Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge

Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge in April 2022

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

Projected uses[edit]

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[edit]

In 1995, China and Russia signed an agreement to build a bridge across the Amur and Ussuri rivers.

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]

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.[citation needed]

Completion of structural link between the two sides of the bridge was completed in March 2019.[10][11] Opening of rail traffic has been repeatedly delayed, with the December 2019 estimate being "the end of 2020",[12] and then 3rd quarter of 2021.[13] The bridge was finally completed on August 17, 2021,[14] and the first Russian commercial train entered China on November 16, 2022.[15]

Design[edit]

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[edit]

  1. ^ a b 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. 2003-06-18. 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. ^ a b Higgins, Andrew (July 16, 2016). "An Unfinished Bridge, and Partnership, Between Russia and China". The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  10. ^ "Russia Completes Construction of First-Ever Rail Bridge to China", The Moscow Times, March 21, 2019, retrieved August 25, 2019
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ "Railway bridge over Amur river to China will be built by end of 2020, envoy says". TASS. Retrieved 2020-03-12.
  13. ^ "Новости Хабаровска".
  14. ^ "First cross-river railway bridge between China and Russia completed". CNN. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
  15. ^ https://expert.ru/2022/11/16/rossiyu-i-kitay-svyazal-perviy-v-istorii-zheleznodorozhniy-most-cherez-amur/amp/
  16. ^ "Construction of 2·2 km Amur bridge begins". Railway Gazette International. March 14, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2019.

See also[edit]

47°58′N 132°42′E / 47.96°N 132.70°E / 47.96; 132.70

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