On May 21, the Shimen No. 1 Tunnel of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway (i.e., the Yangtze River Coastal High-Speed Railway) in Yichang, Hubei Province, was successfully holed through. With this, all 25 tunnels on the Wuhan-Yichang section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway have been fully connected, laying an important foundation for the project to be completed and opened to traffic as scheduled in 2025. After the line opens, the high-speed rail travel time between Wuhan and Yichang is expected to be reduced to about 1 hour.

The Shimen No. 1 Tunnel holed through this time is 1,366 meters long, with a single-tube double-track configuration, and was excavated from both ends; it is one of the controlling works of the entire line. To ensure the smooth holing-through of the last tunnel on the Wuhan-Yichang section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway, the construction management unit comprehensively strengthened quality and safety management and coordinated and optimized resource allocation. Facing the impact of unfavorable geological conditions such as karst, shallow cover, and weak interlayers in the tunnel, the construction unit established a tunnel task force, strengthened geological monitoring, strictly controlled the use of explosives, reduced the impact of blasting, and used intelligent equipment to improve the level of construction, effectively ensuring controllable safety and quality in tunnel construction. In particular, for the "huge thick-bedded conglomerate dangerous rock zone" at the entrance of Shimen No. 1 Tunnel, after expert demonstration by the project department, it was decided to adopt concrete inlay reinforcement and install passive protective nets at the top of the cutting; the overall slope was protected by anchor cable frame beams with wire mesh and shotcrete, reinforcing the dangerous rocks on the steep mountain slope and enabling tunnel excavation to change from one-way driving from the exit to two-way driving from both the entrance and exit, safely and orderly completing the tunnel holing-through task.

The Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway passes through six provinces and municipalities—Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan—and consists of seven major projects: Shanghai to Hefei, Hefei to Wuhan, the Wuhan hub through line, Wuhan to Yichang, Yichang to Fuling, Fuling to Chongqing, and Chongqing to Chengdu. The total length of the line is about 2,100 kilometers, and the design speed of the entire line is 350 kilometers per hour.

In September 2021, construction officially began on the Wuhan-Yichang section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway. This section starts from Wuhan City, passes through Tianmen City and Jingmen City, and ends at Yichang City, with a main line length of 313 kilometers and bridges and tunnels accounting for 85%. It has eight stations: Hankou, Hanchuan East, Tianmen North, Jingshan South, Zhongxiang South, Jingmen West, Dangyang West, and Yichang North. The project is expected to be completed in 2025, when it will greatly shorten the travel time and distance between Wuhan and Yichang and bring new opportunities for the development of multiple cities along the line.