More than 1,000 kilometers of tracks have been laid on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's most elevated railroad, and the track laying work is expected to complete within this year, the headquarters of the railway construction said.

 

The railway from Gelmud in Qinghai Province to Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, runs 1,142 kilometers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, dubbed "roof of the world".

 

Construction workers are now busy laying tracks at two critical sections of the longest plateau railroad in the world, the headquarters said Saturday.

 

A team is now heading for a location of 5,072 meters in elevation on the Tanggula Mountain, the highest point of the railway.

 

Another team is laying tracks in the area between Yangbajain and Lhasa, where a long and extremely slopy section that stretches about 40 kilometers poses a challenge to the construction workers, the headquarters said.

 

But the headquarters said it had made detailed plans to deal with all possible problems that might emerge in the course of construction.

 

The construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway started in late June, 2001, and it is scheduled to start trial operation in the second half of 2006.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 3, 2005)