Geku railway () is a railway connecting

Golmud Golmud, also known by various other romanizations, is a county-level city in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. It is now the second-largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibetan P ...

and

Korla Korla,The official spelling according to also known as Kurla, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or Kuerle, is the second largest city by population in Xinjiang, China. It is a county-level city and the seat of Bayingolin Mo ...

, in western

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. Construction started in November 2014 and was completed in 2020. The length of the line is , joining

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

province and

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

province. The investment is estimated to be CN¥36 billion (~US$6 billion). The line connects the Qinghai–Tibet railway and the Southern Xinjiang railway. It's the third railway connecting Xinjiang province with another Chinese province and the third line to Golmud after the Qinghai–

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

railway and the 2019 Golmud–Dunhuang railway. It is part of the Taklimakan Desert railway loop, together with sections of the Hotan–Ruoqiang railway, Kashgar–Hotan railway, and Southern Xinjiang railway.

Description

The railway crosses the

Qaidam Basin The Qaidam, Tsaidam, or Chaidamu Basin is a hyperarid basin that occupies a large part of Haixi Prefecture in Qinghai Province, China. The basin covers an area of approximately , one-fourth of which is covered by saline lakes and playas. Aro ...

, the

Altyn-Tagh Altyn-Tagh (also Altun Mountains or Altun Shan) is a mountain range in Northwestern China that separates the Eastern Tarim Basin from the Tibetan Plateau. The western third is in Xinjiang while the eastern part forms the border between Qinghai t ...

mountain range, and the

Taklamakan Desert The Taklamakan Desert ( ) is a desert in northwest China's Xinjiang region. Located inside the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang, it is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, the Pamir Mountains to the west, the Tian Shan range to the ...

. As the third rail artery linking Xinjiang with neighboring provinces, the line cut travel time between the two places from 26 hours to 12 hours. The railway generally follows the route of Qinghai Provincial Highway 303 (from Golmud to Mangya Lake 茫崖湖),

China National Highway 315 Constructed in 1954, the Qinghai-Xinjiang Highway, also known as the China National Highway 315 (G315) runs west from Xining, Qinghai towards Kashgar, Xinjiang. It is in length. In 1994 the departments of communication and transportation in Qing ...

(from Mangya Lake to Ruoqiang) and China National Highway 218 (from Ruoqiang to Korla). A long viaduct crosses over the Karakoshun Lake. The line is used for passenger travel and cargo such as

petroleum products Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. Most ...

Xinjiang railway loop

Combined with the Hotan–Ruoqiang railway along the southern rim of the

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...

(which opened on June 16, 2022), the Kashgar–Hotan railway, the Korla–Kashgar section of the Southern Xinjiang railway, and the Ruoqiang–Korla section of the Golmud–Korla railway, railways now form a loop around the

History and development

With a design speed of , the Qinghai section of the rail route launched on 30 June 2020 stretching and 15 stations, with one pair of passenger trains and two pairs of freight trains per day at launch. The remaining section opened on 9 December 2020. On 11 October 2021, service frequency between Golmud and Mangyazhen was increased to one train in each direction per day.

References

Railway lines in China Rail transport in Qinghai Rail transport in Xinjiang Railway lines opened in 2020 {{PRChina-rail-transport-stub

Description

Xinjiang railway loop

History and development

See also

References