More Xinjiang Railway Plans
Michael Manning’s wonderful The Opposite End of China blog has an interesting post on another planned railway development involving Xinjiang and the broader Silk Road
region. A plan is in the pipe-line to build two new railway lines with Golmud, in Qinghai Province, (see map) as the hub. One line will run from Golmud to Dunhuang in Gansu Province with the other line connecting to the Urumqi-Kashgar line at Korla.
This comes on the back of talk of a line linking Kashgar with Pakistan over the Karakoram Highway as well as mention we heard made whilst we were in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek recently of a line connecting Kashgar with Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city - Osh. All this might sound like a grandious dream - three new rail routes for Xinjiang - but with the regional importance of Xinjiang in relation to Central Asia and the rich oil reserves waiting to be exploited it certainly wouldn’t be surprising to see a beginning made on some of these plans in the not too distant future.
Of course as Michael points out, it would be at least another 5 to 10 years before a route such as the proposed Korla to Golmud railway brings him trainloads of people to play with on the weekends. Lets hope he can hold out that long.
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
michael
I was talking to a railway man at dinner one night recently: he said there is a line being built to Bishkek (didn’t ask about Osh) but said that he didn’t think there were any real lines for a plan to Pakistan. Of course, I take anything I’m told here in China with a grain of salt.
Aug 17th, 2006
symeg
As far as I can work out the route for the railway into Kyrgyztan has not been finalised at this stage. A line over the Torugut Pass through Naryn and into Bishkek would bypass the problems of the Feragano Valley. On the other hand, running through to Osh would allow China to link up with Uzebekistan as well.
http://www.axisglobe.com/news.asp?news=7785
Aug 17th, 2006
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