The first set of rails for the Dali-Ruili railway under construction for 13 years were laid on March 15, marking the beginning of the track-laying process. CREC is one of the companies taking part in the construction.

Connecting Dali and Ruili, the railway runs 330 kilometers in total with a designed speed of 140 kilometers per hour. The construction started in 2008. The complicated geological landform makes the construction extremely hard as the line runs across an active fracture zone. Tunnels account for 75 percent of the railway’s total length, with the one through Gaoligong Mountains measuring 34.5 kilometers in length, longer than any other railway tunnel in Asia. The Dali-Ruili railway is thus known as the most difficult railway construction project in the world.

China Railway No.5 Engineering Group is commissioned to prefabricate and erect 462.5-hole T-shaped beams and lay 328.69 kilometers of tracks and 591,300 cubic meters of railway ballasts. The railway is of great significance to boosting regional economic and social development and promoting communications and cooperation between China and Southeast Asian and South Asian countries.