Jane Chen/ Shanghai Daily news

The first electric rail pillar was laid in Shanghai on December 25, unveiling the restructuring of the existing coal-fueled Shanghai-Hangzhou rail line into an environmentally friendly electric one.
As part of the country's railway expansion plan to introduce the clean electric rail system, the 1.18 billion yuan (US$14 million) investment, after 14 months' construction, will produce the first double-line electric railway in the Yangtze River Delta area.
Mainly catering to passenger transport, the 202-kilometer railway, a key section of China's railway network, will increase its daily transport by one-third to 240 return rides, and the train engine's towing capacity by 500 tons to 4,000 tons.  The train interval time will be reduced from the current eight minutes to six minutes,
The Railway authority said the reconstruction will not affect the daily life of those living along the line.
Built more than a half decade ago, the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway has undergone several reconstructions with the existing double-line railway being completed in 1993.  Connectng to the north via the Shanghai-Beijing railway, it also links at Hangzhou with railways reaching to the southern China area.
The line is handling one-third of the Shanghai Railways Bureau's passenger transport and one-forth of its cargo transport.