Workers began to lay tacks for the Beijing section of the high-speed railway connecting Beijing and Shanghai Wednesday.

The Beijing section extends for 223.9 km. Tracks started to be laid for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway on July 19 on this year.

Its construction started in April 2008 with an estimated investment of 220.9 billion yuan (32.5 billion U.S. dollars).

The laying of 1,318-km of railway tracks would be finished by the end of 2010. The railway is scheduled to open before 2012.

It will cut travel time between Beijing and Shanghai to four hours, much less than the current ten hours.