Dr. Sun designed seven railway systems such as the "northwest railway" and "plateau railway" etc., totaling 106 railway lines involving about 100,000 km of track. The "plateau railway" system in total marked out 16 railway lines, among those the "Lhasa-Lanzhou Railway" and "Lanzhou-Rochiang Railway" ran southwest to Tibet through various parts of what are now Qinghai Province and Xinjiang.

From 1943 to 1945, the Nationalist Government sent people such as Liyan, the assistant chief-engineer, Song Mengyu, the engineer, and Liu Baoshan, the engineer in charge of route selection, from Gansu-Qinghai Railway Bureau, to organize a group to investigate a proposed Gansu-Qinghai railway. They composed a "Report of a Grass Survey", drew a section plan and implemented some specific work on the Gansu-Qinghai Railway-the base section of the eventual Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

But, for a variety of political and economic reasons, this railway remained as a mere concept for around half a century.

Survey conducted in the 1950s.

In November of the same year, the route inspection office of the Ministry of Railways processed the selection of lines running from Golmud to Lhasa and asked the No.1 Survey Institute to carry this out on a baseline along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway and perform the necessary geological survey.

In September 1958, construction of the Xining-Golmud section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was quietly launched in Xining and the Guanjiao Tunnel at the same time. Therefore, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project Bureau was specially authorized to begin work, with General Mu Shengzhong, who already enjoyed a reputation as the "father of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway" as bureau head. The proposed route of the Golmud-Lhasa section was approved at the end of 1957. The initial survey started the following year, and with over 500 persons devoted to the work, progress was rapid. Up to 1960, the initial design of the entire line and the part of the location survey was finished, and part of construction design was also finished.

However, natural and man-made disasters starting from 1958 onwards led to serious disruption of economic construction against all objective economic principles. Among the disastrous steps that followed, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project Bureau was dismissed in June 1960, and construction of the line stopped in its entirety in March 1961, a pause that lasted a full decade.

After September 1971, Premier Zhou Enlai took charge of the work of the Party Central Committee, and the issue of transportation and the development of Tibet gained new attention. During the national plan meeting in July 1973, it was arranged that the railway corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army should take charge of the recovery of the 652 km of line that had originally been under construction from Ha Ergai to Golmud.

On December 9 of that year, at a meeting in Beijing with Nepal's King Birendra, Chairman Mao Zedong took the initiative to mention that China would construct the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and this railway would not terminate in Lhasa, but also go straight to the Nepalese capital of Katmandu.

Today we cannot get any information as to how or why Chairman Mao connected the strengthening of China-Nepal trade with the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. But we are sure that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway took a very important position in his mind otherwise he would not have been so explicit.

On January 12, 1974, the State Construction Commission held a meeting in Beijing, and decided that the Chinese Academy of Science generally should take charge of the research about the scientific and technical work on the three key technologies of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway regarding plateau conditions, permafrost and salt lakes. After 20 days, that is, on January 31, 1974, the commission delivered an initial suggestion on the railway project to the leaders of the Party Central Committee, that: construction should resume within 1974, and would be completed and the line open to traffic some time between 1983 and 1985, with the railway corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army in charge of the entire work.

Rails reach the Lhasa Railway Station on October 12, 2005.

After reading this, Li Xiannian, Vice Premier of the State Council, responded to Premier Zhou Enlai: "The time seems too long. Could it not be speeded up?"

Premier Zhou, who was already grievously ill, underlined the words of "could it be speeded up?" written by Li Xiannian and drew heavily an arrowhead pointing to the attached drawing in the report.

Deng Xiaoping, who had just resumed the position of Vice-Premier of the State Council 11 months before, and Ye Jianyin, who worked in the Military Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, both gave positive attention and support to the project.

After the disposition and arrangement of the State Planning Commission, the State Construction Commission and the Ministry of Railways, construction of the Xining-Golmud section was resumed. The 10th division and 7th division of the railway army, 62,000 persons in all, received the order to move into Qinghai Province in March 1974 and March 1975 respectively, and started the construction work.

The State Construction Commission also held a meeting at which two decisions were taken: (1) On the Golmud-Lhasa section would be organized over 1,700 technological staff from 68 factories, the army, various institutes, design institutes and high academic circles belonging to nine ministries and commissions and 19 provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government and autonomous regions on a national scale to tackle the tasks related to the key technological problems, such as the construction safety at high altitude and in extreme cold and lack of oxygen, the prospect of the permafrost melting when warmed and expanding when frozen again, the construction and operation of the railway, improving train traction and plateau electromechanical operations, and the manufacture of the necessary communication equipments. (2) The investigation and design of the Golmud-Lhasa section must be finished as soon as possible, creating conditions for the railway army fighting through from the Xining-Golmud section to the Golmud-Lhasa section. Therefore, in the third quarter of 1974, the No.1 Survey Institute of the Ministry of Railways sent an exploration group to work in the mountains, and initiated an aerial survey as well as research on the selection of lines in the fourth quarter. In 1975, the No.1 Survey Institute established the 2nd Brigade of Investigation and Design for the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, organized six investigation teams and substance exploration teams and drilling teams, totaling 1,700 persons, to generate increased momentum in line design of the 1,000 km section.

At dusk of a day in July 1978, Zhang Shusen, the chief engineer of the No.1 Survey Institute, who was leading the troop on a location survey at Nagqu, suddenly received the telegram from the 2nd Brigade of the No.1 Survey Institute at Golmud: regarding the investigation design, stop at once!

Later, the people in the No.1 Survey Institute knew that the real reason for the second freezing of the rail project was that there was no certainty of solving the great difficulties about the plateau permafrost, high altitude, cold and lack of oxygen. Therefore, the railway army and the Ministry of Railways put forward a suggestion to postpone the construction of the Golmud-Lhasa section and instead build a railway from Kunming to Lhasa.

Of course, there was an achievement in the second in this second phase, namely that construction of the Xining-Golmud section was finally finished in September 1979, although not formally opened to traffic until May 1, 1984. This not only created greater driving force to the economic development of Qinghai Province, but also provided vital preparatory work for the construction of the Golmud-Lhasa section in the future.

Western Region Development Promotes Construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway
In March, 2000, the third plenary session of the 9th National People's Congress put forward the development strategy of Western Region development, while four successive bills from among the deputies required that the construction of the railway entering Tibet should rank as the key project in this.

From October 9 to 11, 2000, the 5th Plenary Session of the 15th CPC National Congress was held in Beijing. The theme of this session was to discuss and pass the CPC Central Committee Proposal on Formulation of the 10th Five-Year Plan. As Minister of Railways, Fu Zhihuan was sent to meet the Southwest group to participate in discussions in which the railway into Tibet was an important topic.

A shot of the Third National Conference on Work in Tibet.

On the afternoon of October 10, General Secretary Jiang Zemin also joined the Southwest group. Radi, TAR Party Committee Secretary, especially mentioned in his speech the fact that Jiang Zemin had inspected Tibet July 1990 visiting the Yamzhog Yumco Pump Storage Power Station and the Yambajain Geothermal Power Station in particular; in July 1994, the General Secretary had presided over the 3rd Tibet Work Conference, and added the words "make full preparation for the railway entering Tibet", which Tibetan people had been expecting for 40 years, in the meeting "Summary". The words of "carrying through the railway project to enter Tibet" were then passed at the 4th plenary session of the 8th National People's Congress in 1996. Therefore, in those years, the Ministry of Railways had organized many serious research projects on the railway project.

At the end of his speech, Radi declared: "The decision of Western Regions Development made by the Central Government is very wise and very correct, but among the proposed projects for regional development, the effects and the necessary function of generating economic growth cannot radiate through Tibet, so we hope the Central Government would consider the construction of the railway entering Tibet as soon as possible."

Looking at Radi happily, General Secretary Jiang Zemin said: "Oh, you do ideological and political work on me!" The words of the General Secretary drew laughter from people in the room.

Amid the laughter, Jiang called Minister Fu Zhihuan to his side, and asked him to discuss the necessary preparations for the work to start, and, after their quiet chat, told him: "Write a brief memo about what you said today to me as soon as possible."

November 10, 2000 was a very important day in the construction history of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. At 11 o'clock at night, Jiang Zemin wrote an important instruction of several hundred words after he read the report on the proposed construction delivered by the Ministry of Railways. He pointed out that it was very necessary to construct the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and it would be very favorable to the developing of traffic and tourism, and enhancing economic and cultural communications between Tibet and hinterland areas. Therefore, we should make a decision to start the construction as soon as possible. This is a big decision that we should make at the start of a new century. This must bring prodigious encouragement to all people in national scale including the people in Tibet. General Secretary Jiang Zemin also considered the geographical and climatic conditions on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, and clearly requested that a relatively perfect scheme about the transportation, management and maintenance modes should be made in advance. He required the relative government departments should grasp the moment to research and comparatively analyze many schemes, so that the Central Government and the State Council could make a correct decision.

Premier Zhu Rongji presiding over the opening ceremony.

On November 11, 2000, the report instructed by General Secretary Jiang Zemin was passed to the State Council, and Premier Zhu Rongji issued positive instructions at once.

On February 7, 2001, the State Council held a meeting, especially discussing the construction scheme of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. Premier Zhu Rongji, who presided, declared: "After over 20 years of the reform and opening-up, the comprehensive national power of our country has been notably enhanced, and we already have the necessary economic strength to construct the Qinghai-Tibet Railway." Up to 2001, the national financial revenue had reached 1,638,604 million Yuan, 6.15 times greater than that in 1989, and 14.47 times that in 1978. It was natural, and without the involvement of any extra effort that the project of Qinghai-Tibet Railway, should the first to be established as one of "the four symbolic projects" of the Western Regions Development.

Ceremony marking the opening of the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in 2001.