At 8 AM August 9 track-laying of Qinghai-Tibet Railway has successfully reached the Tongtianhe Station. By then the northern track-laying of Qinghai-Tibet Railway had finished 421 kilometer main tracks and 1,890 bridge openings.

On June 22 track-laying began at A-mdo base in Tibet Autonomous Region and formed a situation in which track-laying started from two ends and three directions. As for now China Railway First Group is laying tracks simultaneously from the north of A-mdo and the south of Nanshankou toward the Tanggula Mountains.

It is the full-scale pushing ahead year. By the end of July an amount of 16.28 billion yuan (US$1.97 billion) has been invested since the start of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway construction. Twenty two of the 32 key and difficult projects have been completed or basically completed. Work has been finished on laying 509 kilometer main tracks, which account for 44.6 percent of the whole line.

(People' Daily August 12, 2004)