Special Report: Qinghai-Tibet Railway

    XINING, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- By Monday, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's highest railway, has operated smoothly for 100 days with nearly 300,000 passengers and 300,000 tons of cargos going into and out of Tibet.

    From July 1 when the railway started operation to Oct. 8, the railway transported 65,000 passengers into Tibet and 212,000 out of the region, said Zhao Liwei, an publicity executive with the Qinghai-based Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company.

    The cargo service, which opened earlier on March 1, transported280,000 tons of goods into Tibet and 12,000 tons out of the region.

    The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which starts from Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, and ends in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, is the first railway ever to go to Tibet.

    Before the plateau railway began service, people reached Tibet only via air or highway.

    Some 550 kilometers of the 1,956 km history-making railway are built on frozen earth.

    Currently, four pairs of passenger trains are traveling on the Qinghai-Tibet railway, linking Lhasa to other Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Xining, Lanzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Enditem