http://news.yahoo.com/...
BEIJING - China unveils an engineering marvel this weekend -- a railway to Tibet that features high-tech systems to stabilize tracks over permafrost and cabins enriched with oxygen to help riders cope with high altitudes
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Tibetans loyal to the exiled Dalai Lama and other critics say the $4.2 billion railway is part of a campaign by Beijing to crush Tibetan culture by encouraging an influx of Han Chinese, China's majority ethnic group
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Railway official Zhu Zhensheng defended the railway, saying it will boost the Tibetan region's economy and help people learn about its unique culture. Zhu said few Tibetans will work on the train at first, though "we hope to increase those opportunities."
Railway Ministry officials previewed the new rail line from the city of Golmud to Lhasa on Thursday, noting it's the world's highest, taking the 16,500-foot passes at speeds up to 60 mph.
The line -- sometimes called the "Sky Train" -- is a "major achievement" that will "hugely boost local development and benefit the local people," said Zhu, vice director of the Railway Ministry's Tibetan Railway Office.
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Chinese officials thought about building a railway to Tibet for decades. China's rail system reached Golmud, in Qinghai province nearly 1,865 miles from Beijing, by 1984. But railway officials said it was too difficult to extend the line to Tibet because of the region's huge swaths of permafrost and extreme temperatures.
In 2001, the plan was resurrected. Engineers determined they could build elevated bridges over the most unstable tracts of permafrost. In other places, they could sink pipes with cooling elements into the ground to stabilize track embankments, ensuring they stayed frozen.
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And yet, here in the United States, they can't even get funding for Amtrak. Yet even China is finding the funds to develop a national passenger rail network. Opponents of Amtrak, or who want to scrap all passenger rail, claim that the US is "too large" for successful transportation; yet Russia has the Transiberian railroad and China just opened this new line.