At 9:00 on September 28, 2024, after 585 days of arduous struggle and unremitting efforts by the builders, the Dacaoshan No. 1 and No. 2 tunnels of the Chaohu–Ma'anshan Intercity Railway, constructed by China Railway No. 4 Engineering Group, were successfully holed through, marking that all tunnel works along the entire Chaohu–Ma'anshan Intercity Railway have been successfully completed.

The Chaohu–Ma'anshan Intercity Railway has a total of 6 tunnels with a combined length of 6,329 meters, mainly distributed in low mountain and hilly areas. The Dacaoshan No. 1 and No. 2 tunnels holed through this time are key and difficult works of the entire line, located in Huanfeng Town, Hanshan County, Ma'anshan City. Among them, the Dacaoshan No. 2 Tunnel, with a total length of 2,330 meters, is the longest tunnel on the entire Chaohu–Ma'anshan Intercity Railway. It is a double-track, single-tube ballastless high-speed railway tunnel designed for a speed of 350 km/h, with a designed cross-sectional area of 100 square meters and a maximum buried depth of about 106 meters. Grade IV and V surrounding rock accounts for more than two-thirds of the total, with developed joints and fissures in the surrounding rock and disordered rock stratum occurrence, making it prone to risks such as collapse and falling blocks, which poses great challenges to construction technology, equipment, safety and environmental protection.

Since the commencement of the Dacaoshan No. 1 and No. 2 tunnel projects, the project construction management unit, together with the participating units, has aimed to build safe and high-quality tunnel projects, made scientific plans, exercised advance pre-control, optimized construction schemes, coordinated resource allocation, and strictly controlled key links and processes. It has adopted equipment such as self-propelled hydraulic invert trestles, intelligent informatized secondary lining trolleys, wet spraying manipulators and semi-automatic cloth-hanging trolleys, and followed the construction principles of "advance pipe roof, strict grouting, short excavation, strong support, early closure and frequent measurement," advancing construction operations in a scientific, orderly, safe and high-quality manner and laying a solid foundation for the tunnels' completion on schedule.

The Chaohu–Ma'anshan Intercity Railway starts at Chaohu East Station and runs eastward through Hanshan County, He County, Zhengpugang New Area, Dangtu County, the Economic Development Zone, Yushan District and Huashan District before entering Ma'anshan East Station. The main line has a total length of 61 kilometers and a designed speed of 350 km/h. Five stations are set along the line: Chaohu East, Hanshan, Zhengpugang, Ma'anshan South and Ma'anshan East, among which Chaohu East and Ma'anshan East are existing stations and the other three are newly built stations.

After the Chaohu–Ma'anshan Intercity Railway is completed and put into operation, it will create a new rapid corridor on both banks of the Wanjiang River, which is of great significance for further narrowing the time-space distance between the Hefei metropolitan area and the Nanjing metropolitan area, building a "Yangtze River Delta on Rails," improving the regional road network layout, and serving the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta and the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.