Last Train Ferry on Yangtze River Cease Operation

New Yangtze River Bridge Opens to Traffic

China's last train ferry on the Yangtze River at Wuhu in east China's Anhui Province will cease operation Saturday with the inauguration of traffic opening on the new Wuhu Yangtze River Bridge.

Gazing at the last batches of trains across the Yangtze River and a new two-tier bridge, Zhu Weimin, director of Wuhu Administration of Train Ferry Services said, "The last train ferry will disappear in the country."

The 56-year-old director has worked at the train ferry on the Yangtze River for 32 years.

He said that although he will transfer to other shipping services in railway sector, he was very proud of Wuhu Yangtze River Bridge, which is a low-tower stayed-cable bridge for both road and railroad traffic with a 312-meter main span, the largest of its kind in China and in Asia.

Before 1949 there was no bridge across the Yangtze River. Since October 1957, the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge was opened and the train ferry service stopped operation at Wuhan Port and was transferred to Wuhu.

Wuhu Train Ferry became the only of its kind in the country in September 1968 when Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge opened to traffic.

An official of the Ministry of Railways said that each ceasing of train ferry services on the Yangtze River represents a new leap forward in China's economic development.

In the past decades, the train ferry operations at Wuhu Port have each year shipped more than 300,000 carriages.

However the ferry could not meet the growing demands.

In 1996, the State Council enlisted the Wuhu Yangtze River Bridge Project into China's ninth five-year plan, which cost 4.6 billion yuan (554 million U.S. dollars).

The bridge, consisting of six kilometers of road bridge and 10 kilometers of railway bridge, will benefit China's road and railroad networks to connect the north and the south and improve the shipping capacity on the Yangtze River, said Wang Mingzhen, vice-mayor of Wuhu.