On April 12, the Gaojiaping Tunnel on the Zhengzhou-Wanzhou High-Speed Railway was successfully holed through. Located in Nanzhang County, Hubei Province, the Gaojiaping Tunnel has a total length of 5,506 meters. Affected by regional geological structures, it posed great construction difficulties and is one of the high-risk tunnels along the entire line, as well as a key and difficult controlling project.

The Zhengzhou-Wanzhou High-Speed Railway has a total length of 818 kilometers and a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour. It starts at Zhengzhou South Station, passes through Hubei and Chongqing, and ends at Wanzhou North Station. It is an important part of the Beijing-Kunming Corridor in China's "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network. The bridge-tunnel ratio along the entire Zhengzhou-Wanzhou High-Speed Railway is as high as over 90%, earning it the reputation of being the most difficult and highest-risk railway in the world's high-speed rail sector. Once the Zhengzhou-Wanzhou High-Speed Railway is completed and opened to traffic, Xiangyang's status as a high-speed railway hub will be further enhanced, and travel from Xiangyang to both Chongqing and Zhengzhou will be achievable within 2 hours.