilometers. The whole line features 12 bridges stretching around 14 kilometers in aggregate, requiring prefabrication and erection of 87 box girders in total.

During construction, the project team coordinated and allocated manpower and machinery resources to complete commissioning of large-scale girder erection equipment. The full workflow, ranging from bearing installation, girder lifting and transportation to bearing grouting, took merely two hours. The construction precision exceeded the requirements of design specifications, and the project passed one-time acceptance inspection with qualified quality, setting a standardized benchmark for subsequent girder erection operations.

In terms of equipment support, the project deployed the JQSS900b box girder launching machine, independently developed, optimized and upgraded by the Fourth Engineering Co.,LTD. of CTCE Group. This model supports free switching between single-span and double-span modes, adapting to complex working conditions such as tunnel entrances and tunnel interiors, as well as special girder erection scenarios including initial and final spans, curved sections and variable spans, effectively boosting operational efficiency.

As a key component of the Yangtze River Corridor under China’s national "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network, the Hefei-Wuhan HSR refers to the Hefei-Wuhan section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-speed Railway (Yangtze River HSR Corridor). Traversing Anhui and Hubei Provinces, it originates from Hefei South Railway Station within the Hefei Railway Hub and terminates at the Wuhan Railway Hub. The main line stretches approximately 360 kilometers with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

Upon completion and operation, the Hefei-Wuhan HSR will create a brand-new high-speed rail passage between Hefei and Wuhan, further optimizing the railway network layout of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and greatly facilitating travel for residents along the line. It bears great significance for advancing high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.