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China to build 1st cross-desert railway
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-05-07 09:10
Construction of China's first railway across the Ulan Buh Desert and Badain
Jaran Desert in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will begin this
year, local railway sources said.
The 1,390-kilometer railway starts at Linhe in Inner Mongolia, runs westward
through the Ulan Buh Desert and the along the northern rim of the Badain Jaran
Desert on the Sino-Mogolian border, then enters Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
from northern Gansu Province and ends at Hami in Xinjiang, according to the
railway administration of Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia. The estimated cost
and scheduled completion date were not disclosed.
The section of the railway in Inner Mongolia is 1,070 kilometers and the
sections in Gansu and Xinjiang are 320 kilometers.
Upon completion, the railway will serve as a direct link between north and
northwest China and will be a convenient passage linking Xinjiang with north and
Northeast China and the national capital, Beijing.
The Linhe-Hami railway runs along the north route of the ancient Silk Road,
which was the land thoroughfare linking China with Central and Western Asia to
the eastern shore of the Mediterranean between the second century B.C. and the
eight and ninth centuries A.D.
The Ulan Buh Desert and the Badain Jaran Desert are the third and fourth
largest deserts in China.
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