[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

The Qinghai-Tibet railway:

Facts and Figures:

1. The highest railway in the world. About 960 kilometers of it are at an altitude of 4,000 meters and more with the highest point being 5,072 meters above sea level.

2. The longest plateau railway in the world. From Golmud of Qinghai Province to Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, the rail link crosses deserts, gobi, marshes, wetland, snow capped mountains and meadow with a total length of 1,142 kilometers.

3. The longest railway crossing on frozen-earth plateau with 550 kilometers built on a foundation of perennial and continually frozen ground.

4. The highest-altitude railway station in the world – Tanggula Railway Station, 5,068 meters above sea level, and covering an area of 77,000 square meters.

5. The highest frozen-earth plateau tunnel – Fenghuoshan Tunnel, 1,338 meters long on Fenghuo Mountain, 4,905 meters above sea level.

6. The longest frozen-earth plateau tunnel in the world – Kunlun Mountain Tunnel, 1,686 meters long, at an average altitude of 4,600 meters and with temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. The oxygen content of the air is half that in plain areas.

7. The highest railway construction base – Amdo work site sits at an altitude of 4,704 meters.

8. The longest railway bridge on the line – Qingshuihe Bridge, 11.7 kilometers in length crossing Hoh Xil Nature Reserve at an average altitude of 4,600 meters.

9. The highest speed of any train on a plateau frozen-earth railway anywhere in the world. The Qinghai-Tibet train can reach speeds of 100 kilometers per hour on frozen-earth sections and up to 120 kilometers on other parts of the line.

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[edit] Engineering challenges

There were and are many technical difficulties for such a railway.
About half of the second section was built on barely permanent permafrost. In the summer, the uppermost layer thaws, and the ground becomes muddy. Chinese engineers dealt with this problem by building elevated tracks with foundations sunk deep into the ground, inserting vertical pipes that circulate liquid nitrogen and cold nitrogen gas into the ground, building hollow concrete pipes beneath the tracks to keep the rail bed frozen, and using metal sun shades.[10]

 

 

Kunlun Pass


The air in Tibet is much thinner, having 35% to 40% less oxygen than at sea level. Special passenger carriages are used, and several oxygen factories were built along the railway. At this altitude in these latitudes, water in toilets must be heated to prevent freezing. The Chinese government claimed that no construction worker died during the construction due to altitude sickness related diseases. [11] The railway passes the Kunlun Mountains, an earthquake zone. A magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck in 2001. Dozens of earthquake monitors have been installed along the railway



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they had to build radiators for hundres of KM of track in one place to keep the ground solid enough for rail traffic, and insulation in hundres of KM of track in another to keep the ground frozen solid enough for rail traffic. ALL of the workers had to wear oxygen masks entirely through out its construction. and amazing multi-billion dollar project that proved that man can build a railway to nowhere across hundreds of miles of absolutely desolate land......

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

you been reading wikipedia?

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

no.. actually I saw this crazy railway and that crazy bridge on PBS....

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

aw.
I like the nova programs.
not much besides that good on pbs here.