For a country we consider backward, they sure do some nice stuff on occasion.
To score a ride sitting shotgun in a locomotive bound for Lhasa, it helps to like beer. I’ve just ditched my guide and wandered up to an unfinished train station at the edge of a dusty town high on the Tibetan plateau. Migrant workers, mostly Tibetans and Hui Muslims, wield sledgehammers, shovels, and drills, hurrying to finish work before midsummer. On July 1, China will celebrate the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the highest rail line in the world. Its 1,200 miles of tracks traverse 342 miles of permafrost, much of it at altitudes exceeding 13,000 feet. The end of the line is Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, the restive province China has been trying to subdue for half a century.
It is the largest construction project built on permafrost since the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was completed in 1977. Nearly half of the new track crosses this permanently frozen subsoil, which can become unstable if it thaws. And if that’s not enough of an engineering challenge, the line also runs over a major fault in the Kunlun Mountains, where a magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck in 2001. Nevertheless, beginning this month, trial runs on the line will give people from Beijing, Shanghai, and other major Chinese cities direct rail access to Lhasa.
We can’t even get the rail link from Boston to Washington to function properly.
“Backward”? Hardly. I think, in fact, China will ultimately lead mankind into colonizing space. It will their combination of centralized rule and dynamic market economy (and rapidly growing scientific sector) to fund *real* space exploration and exploitation.
My point exactly.
“The ground under this railway is what could be called barely permanent permafrost.”
Global warming is a real, almost inevitable threat. The genius and ingenuity of the scientific elite of China is overshadowed by the pompous, egocentric Chinese government. Space exploration is unforgiving of that kind of recklessness and disregard.
We can’t get a railroad built because of lawyers and politicians, not the lack of smart engineers.
Alix — Xinhua is starting to put up photos from the inaugural run of Qing1 — including one that appears to be taken at grade up on that bridge with the train emerging from the tunnel.
#5 Moss said” “If you read any Chinese publications — including the history of building the China-Tibet Railway, you’d know they’re already conscious of the danger global warming presents to the permafrost substructure. The decision was made that immediate benefits to the Tibetan and western China economies was more important in the near term.”
Moss, I would be wary of Chinese propaganda. The ariticle above suggests another objective,,,
“Critics say the $3.2 billion line is essentially a political and military gambit, strategically stitching Tibet into the fabric of the motherland and, by facilitating the westward migration of ethnic Chinese, accelerating the marginalization of Tibetan culture, religion, and anti-Beijing sentiment.”
and this comment…
“Wu the scientist says he worries that the precarious condition of the permafrost beneath the railway is being overshadowed by the government’s post-construction celebrations. He points to a stack of copies of letters he has sent to the Ministry of Railways over the past few years. The general theme: a sometimes pleading, sometimes stern call for better permafrost monitoring and maintenance along the Qinghai-Tibet. “Every day I think about whether the railway will have problems in the next 10 to 20 years,” he says. The government has thus far only ignored or chafed at his warnings.”
The line peaks at 16,640 feet (5072 m), 800 feet higher than the next three highest lines in Peru and Bolivia:
-La Cima (Morococha Branch) Peru – 4818m
-Condor, Bolivia – 4787m (meter gauge)
-Galera Tunnel, Peru – 4781m
I recognize the the problems in our rail system are more legislative than engineering, but the fact remains we have an abysmal rail system.
An achievement of engineering is more than design, it is execution. The brightest ideas aren’t worth squat until they are actualized.
I wish we had a decent rail system, as it would solve issues from congestion to pollution. Don’t forget rail once bound the country together.
Some people can not stand prosperity. That is truly sad.
Passenger really is not feasible for most of the area west of the Mississippi and east of the Cascades, and we’d be better off if we stopped wasting money on it. But it’s really pathetic that there is nothing approaching Shinkansen or TGV standards for, at a minimum, the Washington-Boston corridor, and ideally a grid between Portland, Maine; Atlanta, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, another in Texas, and a corridor from San Ysidro at least as far north as San Francisco.
No one mentiones that this is railway for colonization of the occupied land?
You mean like Canyon de Chelly?
ffom #11 “Glad to see my personal crankiness didn’t put you off, JimR”
Not a problem Moss. I could tell you were a little miffed, but you weren’t nasty ar anything. I can get cranky too. It’s obvious you are better informed, in some ways, on the subject than me. My thoughts are more of a gut feeling.
You mention 1979 China, but the Tiananmen Square massacre was in 1989, only 17 years ago. Look at their control on outside information available to their populace today and what you can get thrown in jail for. They are a very paranoid and suppressive government. Just look at how they are managing the internet. The people are fine. The government I wouldn’t take my eyes off for a second.
Which makes you wonder why we give them so much of our IP.
Cheer up, sagrilarus. At least this is not New York City, where NONE of the three airports have a direct rail connection from downtown.
You can go from the subway to the Airtrain for Kennedy. It’s a relatively. new connection.
> As wealthy as Chinas economy as a whole is becoming
> suggesting #3+ billion is committed to a political gambit
> marginalizing Tibetan culture, etc. is absurd. If for no other
> reason that the Chinese government is rarely anything other than
> frugal.
No no no no… as a westerner living in China for 20 years, I know they are not wholly rational on all subjects. The Chinese leaders would not disagree with this, they see national unity as a matter of principle and of legitimacy of the CCP rule, not as something to compromise on. Tibet and Taiwan are not issues Chinese discuss from a standpoint of fiscal restraint.
Furthermore, Tibet is potentially a treasure trove of mineral wealth, including petroleum. It is not a given that this investment will not pay off.
And, the Han attitude towards minorities is very similar to the US attitude towards native Americans in the early 20th century: quaint and primitive, ripe for “modernization”. Check out the “Minorities Park” in Beijing as a monument to condescencion.