The Wuhan Tianxingzhou Yangtze River Bridge (Chinese: 武汉天兴洲长江大桥) is a combined road and rail bridge across the Yangtze River in the city of Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei Province of China.
The bridge crosses the Yangtze in the northeastern part of the city, a few kilometers downstream of the Second Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge. Its name is due to the Tianxing Island (天兴洲, Tianxingzhou), above which it crosses the river. Built at the cost of 11 billion yuan, the 4,657-meter cable suspension bridge was opened on December 26, 2009,[1] in time for the opening of the Wuhan Railway Station.
The bridge It is a combined road and rail bridge; it has 4 railroad tracks and 6 vehicular traffic lanes.[2] It is the northeasterm (downstream) Yangtze crossing for Wuhan's Middle Ring Road (中环线) (the southwestern, i.e. the upstream, crossing is the Wuhan Baishazhou Bridge).
While there are now (2010) at least half a dozen of road crossings of the Yangtze in Wuhan, the Tianxingzhou Bridge is only the second rail crossing. It carries the Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway across the river, and allows trains to cross the river at speeds up to 250 km/h.[2] It also makes it possible for some of the high-speed trains arriving to Wuhan from the east over the Hewu Passenger Railway to cross the river and to reach the Wuhan Railway Station (instead of their usual destination, the Hankou Railway Station).