Modifications to the Guangtong-Dali Railway, the Chinese section of the China-Myanmar International Railway, were started recently and are expected to be completed in 2018, according to the Kunming railway bureau.

The construction started simultaneously in Chuxiong Yi autonomous prefecture and Dali Bai autonomous prefecture. The China Railway Second Bureau, which is in charge of the project, also installed a girder fabrication yard at the construction site to meet the demand and keep to the schedule.

Track-laying is scheduled to be finished in the first half of 2017. Once the Guangtong-Dali Railway is completed, an intercity railway connecting Kunming and Dali will be undertaken, which will cut the travel time to two hours.

The Guangtong-Dali Railway is expected to be 175 km in length. Train speed is designed to reach 200 km per hour as a result of the modifications. The railway will have 109.88 km of bridges and tunnels accounting for 63 percent of its total length.

The China-Myanmar Railway starts from Kunming city, capital of Yunnan province, and will end in Rangoon, the largest city in Myanmar. The whole railway will be 1,920 km with the Chinese section from Kunming to Ruili stretching for 690 km.

By Li Xiaoxu and edited by Peter Nordlinger