Railway builders urged to show Chinese quality

Lu Kang, China's ambassador to Indonesia, visited Chinese builders constructing the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway (HSR) on March 30 and urged them to demonstrate the charm of Chinese quality in economies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.

While touring Tegal Luar station and the worksite of a locomotive station being built by State-owned China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd (CREC-4), Lu called on the builders to do their utmost to ensure a high-quality project.

As the first high-speed railway in Indonesia as well as in Southeast Asia, the $8-billion Jakarta-Bandung HSR is China's first systemic HSR footprint overseas, incorporating whole supply chains.

As a signature link in the BRI, the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project, with a maximum designed train speed of 350 kilometers per hour, is being jointly built by China and Indonesia, with construction managed by PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia-China, a consortium involving Indonesian state-owned companies and Chinese central State-owned enterprises.

A day after Lu's visit, China Railway No 4 Engineering builders successfully erected a continuous cross-highway box girder with the largest span on the Jakarta-Bandung HSR－the final high-risk and most-difficult key node on the 142.3-km line, said Zhang Qing, safety superintendent of the company's Jakarta-Bandung HSR project.

With it, the builders can now begin to lay track, starting from the national capital of Jakarta and extending to Bandung, the nation's fourth largest city.

The HSR will have four stations: Halifax Station is in Jakarta Urban Area, while Karawang, Walini and Tegal Luar stations are located in West Java. A world-famous harbor, Jakarta is the largest city in Southeast Asia.

The box girder, flying over the widely traversed Jakarta-Bandung Expressway, now stands on the P136-to-P146 piers of the No 46 Super Bridge along the high-speed rail network.

Adhering to strict safety requirements with high construction risks, erecting the box girder involves multiple local government departments and has drawn intense public attention.

In a bid to ensure a safe and smooth construction process, the No 4 beam fabrication yard of China Railway No 4 Engineering, the project's contractor, devised thorough work plans on cross-expressway girder construction, ground traffic management and safety precaution measures, said Zeng Weixian, chief of the yard.

The Chinese builders carried out sufficient communication with the Indonesian ministry of public works and the Jakarta-Bandung HSR special working group, as well as the police and traffic departments of West Java and Bandung, obtaining a green light for the erection.

By Wednesday, staff members from the CREC4 No 4 beam fabrication yard had finished erecting all 343 box girders on the line from Jakarta to Bandung－one week ahead of schedule and marking a new milestone.

The yard is in charge of precasting and erecting 1,007 box girders in the section between DK85+043 and DK139+726 on the line, said Li Jinpeng of the CREC4 First Engineering Co Ltd.

In order to safeguard the steady and smooth progress of the track-laying in the direction from Bandung to Jakarta on the Jakarta-Bandung HSR, the yard well handled the anti-COVID work and the engineering construction.

Upon completion, the journey from Jakarta to Bandung will be cut from the current three hours to 40 minutes, greatly facilitating traveling of local residents and boosting economic development.

Due to issues concerning land acquisition, relocation of high-voltage lines, continued impact of COVID-19 and funding, full operation of the Jakarta-Bandung HSR is now expected to begin in June 2023, according to an official local participating party in the project.

The HSR, which began construction in June 2018, was previously scheduled to begin regular service by the end of 2022.

Indonesia, which holds the rotating Group of 20(G20) presidency in 2022, plans to launch a trial operation of a section of the line involving Tegal Luar station in the near future.

At present, the Chinese contractors are working hard to safeguard regular construction and ensure the trial's success and the future full operations.

The project department of China Railway No 4 Engineering will efficiently handle the dual tasks of safe and normal construction, and anti-COVID preventive work, to ensure the successful building of the HSR, Zeng said.

According to Chinese Customs figures, the Chinese-Indonesian trade reached $124.34 billion in 2021, a rise of 58.43 percent year-on-year.