THE QINGHAI-TIBET RAILROAD The Tibet Plateau, also known as Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China, stretches out in

the western region of china. The plateau has an average elevation of 3000-4000

meters above the sea level and for that reason sometimes it is referred to as “the

roof of the world.”

This plateau is surrounded by himalyan mountains in the south , the Kunlun

Mountians and Tangula Mountains in the eastwest, and Gangdise Moutains and

Nyenchthanglha Mountains in the center. Hence this region is isolated from the rest part

of the china.so, to bring development here its goal was to bridge the growing social,

economic and developmental gaps between the coastal east and the landlocked west in

China. Since the establishment of the T.A.R its economic conditions have not improved

significantly compare to the other regions in China. The typical government reasoning is

that the transportation infrastructure was not efficient enough to support rapid economic

development. But there are four major roads and two airports links but the road

conditions are not always good and the air transportation is expensive.

In 1917-1920 dr.sun yat-sen’s proposed to build 100,000 km of track across the entire

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country.The length of the railway is 1,956 km. Construction of the 815 km

(506 mi) section between Xining and Golmud was completed by 1984 but due to the

inadequacy of technologies required to build a railroad in such a climatically and

geographically was a challenging region and the lack of funding at the time it stopped in

Golmud, Qinghai Province, in 1978. The completed section from Xining to Golmud started

to operate in 1984. Construction of the remaining section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railroad

resumed on 29 June 2001.The 1,142 km (710 mi) section between Golmud and Lhasa was

inaugurated on July 1, 2006.

How they made it possible:-

The Chinese government has spent 28.5 billion Yuan ($3.68 billion) to build the

Qinghai-Tibet Railroad. They built a railroad that was considered simply

impossible because the plateau posed many engineering difficulties due to its high

altitude and the harsh climate. From Golmud to Lhasa, there are high mountain

passes like Tanggula Shankou and a large section of the railroad is below the

freezing temperature year round. However, despite all kinds of difficulties, the

Chinese engineers built the railroad successfully at an average elation of 4000

meters. “The Kunlun Range is a guarantee that the railway will never get to Lhasa.”

(Theroux; 479) is often quoted by the Chinese media and writers to say that

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Chinese are capable. Indeed, they proved that “impossible is nothing.”

Some major engineering challenges faced by engineers in building world highest altitude railway line.

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(1)Permafrost

(2)High altitude

(3)Protecting the fragile ecosystem of tibet(4)Bad weather

Permafrost

Ice below ground which melts in summer and makes land muddy

There is total 550 km section of permafrost along the rail. It features soft and wet soil in summer, hard and stretching in winter, which troubled all engineers in the world.which makes impossible to make railway tracks on this type of soil.

solution for this problem was :-

a)A layer of loosely piled chunks of granite about the size of baseballs that allows

enough space between the rocks for air to circulate freely.

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b)In some places, the engineers bury ventilation pipes in the ground. The pipes

simply allow the cold air to circulate underneath the rail-bed.

c)This was a ingenious solution by a Chinese scientist.though, a pipe called

athermosiphon is ammonia heat exchanger sunk 5 meters (15 feet) into the ground

and filled at the bottom with ammonia. The ammonia becomes gas at a low

temperature, giving off a vapor that draws heat from the bottom of the tube and

flushes it out the top, cooling at the same time. The

11.7km Qingshuihe Bridge is the world-longest bridge built on the permafrost.

High altitude

The air in Tibet is much thinner, with oxygen partial pressure being 35% to 40% below that at

sea level as some 960 km of tracks are built on plateau - more than 4, 000 meters above sea

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level. The highest point reaches 5,072 meters, more 200 meters higher than the Peruvian railway on the Andes, which made it the world's most elevated track. Even the workers had to shoulder oxygen bottles to get to work. The annual average temperature on some construction sites is below zero degree Celsius with the lowest temperature at -45 degree Celsius.

Special passengers carriages are made by bombardier(german rail company) , and every seat is installed with oxygen supply.

The rail coaches are maintained at normal pressure and temperature like in aircrafts for making the travelling possible in these hostile environment.

Some 100,000 engineers and construction workers got involved in building this engineering

feat, 10% of them were from local ethnic groups. None of the workers died of altitude sickness in the past five years.

Protection of fragile ecosystem of Tibet:-

Some RMB1.54 billion was invested in the environmental protection in the project.

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● Protection of the ecological environment has been an essential concern in the design of

the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The routes were selected so that they would keep away from the

major habitats of wild animals. For example, the original route was abandoned because it

passed through the reserves of black-necked cranes. While in some other places like the

section cutting through the Hohxil, Qumar and Soga nature reserves, the planners tried to

minimize disturbance to the nature reserves for endangered Tibetan antelope, wild ass by

building 25 passageways for wild animals based on their migration habit. To prevent damage

to permafrost and wetlands, the planners designed many bridges with a total length of about

13km.

● 　 　 Reducing the adverse impact of the railway construction on the ecological environment

to the minimum. To achieve this goal, all the construction units have signed a responsibility

pledge for eco-environmental protection with the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Construction Planning

Office. All the units took measures to minimize the pollution that the railway construction

might cause to the plateau's ecological environment. To achieve this goal, the construction

units have tried to use high-efficiency, low-noise and low-pollution equipment. They have tried

to adopt more mechanized ways of construction and use as few administrators and workers as

possible on the work sites. The Office requires that all waste water from construction and camp

sites be processed to meet the corresponding sewage treatment standard before discharge.

Solid waste from construction sites and trash from campsites must be sorted out and recycled

whenever possible. Waste and trash that cannot be degraded should be moved to appropriate

places for batch treatment.

● 　 　 All the train cars were installed with environment-friendly toilets, wastewater deposit

tanks and garbage treatment facilities to protect environment along the railroad.

Bad weather:

● The coldest temperature experienced along the line is 43 degrees centigrade below 0 degree. The biggest difference in temperature within one day can be as much as 30 degrees. A severe change of temperature can easily cause colds.

● The average yearly relative humidity is only about 50 percent, while the fastest wind speed can reach above 30 meters/second.

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● Daytime radiation and ultraviolet radiation is 1.5 to 2.5 times greater than at sea level.

Environmental　Impact　of　the　Qinghai-Tibet　Railway　in　the　Long　Term

Tibetan Plateau, where the Qinghai-Tibet Railway lies on, has a very fragile ecosystem due to its high elevation. It is still inhabited with many unique animals, like the Tibetan antelope - chiru, as well as blue sheep, snow leopard and brown bear etc.

● The Tibetan antelope is a medioum-sized bovid which is about 1.2 metres in height. It is native to the Tibetan plateau including China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai province, and Xinjiang province; India near Ladakh and formerly western Nepal. The Tibetan antelope is also known commonly by its Tibetan name chiru.

●Originally, the environmentalist and also the some environmental protecting organization worried about the Railway would cause great

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damage to the wildlife habitat of the Tibetan antelope. The female Tibetan antelopes migrate from south to north every June in order to give birth to there offsprings.

Hence railway cut the habitat into two half which influence the activites, migration and propogation of the wild animals.The railway will bring more people to Tibet and some bad people also who can hunt animals to sell them in market

Significance of Constructing Qinghai-Tibet Railway

Constructing Qinghai-Tibet Railway has accelerated the economic development in Qinghai province and Tibet Autonomous Region province, promoted the process of west development, reinforced the connection of other domestic vast areas with Tibet Autonomous Region and promoted the cultural exchange of Tibet Autonomous Region with other nationalities as well. It has especially changed the current unreasonable energy structure in Tibet Autonomous Region and fundamentally satisfied the long-term need of protecting the ecological environment in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. After Qinghai-Tibet Railway is opened up, 75% of the goods and materials in and out of Tibet Autonomous Region will be borne by railway, which offsets the disadvantages of previous road transportation, including long load distance, high freight and heavy wastage. 

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References

1. http://www.tibettraintravel.com/

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinghai-Tibet_Railway 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost4. http://www.ctibet.cn/en/enter/qinghai-tibet_railway 5. http://www.reed.edu/academic/studentgrants/downloads/freeman-

caihuajia-report.pdf6. http://www.chinatibettrain.com/index.html 7. Www.national geographic.com8.

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