Construction site of the Fangchenggang-Dongxing Railway. [Photo by Gan Lu/People's Daily]

The Gangkou district section of the Fangchenggang-Dongxing Railway started girder erection with the installation of the first 552-metric-ton box girder on March 28, laying a solid foundation for the railway to meet its projected opening in 2023.

Construction started on March 25, 2019 and 80 percent of the work has now been completed.

The 46.9-kilometer Fangchenggang-Dongxing Railway is the eastern most section of China's coastal high-speed railway network. It has a designated speed limit of 200 kilometers per hour and the maximum speed is 250 km/h.

The whole section has two stations, namely Fangchenggang North and Dongxing stations, as well as one reserved station at Jiangshan Peninsula.

Once operational, the railway will be the first railway to link Fangchenggang and Dongxing, with the transport time between two cities shortened to 20 minutes from the previous one hour.