In recent years, China has embarked on a huge project worth hundreds of billions of dollars to strengthen ties between Tibet and other provinces and regions. The project aims to lay a railway line from the Sichuan region to Tibet, the Sichuan-Tibet Railway. Although China has made great progress in infrastructure construction technology, the construction of the Sichuan-Tibet railway is still full of challenges. The entire line is expected to require at least another 10 years of engineering time, and the total investment is nearly 400 billion yuan, which shows the importance of the railway to Tibet and Sichuan.
The Sichuan-Tibet Railway starts from Chengdu and ends in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, with a total length of 1838 kilometers and a design speed of 120~200 kilometers per hour. Although Sichuan and Tibet appear to be connected on the map, there are actually obstacles between the two places by steep mountains such as the Hengduan Mountains. To connect the two regions, various geological challenges must be overcome.
During the construction of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, engineers had to cross seven major rivers and eight snow-capped mountains. When the route crosses the West Sichuan Canyon and enters the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the altitude rises rapidly from 600 meters to more than 2,700 meters. To solve the problem caused by this height difference, the designers used a large number of Z-shaped detours while crossing canyons and mountains through tunnels and bridges to reduce unnecessary distances, engineering time and raw material requirements.
In addition, similar to the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the Sichuan-Tibet Railway also faces the challenge of frozen soil on the plateau. This permafrost becomes hard when temperatures drop, but softens when it warms up in spring, causing orbital subsidence. Fortunately, China has accumulated relevant data and technical experience from the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, absorbing the heat of the frozen soil through underground hot rods, keeping it frozen, and providing solid support for the railway.
The construction of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway faced many challenges, resulting in an estimated completion time of 10 years. However, once completed, the importance of the railway to Tibet is self-evident. It will significantly increase the speed of transportation of goods and people, promote Tibet's economic development, and benefit from the driving role of cities in developed eastern regions.