Editor's Note: On July 1, 2006, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will go into service on a trial basis, taking people in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu to Lhasa and back.

After the May 4th Movement of 1919, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the leading republican revolutionary who had earlier been compelled to resign his position as president of the Republic of China (1912-1949), published a masterpiece of approximately 200,000 words-"Scheme for the Reconstruction of China". It was in this way that the Tibetan railway first emerged as a public idea.

Dr. Sun designed seven railway systems such as the "northwest railway" and "plateau railway" etc., totaling 106 railway lines involving about 100,000 km of track. The "plateau railway" system in total marked out 16 railway lines, among those the "Lhasa-Lanzhou Railway" and "Lanzhou-Rochiang Railway" ran southwest to Tibet through various parts of what are now Qinghai Province and Xinjiang.

From 1943 to 1945, the Nationalist Government sent people such as Liyan, the assistant chief-engineer, Song Mengyu, the engineer, and Liu Baoshan, the engineer in charge of route selection, from Gansu-Qinghai Railway Bureau, to organize a group to investigate a proposed Gansu-Qinghai railway. They composed a "Report of a Grass Survey", drew a section plan and implemented some specific work on the Gansu-Qinghai Railway-the base section of the eventual Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

But, for a variety of political and economic reasons, this railway remained as a mere concept for around half a century.

Ups and Downs in Construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway

In the 1950s, the first-generation leaders of New China put the construction of a railway to Tibet on the national schedule. After that, construction of Qinghai-Tibet Railway experienced a "long examination" of 45 years, with various twists and turns known as the "two ups and two downs".

In 1954, the Qinghai-Tibet and Sichuan-Tibet Highways were opened to traffic. On March 9, 1955, Premier Zhou Enlai presided over the 7th plenary session of the State Council, especially called to discuss the Tibet issue. He stressed: that regional development would follow from the construction of roads. This session passed the "State Council Decision on Transportation in Tibet".

Starting from January 1956, the No.1 Survey Institute of the Ministry of Railways embarked on a comprehensive survey and design of a 2,000 km line from Lanzhou to Lhasa.

In November of the same year, the route inspection office of the Ministry of Railways processed the selection of lines running from Golmud to Lhasa and asked the No.1 Survey Institute to carry this out on a baseline along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway and perform the necessary geological survey.

In September 1958, construction of the Xining-Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was quietly launched in Xining and the Guanjiao Tunnel at the same time. Therefore, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project Bureau was specially authorized to begin work, with General Mu Shengzhong, who already enjoyed a reputation as the "father of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway" as bureau head. The proposed route of the Golmud-Lhasa section was approved at the end of 1957. The initial survey started the following year, and with over 500 persons devoted to the work, progress was rapid. Up to 1960, the initial design of the entire line and the part of the location survey was finished, and part of construction design was also finished.