On the morning of the 7th, at the construction site of Pier No. 5 of the Xihoumen Road-Rail Dual-Purpose Bridge on the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway, as the last batch of concrete was poured for bored pile 5#-12, it marked the completion of concrete pouring for all 18 bored piles of 6.3 meters in diameter for the No. 5 main pier of the Xihoumen Road-Rail Dual-Purpose Bridge—the world's largest-span road-rail dual-purpose bridge and the world's widest sea-crossing bridge—signaling phased progress in the bridge's construction.

At the bridge site of the Xihoumen Road-Rail Dual-Purpose Bridge, the maximum water depth is 60 meters, the maximum flow velocity is 4.1 meters per second, and there are more than 100 days per year with gales of Force 6 or above, featuring environmental characteristics of "strong winds, high waves, deep water, rapid currents, and bare rock."

The bridge has a total of 8 piers, of which No. 5 and No. 4 are the east and west main tower piers respectively. The No. 5 main tower pier adopts 18 bored piles of 6.3 meters in diameter—the world's largest diameter—with a designed pile length of 84 meters and a rock-socketed depth of about 37 meters, making construction highly difficult. Since official drilling began in July 2023, China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group has developed and invested in a large number of new devices and new techniques, successfully completing the bored pile construction work, greatly ahead of the original pile foundation schedule.

The Xihoumen Road-Rail Dual-Purpose Bridge is a shared sea-crossing bridge carrying both the Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway and the Ningbo-Zhoushan Expressway duplicate line across the Xihoumen waterway, connecting Jintang Island and Cezi Island in Zhoushan. The bridge has a total length of 3,118 meters, a main span of 1,488 meters using a cable-stayed suspension cooperative system, and a deck width of 68 meters. It is the world's largest-span road-rail combined bridge and the world's widest sea-crossing bridge currently under construction.

The bridge adopts a "road-rail on the same level" layout, with the railway in the middle and highways on both sides. The railway is a double-track passenger dedicated line with a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour; the highway is a two-way six-lane expressway with a design speed of 100 kilometers per hour.

The bridge is a key controlling project of the entire Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway line. With its large scale, novel bridge structure, and high technological content, it is a super sea-crossing project that pushes the limits, and once completed it will become a landmark project among China's high-speed railway sea-crossing bridges.

The Ningbo-Zhoushan Railway starts from Ningbo East Station in the west, passes through Yinzhou District and Beilun District of Ningbo City, Jintang Island, Cezi Island, and Zhoushan Main Island of Zhoushan City, and ends at Baiquan Town of Dinghai District in the east. The line has a total length of about 77 kilometers and a design speed of 250 kilometers per hour. It is intended to build Zhejiang Province's "one-hour traffic circle" and form a convenient passenger transport corridor between the mainland and Zhoushan Island. Once the project is completed, it will fill the gap of the last prefecture-level city in Zhejiang Province without railway access, and is of great significance for improving the railway network layout, promoting tourism development along the line, realizing the integrated and same-city development of Ningbo and Zhoushan, and accelerating the integration of Zhoushan and Ningbo into the Yangtze River Economic Belt.