Item from March 17, 1987, in China Daily: Construction crews at the Mountain Dayao Tunnel are now working day and night to dig through the last 64 meters of the 14.3-kilometer tunnel. ... The building of the rail line from Hengyang, Hunan province, to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, started in 1978.

China's railway construction has been on a fast track as annual investment surged from 580 billion yuan ($84 billion) in 2011 to 802 billion yuan last year.

The country plans to invest at least 800 billion yuan in railway construction this year alone, the Government Work Report released last week said.