Amid the country's new push to increase railway operating mileage, builders are making progress in constructing a second high-speed railway linking Beijing and Shanghai.

Workers from China Railway No 4 Engineering Group, who are helping build the ‌399-kilometer-long Weifang-Suqian HSR, successfully rotated a continuous beam that traverses the existing Weifang-Rongcheng HSR in Shandong province in the early hours of Aug 11.

The Weifang-Suqian HSR, with an investment of some 76 billion yuan ($11.2 billion), can directly connect Weifang in Shandong province and Suqian in Jiangsu province.

The high-speed railway is a key section of the second Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail corridor.

As part of the national "Eight Verticals and Eight Horizontals" HSR network, the high-speed railway can facilitate local travel and support the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin regions.

The second Beijing-Shanghai high-speed line mainly runs through Shandong and Jiangsu provinces in East China, and does not pass through Anhui province like the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway.

Since the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway was put into operation on June 30, 2011, it has been the busiest high-speed rail line with the highest passenger flow in China. The second line is being built to ease the growing capacity pressure on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway.

Source: China Daily