An aerial photo of the Shandong section of the Shenyang-Haikou Expressway. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The reconstruction and expansion of the Shenyang-Haikou Expressway crossing over the Qingdao-Jinan Railway and the Jiaozhou-Xinyi Railway overpass in Shandong province is now one step closer to completion. On Nov 13, the steel box girder of the overpass successfully completed its swivel construction.

The Shandong section of the Shenyang-Haikou Expressway stretches approximately 359.07 kilometers and will be widened into an eight-lane expressway designed for 120 km per hour. This 275-meter long overpass built by China Railway No 10 Engineering Group (Qingdao Branch) sits near the west end of Jiaozhou's northern ring road. Its swivel box-girder section, weighing 5,286 metric tons, is currently the largest unequal-span swivel box-girder bridge ever rotated above railway lines in Shandong.

Spanning two of Shandong's busiest rail corridors, the company had only limited time to complete the swivel construction.

Once the widened Shenyang-Haikou Expressway opens, it will knit together several pilot economic zones, including Qingdao's airport economic zone, Shanghai Cooperation Organization Economic Zone, and China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone, Qingdao ports and the new international airport, shaving cargo transit times and giving the Jiaodong economic circle a faster coastal land-bridge to the rest of China.