China to expand Tibet railway
http://news.smh.com.au/world/china-to-expa...80818-3xim.html
Email Print Normal font Large font August 18, 2008 - 4:55PM



The 6 new main rails are:

1 Lhasa-Rikaze (Shigatse), which will be further extended southward to the China - Nepal border
2 Lhasa-Linzhi, which will be further extended south-eastward to link with the railway network in Yunnan Province, thus creating a rail corridor from Tibet to the South China Sea
3 Xining-Zhangye
4 Golmud-Kuerle (Korla)
5 Golmud-Dunhuang
6 Golmud-Chengdu


China is planning to build six new railway lines in and around Tibet.

The Chinese government says the expansion of the services will improve the Himalayan region's economy but critics complain it poses a threat to Tibetan culture (yes yes..these smart asses know a thing or two ).

The Ministry of Railways said on its website that two of the new lines would run from the capital, Lhasa, to other areas in Tibet, while the other four would be built in neighbouring provinces on the Tibetan plateau.

The announcement was posted on Saturday and reported in state-run media on Sunday.

The new lines will go into operation before 2020 and give the Tibetan plateau region closer interaction with the economy and culture of China, the ministry said.

China in 2006 opened the final link of a line from Beijing to Lhasa, a multibillion-dollar project that Beijing boasts is the world's highest railway. Much of the last third of 1,140km link was specially engineered to protect delicate frozen earth.

Tourism has increased since the completion of the railway and Beijing has encouraged majority Han Chinese to travel and move to the region.

The ministry said that in two years, the railway has moved 5.56 million passengers and 4.05 million tons of cargo, which has lowered local prices of goods.

(Ass-fcuked) foreign activists say the railway enables the government to exploit the region's natural resources while threatening its Buddhist culture and traditional way of life.

China has defended policies in Tibet, saying improvements in infrastructure and health care, along with campaigns to settle nomadic herders in permanent communities, were improving the quality of life.

China says Tibet has been its territory for centuries. Tibetan activists say the region was independent before the Communist Army occupied it in 1951.

Compare with Indian CopyCat effort.

Kashmir Railway

The Kashmir Railway is a railway line being built in India to connect the state of Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of the country. The Project officially coded USBRL(Udhampur Srinagar Baramulla Railway Link) starts from the city of Udhampur, 55 km (34 mi) north of Jammu, and travels for 290 km (181 mi) to the city of Baramulla on the northwestern edge of the Kashmir Valley. The route crosses major earthquake zones, and is subjected to extreme temperatures of cold and heat, as well as inhospitable terrain, making it an extremely challenging engineering project.

The Kashmir Railway has been under construction since 1994 by various railway companies in India. When completed this line will link the city of Jammu in the Northern plains of India with city of Srinagar in the Himalayan Valleys and beyond.


July 2002: The Vajpayee Government declares the line a National Project. This means that it will be constructed and completed irrespective of cost. The central government will fund the entire project. This is important as the Railways do not have the now estimated cost of 6,000 Crores for the entire project. By the Railways' allocation it would have taken 60 years to complete the project. A challenging deadline of August 15, 2007, Independence Day, was also set.

August 7, 2008 - The Ministry of Railways asks the Konkan Railways Corporation Ltd (KRCL) — the agency executing works on almost half of the Katra-Qazigund section — not to commence any new work on the 70-odd-km mountainous stretch entrusted to it. It is considering major changes in the alignment. This could push the project deadline to 2025 and lead to severe cost escalations and the abandonment of works already executed. Works worth Rs 750 crore have now already been executed and Rs 1,000 crore worth of contracts were already awarded on the Katra-Qazigund section, whose completion will finally allow a direct train to the Valley.

Wait till these AH find out the network of expressway and airports being built; they'll sh*t in their pants.

Go on China keep making the line all the way to Pakistan, we will never be able to do such a thing because our leaders are a$$holes but the people of Pakistan are with you and always will be

The rail network in Xizang and Xinjiang alone will rankle the mind of those dunderheads for years.

do you have a map for these six new lines.
what about a line to Pakistan border, is it among these six?

Please refer to the map above where Kashi the cross is located to the left and denoted by a red circle . The green dotted line from Kashi pointing southwest goes to the Pakistan border.