Tibet:
Did you know that the highest railway station in the world lies 5068 meters above sea level? Apparently, its location was specially chosen for the view from the platform. The train ride to it, is nicknamed as the “rocket to the roof of the world”.
Amazing, right?
Do you know where we need to travel to in order to take high-in-the-sky train ride?
Built quite literally on the roof of the world – at an average elevation around 4,500m above sea level – the Qinghai-Tibet railway represents the culmination of the long-held Chinese dream of connecting China to Tibet.
Running for over 1,956km from Xining, capital of China’s Qinghai province to Lhasa, through some of the planet’s harshest natural conditions, it is an impressive catalogue of world records. With its highest point at an altitude of 5,072m – 200m or more above the Peruvian railway in the Andes – Qinghai-Tibet easily takes the title as the world’s highest track and Tanggula Station, a mere 4m lower, the highest railway station.
It is also the longest plateau railway in the world. Some 550m of its tracks are on frozen earth, passing through both the world’s most elevated tunnel – Fenghuoshan Tunnel (4,905m) – and the longest plateau tunnel – Kunlun Mountain (1,686m) – to be built on frozen earth.