Beijing, October 20 – A railway that will link Tibet with the rest of China is more than half finished, according to project officials quoted in state-run media Wednesday.
Officials at the railway’s construction headquarters in the provincial capital of Lhasa said that 293 miles of track, about 56 percent of the total, had been laid on the Qinghai-Tibet railway as of Monday, according to Xinhua.
The Tibet Autonomous Region, as it is officially called, is the last Chinese territory lacking a rail link to its capital.
Work on the $3.1 billion project, spanning a distance of 520 miles from Golmud in Qinghai province to Lhasa, began in 2001. Liu Xinke, an official related to the Ministry of Railways, said the link would reach Lhasa sometime in 2005, and be open to traffic in July 2007.
Upon completion, it will be the highest railroad operating in the world at a maximum altitude of 5,070 meters, or 16,633 feet above sea level.
