On October 10 local time, the Dhaka-Bhanga Section of the Padma Bridge Rail Link Project (PBRLP), the lartest railway project of Bangladesh, commenced operations. The Padma Bridge Rail Link Project (PBRLP) project starts from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and extends to Jessore towards the southwest through Padma Bridge. With a total length of 170 kilometers and design speed of 120 kilometers per hour, it is a bridge for both passenger and cargo transportation. CRHIC subsidiaries including China Railway Shanhaiguan Bridge Group (CRSBG), China Railway Baoji Bridge Group and China Railway Jiujiang Bridge Engineering Co., Ltd. participated in the construction of the Bridge as the suppliers of turnouts, steel bridges and other products.
CRSBG supplies all the turnouts along the line and developed the first variable gauge turnouts in China adapting to the feature of multiple turnouts and diverse gauges in railway lines of Bangladesh, which could be used on railroads of both 1676mm and 1000mm gauges.
China Railway Baoqiao undertook the research, development, design and supply of 8 sets of beam end compensators and 23 sets of steel rail compensators for the PBRLP. Beam end and steel rail compensators have been developed specially for ultra-large beam joints, ultra-large expansion displacements, and ultra-large vertical angles.
China Railway Jiujiang Bridge Engineering Co., Ltd. undertook the manufacturing, site welding and coating of 56,000 tons of steel girders to be applied in the ten steel truss bridges and 50 steel plate girder bridges. All the steel girders are manufactured at the plant of China Railway Jiujiang Bridge Engineering Co., Ltd. before they are shipped to Bangladesh for assembly and erection at the construction site.