A special train will collect garbage along the Qinghai-Tibet railway every week to protect the plateau environment.

Other measures have also been set in place to allay fears Hoh Xil, a nature reserve for endangered Tibetan antelopes, threatened by the 1,142-kilometer railway that begins trial operations on July 1.

"Waste water discharge is banned along the railway," said Liu Xinduo, a senior engineer with the environment control and labor sanitation institute of the Academy of Railway Sciences.

Currently, disposing facilities have been built at 15 sites along the railway to treat waste water using bio-chemistry, electrochemistry and oxidation, Liu said.

The carriages are equipped with garbage collecting systems, which can compact refuse, said Ma Baocheng, deputy general manager of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company. "All the garbage collected in train cars will be carried to Golmud or Lhasa for disposal," he said.

"We have installed vacuum equipment to gather excrement in toilets and special facilities for gathering all kinds of waste on the train," Ma said.

Ma said his company has designated a special protection belt along the railway to reduce pollution.

Railway construction began in 2001.

(Xinhua New Agency June 20, 2006)