Silk Road railway in Northwest China nears completion

China Daily
September 2, 2014

The 1,776-kilometer Lanzhou-Xinjiang high-speed railway is due to be completed by the end of this year. The new line will run throughvthree regions along the ancient Silk Road in Northwest China – Gansu and Qinghai provinces and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

It will be the first line to pass through the Tibet Plateau, known as the “roof of the world”. With a maximum speed of 250 km/h, the railwaywill halve the travel time between Beijing and Urumqi to 20 hours and that from Lanzhou to Urumqi to nine hours.

An area of track on the Lanzhou-Xinjiang line. [Photo by Ni Shubin/Asianewsphoto]