Lhasa–Shigatse railway
railway line in China
The Lhasa–Shigatse railway, or Lari railway (Tibetan: ལྷ་གཞིས་ལྕགས་ལམ་) (simplified Chinese: 拉日铁路; traditional Chinese: 拉日鐵路; pinyin: Lārì Tiělù), is a high-elevation railway that connects Lhasa to Shigatse (Xigazê), in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The travel time between Lhasa and Shigatse on this line is roughly three hours.
History
The line was a spur line of the Qinghai–Tibet railway. The length of the railway is 253 km (157 mi). Construction began in September 2010 and was connected to the Qinghai–Tibet Railway in May 2013. The line was completed in July 2014 and opened for commercial operations on August 16, 2014. Soon after opening, the line became the primary mode of transport between Lhasa and Shigatse; the two destinations were previously only connected by road and air, and air travel was too expensive at the time for the large majority of local residents.
The exiled Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala has claimed that the rail line will dilute the cultural identity of Tibetans by accelerating the movement of Han migrants into Tibet.
Stations
The line includes 14 stations, of which only a few see regular passenger traffic (Qüxü, Rinbung). The project had a budget of 10.8 billion yuan.
The public source identifies “Lhasa–Shigatse railway” as railway line in China. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lhasa, Shigatse and railway.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lhasa–Shigatse railway” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.