eTurboNews China announced the world's highest railway line, which links Lhasa in Tibet to Gormo in Qinghai province in China, will soon be ready to give passengers that "top-of-the world journey."
To be in operations by next year, China said the railway will start carrying passengers and spurring trade and investments as part of the government's efforts to develop the poor west and bind the restive region in China's interior.
Work started for the railway line in June 2001, but was suspended twice, in 2002 and 2003, to allow migration of Tibetan antelopes and snow leopards from June to August every year.
The estimated US$3 billion pan-Himalayan railway line runs across Tibet's snow-covered plateau (otherwise known as the roof-of-the world) climbing as high as 5,072 meters, which China claims is a world record. Almost 80 percent of the line lies above 4,000 meters.
Xinhua, China's official news agency, says about 550 kilometers of the tracks run on ice, the longest in any of the world's plateau railways. Construction crews had to breathe through bottled oxygen while boring tunnels through ice during construction of the line.
The line will have special cars, sealed like aircrafts, to protect passengers from altitude sickness. The locomotive, developed in China, will be put into full operation after trials. Powered by diesel, all the power and auxiliary systems hang under the train.
Incorporating a special cold-resistant material, the train is supplied with an air conditioning and oxygen system to provide sufficient oxygen in the cars. The train will also have an emergency clinic to provide medical treatment for altitude sickness.
The track crosses hundred of kilometers of permafrost, and sits on special rollers and pontoons designed to keep it in place as the ice melts and refreezes.
A controversial engineering feat, its construction has been plagued throughout by extreme cold, low oxygen levels and the fragile eco-environment. But the government has also been praised both by activists and other governments for its willingness to invest billions to ease poverty in the region.
Chinese officials have also promised to employ Tibetans to work on the railway line, crucial to the development of its autonomous region, at the same time taking precautions to protect the region's fragile environment which has been the subject of protests by ecologists and non-governmental agencies concerned over the loss of the region's natural habitat.
The trains are equipped with a closed sewage and waste treatment system to protect the fragile environment the line runs across. |