A commencement ceremony was held on October 9 to start the construction of the Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway project.

With the main venue in Dongguan, the ceremony also had a sub-venue in Hongqili Grand Bridge, one of the key projects of the Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway located in Zhongshan.

Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway starts from the newly-built Xili Railway Station in Shenzhen, runs west through Dongguan, Guangzhou, Zhongshan and Jiangmen, and ends at Jiangmen Station to connect with the Jiangmen-Zhanjiang Railway. The main line is 116 kilometers long and the construction is expected to last 5.5 years.

There are 7 stations along the line, including Xili Railway Station and Shenzhen Airport East Station in Shenzhen, Binhaiwan Bay Station in Dongguan, Nansha Station in Guangzhou, Zhongshan North Station and Henglan Station in Zhongshan, and the existing Jiangmen Station in Jiangmen. 

The existing Zhongshan Station will be rebuilt and expanded for the connection line of the Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway.

The designed speed of the Shenzhen Xili-Nansha section is 200 kilometers per hour, and the Nansha-Jiangmen section is 250 kilometers per hour. Bridges and tunnels account for 98% of the whole line. Among them, the Pearl River Estuary Tunnel, with a total length of 13.69 kilometers and a maximum depth of 106 meters, is a dominant project of the Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway.

Hongqili Grand Bridge is a four-line highway-railway bridge built for Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway, Guangzhou-Zhongshan-Zhuhai-Macao High-speed Railway and the Zhongshan-Nansha urban road. Connecting Zhongshan and Nansha, it is expected to become the world's first cable-stayed bridge built with steel-concrete and box girder composite beams for both highway and railway.

Hongqili Grand Bridge is a double-deck bridge. The upper is built with eight lanes for Minlang Avenue, an expressway connecting Zhongshan and Nansha, with a designed speed of 80 km/h. The lower consists of four lines for high-speed railways (two for Shenzhen-Jiangmen Railway and two for Guangzhou-Zhongshan-Zhuhai-Macao High-speed Railway), with a designed speed of 250 km/h.