The history of the company could be traced back to 1950 which two bureaus of the Ministry of Railways were formed (Chinese: 工程总局; literally: 'construction bureau' and Chinese: 设计总局; literally: 'design bureau'). In 1958, the design bureau and the construction bureau were merged to form the General Bureau of Capital Construction of the Ministry of Railways (Chinese: 铁道部基本建设总局). From 1950 to 1990, the General Bureau was a government agency for many railway construction as well as highway bridge. A subsidiary of the General Bureau, The Major Bridge Engineering Bureau, now China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group [zh] was said to construct over 1,000 bridges from 1953 to 2009.