Train Journey to Tibet

Train Journey to Tibet

The train and the Environmental Protection:
Train Journey to Tibet

According to the original schedule, trains to Tibet will begin in the year of 2007. But the project of the Tibet Plateau Railway finished one year earlier and the trial trains to Tibet launched from July the first and on. At the starting ceremony of trains to Tibet , President of Chinese Central Government Mr. Hu Jintao Attended the ceremony. It sounded like a big and important matter and issue. Yes, it is a big project, and could be matched with the Great Wall in ancient China . Yet, after the trains start and even before the train, people around the world and China worry about the last pure land in terms of Environmental Protection. It seems that the train will bring pollution to the Tibet Plateau. There will be white and sound pollution along the railway line, and the animal will be driven away.

 

LHASA RAILWAY STATION:

Our Clients personally visited the railway station in Lhasa and got on the train.
They found that there will be no pollution since the trains were no-windows-open built and you can not litter anything out of the train. And the train seldom or never sounds in the vast area where the animals stroll and run. So at least at the present stage, the environment pollution won’t happen.

What does the Train bring to Tibetans?
Before the trains, the price in Tibet no matter it is daily life used commodity or tour products were very expensive, some times the price is twice or triple as much as in mainland of China because these commodity were either fly in or carried by trucks from thousands of miles away.

On the other hand, products from Tibet were also rare to see and people in Tibet cannot buy in quantity. The reason is that the transportation is very expensive. Take the Gas Station (Petroleum for cars and its kind of vehicles) for instance. The price per liter is 80-90% of more expensive than that in mainland China .

However, after the train both products from mainland China and Tibet can be easily transferred bilaterally at lower price. And the price from mainland China are surely cheaper for the local people and for tourists. Furthermore products from Tibet could be easily bought in mainland China and Tibetan people could be a little bit wealthy due to the commerce and trade. Of course the Chinese style life or its fashion and western style of life and its fashion like Fried Chicken and etc can influence Tibetans style of life, but people’s enjoy and easy life is more important as well as to keep the Tibetan culture. To hear and to see and to talk to the local people while you travel to Tibet, you can draw a conclusion by yourself that what Tibet looks like and would looks like.

The inner structure and the speed of the train:
you may have already taken on a train tour in China, but the trains to Tibet is a little bit different from the trains in China, of course it is also different from that in your country. When the trains were built, people or the engineers think sufficiently about the environment pollution problem and the tourists may suffer from the long time and long distance journey and the high altitude sickness. Thus the windows cannot be opened and people cannot litter things out of the train. And due to its tight sealed up, there is oxygen like in the plane filled in the trains. This oxygen may help you a little bit to reduce the altitude symptoms.

Secondly, thinking of the long journey on the train (please refer to the time-table of the train), the hard sleepers were also built in to the compartment style and tourists can sleep soundly and deeply without the noise.

And the seats were built in to a sofa style to people to comfortably be seated on.

And also the soft sleepers were built in to deluxe compartments style with liquid crystal screens inside. There are two or three Pull-Machines or Engines.

Destinations from mainland China of trains run to Lhasa:
According to the original plan, there will be trains from Beijing(capital, easy to turn the transfer tools from planes, and more tourists, and in the north), Shanghai(biggest city, more tourists, and in the east), Guangdong(near Hong Kong, more tourists, and in the south) Chengdu(southwest, and more tourists) Xining and Lanzhou(in the northwest, both for the changes from planes to trains) but during this trial train operation, there ARE trains only from Beijing, Chongqing(change from Yangtse River to the train), Chengdu and Xining and Lanzhou.

The Timetable and Price for the train To Tibet
The schedule has been set for the first five trains to Tibet via the new Qinghai-Tibet railway which will begin trial operations on July 1, an official with the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company said Friday.
There will be a direct train to Tibet from Beijing , Chengdu , Chonqing, Lanzhou and Xining . Trains bound for Tibet will depart daily from Beijing everyday. There will be departures from Chengdu , Chonqing, Lanzhou and Xining every other day.

Please check the time table and price for the train:

Timetable

Train No. Departure Destination Departure Time Arrival Time Travelling Time
T27 Beijing (west) Lhasa 2130 2058 (the 3rd day) 47hrs 28min
T28 Lhasa Beijing (west) 0800 0800 (the 3rd day) 48hrs
T22/3 Chengdu Lhasa 1818 1828 (the 3rd day) 48hrs 10min
T24/1 Lhasa Chengdu 0905 0955 (the 3rd day) 48hrs 50min
T222/3 Chongqing Lhasa 1920 1828 (the 3rd day) 47hrs 08min
T224/1 Lhasa Chongqing 0905 0955 (the 3rd day) 48hrs 50min
K917 Lanzhou Lhasa 1645 2230 (the 2nd day) 29hrs 45min
K918 Lhasa Lanzhou 0932 1545 (the 2nd day) 30hrs 13min
N917 Xining Lhasa 2007 2230 (the 2nd day) 26hrs 23min
N918 Lhasa Xining 0932 1219 (the 2nd day) 26hrs 47min

 

 

(Note: each train is departing every other day except T27 and T28)
This unusual journey leads you from Qinghai province in China to Tibet . You visit some very important monasteries of Gelugpa-sect in Tibet Buddhism like Kumbum, Jokhang, Drepung, Sera, Barkhor and Tashilhunpo as well as the Potala Palace , experience exotic local conditions and customs, and enjoy the natural landscapes: snow-covered mountains, crystal clear highland lakes, broad meadows, emerald-green forests, peculiar plants and rare wild animals in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. The highlight is to experience traveling to Lhasa by the newly built Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

 

A Brief Introduction to Qinghai-Tibet Railway:
The Qinghai-Tibet section of the railway is the world's highest railway , and some 960 kilometers of the tracks were laid at 4,000 meters above sea level, with the highest parts reaching 5,072 meters. The railway is still the world's longest plateau railroad which extends 1,972 kilometers from Qinghai 's provincial capital Xining to Lhasa in Tibet . The Golmud-Lhasa section, completed on Oct. 12 this year, zigzags 1,142 kilometers across the Kunlun and Tanggula Mountain ranges. Travelers can enjoy the world-class tourist sites along the newly-built line during the trip. According to the official, the trains running on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway are the most advanced ones in China . All the carriages of the trains are installed with oxygen-supplying equipment and every passenger will be provided with an oxygen mask. Passengers will not feel altitude reaction or sickness. The train will run 1,972 kilometers from Xining , capital of Qinghai Province , to Lhasa , capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It will take 26 hours to complete the one-way trip. Stations are built near scenery spots, according to the Qinghai-Tibet Corporation. As oxygen is thin in the region, trains, including sleeping cars, dining cars and sightseeing cars, will be equipped with oxygen systems for those who need them. The 1,142-km-long section of Qinghai-Tibet Railway from Golmud to Lhasa was completed on Oct. 12, 2005 and is scheduled to open to traffic on July 1, 2006 . In addition to Beijing , some other Chinese cities, including Shanghai , Guangzhou and Chengdu , will also launch direct railway passenger transportation to Lhasa as of July 1 2006 .

Train Schedule (2006 trial announced on 27 th June 2006 ):
SOFT BERTH: 4 persons in 1 cabin
Hard Berth: 6 persons in 1 cabin

FROM / TO TRAIN NO. DEPARTURE ARRIVAL BERTH(HARD/SOFT) PRICE (IN US$) KMS HOURS
Beijing / Lassa T27 21:30 3 rd day 20:58 104 / 160 4064 47
Lhasa / Beijing T28 08:00 3 rd day 08:00 104 / 160 4064 48
Chengdu / Lhas a T22/3 18:18 3 rd day 18:28 90/ 140 3654 48
Lhasa / Chengdu T24/1 09:05 3 rd day 09:55 90 / 140 3654 48
Lanzhou / Lhasa K917 16:45 2 nd day 22:30 70 / 109 2188 31
Lhasa / Lanzhou K918 09:32 2 nd day 15:45 70 / 109 2188 31
Xining / Lhasa N917 20:07 2 nd day 22:30 66 / 104 1972 26
Lhasa / Xining N918 09:32 2 nd day 12:19 66 / 105 1972 27

* As the sharp demand of the train tickets, the entire tickets agency in China require RMB150 (US$18)/ticket as service charge.