Qinghai-Tibet rail link has changed lives

How Qinghai-Tibet rail link has changed lives. Dachong and Peng Yining report from Lhasa.As the train's engine burst into life, thousands of Tibetans stared in anticipation from the platform of Lhasa Railway Station, while many more outside pressed against windows in the hope of witnessing an historic moment. The day was July 1, 2006, and the train was about to embark on the first full journey on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, a route that has opened the Tibet autonomous region to the rest of China."For most people there (that day) it was the first time they had ever seen a train," said Sonam Drolma, 30, a ticket inspector at Lhasa station. "Everyone was so excited. My 60-year-old mother burst into tears when she later got on the train to go to Beijing." Drolma recalled that in the 1990s it took 10 days traveling 1,067 kilometers on bumpy, mountain roads just to reach Lhasa, the regional capital, from their hometown in Zogang county."The new railway offered me a job, and it has changed many people's lives in the past five years," she added.Ngawang Dradul is one of those people. The 25-year-old procurator from Shannan prefecture in southeast Tibet admits his lifestyle would have been very different had it not been for the rail link.