[Assam] Skytrain

Fri Jun 30 14:50:13 PDT 2006

Great engg feat. Being a plateau helps -for Tibet-average level land is already 4000m high. In India 5,000m (17,000 feet)  would be on a mountain top (or side).

  Umesh

mc mahant <mikemahant at hotmail.com> wrote:
        China's Tibet railway ready for operation, with sealed cars and refrigerated tracks
  BEIJING (AP) - The first railway to Tibet is ready to start operation this weekend, using sealed, oxygenated cars to cope with the thin air and high-tech cooling to keep the frozen track bed stable, the Railway Ministry announced Thursday.    The 33.9 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion; euro3.3 billion) rail line, which took four years to build, links Tibet's capital of Lhasa to Golmud, a small city in Qinghai province already connected to China's vast rail network.    China says the prestige project, which leaders have dreamed of realizing since the 1950's, will help economically develop the poor, restive western region and establish better trade and information links with the prosperous east.    Critics say it is part of a larger campaign by Beijing to crush Tibetan culture by allowing a huge influx of Han Chinese migrants.    The line will "hugely boost local development and benefit the local people,'' said Zhu Zhensheng, vice director of Railway Ministry's Tibetan Railway
 Office.    However, he acknowledged that few ordinary Tibetans would benefit directly from the railway _ a key complaint by human rights and Tibet activists.    "At first there will be not very many opportunities for Tibetans to work on the train,'' he said at a press briefing to announce details of the new service. "We hope to increase those opportunities.''    Members of Students for a Free Tibet and pro-independence activists have been wearing black armbands in protest and say they will demonstrate outside Chinese embassies and consulates around the world this Saturday as part of a campaign called "Reject the Railway.''    "China's railway to Tibet is not meant to benefit Tibetans and is only meant to consolidate Beijing's control over the region,'' the group says on its Web site.    Many Tibetans say their territory was independent when communist troops arrived in 1950 and the Dalai Lama has campaigned for autonomy to protect its culture. Beijing says Tibet has been
 part of China for centuries and accuses the Dalai Lama of agitating for independence.    The first passenger train to use the line is to leave Beijing on Saturday night and arrive in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, 48 hours later on Monday evening. The government says it hasn't decided whether to run daily train service, but Zhu said the maximum daily traffic would be three trains carrying a total of 2,700 passengers each way.    The railway, sometimes referred to as the "Sky Train'' in Chinese, is the world's highest, crossing mountain passes over 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) high at speeds of 100 kph (60 mph).    Peru's Lima-Huancayo line claimed the highest record previously, rising to above 4,800 meters (15,748 feet).    About 80 percent of the Qinghai-Tibet line is above 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) and is laid on potentially unstable permafrost, or frozen ground.    To keep the permafrost stable, Chinese engineers sank pipes with cooling elements into the ground around the
 tracks to stabilize the embankments and ensure they stayed frozen.    "It's kind of like non-electric refrigeration,'' Zhu said.    Daniel Wong, a Shenzhen-based engineer who helped set up a similar cooling technology on permafrost along the Alaskan oil pipeline in the 1970's, said the pipes likely use solar energy to power a pump and compressor that continuously cycles ammonia or some other liquid into a gas, producing cold air.    "It's a very expensive system because the columns are steel and the refrigeration units have to be inspected every month,'' said Wong. "Plus if it breaks, it will sink and then you have a lot of problems.''    Zhu said that regular monitoring of the permafrost along the line over the past three years had shown that it was receding about 2 centimeters (0.79 inches) per year, a level which was "very satisfactory,'' and showed the line was stable.    He added that some 120 kilometers (75 miles) of the rail line were also put on elevated bridges in
 spots where the permafrost was thought to be least stable.    Global warming might threaten the rail line by softening the permafrost in about 50 years, but work is under way to prepare for such a possibility, Zhu said.    The train cars, manufactured by Canada's Bombardier Inc., have double-paned windows with ultraviolet filters to protect people from the sun's glare and were designed to regulate oxygen levels as the altitude changes, said Zhang Jianwei, Bombardier's China representative.    Zhang said passengers who experience breathing difficulties at high altitudes can breath air with richer oxygen content provided at various locations in the coaches.    There was some dispute over whether passengers would be allowed to smoke in the oxygen-enriched trains.    Bombardier's Zhang said smoking would be safe in vestibules as far as Golmud but not during the last stretch to Lhasa. But Zhu, the Chinese official, said smoking would be permitted.    "Smoking is allowed because
 although the density of the oxygen in the cabin is higher than outside it will still be within acceptable international standards (for smoking),'' he said.    Two freight trains a day will also service Tibet, Zhu said, mostly taking agricultural products and handicrafts out of Lhasa and bringing food, construction materials and other goods in from the rest of China.    He gave no specific figures for estimated cargo tonnage but said the train was likely to boost border trade with India and other neighbors but he had no specific estimates.    Human rights groups say the Chinese government limits numbers of monks in Tibetan monasteries, restricts religious teaching and requires monks to attend political classes and denounce the Dalai Lama. - AP     

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Umesh Sharma
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 1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
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Class of 2005

weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/

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