Mythical Himalayan utopia, Shangri-La, is now within our grasp, thanks to a recently opened rail link out of Lijiang, one which will one day even be able to take us all the way to Lhasa, capital of Tibet. Start planning some high-altitude holidays!
Shangri-La entered the public consciousness in 1933, in the narrative of the book, “Lost Horizon”, whereby the pilot of a hijacked plane which crashes dies, but not before telling his passengers to seek shelter at a monastery in the nearby utopia where human beings, animals and nature supposedly lived in harmony. “Lost Horizon” went on the be one of the most popular novels of the 20th Century.
The name was so alluring that Camp David, famed retreat of any US president, was previous renamed, “Shangri-La”, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942.
But our train will be taking us to the one in China, the one previously known as Zhongdian County in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, until China commandeered the moniker of Shangri-La in an attempt to boost tourism in 2014.
Nevertheless, the allure remains, and getting us there will be a “higher-speed train”, or “green train”, or “Hulk”, or the even-less complimentary, “wheelie bin”.
They may not be so fast, but they are capable. According to Railway Gazette, the route from Lijiang to Shangri-La is operated by bespoke Fuxing CR200J trainsets. These are designed to operate at altitude and along steep gradients.
As such, the trainsets’ power cars have a six-axle wheel arrangement and a higher continuous power rating of 7.2 MW, as opposed to the 5.6 MW rating found on most of China’s other similar trains.
But the single-track line is only designed for trains to operate at 140 km/h. Just 139-km long, there are some 20 tunnels, together with 34 bridges and viaducts along the route.
Once we get to Shangri-La, in addition to taking in the Ganden Sumtsenling Monastery, we will likely head to the Potatso National Park, the first national park in China that meets the stringent standards set by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
At present, five trains each day make the journey, less than 1 and a half hours in duration, from Lijiang to Shangri-La. Tickets are priced from as low as ¥49. Several airlines make the 3-hour flight daily from Nanjing to Lijiang.
