My 4-berth cabin. The rose was plastic.
When boarding, I hadn't had a chance to look at what was on the front of our train but the overhead electric catenary continued to the west of Xining so I presumed we were electric hauled. The journey was very smooth and I was impressed. Looking at the railway infrastructure, it appeared well-maintained and I concluded that these were serious railway people. That's not to say that the occasional 'bodge' did not appear, but the overall standards were very good. The similarities with the Russian Railways I was able to study last year (see my posts Trans-Siberian) were significant, apart from the track gauge – China is 'standard gauge'.
After we'd been travelling a little over half an hour, the uniformed coach attendant came round and gave me a Passenger Health Declaration form for completion. This certified to the QingHai – Tibet Railway Company that I was fit for travel at elevations above 3,000 metres above sea level. Xining was two thousand something metres elevation, Lhasa is 3,600 metres elevation but on the way, we would climb to around 5,000 metres elevation. My paper train tickets had been inspected when I boarded but not collected so the coach attendent swopped my tickets for plastic credit cards identifying the berths I was entitled to use but not the date or route. Near the end of the journey, she then swopped the credit cards back for the paper tickets which I still have.
We passed a large group of sidings on our right full of bogie coal wagons. This appeared to be the loading point. I spotted the screening plant but not the source of the coal which I assumed was opencast.
Initially, we were running through an industrial area but eventually this gave way to grassland with rolling hills and lakes but it was very noticeable how many high voltage power transmission lines were following our route. Electrification of any country is important but China, with its high growth rate, has made big demands on its electricity grid. I found the rural areas reminiscent of Mongolia (where I made a brief visit last year, described here). From time-to-time, we passed traditional buildings with arrays of prayer flags nearby.
Traditional buildings and prayer flags on the grassland.
Also dotted around the grassland, there were a few tents, each with a stove pipe sticking through the roof. Some of these were rectangular, some round (but not having the proportions of the Mongolian 'Gyr' tent). I concluded that these were used by nomadic herdsmen and this seemed to be confirmed when I started to see long-haired cows, mainly black, wandering free.
Periodically, there were tents erected just outside the railway fence but I thought at least some of these were used by railway security workers for we frequently passed lone men wearing either 'High-Visibility ' jackets, Army Camouflage or various uniforms. Some of them stood to attention or saluted as we passed (often standing on a dais made of concrete slabs), some of them waved at the train and some totally ignored us. In addition, we passed periodic properly-built two-storey guard rooms. Here we could expect to see at least one man in a smart uniform saluting the train. Incidentally, at stations, the staff stood to attention sometimes with a salute as we passed – this is something you can also see in Russia.
After we'd been travelling about three hours, we passed through a large station and turned off to the right on a curving single line. Looking along the continuation of the double track main line we'd left, the track bed continued to two tunnel mouths, but there was no track! I can only assume this was a new piece of railway still under construction.
Our electrified single line now started to look more like Switzerland, with mountains rearing up left and right and our route twisting first to the left, then to the right to find a way through. At least I was able to catch a glimpse of our locomotive on the curves and confirm that it was a single electric unit.
Some of the cuttings we negotiated had been stabilised with a steel mesh.
Because we were on a single line, there were loops every few kilometres, allowing trains travelling in opposite directions to pass one another. At the first of these loops, we went straight through, passing a waiting freight train on our right loaded with military tanks. We went straight through at the second passing place.
At Nanshan, we passed another waiting freight and then the line certainly emulated Switzerland in order to lose height, for it corkscrewed to the right, then to the left, sometimes crossing under itself and continued in this fashion for a bewildering few kilometres. From time to time, the rock wall loomed very close to the line, in other places strong fences had been erected to protect against falling rocks.
In the mountains between Nan Shan and Luo Bei, the railway twists and turns, sometimes crossing under itself.
Finally, we passed through a tunnel curving to the right and then made a broad sweep to the left to take us to the passing loop at Luo Bei where another freight was waiting for us to clear. A couple more tunnels took us to a fairly complex junction where a double track line joined on our left. We passed through without stopping but there were at least two more freight trains waiting on parallel tracks. After three more tunnels, we passed the small station of Mulan.
By 9.00 p.m. it was pretty dark. I didn't get the name of the large station we stopped at but seven minutes later, we were on the move again. I wasn't feeling brilliant so I decided to go to bed early. I was fairly comfortable on one of the lower bunks but I'm not used to sleeping in a single bed. I slept intermittently until midnight when perhaps the sound of a passing train woke me. Ten minutes later we stopped at a large station whose name I didn't get. As we rolled in, I'd seen a massive 2-section diesel electric in the sidings and I wondered if this was where the traction changed to diesel electric – it was. There was a roadway next to us on the non-platform side and I was not surprised to see a number of workers waiting for us to stop.
In the 30 minutes we stood at the station, at least four 'honey wagons' passed alongside emptying the lavatory tanks. Our coach was provided with two toilet cubicles – one with a 'western style' pedestal W.C., the other with a 'squat' toilet. Both had 'vacuum flush' where pressing a pushbutton runs water into the bowl and after a few seconds delay the contents of the bowl are sucked into a large tank carried underneath the vehicle. Sadly, for most of the journey, both types of toilet had urine swilling about on the floor. I'm afraid this probably has more to do with the habits of the passengers than any defects in the system design.
And on that not-very-salubrious note, I'll conclude this report. We still had another 14 hours to go before Lhasa and I'll tell you about that next time.
My Pictures
QingHai - Tibet Railway.
