Figure 1: Shigatse Station

At 9:00 on August 16th 2014, Lhasa - Shigatse Railway officially went into operation as the first train K9821 slowly pulled off from Lhasa Station. Lari (Lhasa- Shigatse) Railway is one of the important projects in China’s 11th Five-Year Plan and Mid-long Term Railway Network Plan, whose construction took four years. The single-track line is 253km long and has electrification reserved. The speed of the train is no less than 120km/h and the annual freight traffic is over 8.3 million tons. The railway traverses the southwest of Tibetan Plateau, including the 90km-long Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon and the elevation is 3700~4000m, making the geological condition quite complicated.

Lari Railway has applied CASCO’s CTC system to 14 CTC stations and 1 dispatching station that connect to the dispatching center of Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company and CASCO’s 2010 Integrated Signaling Monitoring System to 15 centralized monitoring stations that connect to the monitoring center of Xining signal& communication station.

Figure 2: Lari Dispatching Station

During March 2013 to August 2014, Qinghai-Tibet project team successfully completed the installation, test and pilot run of the station and key equipment under dual pressure of schedule and mission, and carried out the renovation and construction of Lhasa and Lhasa West Railway Stations and Liuwu Block Post in advance, laying a solid foundation for the opening of Lari Railway.

CASCO has won high appraisal and trust from Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company for its stable system, efficient project team and quality service.

The opening of Lari Railway turns a new page in the railway construction in Tibet and extends Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the “Heavenly Road”, to Shigatse, providing powerful strategic support for the leapfrog development and lasting stability of Tibet as well as national unity.