This East Coast Railway project has had an eventful life. It was built by a partnership between two countries, China and Malaysia, and was mainly financed by the Chinese side. The Madang Railway project is the largest economic and trade cooperation project between China and Malaysia. Back on August 9, 2017, the project was officially opened in Kuantan, Malaysia.

However, the project was suspended in July 2018 by Malaysia's newly-installed Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad because he felt that the Malaysian finances could not support such a large-scale construction. So this suspension was suspended until July 2019, with a full year in between.On July 25, 2019, Malaysia's Transport Minister Luk Siew Hock presided over the restart ceremony of the East Rail plan at the site of Malaysia's Long Win East Coast Railway Tunnel, marking the official resumption of work on Malaysia's East Coast Railway project after a year's suspension from July 2018.

This is the first time that Malaysia's East Coast Railway project has been resumed in a year.

The two sides also went through many rounds of negotiations in the middle of this, and finally China and Malaysia agreed to reduce the cost of the first and second phases of the East Rail from MYR65.5 billion (about Rs. 106.9 billion), which was signed under the previous government, to MYR44 billion (about Rs. 71.1 billion), and there have been changes to the route. The restarted project is about 640 kilometers long, about 40 kilometers shorter than the original route. In other words, the construction cost per kilometer of the railroad has been reduced from about RMB 167 million to about RMB 111 million.