Wuxi metro wins top national engineering award

Wuxi Metro Line 1 wins the National Quality Golden Engineering Award in Beijing on Dec 13. [Photo/We Chat wuxibobao]

Wuxi Metro Line 1 was honored with the National Quality Golden Engineering Award at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Dec 13.

The National Quality Engineering Golden Award represents the highest honor in the field of engineering. Founded in 1981, it represents China's highest quality requirements for engineering projects. To date, only 108 projects have won the prize.

The award is for industrial excellence, it is one of four major global quality awards, with the greatest credibility and similar to Europe's Quality Award (EQA), the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), and Japan's Demin Award.

Wuxi Urban Rail Transit Line 1 won the golden-quality prize with another 14 industry projects. It is the first time for a Wuxi-based project to win the award as well as the first time that a urban rail transit project has won.

Sanyang Plaza Station of Wuxi Metro Line 1 covers an area of 66,000 square meters and has 27 gates, becoming the largest underground business complex in Wuxi. [Photo/We Chat Asiaray]

Wuxi Metro Line 1 is the most important and most expensive civil project to be undertaken in the city's history. Starting from Yanqiao Station in the north and ending at Changguangxi Station in the south, the 29.42-kilometer line cuts through the downtown area, stopping at 24 stations in total. Construction on the line took five years to complete.

As the city's first rail transit project, Metro Line 1 has also led to various critical technical innovations, including the perfect assembling of 23,000 duct pieces, the development of highly efficient track laying technology, sensor control technology and the application of cutting-edge machinery.

According to a rail transit network plan approved by Wuxi government in 2006, the city will have five metro lines in the near future with a total length of 157.77 km. At the moment, Metro Line 3 and Line 4 are under construction. Metro Line 3 is expected to be connect and running by the end of 2018.