Automation insulates work on Qinghai-Xizang Railway

Much of the railway runs through areas above 4,000 meters, where the effective oxygen intake per breath drops to roughly 60 percent of sea-level values. Sub-zero temperatures, gale-force winds and vast geographic isolation compound the physical toll of routine maintenance.

For the older generation of railway workers, this brutal environment was once managed almost entirely through sheer physical endurance.

Hundreds of kilometers north of Nagchu, at the gateway to the plateau, Gu Haidong has spent over three decades maintaining tracks near the Guanjiao Mountains in Qinghai province. When he arrived in 1994, the infrastructure was primitive. Trains labored slowly through the old, exposed Guanjiao pass, and maintenance meant brutal shifts in unpredictable alpine weather, followed by weeks cut off from civilization.

In the busiest periods, Gu said, he could be away from his family for nearly 100 days straight. A trip home to Xining once took most of a day.