Heishuihe Railway Bridge
Heishuihe Railway Bridge
黑水河桥
Zhenba, Shaanxi, China
338 feet high / 103 meters high
(197) foot span / (60) meter span
1972
Located on the original Xiangfan-Chongqing Railway line, the Heishuihe Railway truss bridge crosses a deep gash at least 100 meters deep. Heishuihe likely became the highest bridge in China after the Nami-T Railway Bridge opened 63 years earlier in Southern Yunnan Province. In 1977 China's highest bridge crown was passed on to the Yesanhe arch bridge in Hubei Province.
It should be noted the city of Xiangfan is now called Xiangyan hence the current line name of Xiangyan-Chongqing Railway line. The length is quoted by Wikipedia to be 895.3 kilometers. The line was electrified in 3 phases from 1980 to 1998 and a second completely new track route was completed in 2009. This new line is more direct measuring only 507 kilometers in length and capable of trains as fast as 160 km/h.
According to TUNNELweb:
Xiangfan-Chongqing Railway, 859.6km long, was constructed from 1968 and was formally opened to traffic in June 1978. Xiangfan-Chongqing Railway runs across Wudang Mountain, Daba Mountain and Huaying Mountain. There are 405 tunnels with a total linear length of 287km on the railway line, including 12 tunnels with more than 3km length, 2 tunnels with more than 5km length, 7 three-track tunnels and 2 4-track tunnels. No. 2 Daba Mountain Tunnel, 5.334km long, is the longest tunnel on the railway line. The tunnel-line ratio of the railway is 33.4%. In particular, the tunnels on the 276km-long section of the railway line in Shaanxi Province have a total linear length of 172km and the tunnel-line ratio of the section is 62%. Of the 90 stations on the railway line, 36 stations are constructed in tunnels or on bridges. The tunnel construction is mainly carried out by top and bottom heading and hopper-shed tunneling method by means of light-duty machinery. Normally long tunnels are complemented with auxiliary heading to speed up the progress. Besides monolithic lining, shotcrete lining, semilining and arch flank wall are also used.
Damaoshan Tunnel on Xiangfan-Chongqing Railway is 2.368km long. The exit section of the tunnel is designed to convert from single-track section to three-track section, among which the three-track section is 271m long.
A view of one of the older and newer bridges along the Xiangfan-Chongqing Railway line.
Heishuihe Railway Bridge satellite image. The newer railway line crosses about 100 meters in elevation below the older line and just 50 meters west of the Heishuihe truss bridge.
Heishuihe Railway Bridge location map.