How China Built the World’s Most Extreme Bridge Builder
How China Built the World’s Most Extreme Bridge Builder
Out over the Taiwan Strait, China took on one of the toughest rail bridge jobs on Earth. The Fuzhou Xiamen Zhangzhou high speed railway had to run at 350 kilometers an hour across open sea, through strong winds, salt heavy air, rough water, deep water, and a zone with real earthquake risk. Then came the beam. The line leaned on giant 40 meter box girders, the hollow concrete beams that carry the track, and each one could weigh about 1,000 tons. That kind of load changes the whole job. It changes the bridge plan, the work rhythm, the safety rules, and the machine standing at the center of it all. So China built Kunlun, a 116 meter giant that stood 9.3 meters tall, weighed 967 metric tons, and packed in more than 15,000 parts. It could move a girder, line it up, and place it out over the sea on one of China’s biggest and most advanced railway projects.