FAQ of Tibet Train Tours

Is the taele on Tibet Plateau a great threat to the traffic safety of the Tibet trains?

The melt of the tundra is a great challenge for the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The taele on Tibet Plateau is melting with the global warming and some of the tourists are worried that the traffic safety of the Tibet trains might be threatened by the melting taele. In fact, Qinghai-Tibet Railway passes through two taele regions with an area of more than 0.3 million square kilometers and the taele in these regions keeps melting in the last decades.

To ensure the traffic safety of Tibet trains running across the taele regions, the designers and engineers of Qinghai-Tibet Railway adopted several effective measures. Qinghai-Tibet Railway avoided the section with complicated geological structure tactfully. Bridges were constructed in the taele area with high ice content. A series of new technologies (such as the ventilated embankment, hot stick and the insulated layer) were adopted to keep the temperature of the taele area so as to avoid the fast melt of the taele. These measures greatly improved the stability of the taele area and ensure the traffic safety of the Tibet trains. Besides, the long-term monitoring to the roadbed, vegetation recovery, and the climate change along Qinghai-Tibet Railway will prevent and remove the negative influences suffered by the railway in time.

Whether passengers will suffer certain high altitude sickness symptoms when the Tibet trains run into the plateau area?

Tourists might suffer different degrees of high altitude sickness when they come to a plateau environment with an altitude of more than 3000 meters from the plain areas. Tourists join the Tibet train tours will get into the real Tibet Plateau in an hour once the train departure to Lhasa from Goldmud. The section of Qinghai-Tibet Railway which is about 50 kilometers away from the south of Golmud enjoys an altitude of 3500 meters and the altitude would keep rising to 4000 meters, 4767 meters (Kunlun Mountain Pass) and even 5072 meters (Tanggula Railway Station enjoys an altitude of 5068.63 meters). But tourists don't need to be over worried about the high altitude sickness on the train since the oxygen supply on the train will be available between Golmud and Lhasa.

How to avoid the natural disasters or man-made sabotage in the depopulated area?

The Golmud-Lhasa section of Qinghai-Tibet Railway enjoys a length of 1142 kilometers. Some of the sections pass through the depopulated area with awful climate. Tourists planning to make a Tibet train tour might be worried that the Tibet trains could not avoid the natural disasters or man-made sabotages in the unattended depopulated areas. The separation fence on both sides of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has been installed. There are armed policemen or security staff stationed at the important stops along the railway. Comprehensive monitoring system has been settled at the bridges and vital communication and motor stations. In addition, the security pre-warning system could also improve the traffic security of the Tibet trains. The Ministry of Railways had carried out related evacuation and rescue plans for the possible natural disaster, equipment trouble and train operation accident.