"During the early days after the opening of the Golmud-Lhasa section of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway, this place was just a stretch of wasteland connected to farmland, and most villagers lived in adobe houses," said Wu Hao, a freight duty officer who has worked at the Lhasa West Railway Station Freight Yard for 17 years. Pointing to the neatly arranged red-roofed and white-walled buildings nearby, he remarked with emotion, "the railway has brought in enterprises and logistics. Now, every villager lives in a two- or three-story Tibetan-style courtyard, owns a car, and leads a prosperous life."

In Sema Community (formerly known as Sema Village) of Naichung Town, Doilungdeqen District, Lhasa, everywhere the eye could see were asphalt roads and rows of shops. On the cultural square, children were chasing a football, while electronic screens displayed real-time logistics data from the freight yard... It was hard to imagine that before the opening of the Golmud-Lhasa section of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway in 2006, this place was a dusty little village.

According to Dorje, deputy director of the Qinghai-Xizang Railway Logistics Center, self-drive tourism is now quite popular. Some tourists have their cars shipped to Lhasa by rail while they fly into Xizang, and then pick up their cars for a self-drive tour across the plateau. During the peak tourist season, the railway department transports nearly a thousand cars in a single month.

During his inspection tours, Trinley Sonam, a freight duty officer, always enjoys chatting with the loaders and unloaders. "These folks used to be herders, but now they've become skilled workers earning a decent monthly wage," he said, pointing to the neatly stacked bags of fertilizer in the distance. "Last year, the freight yard handled 1.143 million tons in outbound shipments and 4.815 million tons in inbound shipments. The number of loading and unloading tracks has expanded from 4 to 11, and we can even transport fresh yak meat now."

At the logistics office at the entrance of the freight yard, the electronic screen displayed the day's online order data. Since the digitization of freight services in 2017, an average of 120 clients per day have been handling their business "on the go" through the 95306 platform. Chen Bingzhong, head of Lhasa Huating Trading Company, couldn't praise the convenience of the freight yard enough, "in the past, handling business required several trips, but now I can just tap on my phone to track my shipments in real time. It's incredibly convenient."

As dusk fell, a train loaded with mineral water departed from Lhasa West Railway Station. On the community cultural square, elderly people were exercising while children played games nearby, with a newly built kindergarten in the background. Tsering Drolma, a resident of Sema Community, was hanging new curtains in her family's guesthouse. Her husband earned over 10,000 yuan a month driving a forklift at the freight yard. She happily said, "since the railway opened, more and more tourists have been coming. I've converted the first floor into a sweet tea house and the second floor into guest rooms, creating a family guesthouse with Tibetan characteristics."

Dorje often tells his younger colleagues, "the railway has brought not just goods but also new ideas." In the past, residents in the community relied on the weather for herding, but now some have learned e-commerce to sell Tibetan carpets, some work as administrators at the freight yard, and others have transformed their pastoral guesthouses into "railway-themed guesthouses." These are the changes the Qinghai-Xizang Railway has brought to the plateau.

Reporter: Wen Feng, Zhou Yuexiang

Translator: Zhi Xinghua

Review: Dawa Tsering, Drakpa Wangchen