Qinghai-tibet railway

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is blocked by traffic and logistics, and the plateau people can only stick to the self-sufficient manor economy for a long time. Until 1949, there were only more than 1 km of roads for cars in the whole of Tibet, and the only means of water transportation were cable Bridges, cowhide boats and canoes. American modern train traveller Paul Soru In his book Travel in China, he wrote: "With the Kunlun Mountains, the railway will never reach Lhasa." In the 1950s, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to build the railway to Lhasa.

Since 1956, the original Ministry of Railways of the People's Republic of China The First Survey and Design Institute carried out a comprehensive survey and design work on more than 2,000 kilometers of lines from Lanzhou to Lhasa.

In 1973, then-chairman of the Communist Party of China Mao Zedong Receiving the visiting King of Nepal Birendra China will speed up the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet railway. On November 26 of the same year, the former National Construction Commission of China held a cooperation meeting on the Qingzang Line in Beijing. Leaders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and The State Council of China have repeatedly given important instructions to speed up the progress of the project and strive to complete it ahead of schedule.

In 1984, the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was opened to traffic.

In July 1994, the CPC Central Committee and The State Council of China held the third Tibet Work Symposium. The meeting again proposed to build a railway into Tibet, and got the time General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Jiang Zemin Yes. After the meeting, the minutes of the symposium were forwarded, and it was clearly proposed to "pay close attention to the preparatory work for the construction of the railway into Tibet."

In 1995, the former Ministry of Railways of the People's Republic of China began to organize the demonstration work of the railway into Tibet.

In 1996, the Fourth session of the Eighth National People's Congress of China adopted the Ninth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of Long-term Goals for 2010, which proposed that the demonstration of the railway into Tibet should be carried out in the first 10 years of the next century.

In November 1999, the former State Planning Commission of China approved the expansion and renovation of the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway feasibility The research report.

At the beginning of 2000, the Xige section of Qinghai-Tibet Railway started the construction of capacity expansion and renovation project. ^[3] On March 7 of the same year, relevant people of the former State Planning Commission of China proposed at the press conference of the third session of the Ninth National People's Congress of China that the preliminary work of major projects such as the "Railway into Tibet" and the "West-East Gas transmission" should be accelerated; In November of the same year, he was the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Jiang Zemin Made important instructions on the construction of Qinghai-Tibet railway; In December of the same year, the former State Planning Commission of China held a report meeting on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in Beijing and formally submitted the proposal of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway project to The State Council of China.

On February 8, 2001, the Office meeting of the Premier of The State Council of China heard a report on the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway from the former State Planning Commission of China, studied the construction plan of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, and agreed to approve the project. On June 29 of the same year, the central government decided to invest 26.21 billion yuan to build a railway from Golmud in Qinghai Province to Lhasa in Tibet. The groundbreaking ceremony for the Qinghai-Tibet railway was held simultaneously in Golmud City of Qinghai Province and Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In October of the same year, the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed. ^[3]

In May 2002, the permafrost test on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was fully rolled out.

In March 2003, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was paved Kunlun Mountain Tunnel ; In June of the same year, the world's highest altitude Tanggula Mountain station began construction; In August of the same year, the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway successfully passed through the Hoh Xil uninhabited area.

In May 2004, the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway took shape. In July of the same year, 450 kilometers of tracks were laid on the main line of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

In August 2005, subgrade, tunnels, Bridges and culverts along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway were basically completed. On August 24 of the same year, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway laid track through Tanggula Mountain; On October 12 of the same year, the entire Qinghai-Tibet Railway was laid.

March 1, 2006, Qinghai-Tibet Railway freight train engineering operation test; On May 1 of the same year, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway non-passenger train engineering operation test; On July 1 of the same year, the entire Qinghai-Tibet Railway line was put into trial operation. ^[4]

In 2007, construction of the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway began. ^[3]

In 2010, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway replacement project was officially launched.

On June 29, 2011, the construction of the Xige section of Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed and realized electrification Operation. ^[3]

On September 12, 2016, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway track replacement project was officially completed, and the entire 1,956 km Qinghai-Tibet Railway has achieved "one track covering thousands of miles of Qinghai-Tibet", greatly improving the smoothness and safety of trains. ^[5] On March 1 of the same year, the construction of the Gela Section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was officially started, including adding 13 stations, extending the effective length of the arrival and departure lines of 8 existing stations, and upgrading the freight yard of Lhasa West Station. ^[6]

On September 18, 2017, the capacity expansion and renovation project of the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway entered the construction stage of the entire line.

On August 30, 2018, the main project of capacity expansion and renovation of the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was successfully completed. ^[6]

On January 23, 2022, it was learned from China Railway Qinghai-Tibet Group Company Limited that Delingha City Speed limits have been imposed on parts of the Qinghai-Tibet railway after a 5.8-magnitude earthquake ^[25] . In February, China National Railway Group and the Qinghai Provincial government jointly approved the preliminary design of the quality improvement project of the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, marking a key step towards the goal of fully starting construction within this year ^[26] . In May, the state planned to start electrification of the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in June 2022, with a total construction period of three years and an estimated total investment of 14.84 billion yuan, of which 7.206 billion yuan will be invested in the Tibet section ^[28] . On June 21, construction of the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was officially started, with an estimated total investment of 1.547 billion yuan and a planned construction period of 1.5 years ^[29] . In late June, The state plans to electrify the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, with a total construction period of three years and an estimated total investment of 14.84 billion yuan, of which 7.206 billion yuan will be invested in the Tibet section. ^[27] In July, construction began on the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to improve its quality. ^[41] In October, the Qarhan section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's first Salt Lake Railway, completed 29 consecutive days of insulator cleaning. ^[31] On October 30, the main work of the switch replacement and signal system renovation of the Gelai section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed Line complete. ^[32] On November 14, with the completion of the last concrete pouring, the main structure of Delingha Station of the Xige Section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway project was officially completed, which means that the construction of Delingha Railway Station, the largest station building of the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, was completed Enter a new phase. ^[33]

On March 15, 2023, the main structure of Delingha Station was completed, and on March 17, the platform canopy construction of Haiyan Station was orderly promoted. ^[34] In May, the Fuxing will sail on the "Magical Sky Road" of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has entered a new stage of upgrading. The Xining to Golmud section is expected to be fully upgraded this year, and the running time of the 829.251-kilometer line will be reduced to less than 5.2 hours and the shortest to 4.8 hours, which is nearly two hours shorter than the current 6.8 hours of the fastest train. The more modern Qinghai-Tibet railway will greatly increase its transportation capacity and service quality. ^[35] On May 29, it was learned from China Railway Qinghai-Tibet Group Co., Ltd. that as of the same day, the quality improvement project of the Xige section of Qinghai-Tibet Railway was stepping up construction and ready to accept the completion of acceptance. ^[36] On June 5, the quality improvement project of the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed and entered the acceptance stage. ^[37] On June 21, the dynamic detection work of the Xining Ge (Ermu) section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway began in full swing, and the "Fuxing" train entered the countdown of the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The dynamic test is carried out after the static rectification of the equipment is completed and accepted. ^[38] The dynamic test lasted for four days, mainly through the EMU trains, detection trains and related detection equipment at the specified test speed to conduct comprehensive tests on all systems of the line, providing a scientific basis for the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to meet the 160 km/h "Fuxing" train. The dynamic testing was carried out in two parts. The first part, from 21st to 22nd, mainly consisted of the detection train composed of the electrical service detection vehicle, the overhead contact line detection vehicle and the public service track inspection vehicle, carried out the speed increase test step by step to ensure that all the data met the corresponding conditions; The second part from 23rd to 24th, the organization of EMU line On-board line test run. ^[39] On June 23, an EMU test train, an important node of the quality improvement project of the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, went online . ^{[40] [44]} On July 1, the switch replacement and signal system renovation of the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway were completed and officially put into use. On the same day, the Xining to Golmud section of Qinghai-Tibet Railway" Revivalist The EMU was officially put into operation, marking that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has officially entered the era of bullet trains . ^{[46] 45 -}

There are 85 stations on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Xining Railway Station , Xining West Railway Station , Shuangzhai Railway station , Zamalong Station , Shiyazhuang Station , Huangyuan Station , Shenzhong Station , Yuejiacun Station , Haiyan Railway Station , Huangcao Zhuang Station , Ketu station , Qinghai Lake Railway Station , Poste Thole , Gare de Hargay , Guncha station , Torishima Station , River station , Tianpeng Station , Lumang Post , Tianjun Station , Guanjiao station , Nanshan Station , Erlang Station , Luobei Railway Station , Zhanno Station , Garba Station , Ulan Railway station , Coke station , Tao Li Station , Delingha Station , Lianhu Station , Chuangshuiliang station , Pingshuang station , Ohlongshan Station , Yinmaxia Station , Siktie Mountain Station , Darbusson Station , Qarhan Station , Golmud East Railway Station , Golmud Station , Nanyamaguchi Station , Kanlong railway Station , NAT Chi Platform Station , Xiao Nanchuan Station , Jade Everest Station , Wangkun Railway Station , Unfrozen Spring Station , Chumar River Station , Hoh Xil station , Wudaoliang Station , Xiushui River Station , Jiangkedong Station , Wind volcano station , Hiazuki Station , Uri station , Tuotuo River Station , Kaixinling Railway station , Tongtian River Station , Tanggang station , Yanshiping Station , Boomard Station , Bjango Station , Tanggula North Railway Station , Tanggula Station , Tanggula South Railway Station , Zaga Zangpo Station , Catch-up station , Amdo Post , Zona Lake Station , Lianhe railway station , Diwuma Station , Gangxiu station , Naqu Railway Station , Toru station , Sanxiong Post , Gulu station , Wumatang Station , Damhsiung Station , Dachongo Station , Yangbalin Station , Yangbajing Station , Angar post , Maxiang railway station , Gurong Railway station , Lhasa West Railway Station , Lhasa Railway Station . ^[7]

Starting in Xining, Qinghai Province, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway passes through Golmud City, Kunlun Mountain Pass and the Tuotuo River, crosses Tanggula Mountain pass, enters Amdo, Nagqu, Dangxiong and Yangbajing in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and ends in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region. The railway is 1,956 kilometers long, passing through Qinghai Lake, Kunlun Mountain, Hoh Xil, the source of Three Rivers, the grasslands of northern Tibet and the Potala Palace. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is divided into the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, among which the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is a two-track electrified railway, and the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is a single-track non-electrified railway.

The Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is 814 kilometers long, starting from the ancient plateau city of Xining in the east, passing through the mountains, the grasslands and the Gobi, the salt lake and the marsh, to the Gobi new city of Golmud under the Kunlun Mountain in the west. Most of the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is above 3,000 meters above sea level, and it is the first plateau railway in China. Most of the key materials used by the state for the development of Tibet are transferred to Tibet through this railway.

In 1958, the construction began in stages, the whole line was opened to traffic in May 1984, and the construction of the expansion and renovation project was started in early 2000, completed in October 2001, and the construction of the double line began in 2007, and was completed and electrified operation was realized on June 29, 2011. ^[3]

On July 1, 2023, after nearly 40 years of development, the Xige section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will open The Fuxing EMU It is of great significance to realize the great penetration of the east and the West and strengthen the great national unity. ^[43]

The Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway started construction on June 29, 2001, and opened to traffic at 9:00 on July 1, 2006, with a total length of 1,142 kilometers.

On September 18, 2017, the capacity expansion and renovation project of the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway officially started.

Since July 1, 2006, the Golmud to Lhasa section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has launched tourist trains from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Lanzhou and Xining to Lhasa.

On June 18, 2010, trains on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway reached a speed of 100 km/h. From July 1 of the same year, buses from Shanghai to Lhasa and from Lhasa to Shanghai will run every day instead of every other day.

On December 10, 2014, China Railway made an annual overhaul of its operating chart. The Shanghai Railway Bureau changed the T164/5 and T166/3 trains from Shanghai to Lhasa to direct trains Z164/5 and Z166/3.

Starting from midnight on March 20, 2015, the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will run at 140 km/h. The planned transport capacity of the Xining to Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is 20 pairs of passenger cars per day, the annual freight volume is 50 million tons, and the passenger car running speed is 120km/h before the speed increase.

As of 2017, after the opening of the Lan-Yu Railway, the following stations can be reached by passenger trains via the Qinghai-Tibet Railway: There are 28 stations in Beijing West, Guangzhou, Changsha, Wuchang, Zhengzhou, Taiyuan, Shijiazhuang North, Chenzhou, Zhongwei, Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Bengbu, Xuzhou, Xi 'an, Chengdu, Guangyuan, Nanchong North, Chongqing North, Lanzhou, Xining, Delingha, Golmud, Tuotuo River, Amdo, Naqu, Dangxiong, etc.

As of July 1, 2009, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has been in safe operation for three years, carrying more than 8.3 million passengers and 62.21 million tons of cargo. ^[8]

As of June 18, 2010, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway had transported more than 27 million passengers and 120 million tons of cargo.

During the "National Day" Golden Week in 2009, a total of 175,000 passengers were transported on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, including 19,065 passengers on October 7, 2009. ^[1]

In 2011, more than 6.5 million passengers were transported on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, a year-on-year increase of 9 percent. More than 38 million tons of goods were shipped, an increase of 8% year-on-year.

As of May 8, 2012, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway had transported more than 49 million passengers, with an average annual growth rate of 10.3%.

During the summer rush in 2015, 2.01 million passengers were transported on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, an increase of 807,000 or 67 percent over the same period last year

During the 2016 Spring Festival travel rush, 172,000 passengers traveled on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. ^[9]

In 2017, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway carried 3.787 million passengers. The freight volume was 5.54 million tons.

In 2018, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway carried a total of 2.862 million passengers.

In 2018, the number of passengers and cargo transported by China Railway Qinghai-Tibet Group Co., Ltd. reached 16.556 million and 34.013 million tons, up 10.3% and 5.8% respectively, among which the number of passengers sent reached a record high in the history of Qinghai-Tibet Group. ^[24]

By the end of June 2022, the company had transported 260 million passengers, increasing the number of passengers from 6.482 million in 2006 to 18.705 million in 2021, of which 31.6969 million passengers had been transported to and from Tibet. ^[30]

In 2023, 2.959 million passengers traveled to and from Tibet via the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, of which 1.533 million went to and from Tibet and 1.426 million went out, exceeding the historic highs of 366,000, 266,000 and 101,000 respectively in 2018 . ^[49]

By the end of April 2024, the Xining to Golmud-Tibet Railway (Xige section) has transported more than 110 million passengers and 480 million tons of cargo since it was put into operation in May 1984. The regional function of the railway and its driving role in local economy have become increasingly strong. ^[51]

The passenger trains used on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway are CRRC Qingdao Sifang Rolling Stock Co., LTD Production of plateau passenger trains. The passenger train used in Qinghai-Tibet Railway is composed of 2 soft sleeper sleeper, each soft sleeper sleeper has 32 passengers, a total of 64 people; Eight hard sleeper sections, each seating 60 people, a total of 480 people; 4 hard seats, each seat capacity of 98 people, a total of 392 people, and than the ordinary hard seat car seats wider, each train a total of 936 people. ^[10]

There are two types of oxygen supply devices on the passenger trains used on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. One is diffusion oxygen supply, that is, by mixing the air in the air conditioning system, the oxygen content of each carriage reaches 23.5%. The other system is distributed oxygen, meaning that if passengers need more oxygen, they can always access the oxygen tube under the seat to avoid altitude sickness. The distributed oxygen supply devices are not only under each passenger seat, but also distributed on the walls of the corridors and at the junctions of the carriages. ^[11]

The passenger trains used on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway have special sleeping and dining cars. The sleeper is equipped with a private room with closed circuit TV, a large sleeping berth, a sofa, a bathroom, and sanitary facilities. The dining car is divided into a dining car with a kitchen and a dining area each to meet the needs of different levels of passengers.

High for Qinghai-Tibet railway Altitude , High and cold The Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company has established a long-term monitoring system in the frozen soil area, and set up 3 automatic weather stations and 78 ground temperature observation sections, realizing the remote automatic information processing of the monitoring system, and improving the accuracy and reliability of the monitoring data.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway was put into use Infrared ray Monitoring system, in the plateau area to achieve unattended, maintain all-weather traffic; The garbage collection system and garbage collection train will be launched, and the domestic garbage generated along the way will be transported to Lhasa or Golmud for treatment. The speed of the train will reach 120 kilometers per hour on normal sections, and the journey time from Golmud to Lhasa will not exceed 12 hours.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway uses the decentralized and self-disciplined CTC dispatching centralized system, and the branch lines are adopted TDCS The train dispatching command system realizes the remote transportation dispatching command and management. informatization , intelligentize . Among them, 38 of the 45 stations in the Gelah section were unattended, minimizing the number of operators. ^[12]

The construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has set many records in the history of railway transportation in Tibet. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is the highest plateau railway in the world: the railway runs 960 kilometers above 4,000 meters above sea level, and the highest point is 5,072 meters above sea level. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is also the longest plateau railway in the world. The Golmud to Lhasa section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway runs through the Gobi desert, swampy wetlands and snowy mountains and grasslands, covering a total length of 1,142 kilometers. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is also the longest plateau railway in the world that has traversed frozen soil: the railway has traversed continuous frozen soil for many years for 550 kilometers; At 5,068 meters above sea level, Tanggula Mountain station is the highest railway station in the world. The Wind Volcano Tunnel, 4905 meters above sea level, is the highest permafrost tunnel in the world. With a total length of 1,686 meters, the Kunlun Tunnel is the longest plateau permafrost tunnel in the world. Amdo paving base, 4704 meters above sea level, is the highest paving base in the world; With a total length of 11.7 kilometers, Qingshuihe Bridge is the world's longest plateau frozen soil railway bridge. The permafrost section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has reached 100 kilometers per hour, and the non-frozen section has reached 120 kilometers per hour, which is the highest speed of the plateau permafrost railway in the world. ^[13-15]

Most of the lines are located in high-altitude areas and "life exclusion zones". The construction of Qinghai-Tibet Railway is faced with three major problems in the construction of railway in the world: geological structure of permafrost for thousands of miles, high-cold anoxic environment and fragile ecology.

Amdo County in the Tibet Autonomous Region is an important geographical demarcation point 550 km north of the continuous permafrost of the Tibetan Plateau. The Qinghai-Tibet railway passes through the frozen soil for 550 kilometers, and the truly deep frozen soil section is nearly 400 kilometers. ^[16]

The Qinghai-Tibet railway will pass through 550 kilometers of continuous permafrost and 82 kilometers of discontinuous permafrost. The construction in this area mainly brings two problems: first, the rising temperature brought by global warming will melt the frozen soil; second, human engineering activities will change the relatively stable hydrothermal environment of the frozen soil, resulting in the decrease of groundwater level, the reduction of soil moisture, and the death of vegetation, which will involve the melting of frozen soil in a larger area.

In order to overcome the problem of frozen soil, Chinese scientists have adopted measures such as replacing roads with Bridges, schist ventilated roadbed, ventilation pipe roadbed (active cooling), gravel and schist slope protection, hot rods, insulation boards, and comprehensive anti-drainage systems to solve the problems caused by thousands of years of frozen soil. ^{[13] [16]}

About 85% of the Qinghai-Tibet railway is located above 4,000 meters above sea level. The average annual temperature is below 0 ° C, and the oxygen content of the air in most areas is only 50% to 60% of that in the mainland. High cold hypoxia, wind and sand, strong ultraviolet light, natural epidemic sources, known as the limit of human survival of the "forbidden zone".

In order to overcome the harsh environment of high cold and hypoxia, the life and health of railway builders are guaranteed. For the first time in the history of engineering construction in China, the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Health jointly made detailed provisions on medical and health security, and invested nearly 200 million yuan to establish medical and health security points across the line. Three-level medical security institutions have been established and improved. A total of 115 medical institutions have been set up along the railway, equipped with more than 600 medical personnel, and employees can get effective treatment within half an hour when they fall ill. Carry out regular medical examinations for employees and arrange for employees to take shifts to low-altitude areas. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has also set many new records in paying attention to the lives and health of the builders. Since the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, more than 453,000 patients have been treated, 427 cases of cerebral edema and 841 cases of pulmonary edema, without a single death, creating a miracle in the history of plateau medicine. ^[13]

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway crossed Hoh Xil , Three River source area , Qiangtang Such as China's national nature reserves, due to its location in the world" Third pole The ecological environment is sensitive and fragile. In this regard, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has always adhered to the concept of "environmental protection first" from design, construction to operation and maintenance Tibetan antelope Such as the living environment of wild animals, the railway has established 33 special channels for wild animals; For the protection of Wet land The world's first man-made wetland was built in the alpine region. In order to protect the landscape along the route, to achieve "zero emission of dirt" on the ground and trains; In order to improve the ecological environment along the route, a "green corridor" of thousands of miles has been created. These unique environmental protection design, construction and operation concepts have also made the Qinghai-Tibet Railway China's first "environmentally friendly railway". ^[17]

By January 2009, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway project had received dozens of patents and published more than 1,000 papers, promoting scientific and technological progress in permafrost engineering, plateau medicine and environmental protection, and the overall technology has reached the international leading level.

On January 9, 2009, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway project won the 2008 China National Science and Technology Progress Grand Prize. ^[18]

In July 2008, the Gela section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was awarded the title of "National Environmental Friendly Project", the highest honor for environmental protection in China's national construction projects. ^[8]

In September 2013, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway project was selected as a "Global Centennial Project". ^[19]

On June 19, 2021, it was named by the Central Propaganda Department as" National patriotism education demonstration base ". ^[23]

On September 13, 2023, the first phase of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway (Xige Section) was selected into the third batch of China's Industrial Heritage Protection list. ^[48]

Tibet lies in the southwest border of China, and India , Pakistan , Nepal Geographical location is very important. At the same time, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will strengthen the links between other vast areas of China and Tibet, promote cultural exchanges between Tibetans and other ethnic groups, and enhance the need for ethnic unity. ^[20]

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has a broad and far-reaching impact on changing the poverty and backwardness of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, promoting the unity, progress and common prosperity of all ethnic groups, and promoting the rapid and sound economic and social development of Qinghai and Tibet.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway will help promote the development of industry and tourism in Tibet, optimize the industrial structure of Tibet, and realize the balanced and coordinated development of China's regional economy. It is conducive to the exploitation of Tibet's mineral resources and gives full play to its resource advantages. It is conducive to reducing the transportation cost of goods entering and leaving Tibet and improving economic benefits; It is conducive to Tibet's opening to the outside world and strengthening economic exchanges and cooperation with other regions and abroad. It is conducive to the development of market mechanism and the enhancement of people's market consciousness in Tibet, and promote economic development; It is conducive to the improvement of the living standards of the Tibetan people and the common prosperity of the whole people; It will help promote the common prosperity of all ethnic groups in China and further consolidate a new type of ethnic relations featuring equality, solidarity and mutual assistance.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway improves the layout of China's railway network, realizes three-dimensional transportation in the Tibet Autonomous Region, provides a broader space for the economic development of Qinghai and Tibet, enables the full development of their superior resources, develops the rich tourism resources of Qinghai and Tibet, and promotes the rapid development of tourism in Qinghai and Tibet. Make it grow into one of the pillar industries of the national economy of the two provinces, change the unreasonable energy structure of Tibet, and fundamentally protect the long-term needs of the ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. ^[21]

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is listed as one of the four landmark projects in the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" and the first of the 12 key projects in the development of the Western region. Chinese foreign media have described the Qinghai-Tibet Railway as "the most difficult railway engineering project in history" and "it will become one of the most spectacular railways in the world." ( Central government portal ) ^[2]

( 中国西藏网 ) ^[22]

The highest altitude railway in the world: the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has a section of 960 kilometers above 4,000 meters above sea level, and the permafrost section of 550 kilometers. The railway crossing Tanggula Mountain has an altitude of 5,072 meters, which is the highest altitude in the world, the longest journey on the frozen soil, and has overcome world-class difficulties. (Guinness Book)

From April 29 to May 6, 2024, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Group Corporation sent a total of 527,900 passengers, 124,100 more than in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 30.82%. On the first day of the May Day holiday, 87,850 passengers were transported on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, setting a new single-day record for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau railway. Among them, Xining Station sent 54,600 passengers, a record high since the construction of Xining Station. ^[52]