On August 6, the tender candidate announcement for the "Yancheng-Taizhou-Wuxi-Changzhou-Yixing Railway River-Crossing Tunnel Project Construction Drawing Review YTXCY-SGTSH-1 Section" was published, meaning the Yancheng-Taizhou-Wuxi-Changzhou-Yixing Railway is one step closer to construction.

On August 5 this year, the Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission stated: "Recently, our commission has completed the feasibility study approval for the Yancheng-Jingjiang Station section and the Huishan Station-Yixing section of the Yancheng-Taizhou-Wuxi-Changzhou-Yixing Railway." As early as the end of 2021, the Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission had approved the feasibility study report for the Jiangyin Station-Huishan Station section. To date, the feasibility studies for the entire Yancheng-Yixing High-Speed Railway have been approved except for the Jingjiang-Jiangyin river-crossing section.

The Jingjiang-Jiangyin section was affected by adjustments to the river-crossing channel scheme and is accelerating preliminary design and construction drawing design work; its feasibility study has not yet been approved. On August 2, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Transportation replied: "At present, the feasibility study for the land section of the project has been approved. The scheme for the river-crossing section is basically stable, and the processing of prerequisite documents for feasibility study approval is being accelerated. The preliminary design documents are being further revised and improved in accordance with the opinions of the pre-review meeting. The opinion on the project's connection with the national railway network has completed the preliminary review by the Shanghai Railway Group, and all preliminary work is currently being advanced at full speed in an effort to start construction as early as possible."

The Yancheng-Taizhou-Wuxi-Changzhou-Yixing Railway starts in the north at Yancheng City, connects Taizhou City in the middle, passes beneath the Yangtze River in tunnel form, then runs through Wuxi City and Changzhou City, and ends at Yixing. The main line of the entire route is about 311 kilometers long, with 11 stations, a design speed of 350 km/h, and a design speed of 250 km/h for the river-crossing section. The project connects northward to the Qingdao-Yancheng and Xuzhou-Suqian-Huai'an-Yancheng railways, links in the middle to the North Yanjiang High-Speed Railway, the South Yanjiang Intercity Railway, and the Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway, and connects southward to the Nanjing-Hangzhou High-Speed Railway, forming a rapid passenger transport corridor running through southeastern Shandong, northern Jiangsu, central Jiangsu, southern Jiangsu, and the Zhejiang region.

After full research and demonstration, the river-crossing channel of the Yancheng-Taizhou-Wuxi-Changzhou-Yixing Railway was adjusted to a tunnel scheme at the end of 2023, and the feasibility study work for the river-crossing tunnel project has now been completed. The Yangtze River Tunnel of the Yancheng-Yixing Railway is the river-crossing section of the Yancheng-Taizhou-Wuxi-Changzhou-Yixing Railway. Located in the middle of the route, it crosses the river to connect north and south and is the key section for the full completion of the Yancheng-Taizhou-Wuxi-Changzhou-Yixing Railway and for giving full play to its corridor function.

The two ends of the Yangtze River Tunnel of the Yancheng-Yixing Railway connect Jiangyin City and Jingjiang City respectively. It is located about 3.8 kilometers downstream of the Jiangyin Bridge. The tunnel crosses the Yangtze River using the shield tunneling method, with a design operating speed of 250 km/h, and is a single-tube double-track tunnel. According to the preliminary design scheme, the tunnel has a total length of 8.13 km, including a shield-tunneled section of 6.71 km and an open-cut section of 1.42 km.