Lanxin railway

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The westernmost point of the main (northern) branch of the railway in Alataw Pass, 2360 kilometers from the starting point in Lanzhou

The Lanxin railway, or Lanzhou–Xinjiang railway (Traditional Chinese: 蘭新鐵路; Simplified Chinese: 兰新铁路; pinyin: Lánxīn Tiělù) is a railway in the People's Republic of China.

[edit] The main line

The railway is the only railway linking Xinjiang to the rest of China. Its main line extends 1903.8 kilometers from Lanzhou (its easternmost point) to the Urumqi, and another 477 kilometers extended line to Alataw Pass (its westernmost point), where China's Alashankou railway station is connected to Kazakhstan's Dostyk station.

It forms part of the Second Eurasian Continental Bridge which extends from eastern China to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

For part of its path, it travels along a similar route to that of the Silk Road.

It was built by the China Railway Engineering Corporation. Construction of the initial stage (to Urumqi) started in 1952 and was completed in 1962. The extension to the Kazakhstan border was built in the late 1980s, linkup with the Kazakhstan Railroads achieved on September 12, 1990. After the completion of the 20km Wushaoling Tunnel in 2006, the railway from Lanzhou to Urumqi is all double-tracked.

[edit] The southern branch

The railway also has the southern branch, which splits off the main line near Turfan (east of Urumqi), and runs west to Kashgar at the westernmost tip of the country. It was completed in the late 1990s.

[edit] Future

It was reported in November 2008 that in 2009 work will start on building a new passenger-only rail line, parallel to existing Lanxin railway. The projected cost is 120 billion yuan. Once the new line is completed, the old one will be used mostly for freight.^[1]