Passengers have started boarding the first pair of trains that will take them to a ride across the "roof of the world" later on Saturday.

At the railway stations in Golmud and Lhasa, the two start-off points of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway that opens Saturday, excited passengers posed for photos, some holding a mini flag of the Chinese Communist Party, as Saturday coincides the CPC's 85th founding anniversary.

About 600 people will take the first train to Tibet, which is coded "Qing 1" and is to leave Golmud at around 11:00 a.m. Among them are role models of builders of the railway, representatives from the Chinese government, journalists from official media like Xinhua News Agency and CCTV, in addition to ordinary passengers who have bought tickets on their own.

A train coded "Zang (Tibet) 2" will leave Lhasa at around the same time with 700 passengers. A red seal reading "shoufa", meaning the first train from Lhasa, will be stamped on their train tickets after they pass the security checkpoint at Lhasa railway station.

Plates inscribed with the words of "Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces", standards set by President Hu Jintao to boost socialist morality, were hung in the cars of the trains.

By 10:00 a.m., all the passengers have boarded the trains and doors to all compartments are shut.

Trains traveling on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway have 16 compartments each.

Saturday will see three other passenger trains leaving for Lhasa from Beijing, Chengdu and Xining.

The Qinghai-Tibet railway stretches 1,956 km from Xining, capital of Qinghai Province, to Lhasa. The section of 814 km from Xining to Golmud began operation in 1984 and the Golmud-Lhasa section started construction on June 29, 2001.

The railway is the world's highest and longest plateau railroad and also the first railway connecting the Tibet Autonomous Region with the rest of China.

Source: Xinhua