The Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway is scheduled to officially start operation before the end of the year and is currently in the trial operation phase. On December 10, reporters boarded a trial train at Guangzhou Baiyun Station to experience the 1.5-hour direct journey to Zhanjiang North Station in Zhanjiang’s downtown area in advance. The trial train departed at 9:00 and arrived at Zhanjiang North Station at 10:32 after a 92-minute trip.
As an important part of the coastal railway passenger corridor in the national “eight vertical and eight horizontal” high-speed railway network, the main line of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway is 401 kilometers long with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour. It passes through cities including Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhaoqing, Yunfu, Yangjiang, Maoming and Zhanjiang, serving as a crucial link connecting the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Hainan Free Trade Port and Beibu Gulf Urban Agglomeration. The railway has 10 stations: Guangzhou Baiyun Station, Foshan Station, Fozhao Station, Xinxing South Station, Yangchun East Station, Yangjiang North Station, Mata Station, Maoming South Station, Wuchuan Station and Zhanjiang North Station.
Under the current line speed, the fastest route from Guangzhou to Zhanjiang is from Guangzhou South Station to Zhanjiang West Station, taking about 2.5 hours at the earliest and most trains taking around 3 hours. After the opening of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway, the fastest direct trip from Guangzhou Baiyun Station to Zhanjiang North Station will take only 1.5 hours, greatly facilitating passengers traveling between Guangzhou and Zhanjiang as well as along the line.
Restoring “Twin Bridges in Misty Rain” of the Pearl River via “Demolishing East to Protect West”, and Crossing Zhanjiang Bay Seabed and Urban Area in 3 Minutes
Shortly after departing from Guangzhou Baiyun Station, the train passed the Pearl River Bridge, one of the eight scenic spots of old Guangzhou known as “Twin Bridges in Misty Rain”. The newly built Zhujiang Fourth Line Grand Bridge has a main line length of 4.9 kilometers and follows the design principle of “demolishing the east to protect the west, and demolishing one to build three”—the original east bridge of the Guangmao Railway across the Pearl River was demolished and rebuilt, while the original west bridge retained its historical style, preserving the “Twin Bridges in Misty Rain” landscape of the Guangmao Railway and transforming the former double-track ordinary speed bridge into a four-track high-speed railway bridge. Through optimized design, including separate new construction and activated utilization schemes, the “Twin Bridges in Misty Rain” landscape has been preserved in its original form, truly achieving a win-win situation between historical building protection and railway hub construction, allowing the new bridge and the old scenery to coexist harmoniously over the Pearl River.
As the train continued forward, a 2.5-kilometer-long “sound insulation tunnel” quietly played an important role. Although the high-speed train passed through, the residential areas along the line and Luocun Wing Chun Sports Park were not disturbed by noise. This fully enclosed noise barrier project is not only the first application in a 350-kilometer-per-hour high-speed railway project in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area but also provides a new solution for noise reduction of high-speed railways in densely populated urban areas.
This “sound insulation tunnel” is located on the Gaozhong Interchange Grand Bridge of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway in Foshan section, with a total length of about 5,100 meters, passing through downtown Foshan. To minimize the impact of noise and vibration generated by the high-speed operation of trains on surrounding residents, the construction team installed a fully enclosed noise barrier on the bridge, like putting a “silencer cover” on the line.
Before arriving at Zhanjiang North Station, the train entered a tunnel. Unbeknownst to passengers, the train was actually speeding dozens of meters under the seabed at this time—this is the Zhanjiang Bay Railway Tunnel, a key and difficult project in the entire line of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway. As one of the key control projects of the whole line, the Zhanjiang Bay Railway Tunnel is 9,640 meters long, crossing the seabed of Zhanjiang Bay and Zhanjiang’s urban area, and the train can pass through the tunnel in about 3 minutes.
He Ziliang, the person in charge of the Zhanjiang Bay Railway Tunnel project of China Railway 14th Bureau Group, introduced that the customized “Yongxing” shield machine overcame technical challenges such as long-distance complex seabed strata and severe cutter wear, maintained millimeter-level settlement control, and achieved a number of scientific research and innovation results.
The project team firmly implemented the design concept of “not building a single bridge pile on the sea surface and not pouring a single cubic meter of concrete into the sea”, protecting the marine ecological environment from the source. The newly built Zhanjiang North Station is located west of the former Zhanjiang Airport in Xiashan District, Zhanjiang City, with a scale of 6 platforms and 12 lines. The station building’s shape is derived from “Bauhinia in Full Bloom in Zhanjiang”, with the roof stretching like petals, symbolizing the city’s prosperity. With a total construction area of 105,000 square meters, the station building can accommodate 5,000 passengers waiting at the same time. The design of Zhanjiang North Station deeply extracts the cultural imagery of bauhinia, the city flower, realizing the integration of natural beauty and architectural functions.
On December 8, the Foshan-Zhanjiang section of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway successfully passed the preliminary acceptance. Preliminary acceptance is an important link following static acceptance and dynamic acceptance, and then it will enter the stages of safety assessment and operation preparation.
Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway
- Total length: 401 kilometers, with a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour, passing through cities such as Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhaoqing, Yunfu, Yangjiang, Maoming and Zhanjiang.
- It has 10 stations: Guangzhou Baiyun Station, Foshan Station, Fozhao Station, Xinxing South Station, Yangchun East Station, Yangjiang North Station, Mata Station, Maoming South Station, Wuchuan Station and Zhanjiang North Station.
The catering service of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-Speed Railway is oriented towards affordability, offering a variety of special meals ranging from 20 yuan to 40 yuan, such as braised chicken with yellow sauce and sweet and sour pork with pineapple. In terms of beverages, it has launched a series of salty fresh fruit teas—salty wampee refreshing tea and powerful pineapple tea.
