Pöyry has been awarded a consultancy contract for the Taihang and Nanliang high speed rail tunnels in Shaanxi and Hebei provinces. The services relate to carrying out preliminary design studies on aspects of disaster prevention and rescue as well as ventilation in the Taihang and Nanliang tunnels, China's longest twin tube high speed railway tunnel. The Taihang mountain tunnel is extremely long and is the key engineering project on the 250 km/hour Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan passenger dedicated line, located between Xiao Zhai and Yu Xian County stations. The tunnel passes through the Yue Xiao mountain, the main ridge of the Taihang mountain range, with a maximum cover of 445 m. The tunnel design is twin tube with single track, and the distance between the two tubes is 35 m. The left tube is 27,839 m long. The right tube is 27,848 m long. The Nanliang tunnel is situated in the mid south section of the Taihang mountain range. The terrain consists of middle to low mountains with bedrock ravine erosion and denudation. The line is due to be completed and the tunnels opened for railway traffic during 2008. Visit www.poyry.com 07/07.