An interior view of the "Linghang" large diameter shield tunneling machine is seen at the construction site of the Chongming-Taicang tunnel, part of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu High-Speed Railway, under the Yangtze River, on December 16, 2025. Photo: Xinhua News Agency

China's domestically developed "Linghang," the world's largest-diameter high-speed-rail shield tunneling machine, has successfully completed the 11,180-meter underwater section of the Yangtze River crossing and made landfall in Taicang, East China's Jiangsu Province, according to People's Daily on Sunday.

Since April 29, 2024, the "Linghang" has completed 23 months of safe tunneling, crossed the southern embankment of the Yangtze River and successfully reached Taicang, marking a major step toward its precise arrival at Shaft No. 2 maintenance station.

With a total length of 14,250 meters, the ChongmingTaicang Yangtze River Tunnel is the world's longest high-speed rail shield tunnel in terms of single-head tunneling distance at 11,325 meters. It also has the largest cutterhead diameter, the highest operating speed for an underwater river-crossing high-speed rail tunnel, and the deepest section beneath the Yangtze River. 

It is currently China's highest-standard, longest-distance, and largest-scale world-class high-speed-rail river-crossing tunnel, according to the report. Once completed and put into operation, the tunnel will enable high-speed trains to cross the Yangtze River without reducing speed.

The "Linghang," deployed for the tunnel's construction, is about 148 meters long and weighs about 4,000 tons. It is equipped with the world's most advanced intelligent control system, the I-TBM system. Tasked with a single-head boring distance of 11,325 meters, the machine has set a global record as the first 15-meter-class large-diameter tunnel boring machine in the world to achieve one-time continuous boring of 11,182 meters, completing an unprecedented "ultra-long run" beneath the Yangtze River.

Global Times