Indonesia high-speed line reaches milestone

JAKARTA－A high-speed rail project connecting Indonesia's capital Jakarta with a major regional center has reached a construction milestone.

Workers on the Chinese-backed project put in place the longest connecting structure on an elevated section of the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway, or HSR.

Known as a continuous beam, the longest such structure for the project was set down on Monday morning.

A statement by railway developer Kereta Cepat Indonesia China, or KCIC, a joint-venture consortium by the Chinese and Indonesian firms that are building the 142.3-kilometer railway, said the beam with the largest 128 meters of main span length was closed in the Bekasi Regency of West Java Province.

KCIC said the beam has a main pier height of 25.5 meters and the beam height itself is 9.2 meters.

Expressway interchange

The consortium said the closure of the continuous beam was undertaken in a complex environment, involving an expressway interchange cable-stayed bridge and two ramps.

KCIC said that as of Monday, 14 out of 28 continuous beams in the whole alignment of Jakarta-Bandung HSR have been closed.

Projected to have a top speed of 350 km per hour, the trains on the high-speed line built with Chinese technology will cut the journey between Jakarta and Bandung, the capital of West Java, from more than three hours to around 40 minutes.

Xinhua