In News: Tibet’s first high-speed train service between provincial capital Lhasa and Nyingchi near the border with Arunachal Pradesh will be operational by the end of June, a top official from China railways said on Saturday.
High Speed Rail – China near Arunachal Border
- A 435-km rail link to the regional capital of Lhasa will run Fuxing high-speed trains powered by both internal combustion and electricity.
- Construction started in 2014 on the railway line connecting Lhasa with Nyingchi in eastern Tibet.
- It is the first electrified railroad in Tibet and is slated to begin operations in June 2021.
- The track-laying work was completed by the end of 2020.
- The railway has a designed speed of 160 km per hour.
- The Sichuan-Tibet Railway will be the second railway into Tibet after the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which in 2006 connected Lhasa to the hinterland.
- It will go through the southeast of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, one of the world’s most geologically active areas.
- China claims that the railway will help “transport advanced equipment and technologies from the rest of China to Tibet and bring local products out”.
Source: The Hindu and The Wire
