The reporter learned from China Railway Shanghai Group Co., Ltd. that the Suzhou East Tunnel, a controlling project of the Nantong-Ningbo High-Speed Railway constructed by China Railway 14th Bureau Group, officially began shield tunneling on the 18th, marking important progress in the construction of China's longest urban high-speed railway tunnel.

The Suzhou East Tunnel on the Nantong-Suzhou-Jiaxing-Ningbo High-Speed Railway, designed for a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, has a total length of 15.57 kilometers and features a single-tube double-track configuration. It is currently China's urban high-speed railway tunnel with the highest construction standards and the longest mileage, and is known as the "China Urban High-Speed Railway ** Tunnel."

According to the introduction, the tunnel is adjacent to Yangcheng Lake and has a rich groundwater system. It passes beneath 3 railways, 2 metro lines, 4 rivers and lakes, more than 20 important municipal roads, and multiple structures, with a maximum burial depth of 58 meters and a maximum water and soil pressure exceeding 8 bar. The construction team and the construction management unit, Shanghai-Hangzhou Passenger Dedicated Line Co., Ltd., tailored the domestically produced super-large-diameter slurry balance shield machine "Tongyong Yuanmeng" (Nantong-Ningbo Dream), which is one of the most intelligent shield machines in China at present. It has an excavation diameter of 14.81 meters, a total length of 134 meters, a total weight of 4,200 tons, and a total installed power of 10,000 kilowatts. Targeted improvements were made in adaptability to ultra-long distances, pressure resistance, and corrosion resistance. It is equipped with advanced geological forecasting, automatic monitoring, and synchronous dual-liquid grouting systems, and applies multiple domestically leading core technologies such as an integral fully prefabricated box culvert and synchronous pushing and assembling.

The Nantong-Suzhou-Jiaxing-Ningbo High-Speed Railway is an important component of the coastal corridor of China's "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network. Once completed, it will connect with multiple lines including the already operational Yancheng-Nantong High-Speed Railway, Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, Shanghai-Nanjing Riverside High-Speed Railway, Shanghai-Kunming High-Speed Railway, and Ningbo-Taizhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Railway, further improving the layout of the road network structure in the Yangtze River Delta region and holding great significance for promoting high-quality integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.