[photopress:qinghai_tibet_railway_2_45.jpg,full,alignright]Foreign media reported that over ten serious incidents concerning the Qinghai-Tibet Railway were covered up. Not so, according to an official from the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company.
Vice General Manager Zhu Huaxin said, ‘Over the past year, the railway has always put safety, punctuality and passenger comfort front and center given the extreme plateau conditions.’
The railway crosses over 550-km of frozen tundra on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Combined with being the highest railway in the world and the prolonged periods in inhospitable surroundings. As a result safety has been a major priority for the railway’s staff.
The plateau’s permafrost created a specific set of threats to track stability, explained Zhu Huaxin and experts had established measures that prevented the soil from thawing and being unstable.
Certain roadbeds had cracked, along with a few concrete structures and bridges, in August last year, but that these had been swiftly repaired by the Ministry of Railways.
Zhu Huaxin said, ‘The roadbeds in this section are gradually becoming stable, and the soil has withstood the test of both summer and winter.’
The Golmud-Lhasa and the Xining-Golmud sections have performed excellently, achieving a service reliability ratio of 99.6% and 92.1%, respectively.
Zhu Huaxin said, ‘There was only one restaurant car derailment, but it was an equipment problem and was handled properly.’ He said it was the only incident. The railway has now been running for almost exactly one year.
Source: China.org.cn