The train and the Environmental Protection:
According to the original schedule, trains to Tibet will begin in the year of 2007. But the project of the Tibet Plateau Railway finished one year earlier and the trial trains to Tibet launched since July the first and on. At the starting ceremony of trains to Tibet, President of Chinese Central Government Mr. Hu Jintao Attended the ceremony. It sounded like a big and important matter and issue. Yes, it is a big project, and could be matched with the Great Wall in ancient China. Yet, after the trains start and even before the train, people around the world and China worry about the last pure land in terms of Environmental Protection. It seemed that the train will bring pollution to the Tibet Plateau. There will be white and sound pollution along the railway line, and the animal will be driven away.

LHASA RAILWAY STATION:
Our Clients personally visited the railway station in Lhasa and got on the train.
they found that there will be no pollution since the trains were no-windows-open built and you can not litter any thing out of the train. And the train seldom or never sounds in the vast area where the animals stroll and run. So at least at present stage, the environment pollution won’t happen.

What does the Train bring to Tibetans?
Before the trains, the price in Tibet no matter it is daily life used commodity or tour products were very expensive, some times the price is twice or triple as much as in mainland of China because these commodity were either fly in or carried by trucks from thousands of miles away.

On the other hand, products from Tibet were also rare to see and people in Tibet cannot buy in quantity. The reason is that the transportation is very expensive. Take the Gas Station (Petroleum for cars and its kind of vehicles) for instance. The price per liter is 80-90% of more expensive than that in mainland China.

However, after the train both products from mainland China and Tibet can be easily transferred bilaterally at lower price. And the price from mainland China are surely cheaper for the local people and for tourists. Furthermore products from Tibet could be easily bought in mainland China and Tibetan people could be a little bit wealthy due to the commerce and trade. Of course the Chinese style life or its fashion and western style of life and its fashion like Fried Chicken and etc can influence Tibetans style of life, but people’s enjoy and easy life is more important as well as to keep the Tibetan culture. To hear and to see and to talk to the local people while you travel to Tibet, you can draw a conclusion by yourself that whatTibet looks like and would looks like.

The inner structure and the speed of the train:
you may have already taken on a train tour in China, but the trains to Tibet is a little bit different from the trains in China, of course it is also different from that in your country. When the trains were built, people or the engineers think sufficiently about the environment pollution problem and the tourists may suffer from the long time and long distance journey and the high altitude sickness. Thus the windows cannot be opened and people cannot litter things out of the train. And due to its tight sealed up, there is oxygen like in the plane filled in the trains. This oxygen may help you a little bit to reduce the altitude symptoms.

Secondly, thinking of the long journey on the train (please refer to the time-table of the train), the hard sleepers were also built in to the compartment style and tourists can sleep soundly and deeply without the noise. And the seats were built in to a sofa style to people to comfortably be seated on.

And also the soft sleepers were built in to deluxe compartments style with liquid crystal screens inside. There are two or three Pull-Machines or Engines.

Destinations from mainland China of trains run to Lhasa:
According to the original plan, there will be trains from Beijing(capital, easy to turn the transfer tools from planes, and more tourists, and in the north), Shanghai(biggest city, more tourists, and in the east), Guangdong(near Hong Kong, more tourists, and in the south) Chengdu(southwest, and more tourists) Xining and Lanzhou(in the northwest, both for the changes from planes to trains) but during this trial train operation, there ARE trains only from Beijing, Chongqing(change from Yangtse River to the train), Chengdu and Xining and Lanzhou.

The Timetable and Price for the train To Tibet
The schedule has been set for the first five trains to Tibet via the new Qinghai-Tibet railway which will begin trial operations on July 1, an official with the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company said Friday.

There will be a direct train to Tibet from Beijing, Chengdu, Chonqing, Lanzhou and Xining. Trains bound for Tibet will depart daily from Beijing everyday. There will be departures from Chengdu, Chonqing, Lanzhou and Xining every other day.

Please check the time table and price for the train:

Timetable

Train No. Departure Destination Departure Time Arrival Time Travelling Time T27 Beijing (west) Lhasa 2130 2058 (the 3rd day) 47hrs 28min T28 Lhasa Beijing (west) 0800 0800 (the 3rd day) 48hrs T22/3 Chengdu Lhasa 1818 1828 (the 3rd day) 48hrs 10min T24/1 Lhasa Chengdu 0905 0955 (the 3rd day) 48hrs 50min T222/3 Chongqing Lhasa 1920 1828 (the 3rd day) 47hrs 08min T224/1 Lhasa Chongqing 0905 0955 (the 3rd day) 48hrs 50min K917 Lanzhou Lhasa 1645 2230 (the 2nd day) 29hrs 45min K918 Lhasa Lanzhou 0932 1545 (the 2nd day) 30hrs 13min N917 Xining Lhasa 2007 2230 (the 2nd day) 26hrs 23min N918 Lhasa Xining 0932 1219 (the 2nd day) 26hrs 47min

(Note: each train is departing every other day except T27 and T28)