By Li Xinping, Qiongda Zhuoga, People’s Daily
Stretching 1,956 kilometers, crossing 550 kilometers of permafrost, and cresting the 5,072-meter-high Tanggula Pass, the Qinghai-Xizang Railway began full operations on July 1, 2006.
Hailed as one of the greatest engineering feats of the modern era, the railway still holds three world records: the highest railway in average altitude, the longest plateau railway, and the highest railway station on Earth. Two decades after its launch, these records remain unbroken.
Why did China devote such immense resources to building a railway across the roof of the world?
An elderly Tibetan woman surnamed Lhamo voiced the long-held dream of many plateau residents: “For years on end, we have dreamed for a route connecting us to the outside world — one that would lift us out of poverty and backwardness and lead us to prosperity.”
Where the railway reaches, development follows. In 2006, freight transported into and out of Xizang totaled just 361,000 tons. By 2025, that figure had risen to 8.31 million tons. Over the past two decades, the railway has carried more than 100 million tons of cargo to and from Xizang.
These figures bear witness to booming local industries. Previously, Tibetan medicinal products could only be transported by air, incurring exorbitant shipping costs that weighed heavily on manufacturers. Rail freight has since driven logistics expenses down and widened profit margins. A local medicine manufacturer has seen its annual revenue surge to 60 million yuan ($8.84 million).
Special tourist trains now roll into Xizang in constant streams. In 2025, the autonomous region received over 70 million tourist arrivals, marking remarkable growth in its tourism sector.
Traditional Tibetan cultural treasures, including thangka paintings, Tibetan incense, and Tibetan opera, are reaching audiences across the country via the railway. The large-scale live performance Princess Wencheng, which has been staged continuously for 13 years, has generated an associated industry worth more than 10 billion yuan ($1.48 billion).
As industries thrive, local residents enjoy much better lives. Beside Nagqu Station along the Qinghai-Xizang Railway, Ma Yong and his wife run a restaurant with an annual net income exceeding 200,000 yuan ($29511). A young Tibetan man Landro works as a taxi driver earning 7,000 yuan monthly, and cargo loader Phuntsok Norgyal also makes 7,000 yuan ($1033) each month. The railway has laid a solid foundation to support their whole families.
For countless plateau residents, the railway has created jobs, improved livelihoods, and opened a pathway to a better life. Over the past 20 years, the Qinghai-Xizang Railway has hauled a total of 824 million tons of cargo and handled 104 million passenger trips, among which over 4.5 million were student travelers commuting between Xizang and other parts of China.
How has China addressed the challenge of building on such fragile terrain? The Qinghai-Xizang Plateau is home to an extremely delicate ecosystem. Vegetation grows slowly, the food chain is simple, and any ecological damage would be difficult to reverse. The answer, according to railway planners, lies in respecting and protecting nature.
Ecological protection was integrated into the project from the very planning stage. In 2015, work began on expanding the capacity of the Golmud-Lhasa section. At Hoh Xil Station, a site long reserved for future use was formally incorporated into the project. However, field surveys revealed that the original location sat directly on a well-established migration route for Tibetan antelopes.
“The lights and noise from passing trains, as well as routine station operations, would disturb the antelopes during their breeding season,” explained Zhang Caihong, deputy head of the infrastructure division under the planning and statistics department of China Railway Qinghai-Xizang Group Co., Ltd.
After joint consultations by all relevant authorities, a unanimous decision was made to relocate the station to make way for wildlife migration. The entire Hoh Xil Station was shifted 8.8 kilometers north, requiring an extra investment of over 13.76 million yuan ($2.03 million).
In the 1990s, fewer than 20,000 Tibetan antelopes lived in Hoh Xil. Today, the population has surpassed 70,000. Herds now cross beneath the railway calmly and safely, providing vivid testimony to China’s commitment to green development.
To preserve the traditional grazing practices of local herders, the railway’s designers reserved natural wildlife crossing corridors. Along the entire length of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway, dedicated wildlife passages stretch for nearly 60 kilometers. Countless culverts and viaducts also serve as safe transit routes for cattle, sheep, and wild animals alike.
To protect vegetation, every effort was made to restore what had been disturbed. The plateau’s topsoil and vegetation layer are extremely thin, sometimes only 20 to 30 centimeters deep. During construction, workers carefully lifted every piece of turf, preserved it, and later replanted it.
They also developed four innovative ecological restoration techniques, including vegetation bags, vegetation belts, fiber blankets, and thick-substrate spray planting. Today, more than 90 percent of the transplanted turf along the railway has been successfully restored.
To curb sand hazards and stabilize drifting sand, a full set of sand-fixation solutions have been adopted.
Dachaidan in Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Qinghai province, lies in a barren desert expanse once described as a place “where the wind blows even the stones away and nothing grows.”
Within this “lifeless no-man’s-land,” workers hand-laid magical grid barriers over the desert surface. Stone grids, salt crust grids and straw grids stretch out like enormous chessboards, firmly trapping rampant shifting sands.
Over the past two decades, sand encroachment along the railway has been brought largely under control, and the amount of sand cleared from the tracks each year has fallen dramatically.
The construction of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway also marked the first time that an environmental supervision system was established for a railway project in China. That philosophy has since been carried forward into the planning, design and construction of subsequent railway projects across the country.
Today, the Qinghai-Xizang Railway has entered the smart era. More than 3,000 surveillance cameras monitor train operations in real time along the entire route. Fifty-two monitoring stations installed in high-wind sections serve as vigilant “ears,” while 182 observation sites continuously track permafrost temperatures and ground settlement. Supported by intelligent monitoring systems, dispatchers hundreds of kilometers away can maintain a comprehensive view of operations at all times.
Over the past two decades, the railway network across the plateau has continued to expand. The combined operating railway mileage in Qinghai province and the Xizang autonomous region has grown from 2,207.8 kilometers to 4,060.1 kilometers, an increase of 83.9 percent. Meanwhile, the Fuxing high-speed train has, for the first time, achieved full coverage across all 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland.
Running across Qinghai and Xizang, the Qinghai-Xizang Railway is far more than a mere transport thoroughfare. It has grown into an ecological shield safeguarding the plateau’s fragile environment, a vital bond cementing ethnic unity, and a pathway leading local residents to prosperity and sound development.
