en.Wedoany.com Reported - On July 8, the final concrete pour was completed for the station building of Hongyuan Station on the Xining-Chengdu Railway (hereinafter referred to as the "Xi-Cheng Railway"), marking the official topping out of its main structure. This station is the first along the entire Xi-Cheng Railway to achieve a structural topping out. It will now fully enter the phases of interior and exterior decoration, as well as mechanical and electrical equipment installation.
It is understood that Hongyuan Station is located in the heart of the Hongyuan Grassland in Aba, Sichuan, at an altitude of 3,675 meters, making it a typical high-altitude plateau railway station. The station yard is designed with 2 platforms and 4 tracks, with a station building area of 1,986 square meters and a maximum designed passenger capacity of 300. Ding Lie, Commander of the Xi-Cheng Railway Project Department of China Railway Ninth Group, introduced that the design theme of Hongyuan Station is "Prairie Spark, Red Memory," integrating traditional Tibetan residential architectural styles into the modern railway station building design. The station's red and white roof, complemented by its iconic red facade, not only highlights the unique regional features of the snowy plateau but also aligns with the area's profound red cultural heritage from the Long March.
Hongyuan County is located in the core area of the Western Sichuan Plateau, with an average altitude exceeding 3,600 meters across its entire territory. The combination of extreme cold, strong winds, oxygen deficiency, and fragile ecological constraints presents multiple challenges for engineering construction that are vastly different from those in plain areas, imposing extremely high standards for structural durability, construction safety, and project quality.
Concrete's susceptibility to cracking in high-altitude, cold environments has long been a common technical challenge restricting the construction of plateau transportation infrastructure. To address the pain points of on-site construction, the project team developed a complete set of constant-temperature and humidity curing technologies adapted to plateau conditions, effectively overcoming this industry technical bottleneck.
During construction, the team applied a water-energy membrane wrapping and curing process to all frame columns of the station, and covered the top surfaces of beams and slabs with film to lock in moisture, stabilizing the internal temperature and humidity of the concrete. For traditional curing blind spots such as beam bottoms and slab undersides, fully automatic intelligent spraying equipment was deployed to achieve round-the-clock, no-dead-angle constant-humidity curing of engineering components. Additionally, the project selected high early-strength special cement suited to the hydration heat characteristics of the plateau, precisely adjusted the ratios of admixtures and mineral admixtures to enhance the frost resistance, corrosion resistance, and anti-aging performance of the station building's main structure, ensuring the long-term safe and stable operation of this plateau station.
"Currently, construction is progressing steadily for the four plateau station buildings on the Sichuan section of the Xi-Cheng Railway: Banyou, Ruoergai, Axi, and Huahu," said Yin Jianwen, Commander of the Xi-Cheng Railway Command of Chenglan Railway Company. He stated that the main structures of the plateau stations along the line are planned to be completed by 2026, with decoration and mechanical/electrical supporting works to be finished by 2027. Yin Jianwen revealed that among the 14 tunnels on the Sichuan section of the Xi-Cheng Railway, 9 have been completed; of the 62 bridges, all 9 key controlled special bridges have been connected, with bridge works 92.4% complete and subgrade works 85.6% complete.
It is reported that the Xi-Cheng Railway is a key component of the Lanzhou (Xining)-Guangzhou corridor, one of the main channels of the national "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network. Once fully operational, it will fill the gap in railway transportation in the cold plateau regions of northwestern Sichuan and southern Gansu, greatly facilitating travel for residents along the route, and promoting industrial linkage and regional coordinated development between the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration and the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle.
