Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge

Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge (Amur River Bridge) is an international Sino-Russian railroad bridge.The bridge will link Nizhneleninskoye (in Russian: Нижнеленинское) in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast with Tongjiang (in Chinese: 同江) in Heilongjiang Province.

Projected uses

A major use of the bridge will be to transport iron ore from the Kimkan open-pit mine in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast that is owned by IRC Limited, which is partly owned by Petropavlovsk plc.[1][2] Petropavlovsk plc will participate in financing the bridge's construction.[1] The bridge is expected to transport more than 3 million metric tons of cargo and 1.5 million passengers per year.[3]

History

The bridge was first proposed in 2007 by Valery Solomonovich Gurevich, the vice-chairman of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.[4] Gurevich said that the proposal to construct a bridge across the river was first suggested by the Russian side, in view of growing cargo transportation demands.

In 2013, the transport ministries of Russia and China signed a general construction agreement.[5] During President Putin's visit to China in May 2014, another agreement about the construction of the bridge was signed by Russian and Chinese officials.[6] In September 2014, Russia and China founded a joint company which will control the process of building the bridge.[7]

In November 2014, the local Russian media reported that a significant amount of the construction work had been carried out on the Chinese part of the bridge, but hardly anything had been done on the Russian part.[8] In June 2016, the Russian government selected SK Most Group, a well-connected private Russian company led by Ruslan Baisarov, to work on the project.[9][10]

By July 2016, the Chinese portion of the bridge was finished but work had not started on the much shorter Russian portion.[9]

In December 2016, work began on the Russian portion of the bridge.[11]

Completion of structural link between the two sides of the bridge was completed in March 2019.[12][13] Opening to rail traffic has been repeatedly delayed, with the December 2019 estimate being "the end of 2020",[14] and then 3rd quarter of 2021.[15]

Design

The bridge was designed by Russia's Giprostroymost institute, satisfying both Russian and Chinese standards. In 2014, it was reported that the main structure over the Amur River runs north-south and will consist of 20 110-meter steel through-truss spans. The bridge will have both a standard gauge (1435 mm) track and a Russian gauge (1520 mm) track. However, the two tracks will be offset by only 800 mm, so that only one track can be used at any given time.[16]

References
  1. ANDREW E. KRAMER (June 9, 2010), "China's Hunger Fuels Exports in Remote Russia", The New York Times
  2. "UPDATE 2-Shares of Petropavlovsk's IRC slump in Hong Kong debut". Reuters. Oct 21, 2010.
  3. "Work Starts On First China-Russia Highway Bridge". Radio Free Europe. December 25, 2016.
  4. "China-Russia Trade to Top US$40b". China Daily. 2007-06-18. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
  5. "Строительство первого железнодорожного моста соединяющего Китай и Россию начнется в 2009 году" (Construction of the first railway bridge connecting Russia and China will start in 2009) China.org.cn, 2008-11-27. (in Russian)
  6. Мост через Амур между РФ и КНР начнут строить в ближайшие месяцы (Construction of the bridge across the Amur between the RF and the PRC will start within a few months), 2014-05-20
  7. "Russia and China establish company to build a bridge across Amur River" (Press release). TASS. 26 September 2014. Retrieved 2014-10-02.
  8. "Далеко в отрыв ушли от коллег из ЕАО китайские строители ж/д моста Нижнеленинское-Тунцзян" [The Chinese builders of the Nizhneleninskoye-Tongjiang railway bridge are far ahead of their colleagues from the Jewish A.O.]. eaomedia.ru (in Russian). November 5, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  9. Higgins, Andrew (July 16, 2016). "An Unfinished Bridge, and Partnership, Between Russia and China". The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  10. "Компания Руслана Байсарова установила ключевую часть моста в Китай" [Ruslan Baysarov’s company installed a key part of the bridge to China]. Lenta.ru (in Russian). March 22, 2019. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  11. "Russia, China launch construction of bridge across Amur river". Russia Today. December 25, 2016.
  12. "Russia Completes Construction of First-Ever Rail Bridge to China", The Moscow Times, March 21, 2019, retrieved August 25, 2019
  13. Россия и Китай соединили железнодорожный мост через Амур [Russia and China connected a railway bridge across the Amur] (in Russian), RBK Group, March 21, 2019, retrieved August 25, 2019
  14. "Railway bridge over Amur river to China will be built by end of 2020, envoy says". TASS. Retrieved 2020-03-12.
  15. https://www.dvnovosti.ru/eao/2020/02/17/110702/
  16. "Construction of 2·2 km Amur bridge begins". Railway Gazette International. March 14, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2019.

See also

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