BEIJING: The Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu high-speed rail (HSR), which will link a number of urban clusters along China’s longest river – the Yangtze – and benefit some 600 million people, got a boost on Tuesday as its builder began laying tracks along a key section.

Builders from state-owned China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd (CREC4) began laying 500-m-long ballast-free tracks on the Wuhan-Yichang section, which is part of the 2,100-km HSR costing some 600 billion yuan.