Chapter 59 58. Qinghai-Tibet Railway: A Railway Dream on the Plateau

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which opened to traffic at 9 am on July 1, 2006, was the landmark project that attracted the most attention in China that year. Because of its difficulty and its particularity, it was also regarded as the pride of China, just like the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge back then. Same.The Qinghai-Tibet Railway runs from Xining City, Qinghai Province to Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, with a total length of 1,956 kilometers.Among them, the Xining-Golmud section is 814 kilometers long. It was completed in 1979 and put into operation in 1984.The Golmud-Lhasa section starts from Golmud City in Qinghai Province and goes south along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. start working day.When building this railway, engineers faced the "three major problems" of permafrost, high cold and hypoxia, and ecological fragility.It is currently the plateau railway with the highest altitude and the longest line in the world, with a total investment of more than 33 billion yuan. During the construction process, it reached several world records.

"The rocks are criss-crossed, the road is full of people and roads, and the dangers are indescribable... No matter who in the world, there is no one who is not afraid of trembling." Li Anzhai, a famous Tibetologist, was over 50 years old when he was asked about the traffic problems in Tibet. Li Anzhai quoted a "Tibet History and History Summary" written by the Qing Dynasty. It was 1950, and Deng Xiaoping, Liu Bocheng and He Long decided to send the 18th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army into Tibet.Before entering Tibet, the senior generals of the People's Liberation Army consulted Tibetologists, including Li Anzhai, about Tibet's politics, folklore, and religion.He Long also specially invited some Tibetologists to set up a policy research room for the 18th Army.

After deciding to enter Tibet, Deng Xiaoping said in the Southwest Bureau's recollection: "The march into Tibet must rely on policies to walk, rely on policies, and coordinate political and military solutions. To gain a firm foothold in Tibet, the most urgent task is to solve the problem of road construction. "The construction of the road to Tibet was quickly put on the agenda. Chen Mingyi of the 18th Army’s Rear Force Headquarters became the person in charge of the construction of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, and the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, another road into Tibet, was built by Mu Shengzhong, the political commissar of the Northwest Army’s Tibet-oriented troops and the Tibet Transport Corps, who was later known as the “General Road Builder”. built.

The story of Mu Shengzhong building the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is legendary.The first time he entered Tibet was as the political commissar of the independent detachment of the 18th Army. The second time was in the spring of 1953 when he organized a transportation team into Tibet, leading more than 2,500 camel workers and more than 17,000 camels to carry out emergency food transportation tasks.The third time he started to build the Qinghai-Tibet Highway with the support of Peng Dehuai.Moreover, unlike Chen Mingyi, when Mu Shengzhong started building the Qinghai-Tibet Highway in 1954, he led only more than 1,200 migrant laborers and a few soldiers. , neither money nor soldiers, can only rely on the group of migrant workers."On the day when the road construction started on May 11, 1954, Mu Shengzhong branded "Mu Shengzhong's Tomb" on a piece of wood with a hot red fire hook, stuck it into the ground, and said that if anything happened to him during the road construction, This piece of wood is his tombstone, and it has the heroic spirit of the ancients carrying the coffin to go to war.

By the end of 1954, the Sichuan-Tibet Highway and the Qinghai-Tibet Highway were completed at the same time.According to later records, hundreds of workers died in the construction of the 1,200-kilometer Qinghai-Tibet Highway; and more than 2,000 officers, soldiers and migrant workers died on the 2,000-kilometer Sichuan-Tibet Highway. heroic spirit. These two highways have been the main routes for people to enter Tibet for a long time.In fact, "Road Construction General" Mu Shengzhong once had the idea of ​​building the Qinghai-Tibet Railway after the completion of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.The idea of ​​building railways into Tibet has been passed down from Sun Yat-sen to the founding fathers of the People's Republic of China.Sun Zhongsan proposed to build the Three Gorges Dam and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in his "State-Building Strategy".After resigning from the presidency, Sun Yat-sen became even more obsessed with his own railway construction plan. President Yuan Shikai simply followed suit and appointed Sun Yat-sen as the supervisor of the national railway. But behind the scenes, Yuan Shikai did not agree with Sun Yat-sen's plan to build a 200,000-mile railway. He dismissed it, saying that Sun Yat-sen was dreaming and "Sun Dapao".Sure enough, Sun Yat-sen's 200,000-mile railway plan can only stay in writing and oral, not to mention the grand Qinghai-Tibet railway plan.At the beginning of the founding of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong also began to talk about his grand railway plan. On February 28, 1954, in a conversation with Wang Zhen, then commander of the railway corps, Mao Zedong and Wang Zhen made bold words, "We must make the railway On December 29, 1973, when Mao Zedong met with King Birendra of Nepal in his later years, Mao Zedong said to the king of the neighboring country across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau : "China will build the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which will not only reach Lhasa, but also connect with Nepal and lead to Kathmandu"; "I can't sleep if the Qinghai-Tibet Railway can't be repaired well!" ——Just like Mao Zedong said in the construction of the third front Like his attitude towards the construction of the Panzhihua Iron and Steel Base, Mao Zedong always had a strong attachment to specific industrial projects. Beware of a new war; the Qinghai-Tibet Railway comes from concerns about the separation of Tibet and uncertainty about India.

But the moment when Mao Zedong made up his mind was the era when China was plagued by many diseases. What made people even more confused was the unpredictable changes in the political atmosphere and people's hunger for the most basic material needs of life.Later records said, "The catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution has brought the national economy to the brink of collapse, and the construction of this project is unbearable. In addition, the three major worldwide technical problems are difficult to solve. The Ministry of Railways and the Railway Corps jointly suggested to the central government to stop the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet line. "

We have never lacked resolve in building this railway. In 1983, after listening to a report on Tibet's transportation development, Deng Xiaoping came to the same conclusion as his predecessors: "It seems that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway must be built." Then again the imaginary railroad lumbers along the plateau like a hindered giant. In 1984, the Xining-Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed.Golmud, located in the hinterland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is regarded as a strategic place connecting Tibet and Xinjiang, the western frontiers of China, with Gansu. engineering.The envisioned Qinghai-Tibet Railway runs from Xining in Qinghai to Lhasa in Tibet, with a total length of 1,956 kilometers. The Xining-Golmud section, which started operation in 1984, can only be used as the first phase of the railway to Tibet; from Golmud to Lhasa, a new 1,110-kilometer railway will be built, passing through Nachitai, Wudaoliang, Tuotuo River, Yanshiping, and over the Tanggula Mountains. Then pass through Amdo, Naqu, Damxung, Yangbajing, and Nazhi, Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

In fact, on the issue of the railway route to Tibet, there are also three options: the Yunnan-Tibet line, the Sichuan-Tibet line, and the Qinghai-Tibet line.The Yunnan-Tibet Railway was even listed as a national key project.In the end, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway became the first choice. "First, the construction length is short, the project volume is small, the investment is low, the construction period is short, and the construction cost is the least; It hasn't stopped," said Fu Zhihuan, the Minister of Railways at the time, to President Jiang Zemin who questioned him in "Oriental Hada——A Panoramic Record of China's Qinghai-Tibet Railway" written by army writer Xu Jian.Fu Zhihuan also stated the problems and solutions in the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway: "The Qinghai-Tibet Railway... what lies ahead of us are three world problems, permafrost, alpine hypoxia and environmental protection problems that cannot be solved... Half a century of preparation , It’s finally time to break out of the cocoon. Frozen soil, academician Cheng Guodong of the Lanzhou Institute of Cold and Drought of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a large number of experts have helped solve the super difficult problem of the mechanism of frozen soil... such as the use of gravel subgrades, ventilation pipe subgrades, setting Insulation layer, using bridges instead of roads, hot rod technology, etc. It can be said that we have basically solved the world-class plateau permafrost problem. We have a new understanding of the fragile environmental problems on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau... Everything is ready for the Qinghai-Tibet Railway , it was only an order from the central government.”Afterwards, Jiang Zemin wrote in his report on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway that he must "make up his mind to start construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway as soon as possible."

The 33 billion yuan project finally started on June 29, 2001. Later, in the reports of the official media, it repeatedly publicized the solution of the three major worldwide problems.The first is the lack of oxygen on the plateau. "The Qinghai-Tibet Railway crosses Hoh Xil and the Tanggula Mountains. The oxygen content in most areas is only about 50% of sea level, and the extreme temperature can reach -40°C." However, public reports say, "Qinghai-Tibet Three-level medical institutions have been established along the railway, with 115 medical institutions and more than 600 medical personnel on site. Employees can receive effective treatment within half an hour when they get sick. 17 oxygen stations have been established along the line, and 40,000 employees each The average compulsory oxygen inhalation is not less than 2 hours, and 25 hyperbaric oxygen chambers are equipped along the line. Due to strong health protection, the success rate of rescue of acute altitude sickness such as cerebral edema and pulmonary edema in the whole line is 100%, and the incidence rate is basically stable at 1 in 1,000 Around seven days, there has not been a single case of death from altitude sickness." This is also the pride of Wu Tianyi, China's first academician of altitude sickness.Sun Yongfu, vice minister of the Ministry of Railways, once invited Wu Tianyi to Beijing for an interview. Wu Tianyi also put forward six suggestions for the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, participated in the revision of the health protection measures of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and taught medical staff the prevention of altitude sickness.

The second is the permafrost problem. Permafrost refers to various rocks and soils that contain ice at a temperature below 0°C. Due to thermal expansion and contraction, permafrost will expand in volume in winter and shrink in volume when it melts in summer. The roadbed above the frozen soil will crack or even collapse.The construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway needs to cross 550 kilometers of permafrost.Many permafrost experts have been studying in Northwest China for decades to solve this problem. The third problem is the environment.The investment in environmental protection in the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is about 1.1 billion yuan. 33 passages for wild animals have been built along the entire railway line, and damage to the original vegetation has been avoided as much as possible.

The latter two puzzles, especially the environmental impact of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, will only bear fruit over time. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has also created a series of the world's highest: it is the highest plateau railway in the world, with a railway crossing 960 kilometers above an altitude of 4,000 meters, and the highest point is 5,072 meters above sea level; it is also the longest plateau railway in the world, with a total mileage of the entire line It is 1,142 kilometers long; it is the longest plateau railway in the world, with a length of 550 kilometers; the Tanggula Mountain Station at an altitude of 5,068 meters is the highest railway station in the world; the Fenghuo Tunnel at an altitude of 4,905 meters is the highest in the world The permafrost tunnel; the 1,686-meter-long Kunlun Mountain Tunnel, the world’s longest plateau permafrost tunnel; the 4,704-meter-altitude Anduo laying base, the world’s highest laying base; the 11.7-kilometer-long Qingshui River The bridge is the longest plateau railway bridge on permafrost in the world; the Qinghai-Tibet Railway has a speed of 100 kilometers per hour on the permafrost section and 120 kilometers per hour on the non-frozen section, which is currently the highest speed of a train on the permafrost railway in the world. On July 1, 2006, after 5 years of hard work, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was fully opened, and tens of thousands of residents flocked to Lhasa Railway Station; train tickets from Beijing to Lhasa, and from Shanghai to Lhasa began to be difficult to find.At a celebration meeting for the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, President Hu Jintao called the Qinghai-Tibet Railway "another great achievement in socialist construction."The earliest idea of ​​this railway was proposed by Sun Yat-sen, and then both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping expressed their determination to build the Qinghai-Tibet Railway several times, and the first phase of construction began during Deng Xiaoping’s term of office, and the second phase of construction was started by Jiang Zemin, and it was finally completed during Hu Jintao’s term of office. Within, after the vicissitudes of personnel, once it was completed, it became a carnival in China in the second half of 2006.It is the country's powerful embrace of the border province of Tibet, and heralds another high tide of Tibet's opening up.The holy mountain and the holy water will inevitably go to the world.