The Shanghai Railway Administration announced that the Wusongkou Yangtze River Tunnel of the Shanghai-Nantong Railway has achieved structural topping-out of its launching shaft, meaning the Taicang-Situan section of the Shanghai-Nantong Railway will cross the river here southward into Shanghai East Station and westward connect to the Yangtze River Delta railway network. See details below↓

　　The Taicang-Situan section of the Shanghai-Nantong Railway is located in the riverside and coastal areas of southern Jiangsu and Shanghai. It starts in the north at Taicang Station on the Nantong-An'ting section of the Shanghai-Nantong Railway and connects in the south to Situan Station on the Pudong Railway in Shanghai, passing through Taicang City under the jurisdiction of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, as well as Jiading District, Baoshan District, Pudong New Area and Fengxian District of Shanghai. The line has a total length of 111.8 kilometers, including 7.3 kilometers in Jiangsu Province and 104.5 kilometers in Shanghai. The line is a mixed passenger and freight railway with a design speed of 200 kilometers per hour.

　　The Wusongkou Yangtze River Tunnel project of the Shanghai-Nantong Railway is located in Baoshan District and Pudong New Area of Shanghai, passing beneath the Yangtze River Estuary and the Huangpu River. It is a double-tube, single-track underwater tunnel with a length of 7.275 kilometers and is a controlling project of the entire line. The project adopts open-cut and shield tunneling methods and features a large shield excavation cross-section, a long tunnel length and the involvement of multiple construction methods. It is China's first railway tunnel to cross both the Yangtze River and the Huangpu River.

　　The launching shaft for the tunnel's shield construction is 42 meters wide, 101 meters long and 19 meters deep. Two domestically produced large shield machines with a diameter of 10.69 meters have successfully rolled off the production line at the Lingang base and will bore from here toward Puxi.

　　The shields will pass beneath numerous large public facilities, including the Shanghai Outer Ring Expressway, the Pudong section of the Yanjiang Passage, Binjiang Forest Park, the Huangpu River levee and the Wusong Training Dike.

　　Once the Taicang-Situan section of the Shanghai-Nantong Railway is completed, it will fill the gap in trunk railway lines in the Pudong area and make the layout of Shanghai's railway hubs and network more balanced and rational. At the same time, Shanghai East Station and Pudong Airport along the line will form an important transportation hub in eastern Shanghai, which is of great significance for enhancing the collection and distribution capacity of Pudong's port areas, facilitating travel for residents and enterprise employees along the line, accelerating the construction of the Lingang Special Area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, improving the city's capacity and core competitiveness, and enhancing Shanghai's role as a central city in radiating and driving development.