CHINA Railway's 14th Bureau Group completed the 10km Zhanjiang Bay undersea tunnel on March 15. A single shield tunnel boring machine (TBM) named Yongxing took 33 months to finish the single bore tunnel that will accommodate a double-track railway.
Three quarters of the tunnel’s total length of 9640m was bored by the TBM, comprising 2500m of undersea tunnel and 5051m beneath dry land. The project is China's longest high-speed undersea railway tunnel, that used a single TBM to excavate continuously from one end to the other.
The 14.33m-diameter TBM worked at a depth of up to 52m below the seabed in Zhanjiang Bay in southern China, excavating at an average rate of 260m per month and achieving a maximum of 510m.
The tunnel is a key part of a new 401km high-speed line linking Guangzhou and Zhanjiang in Guangdong province. Due for completion by the end of 2025, trains operating at up to 350km/h will cut journey times between the two cities to 90 minutes from the current 2h 30min.
The Chinese government says that the new line will further improve the coastal high-speed railway corridor, allowing the creation of a comprehensive transport network in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area while simultaneously boosting economic development in the region.
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