Construction started Thursday on the Sichuan section of a trunk railway line connecting the capitals of west China's Qinghai and Sichuan provinces.
The 173-km section will be a part of the 836.5-km Xining-Chengdu railway linking the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan at a speed of 200 km per hour, with 17 new stations to be built, according to China Railway Construction Corporation.
The trunk line is scheduled to be completed in seven years and a half, with a total investment of 81.5 billion yuan (about 11.7 billion U.S. dollars).
The projected Xining-Chengdu railway will run through basins, plateaus, river valleys and mountainous areas, including four national nature reserves along the route. Some 65 percent of the new projects will be located over 3,000 meters above sea level, said Duan Rongcheng, general designer of the railway.
To solve the difficulties brought by complex geological conditions and protect the nature reserves, designers have increased the bridge-tunnel ratio of the railway to 80 percent and planned to carry out regular vegetation maintenance.
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