The first passenger train from Lanzhou, capital of Gansu
Province, began its 2,188-km journey for Lhasa, capital of Tibet
Autonomous Region, on Sunday.
The train left Lanzhou Railway Station at 4:45 p.m. Sunday and
will arrive in Lhasa at 10:33 p.m. Monday. The train consists of 16
carriages which can accommodate 772 passengers all together. This
is the first train from Lanzhou to Lhasa to run on the
Qinghai-Tibet railway, which went into operation on Saturday.
The train will leave Lanzhou for Lhasa every other day beginning
Sunday, according to sources with the Lanzhou Railway Station.
All the 131 tickets on sale at Lanzhou Railway Station have been
sold out, a booking clerk at the station told Xinhua.
Xu Licheng, a 53-year-old retired worker of Xinjiang oilfield,
has traveled from his hometown to Lanzhou to catch the first train
from Lanzhou to Lhasa.
"I feel excited to take the first train from Lanzhou to Lhasa,
and I feel honored to witness the operation of the Qinghai-Tibet
railway," Xu said. He arrived in Lanzhou on July 28, one day before
the tickets were sold.
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.
(Xinhua News Agency July 3, 2006)