On July 28, at the construction site of the Cangrong Xunjiang Bridge in Guangxi, a traction boat pulled the pilot cable, hauling it from the central tower to the south and north side towers respectively, enabling the three main towers to "hold hands" for the first time.

　　The main line of the Cangrong Expressway is 105.6 kilometers long, designed as a dual-directional four-lane road with a driving speed of 120 kilometers per hour. Among them, the Cangrong Xunjiang Bridge is currently the world's largest-span single-column three-tower spatial cable suspension bridge and China's first three-tower spatial cable suspension bridge with a span exceeding 500 meters. The bridge has a total length of 1,688 meters, with two main spans of 520 meters each. All three main towers adopt a central single-tower design, with the central tower standing 108.9 meters tall and the side towers 108.8 meters tall. The bridge's key processes, including the traction system construction, catwalk erection, main cable erection, and main girder erection, are all over-water operations characterized by high construction difficulty and high risk.

　　The traction system is an important component of the superstructure construction, mainly used for erecting the catwalk and main cables. The construction of the traction system first relies on the pilot cable to be completed. As a key construction process for the bridge superstructure, pilot cable crossing the river is usually carried out by means such as boat hauling or drone erection. Since the Cangrong Xunjiang Bridge is located in an open water area of the Xunjiang River within an aviation control zone, construction organization and coordination are difficult and safety risks are high. After comparing multiple schemes and expert demonstration, the project team ultimately adopted the boat-hauling scheme, which offers strong safety and high construction efficiency.

　　On that day, under the full escort of the maritime department, the traction boat hauled the pilot cable (A26 millimeter steel wire rope) from the central tower across the river to near the south tower, connected it to the wire rope end lowered from the top of the south tower, and then released the hook. The process took about 2 hours. A single pilot cable with a length of 900 meters successfully crossed the 500-meter water area of the south main span. With the cooperation of the winches atop the central and south towers, the pilot cable was lifted to a height of more than 40 meters above the river surface to meet the navigable clearance requirements, thus completing the pilot cable erection for the south main span. The north main span pilot cable was then hauled across the river in the same manner. Next, the project team will use the pilot cable as a basis to carry out the traction system construction between the main towers and the anchors.

　　The successful crossing of the pilot cable has created the prerequisite for the aerial catwalk erection of the Cangrong Xunjiang Bridge, facilitating the subsequent main construction of the superstructure, including main cable and steel box girder erection, and laying a solid foundation for ensuring the project is completed and opened to traffic in 2025.