• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

World's Highest Railway Station Enters Key Construction Period

Posted on: Thursday, 28 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

World's highest railway station enters key construction period

AMDO, Tibet, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Construction has entered the key phase on the Tanggula Station, which at 5,068 meters above sea level is the highest in the world, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project Headquarters said on Wednesday.

Twenty-nine reinforced concrete pillars are being erected in holes dug in frozen earth to support the station, said Zhang Lianyou, chief engineer of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project Headquarters under the China Railways No. 19 Bureau Group.

The station, on the southern face of the Tanggula Mountain range in southwest Tibet, is part of the Qinghai-Tibet railway and is due to be completed by August.

It is expected to become a tourist attraction and will have three lines for both passenger and freight purposes, and when finished, the station will have a floor space of about 384.2 square meters, Zhang said.

The station will operate as a railway junction control center since it's located in the middle of the highest section of the railway in the Tanggula Range, 4,916 meters above sea level, Zhang said.

The 1,142-km railway will run from Gelmud in Qinghai Province to Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, becoming the longest railway at the highest elevation in the world.

The central government of China decided to build the railway in 2001, allocating 26.2 billion yuan (3.1 billion dollars) for the project. The line is scheduled to reach Lhasa this year and start trial operation in the second half of 2006.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

More News in this Category