Click to play videoLhasa (Tibet): As the Nathu La gets ready to open up, the train from Beijing to Tibet Express is also on its way making history. The Chinese government has spent a fortune to build the world's highest railway track at 16,000 feet.
A high tech all aboard on a huge computer display for the first Beijing to Tibet Express. China's dream of offering a passenger train service from the Beijing to one of the most remote provinces has finally been realized after forty years.
The high-tech rail cars were built by a Canadian company. The train travels so high the carriages are filled with extra oxygen to minimize altitude sickness.
And if oxygen doesn't work, there's always warm beer - American, Not Chinese - served with flat-screen DVD entertainment or propaganda, depending on your view.
There is no doubt this is an engineering feat of staggering proportions, costing $4.2 billion, involving a hundred thousand workers, in one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
Critics say the line has already scarred this virgin landscape irreparably and could change Tibetan culture forever.
For the first time rail passengers are arriving in Lhasa from Beijing. Next year the Chinese government estimates that 4000 people a day will arrive using this route - pouring into this once remote mountain province.
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