Baosteel Plate Building the First Batch of Carriages of Qingzang Railway

Two days later, Qingzang Railway (Qinghai-Tibet Railway) will be open to traffic at full line with the cheerful whistle of the train. On this "sky-high way" attracting world-wide attention, the first batch of 173 carriages dedicated for Qingzang Railway built with over 6500 tons of Baosteel quality plate will pull toward "the roof of the world" carrying the proud of Baosteel people.

The Golmud-Lhasa section of Qingzang Railway measures 1142 km, of which 960 km was built in frozen earth section over 4000 m elevation. The train has to endure the test of extreme cold for a long time; its steel material must have good low temperature shock proof performance, good welding performance and plate shape accuracy much higher than domestic enterprise standards.

Bombardier Sifang Power (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd. and CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Co., Ltd. undertook together the manufacturing task of the first batch of 308 high plateau carriages. For the 173 carriages manufactured by Bombardier Qingdao, over 90% of the plate was supplied by Baosteel.

The cooperation of Bombardier Qingdao and Baosteel started in 1998; new types of Bombardier carriages manufactured with Baosteel plates have been used in Shanghai-Nanjing and Beijing-Shanghai Railway Lines. Since December 2005, the 173 special carriages built with Baosteel steel products smoothly passed the high plateau traveling test one after another.

All test results were up to standard. "The first batch of Qingzang Railway sightseeing carriages", said Bombardier Qingdao "would also be built using Baosteel plates".