A train carrying about 600 passengers from Golmud, northwest
China's
Qinghai Province, arrived at the Lhasa Railway
Station at 00:31 AM on Sunday, marking the end of a maiden train
run on
Qinghai-Tibet Railway which was opened Saturday
morning.
The train, coded "Qing 1", left Golmud at 11:05 AM on Saturday
and ran across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, dubbed the "roof of the
world", before arriving in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Those on board the maiden train included role models of builders
of the railway, representatives from the government, journalists
from official media including the Xinhua News Agency and the China
Central Television.
Yu Hong, a 38-year old official with the State Council, told
Xinhua that passengers on the train not only enjoyed beautiful
landscape during the trip, but also got moved by warm-heartedness
of Tibetans.
"A lot of local ethnic farmers and herdsmen waved their hands to
greet us while waiting along the railway to watch the train passing
by," Yu said.
Chen Shouzhong, a railway worker from Sichuan Province, said that he had some
headache but got recovered soon after treatment on altitude
sickness on the train.
"The railway will promote link between people in Tibet and other
parts of China," he said.
The successful operation of Qinghai-Tibet Railway broke American
train traveler Paul Theroux's prophesy that the Kunlun Range was "a
guarantee that the railway will never get to Lhasa."
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway stretches 1,956 kilometers from Xining
to Lhasa. Some 960 kilometers of its tracks are located 4, 000
meters above sea level and the highest point is 5,072 meters, at
least 200 meters higher than the Peruvian railway in the Andes,
which was formerly the world's most elevated track.
Tibet makes up one eighth of the Chinese territory, but without
a railway, passengers and goods had to be shipped by buses, trucks
and planes. Little access to traffic and high transportation costs
have long hindered the region's economic development.
The railway will link Lhasa with other major Chinese cities such
as Beijing, Shanghai, Xining, Chengdu and Guangzhou, according to
the railway ministry sources. It will also carry 75 percent of all
the inbound cargo into Tibet, cutting transportation costs and
boosting local economy.
Before the train left Golmud, Chinese President Hu Jintao emphasized the importance of
environmental protection on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in a speech
marking the opening of the landmark railway.
"Railway workers and passengers traveling on the Qinghai-Tibet
railway should consciously treasure waters and mountains as well as
grass and woods on the Plateau, and they should help conserve the
eco system and environment along the railway," Hu said.
The Chinese government is to build three more railway lines in
Tibet as extensions of the newly-completed railway, which would
link Lhasa, with Nyingchi to the east, and Xigaze to the west,
while the third will link Xigaze with Yadong, a major trading town
on the China-India border.
The new lines would be built in 10 years, and increase Tibet's
total railway length to more than 2,000 kilometers, media reports
said.
The Qinghai-Tibet railway is 1,956 kilometers long, with 960 km
of the track located 4,000 meters above sea level and the highest
point at 5,072 meters. The project is dubbed an "engineering
marvel" because people used to think the perennial ice and slush
along the route could never support tracks and trains.
(Xinhua News Agency July 2, 2006)
